Arnold Hiatt is an American businessman who was the president of the Stride Rite footwear company. He was a large contributor to political campaigns for the Democratic Party as well as being a voice calling for money to get out of politics. He has called for serious

electoral reform Electoral reform is a change in electoral systems that alters how public desires, usually expressed by cast votes, produce election results. Description Reforms can include changes to: * Voting systems, such as adoption of proportional represen ...

and public financing of elections. Hiatt was praised by

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, Harvard Law School is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United ...

professor

Lawrence Lessig Lester Lawrence "Larry" Lessig III (born June 3, 1961) is an American legal scholar and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvar ...

for his stance on electoral reform.

Stride Rite

Hiatt was the son of a

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

n immigrant. A graduate of the Class of 1944, Arnold attended

Worcester Academy Worcester Academy is a co-ed private boarding school in Worcester, Massachusetts serving grades 6-12. It is the oldest school founded in Worcester, Massachusetts, and one of the oldest day-boarding schools in the United States. A coeducation ...

for twelve months straight in order to join the U. S. Army in the Second World War. After college, he began as a shoe salesman and worked himself up the corporate ladder. He joined Stride Rite in 1967 when it acquired a children's shoe company named Blue Star, when sales were $35 million a year. In 1968, Hiatt became president; by 1992, Stride Rite was earning more than $600 million. Hiatt was able to anticipate changes in consumer preferences for footwear, and adapted to major changes by acquiring firms with in-demand products. Hiatt pioneered socially conscious methods such as opening a company sponsored day care center in 1971, at a time when such a move was considered "radically countercultural." In 1986, smoking of cigarettes, cigars and pipes was banned from the corporation. And his firm provides scholarships for 40 inner-city youth to attend

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

. According to ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', the company has achieved a consistent return on investment to place it among the "top 1 percent of companies" listed on the

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is the List of stock exchanges, largest stock excha ...

with compounded annual growth of 46 percent. Stride Rite was acquired by Payless ShoeSource in 2007.

Advocacy of electoral reform

According to

professor

, in 1996 Hiatt advocated to then-president

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...

that the president work hard to try to end "private funding of public elections", but Hiatt was repudiated by Clinton. In 2007, Hiatt wrote: Hiatt has urged passage of the ''Senate Fair Elections Now Act'' introduced by Senators

Dick Durbin Richard Joseph Durbin (born November 21, 1944) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the Seniority in the United States Senate, senior United States senator from the state of Illinois, a seat he has held since 1997. A member of the Dem ...

and

Arlen Specter Arlen Specter (February 12, 1930 – October 14, 2012) was an American lawyer, author and politician who served as a United States Senator from Pennsylvania from 1981 to 2011. Specter was a Democrat from 1951 to 1965, then a Republican fr ...

, which is a

bipartisan Bipartisanship, sometimes referred to as nonpartisanship, is a political situation, usually in the context of a two-party system (especially those of the United States and some other western countries), in which opposing Political party, politica ...

proposal to raise a "large number of small donations to show their credibility with the public" before qualifying for public funding for their campaigns.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hiatt, Arnold Businesspeople from Massachusetts Philanthropists from Massachusetts Living people Harvard College alumni 1928 births 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century American philanthropists 21st-century American businesspeople 21st-century American philanthropists American people of Lithuanian descent