Washington - U.S.A.
COFFIN, TRIS
WASHINGTON-U.S.A. By Tris Coffin The Man in the White House And the Struggle in the South The White House sits in the washed-out autumn sunlight like an old man dozing gently. Tourists stream out...
...Many Southerners in Congress realize that mob resistance to integration, as in Little Rock, is cutting away precious votes to uphold the filibuster...
...He accepted former Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey's insistence on "tight money" because he figured that Humphrey, as a successful businessman, knew what he was doing...
...Eisenhower will helicopter to Burning Tree Country Club...
...This breakdown in law enforcement is, in the minds of many in Washington, the heart of the resistance to integration...
...Eisenhower did not want to inject himself into a controversial issue...
...The President, as his associates know, has a dislike, amounting sometimes to a physical revulsion, for conflict and crisis...
...The "poor white," himself a victim of the South'a poverty and economic unbalance, is constantly being stirred up by politicians to believe that the Negro is the source of all his trouble...
...3. The President has consistently ignored the integration problem since 1954, passing responsibility on to localities and to Congress...
...2. Middle East: The Administration never gave this troubled area a three-dimensional look, but hustled around appeasing this group and that with make-shift projects and ambiguous proposals...
...Finally, when McCarthy was beaten by his own excesses, censure and illness, the President bravely refused to invite him to a White House reception...
...He is just not interested in digging into these matters himself...
...He gives Hagerty wide authority to say whatever he thinks necessary on everything from world peace to rumors of Vice President Nixon's disloyalty...
...It was thought that his great prestige could enlist a public opinion no one else could touch...
...But for three-and-a-half years he has hung back...
...He said wryly: "A lot of young white people, who've been North to school or served a hitch in the Army with Negroes, think their elders have done a damn poor job, and they're for reforms like integration...
...Presidential Press Secretary Jim Hagerty has denied, perhaps too indignantly, that Mr...
...His history of stomach cramps goes back to his soldiering days...
...Eisenhower has an almost mystic faith that his "luck" will see him through many dilemmas and that all he has to do is sit them out...
...This trait led the Rev...
...It is quite safe to say that Senator Olin Johnston of South Carolina is in the minority in urging Arkansas's Governor Orval Faubus to resist the Federal troops...
...It was hoped that the right-to-vote law would break down this immunity, for if Negroes voted in great numbers the courthouse politicians would be forced to give them some protection from violence...
...They are filled with such happy thoughts as "a surging confidence that steady economic growth can be a reality" and such phrases as "sustained prosperity in peacetime...
...They've told us they won't invest millions in new factories and production schedules until we can guarantee freedom from racial violence...
...Eisenhower endorsed the late Senator's re-election in 1952 on the advice of such counselors as Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield, then Republican National Chairman...
...It was stomach trouble...
...He is annoyed by the intrusion of official duty, usually represented by the stern Yankee face of Sherman Adams...
...They're afraid an argument over putting a skilled Negro mechanic on a production line might shut down the plant or lead to dynamiting...
...Eisenhower looks over five newspapers a day, he reads very little news...
...He is orally "briefed" on events by Hagerty and others on his staff...
...A Negro who dares hit a white man is vigorously punished...
...Some medical consultants believe his ileitis and possibly even his heart attack were triggered by an emotional reaction to a series of unpleasant happenings...
...The President is not actively curious about many phases of his job...
...A single reporter taps on a typewriter in the shabby press room and snatches glimpes at a television set...
...This has bred over the years a feeling of immunity in the harsh treatment of Negroes by poor whites...
...One Governor told me off the record two years ago: "We want industries to move South...
...A. Powell Davies of Washington's All Souls Church to say in a recent sermon: "The ptesent administration of the United Stales is morally soft...
...These characteristics of Presidential leadership have allowed key problems to swell up like oversized boils...
...In 1949, when General Eisenhower was criticized by Congressmen for pushing a cut-rate defense budget, he was taken seriously ill...
...He looked the other way when the Senator unmercifully browbeat the Secretary of the Army...
...Despite White House claims that Mr...
...At his press conferences, the President displayed a frantic desperation to say nothing that could be used by either side: This was solely a matter for Congress...
...Three examples: 1. McCarthyism: Mr...
...These moderates—and they are in Governor's mansions, state legislatures, Congress and Chambers of Commerce—see integration as necessary for economic growth...
...This contrast between the Executive mood and that of the rest of Washington can be explained only by patiently examining General Eisenhower through the eyes of those who know him well...
...Yet, elsewhere in Washington, in the big stone and marble palaces of government, there is serious, concerned talk of economic trouble...
...President Eisenhower spends a very large part of his waking day playing golf, joshing with his old friends George Allen and Bill Robinson, playing bridge, watching TV shows and reading Westerns...
...Almost from the day the Supreme Court ruled, suggestions were made that the President Call a conference of Southern leaders and explore ways of winning compliance...
...This, of course, is the South's sole legislative weapon against stiff civil-rights laws...
...Eisenhower waited until "the people are run mad...
...Much depends on how the Federal Government enforces this new law when Negroes come to register and vote next year...
...Eisenhower's immense personal popularity, proven in the 1952 and 1956 elections, has created the illusion in the White House that all he needs to do is issue a statement and his will is done...
...It is less concerned to do right than to look right —and to avoid unpleasantness...
...The greatest hindrance to integration is the courthouse politician dependent on the "poor whites" for election...
...For his part...
...Many Southern political, business and educational leaders were willing and eager to be prodded by the President...
...In the West Wing, where so much frantic history and brave decision has been made in the last quarter-century, painters are unhurriedly redecorating the lobby...
...This has brought on a steady rain of high-sounding sentiments and pious declarations, sometimes in lieu of action...
...a white man who hits a Negro is not even arrested in many rural areas of the South...
...He let McCarthy intimidate and undermine the Federal service and build up his own spy system...
...His staff labors to dispose of troubles, or at least to temper them, before revealing them to the President...
...He prefers, for example, to let Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson take complete responsibility for farm problems...
...Personally, I think they're pushing too hard...
...This is why he so often counsels patience...
...Tourists stream out of the pillared front door, and Air Force helicopters practice landings on the rolling back lawn...
...In the Press Secretary's office are a series of mimeographed statements and speeches of the President...
...integration, Soviet belligerence, the Middle East, the missiles races, and a hundred other disquieting problems...
...Finally, in desperation, the British and French attacked the Suez Canal...
...So our businessmen and utilities have been working quietly to create a better racial understanding...
...Ironically, the step he finally took in Little Rock was one that Administration spokesmen insisted was impossible without specific action by Congress...
...The courthouse politician, to keep himself in power, maintains a onesided system of law enforcement...
...They are wild with passion and frenzy, doing they know not what...
...If those who threaten and interfere with Negro voters are promptly arrested and tried, the law will be respected...
...Eisenhower has tended to protect himself from upsetting news, particularly since his two hospitalizations...
...These words were said in dismay by a Southern leader, Alexander Stephens of Georgia, commenting in 1860 on the secession movement pushed by courthouse politicians...
Vol. 40 • October 1957 • No. 40
