Kennedy's Goals and the National Mood
HERMAN, GEORGE E.
WASHINGTON-U.S.A. Kennedy's Goals and the National Mood By George E. Herman DURING RECENT WEEKS tWO possibly contradictory aspirations have been on the President's mind and frequently...
...Moreover, the goals so far put forth in Kennedy's speeches generate little excitement simply because they are not exciting, not because of their complexities...
...Then, at the time of the steel price crisis, the business community and its representatives in Washington again uttered dire warnings that the real threat of inflation came from the Federal deficit...
...The order of the items shifts with the mood of the President, a master politician who is always responsive to the special sensitivities of a particular audience...
...And he blames much of the opposition to his program—particularly opposition from the business community—on a widening gap between myth and reality, a divergency between traditional labels and stereotyped views and the increasingly complex problems to which they no longer accurately apply...
...Yet some economists, notably Sumner Slichter, have argued that it is indispensible to economic growth, that a mild annual inflation of 2-2.5 per cent is healthy for the U.S...
...On the second point—that opposition, and especially business opposition, to his program stems from outdated stereotypes—the President is on much sounder ground...
...Many key problems, the President told his economic conference, are beyond the comprehension of most men in or out of government...
...Furnish hospital and nursing care payments for the aged through Social Security...
...But today's business publications, said the President, are warning that we do not have sufficient economic stimulus...
...He argues that today's complicated technical problems, mainly connected with the economy, require sophisticated judgements...
...Sorenson then handed out statistical tables to prove it...
...And such legislation implies the kind of basic change repugnant to conservative elements in the business community...
...To exceed FDR's record requires dramatic, history-making legislation...
...Increase national productivity...
...But the President's list of work still to be done is not likely to arouse strong emotions: • Decrease unemployment and its impact on the economy...
...Why am I against your bill...
...Expanding on this idea, Kennedy blames the public's failure to respond to his list of national goals on lack of understanding of highly technical questions...
...they are problems which only experts can fathom...
...Although in general he believes the President has acted rightly, Wallich suggests that if there are trifling and technical differences between the Administration and business over the precise details of tax relief and faster depreciation writeoff, the President might do well to yield to obtain his broad objectives...
...Give the White House emergency powers to halt recessions...
...They are, he said, sophisticated and highly technical problems, important to the economy, but stimulating powerful feelings only among specific special-interest groups...
...So far so good...
...One is an intense desire to stir the country out of a mixture of apathy and contentment, and to leave behind him a political and social record which will not only equal but exceed the legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt...
...The Administration apparently does not consider the differences trifling, and the President continues to hope businessmen will eventually modernize their views...
...economy...
...And there is clear evidence today that many important business leaders are shifting to the latter point of view, though they are branded as traitors by colleagues still under the spell of old stereotypes...
...occasionally it is redundant...
...The other is an equally strong desire to win over the support of the business community...
...George E. Herman is the White House correspondent for CBS News...
...After Kennedy's first legislative season in office his alter ego, Theodore Sorenson, bluntly told two different groups of newsmen that the President's first 100 days had exceeded FDR's in achievement...
...The list varies from speech to speech...
...Develop a program of youth employment opportunity, and put an end to school dropouts...
...Tell me one more thing then," said the businessman...
...Halt the outflow of gold...
...But the Administration believes that a large part of the business community's hostility toward the President's economic policies—hostility he passionately wants to have ended—is due to the continuing prevalence of ancient cliches and attitudes which are no longer valid...
...On Saturday afternoon, he told the International Ladies Garment Workers Union: "There are those who say that the job is done, that the function of the Federal government is not to govern, that all the things that had to be done were done in the '30s and '40s and that now our task is merely to administer...
...The old labels—Republican and Democratic, conservative, liberal or moderate— no longer apply...
...The President himself senses this...
...Unfortunately, the pursuit of two incompatible goals often produces a kind of paralysis which prevents the achievement of either...
...In so doing, Wallich stresses, Kennedy would simultaneously win the friendship and confidence of businessmen...
...I do not accept that view at all, nor can any American, seeing what we still have left to do...
...Certainly it is true that there is a clash of stereotypes and hypotheses on the question of inflation, particularly in Washington...
...Republicans traditionally fear inflation and fight it...
...He sounded the same theme that night at a Madison Square Garden fund-raising "birthday" party, and again the next afternoon at a rally for his Medicare program...
...Apparently it never occurred to Sorenson (or, presumably, to his boss) that Roosevelt's legislative program had halted and reversed old trends of thought, whereas Kennedy's had largely followed and expanded on ideas already well established in the nation's cultural and legislative history...
...In the course of his May 19-20 political weekend in New York City, for example, President Kennedy's voice occasionally even rang with that old campaign note of high twanging urgency...
...Recently, he pointed out rather plaintively to a conference of business, labor and public representatives studying economic problems that today's problems are entirely different from those which spurred the great movements of our political past...
...Yet, Kennedy said, we continue to operate by means of the traditional political labels and partisan frames of reference...
...All in all, therefore, the President's two aspirations do seem to work against each other...
...Professor Henry Wallich, for example, a member of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Eisenhower, believes that Kennedy has been gratuitously unpleasant to the business world...
...Although the apathetic response should not be taken as a measure of the importance of individual objectives, it apparently is irritating and frustrating to a man with a high sense of destiny and a manifest ambition to fill an important chapter in American history books...
...Walter W. Heller, chief of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, tells a true story about a businessman talking over the Administration's new tax proposals with a Treasury official...
...Kennedy's Goals and the National Mood By George E. Herman DURING RECENT WEEKS tWO possibly contradictory aspirations have been on the President's mind and frequently have been reflected in his off-the-cuff speeches...
...Prepare America for competition with the Common Market and with the expanding Soviet economy...
...The President was clearly referring mainly to the question of inflation and price stability (though the economic conference took place a week before the stock market's plunge on Monday and Tuesday, May 28-29...
...Do you mean," asked the businessman, "that my firm stands to gain as much as $150,000 from this tax bill...
...For the Administration, the anecdote illustrates the business community's meaningless antagonism toward a President who genuinely seeks to stimulate business growth...
...But there are others who see the issue differently...
...Again and again he spoke of the need for the United States to stop resting on the laurels of the FDR and Woodrow Wilson eras...
...On the first point—popular apathy—it must be said that the President appears to be having little more success than the public where understanding is concerned...
...But there is no escaping one key fact: With the possible exception of the care for the aged program, every item on the list lacks the old political magic, the old pulse-tingling aura of vital significance and dramatic change from an outdated way of life...
...The Treasury man patiently outlined the benefits business would derive from the Administration's proposals to stimulate new capital investment with tax savings...
...Eight months earlier, he noted, New York bankers had warned Treasury Secretary Douglas Dillon that the Federal deficit incurred in emerging from the recession would bring inflation—meaning, among other things, price increases...
...Expand college capacity...
...According to what you tell me of your own tax picture," answered the Treasury official, "That's about it...
...End racial barriers...
Vol. 45 • June 1962 • No. 12
