America Without Ike
ECKARDT, W. V.
Like Ike before his heart attack, our position at home and abroad only looks rosy; we face serious problems which neither party has yet begun to consider America Without Ike By W V...
...The fact is that in 1952 the spread between the farm and industrial price index was 6.2 points...
...we face serious problems which neither party has yet begun to consider America Without Ike By W V Eckardt Washington, D. C. The possibility that Eisenhower's health may force him to watch the coming Presidential election from his Gettysburg rocking chair not only caused feverish fluctuations on the stock market, but also seems to have directed all our attention to the renewed jostling within the political parties...
...Chancellor Adenauer was forced to concede more in Moscow than he intended in order to get his prisoners released...
...Yet, no matter how pat, mediocre and oversimplified public discussion of some of these issues is apt to become, at least it is under way...
...A very real threat to our national health, however, is still all but completely ignored by the political leaders: the terrible news from down South...
...But it seems more convenient to talk about public morality than to act on it...
...Meanwhile, our national health would seem to deserve a fraction of the attention the medical bulletins from Denver are getting...
...But, if the Democrats don't do it now, the extreme Right can surely be counted on to do it later--if and when our diplomacy suffers a setback...
...As of this writing, no Democrat (Stevenson included) has seen fit to open the debate on the problems facing us in world affairs...
...But the pace is fast in the Middle East...
...Not the least of these gains would seem to be the heavy political investment the Eisenhower Republicans have made in what is called "the Spirit of Geneva...
...The Administration's contribution to economic stability seems to be more of the same...
...As Adlai Stevenson put it in Green Bay, Wisconsin, the President's unfortunate illness is "no reason or even justification for stopping debate about the problems that face the nation.' The question is whether the premature outbreak of campaign fever will allow the debate to rise above its current level...
...It will be interesting to see if the Democratic leaders find it expedient to do better...
...The Republicans say the decline in farm prices started long before they took over...
...It may well be that, on this issue and at this lime, candor and courage are more rewarding than pusillanimity...
...For one thing, really effective remedies of our road, health and school problems require Federal funds...
...The Administration does not deny that the real test of that spirit is still to come—at the forthcoming Foreign Ministers Conference, at the UN, and whenever the unsolved problems in the Far East are swept back out from under the rug...
...There was, however, once a saying in our history: "I'd rather be right than President...
...But will they risk positive contributions to economic stability which may be unpopular...
...In a campaign year, however, such temptations are often hard to resist...
...I wish we might hear more talk for a time about this second dimension, because it is durability that will determine just how great we are...
...in August 1955, it was 29.3, nearly five times greater...
...Let us keep in mind," Stevenson said recently, "that prosperity has two dimensions: One is its level, and the other is durability...
...They risk filibuster and party harmony and even a split in the party, which, many of them fear, may cost them the White House in 1956...
...True, guns are not "booming" today, and are less likely to than a year ago...
...The South is sick...
...Attorney General Brownell is doing nothing except make speeches claiming his administration has restored "public morality...
...The Democratic leaders are obviously in a much more difficult position to speak up, introduce needed civil-rights legislation and fight for it, and dramatize the plight of the South in order to improve our moral climate...
...It seems time for them again to try and rescue "the team by giving Dulles some elbow room for the kind of hard Yankee bargaining which now seems in order...
...This, of course, would make it necessary for the Democratic leaders to probe the Spirit of Geneva and dispel some mighty popular illusions--a lot to expect from a party already up to its ears in a popularity contest...
...There are, in short, many indications that a few months of Khrushchev's smile have gained the Soviets more than years of Stalin's scorn...
...It talks about the crying need for schools and more funds for education, but would still leave it up to the impoverished states to spend them...
...Whether his party is equally prepared to follow him that far out on a limb, however, remains to be seen...
...On the surface, the country presents much the same bounce and ruggedly rosy complexion, the picture of health, which Eisenhower displayed on the golf course before his heart attack...
...An honest diagnosis of the nation's economic health might also require more candor than traditional campaigning may allow...
...There is open defiance of law and order--a rebellion against the Constitution--in Mississippi and Alabama...
...Some liberal economists say, for instance, that cuts in the personal income tax at this time may not be wise...
...No one can dispute the Republican claim of a boom, but can it go on...
...Particularly if one recalls that Woodrow Wilson in 1916 was the last Democratic President who needed the electoral votes of all 11 Southern states to win the Presidency...
...Thus far, Stevenson is the only one who seems prepared to risk it...
...As regards Germany, too, we seem stuck for want of what Walter Lippmann called "negotiable assets in the current diplomatic trading...
...An indiscriminate reduction in this form of revenue would mean further increases in other taxes, particularly state and municipal ones, since our need for services certainly does not diminish...
...Another burning problem about which public discussion is already in full swing is the growing spread between what the farmer gets for his produce and what he has to pay for his farm machinery and other needed goods...
...It acknowledges the urgent need for more power and irrigation water in large parts of the country, but connives with the private utilities to prevent real expansion in this field and gives away Hell's Canyon...
...One would think the national conventions were about to open the day after tomorrow and the election a fortnight thereafter...
...Actually, it is still ten months until the Presidential candidates are officially chosen and the fun starts...
...Split-levels and ramblers are mushrooming all over...
...The GOP has no votes to lose in the South, and its political tradition, so boastfully cited in every Northern Negro district, is with them...
...A lot must be clone before we see another occupant in the White House...
...Yet, the Administration still seems intent on favoring investment capital--that is, Big Business...
...Again, Stevenson has dared to challenge the Democrats' inclination to apply their favorite cure-all as "a dangerous temptation...
...It would not be difficult for the Republicans to speak up and set the Department of Justice in motion to act on the numerous complaints submitted by Negroes and their organizations...
...we may be forced to follow this sad example in Peking...
...There are 50 million cars on the roads, most of them new and shiny...
...The Till murder trial sticks out as only one of the festering sores...
...In their eagerness to return to the limelight, the Knowlands may throw out the baby with the bath...
...Thus, a flat, across-the-board return to the 90-per-cent-of-parity price supports may be as unsound as Secretary Benson's sweeping "flexible" formula...
...Nikita Khrushchev's smile alone sustains its claim to great statesmanship...
...Family incomes are up...
...It will be hard for Dulles to come back from Geneva and explain: "Sorry, boys, the cold war is on again, after all...
...The dangers of instalment buying require curbs...
...Threats of violence against Negro voters show that the disease is spreading...
...All is quiet on the peace-and-prosperity) front, various Cabinet members assure us, and all hands are busily earning the Eisenhower program forward...
...The Republican contribution to public discussion, at the moment, seems confined to the soothing pollyanna communiques from the temporarily leaderless Eisenhower "team...
...But "the team" has, all the same, staked its entire political future on that spirit, tested or not...
...The trouble with the current political discussion on the subject, people who know something about the mysteries of agricultural economics say, is that everybody talks about the farmer and looks at his troubles mostly in terms of statistical aggregates and averages...
...The Democrats, notably Senator George, have performed a service in helping create a political climate which made it possible for the President to negotiate at all with the Soviets...
...Furthermore, the Federal income tax is still the only progressive system of taxation...
...The team" talks about the need for a big road-building program, but sticks to its "bonds for boulevards" plan, which would benefit bankers far more than motorists...
...Most state and municipal taxes are sales and payroll taxes which hurt the poor far more than the rich...
...Harry S. Truman won in 1948 despite Thurmond's States Rights defection...
...The Democrats in Congress can, and undoubtedly will, apply a brake to such designs...
...Corporate aftertax profits in the second quarter of this year are a spectacular 26 per cent above a year ago...
...Can the average American family, now about $700 in debt, continue to buy all the new goods our booming industry produces...
...the average is now over $5,000 a year...
Vol. 38 • October 1955 • No. 41
