SEEDS OF REVOLT

...The Eisenhower budget and successive failures to cut taxes under the Republican regime seemed to have cut the heart out of this previously effective Republican charge against the Democrats...

...The whole record of this Administration is towards big business...

...The same theme of Republican concern for the big business man turned up in the discussion of an issue that is peculiar to Wisconsin but has some national overtones...

...I am convinced that what I saw and heard in many thousands of miles of travel in my own state is paralleled in most of the states of the country...

...A Milwaukee woman sitting on her porch step typified countless comments I heard when she said: "I won't vote for Kohler because, like the other big guys, he is for a sales tax, and it's the poor family that would carry the biggest part of the burden if they slapped a tax on all the things we have to consume...

...For example, many people believe, as I do, that successful big business men have a role to play in our government, but people are disturbed by the disproportionate extent to which they and their views have come to dominate government under the present Administration...

...Voting for Kohler is like voting for Benson, and that's like voting for the big dairy corporations that are telling Benson what to do...

...For example, a Racine merchant said: "These high interest rates are hurting small business men like me...

...But Wisconsin, in many respects, is much like the rest of America...

...The feeling runs deep that the Administration just doesn't care and that the farmers, like the small business men, have been the victims of an economic squeeze that makes talk of prosperity ring with a hollow sound for them...

...He's a big man himself and all the big people with the big money are behind him...

...Farmers and small business men were by no means the only critics of the present regime in Washington...

...Has he ever done anything right...

...But they have learned that McCarthyism brought no helpful results, that far from meeting the danger, it actually played into Communist hands...

...despite the bland assurances of the Eisenhower Administration in the field of foreign affairs, they are worried that America has lost her leadership in the world, that we are bungling our way from crisis to crisis...

...Labor's too big, got too much power"—this was the way a neatly dressed man in Eau Claire put it...

...Although people generally recognize the great contributions big business has made to government and the national economy—a recognition I share—they are troubled by what seems to them the development of a single interest concentration in Washington today...

...Over and over again I was to hear that the Republicans were unmindful of the plight of the aged and that I was going to get their vote because I took a vigorous position in behalf of an expanded and liberalized social security program...

...How can they say in Washington-that the tight money policy will stop" inflation when we get more and"more' inflation while the little fellow can't < borrow what he needs to stay in business...

...Eisenhower by huge majorities...

...Eisenhower's personal popularity remains relatively high, it is politically meaningless...

...A Madison optometrist, participating in a Madison Capital Times symposium on the causes of the election results, summed up sentiment I had heard often during the campaign when he said: "It was sort of a revolt against the Republican Administration...

...The Democratic Party is faced with a great opportunity—and a great challenge...

...Although issues of foreign policy played a secondary role to domestic problems, I found everywhere a great discontent with John Foster Dulles' stewardship of the State Department...

...They sense good intentions, but they suspect now, for the first time, that he lacks capacity, direction, conviction, firmness, and an understanding of the problems that confront the country...

...But this is only a beginning...

...here he is...

...A lousy $25 a week—that's all you're allowed to earn while you're on social security...

...Its people represent an accurate cross-section of the nation as a whole...

...Why can't they cut it back, the tightwads...

...When I refer to the people of America, I base my observations, of course, on talks with many thousands of Wisconsin citizens in my recent campaign for United States Senator...

...this was another that recurred frequently...

...The challenge that faces the Democratic Party is to accent responsibly the positive and the progressive, and thus deserve to accept the reins of leadership in the critical years just ahead...

...Despite Mr...

...Dulles is a terrible liability to us...

...Some of the more important Court opinions came down early in this Senatorial campaign, and irresponsible politicians and columnists sought to inflame public opinion against the Court and its defense of freedom...

...A filling station owner on the outskirts of Milwaukee asked me: "Is there any limit to the jams this guy Dulles can get us into...

...We're way down on the totem pole and nobody in Washington seems to care very much...

...I found everywhere, among farmers, workers, small business men, educators, and professional men and women, a deepening concern over the lack of affirmative leadership in the Eisenhower Administration...

...I am confident now that although Mr...

...Twenty feet away a group of five or six men were gathered together...

...I have fought this attempt to saddle Wisconsin with this regressive tax for some time and my stand was clearly known to a great many people...

...I was astounded by the number of people I met who are warm and friendly to the United States in general but who think that Mr...

...Our taxes are up and what are we getting for it...

...Women get social security at 62, why can't we...

...Perhaps I can best convey the results of feeling the pulse of the people during the recent campaign by recalling the most representative of the many conversations I had with typical Americans...

...There just isn't enough time to take it easy and relax before you die...

...I do not mean to suggest by any of this that the people are not acutely aware of the clangers of subversion and infiltration, for they are...

...The worker who was pushed looked up, smiled, and said: "By the time we get social security we've got maybe a few years to go...

...Why I understand he's spending more money than even Truman ever did...

...With men and especially women of 65—retired workers—social security is even more a subject of conversation and protest than Benson was with the farmers...

...The favorite negative theme was still big labor, rarely from working men and women, but almost a Pavlov-like response from the man or woman who would refuse a handshake or decline a campaign leaflet I held out...

...There were many, like the Green Bay paper-worker, whfc asked me: "Why don't they get rid of that guy Dulles...

...A school teacher who had been abroad this summer put it to me this way: "It's so hard to defend American" foreign policy with foreigners when-you don't know what it is from day to day...

...And that's why I'm all through with the Republicans, and I know there are a lot more like me...

...Critical reference to Democratic spending and taxing, of which there were many in my earlier campaigns, were absent this year...

...If Ike won't take charge of foreign policy stuff, why doesn't he get someone who gets along better with other people and doesn't have to be bragging all the time about his cute strategy...

...Outside the gates of International Harvester early one August morning, some 500 men were milling around waiting for the gates to open...

...Constantly in previous campaigns, working men and farmers, no less often than business men, would snap at me, "Taxing and spending are all Democrats can ever think about...

...Closer to the gate, a man complained, "How can a fellow live on social security with prices going up all the time...

...I've given the Republicans the last vote they'll ever get from me...

...Why just this morning when I went to the store . . ." The tight money policy of high interest rates was a matter of grave concern to many small business men...

...On countless occasions the principal criticism of my Republican opponent, former Governor Walter J. Kohler, was that he represented the big-business approach of the Eisenhower Administration and couldn't know or understand the problems of the average American...

...There was a good deal of counterpoint too...

...I heard not one fjtvoral^ reference to Dulles in all my talks and travels...

...The other crowd is taking care of their own and that doesn't leave much for us...

...In almost four months of daily campaigning since the death of Senator McCarthy May 2, much of it face-to-face conversations with men and women in the cities, towns, and villages, this theme of revolt against "big money" was voiced over and over again...

...Invariably, when people talked of foreign affairs, they subjected Dulles to the same bitter criticism that they leveled at Benson in the field of agriculture...

...My guess is that this will hold true for the rest of the country as well in the election campaign next year...

...If anybody can talk us into war it's that guy...

...Somebody is cleaning up, and it isn't us...

...This comment recurred a fair number of times during the campaign, but oddly enough I can recall no direct reference to the Beck or Hoffa hearings or other aspects of the labor rackets inquiry then in progress in Washington...

...I heard it not once in 1957...

...There were contradictions too...

...I found none of this in the special election of 1957...

...Can't they just somehow lose him...

...Anyone who analyzes the precinct-by-precinct returns will find that I increased greatly my previous vote against Kohler and, in many cases, won out in rural areas that Wisconsin Democrats have failed to crack for a number of years...

...But the steady, basic, relentless theme was the same...

...The country has lost faith in him as a leader, as our President, and this dominant fact of political life will be overpoweringly evident next year...

...Even the variations and the counterpart seemed part of the same fundamental pattern of protest against big money and its overriding influence on the Eisenhower Administration...

...That's Ike...

...I've been trying to borrow money I need to clean up this place for nearly a year but I can't get the money...

...In my previous campaigns, in 1952, 1954, and 1956, I had encountered considerable resistance to the Democrats as the party that harbored Communists in government and was soft on subversives...

...The seeds of revolt have yielded their first harvest in Wisconsin...

...These things did not emerge very often in this 1957 campaign...

...Kohler is a solid supporter of the Eisenhower Administration and that Administration is poison for us small business men...

...So there you are and that's why I'm voting for you...

...These comments from a heavy set man in his fifties sitting on a stone stoop were representative of questions raised by many of the others...

...The revolt will grow and spread throughout the land, and will lead, I am confident, to decisive political changes in 1958 and 1960...

...Well, I'm for you...

...One of them pushed a fellow worker in my direction with the suggestion: "You tell Proxmire...

...Doesn't inflation mean big demand and small supply, and if so, why do prices stay so high, and go higher, when the supply is bigger than the demand...

...Koh-ler's for Ike...

...Do you know what they tell him...

...On the bustling main street of Osh-kosh three hours later, a housewife, in her forties, accepted a "Proxmire for Senator" leaflet and volunteered,, ^Pm not voting for Kohler, you can be sure of that...

...Just outside Beaver Dam one afternoon, a farmer spotted my "Proxmire-for-Senator" car-top sign, strolled up, and said, "Are you Proxmire...

...Even in the field of foreign affairs the pattern of protest reflected deep concern over the influence of "big1 money" in shaping American policy...

...When I had run for Governor three times in succession I had heard much about Democratic wars, Democratic spending, and Democratic taxes...

...Many Republicans, pushed hard by the powerful business interests in the state, have been fighting for a sales tax in recent years...

...They tell him to drive down what the farmer gets so the big guys can buy cheap and sell high...

...At least you Democrats spent it on the people who needed it...

...it has rich and productive farmland...

...And they are disturbed to the point of political revolt over the policies of his Administration that favor, in the language I heard so often, "the big people...

...Why can't they drop the age below 65...

...The people still like Ike—the man...

...Personality had little to do with the' outcome...

...Kohler, on the other hand, had come out in favor of a sales tax after the end of his third administration as Governor of Wisconsin...

...Wisconsin has no sales tax...

...Benson's post-election insistence that farm discontent was not a factor in the recent Wisconsin election, I can say from widespread personal experience that it was a dominant consideration in the outcome...

...Of course there are variations...

...Then this feeling of disenchantment, this mounting conviction that he is unable to lead effectively and has turned the reins of government over to less well-mean, ing aides, seems likely to result in a landslide of protest on election day...

...Everywhere in Wisconsin, which is the dairyland of America, the farmers were critical of the Eisenhower Administration's farm policies and especially bitter toward Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson...

...If we don't-do something about that soon, we're going to be in even deeper trouble than we are...

...Lovers of liberty everywhere will be heartened, I know, by the almost complete disappearance of McCarthy-style campaigning as a significant factor in Wisconsin politics...

...Seeds of Revolt by SENATOR WILLIAM PROXMIRE The Editors of The Progressive invited Senator William Proxmire to analyze the mood of the people of Wisconsin, in terms of national politics, for readers of this magazine...

...I can't get along the way I used to, but the big boys seem to be able to get all they want...

...But I found little if any response to this campaign among the people...

...I usually vote Republican," a hardware dealer in a central Wisconsin community told me, "but I can't this time...

...They're the ones who are driving prices up every day...

...In 16 separate conversations in a period of a few minutes social security was brought up 12 times...

...I was enormously encouraged by the refusal of the people to be stampeded into a revival of McCarthyism as a result of recent United States Supreme Court decisions upholding the basic liberties of the individual...

...A man can't afford to take it...

...f"PHE people of America are deeply troubled...

...That's a pretty important job he has...

...Countless persons with whom I talked emphasized the need for a liberalized program of social security, and this, I suspect in looking back, was the most discussed specific legislative issue during the entire campaign...

...The bank says the federal government controls what they lend...

...McCarthy as a personality is still discussed and debated in some quarters, but the legacy of McCarthyism has disappeared...

...In 1952 and again in 1956 the people of my state voted for Mr...

...Early one morning, at the railroad yards in North Fond du Lac, a young workman, lunch pail in one hand, stuck out his other hand and said, "I'm voting for you, Bill, because you're for us little guys...

...This was especially true in discussion of the recurring crisis in the Middle East as person after person felt impelled to blame the influence of "the big oil interests" on at least some of the difficulties we face in that acutely...

...Its opportunity is to win greatly increased margins in Congress in 1958 and elect more Democratic governors and state legislatures...

...It has large cities with great manufacturing enterprise...

...Despite Administration claims of boundless prosperity, the people feel economically insecure and victimized by national policies which favor entrenched wealth...

...They think of him more now as a good guy than a good President...

...The article that follows represents his reflections on the principal attitudes he encountered on major issues as he traveled through every county of Wisconsin in the recent campaign that produced a spectacular upset with his election as the first Democratic United States Senator from Wisconsin in a quarter of a century.—The Editors...

...Typical of the switch was this comment from a well dressed woman at a drug store in Marshfield: "Eisenhower is making you Democrats look like pikers...

...troubled area of the world...

...Of course the big guys in Washington wouldn't appreciate what it means to try to live on your social security money...