The Power of Public Opinion

...all the issues that remain unresolved nearly a decade after the Red regime fought its way to power in China...

...It would be a mistake, of course, to assume that we have whipped the problem in the Far East because the Administration talks and acts somewhat more reasonably than it had before it saw the light of public opinion...

...But we are casting our lot with the Herblock in The Washington Post "Fine—Now All We Need Is Some Candidates Named McKinley" the U.N...

...What had wrought this extraordinary reversal...

...It strengthens our conviction that the Democratic Party, with all its faults, offers a more realistic hope for American independents than does the Republican Party...

...3. Any renunciation of force by the Chinese Communists would apply equally to Chiang's Nationalists...

...Secretary Dulles' incorrigible tendency to abandon coping with a crisis the moment it disappears from the front page is still with us...

...PROGRESSIVE "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free" The Power of Public Opinion r~PHE apparent reversal of the Amer-¦*¦ ican approach to the China problem during the past month represents, in our judgment, the most hopeful development in United States policy in the Far East in more than a decade...

...As The Progressive has asserted so many times during the past five years, our approach to negotiation should include these basic ingredients: 1. Recognition of the simple fact of life that the Communists are the government of China...

...We have no pipeline to the President, nor to any of his aides, so our explanation is an educated guess...

...We have intimated that we are willing to negotiate the larger issues between Communist China and ourselves "in good faith" if the Communists agree to a "dependable cease-fire...

...6. Whether Chiang likes it or not, the United States is ready to negotiate "in good faith" with the Communists if it becomes possible to get a dependable cease-fire over Quemoy...

...Even if the Red regime turns us down, we would gain immeasurably in world stature for having proposed an honorable settlement of one of the most troublesome issues of our time...

...ADA examined the votes of all members of Congress on a dozen issues which included reciprocal trade, foreign aid, education, labor relations, unemployment assistance, anti-Supreme Court measures, and aid to depressed areas...

...The course the campaign has taken has confirmed us in our decision to support the Democrats...

...Specifically, the President and his Secretary of State made these astonishingly sensible comments on the issues in the Far Eastern crisis: 1. The Administration feels it was "rather foolish" of Chiang Kai-shek to have put so many troops on the coastal islands of Quemoy and Matsu, that it would "not be wise" to keep them there, and that we would try to persuade him to withdraw if the Chinese Communists agree to a truce...

...It belongs to no political party and is affiliated with no organization, political or otherwise...

...If our analysis is correct, and we know of no other that fits the facts, we are doubly heartened by the development: the switch in substantive approach is enormously hopeful...

...The average Democratic Senator A Vote for the Democrats 4 The PROGRESSIVE supported the liberal position 64 per cent of the time...

...The Gallup Poll reported that nine out of every 10 persons who expressed familiarity with events in the Far East would like to see the United Nations take over the problem of China's offshore islands before the United States gets more involved militarily in their defense...

...it is more impressive that the change was achieved as the direct result of the power of public opinion...

...It would be difficult to conceive a more corrupt interpretation of the issues than this bit of humbug...

...We don't pretend to know...

...The average Republican Representative emerged with a 29 per cent average...

...When we felt the occasion warranted, we have criticized Democrats as well as Republicans, the liberals in Congress as well as the conservatives...

...Republican candidates for Congress reported back to Washington that, as a result of the Administration's policies in the Far East, the Republican Party was finding its campaign claim to be "the party of peace" ever more difficult to substantiate...

...4. The Administration does not have a "commitment of any kind" to help Chiang return to the mainland and it feels certain that the prospect of his return is "highly hypothetical...

...The decision of the Republicans to base their campaign on the charge that the Democrats are "dominated by certain politico-labor bosses and left-wing extremists" underscores the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the Republican Party and the Eisenhower Administration...

...It continues to insist that there has been no basic change in its outlook— doubtless because it feels the need to save face, a characteristic once thought to reside exclusively among the inscrutable Orientals...

...But whatever the Chinese Communists say or do, our own position ought to be clear-cut...

...Some of the signs were these: • Eighty per cent of those who wrote the State Department expressed opposition to the Administration's decision to help the Chinese Nationalists retain the coastal islands...

...But we are convinced that such an American policy would shake us loose from the sterile and self-defeating policy of the past decade...

...2. The offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu are not vital to the defense of Formosa...

...A number of members of Congress reported that their mail was running five to one against the use of American troops to defend Quemoy...

...The devotion to Chiang Kai-shek and his lost cause persists...

...The Republicans, with President Eisenhower's tacit blessing and Vice President's Nixon's raucous approval, have staked their campaign strategy on a fraudulent issue...

...5. Even if there were an anti-Communist revolt on the mainland, it would be "hypothetical and problematical" as to whether Chiang would return as the head of the government...

...The change of tone was matched by a change of content...

...The dream that Communist control of mainland China will wither away has not died...

...The average Democratic Representative had a "Liberal Quotient" of 65 per cent...

...Party leaders meeting with President Eisenhower in the White House to plan the campaign, issued a manifesto whose keynote theme was a warning that "nationalization and socialization of industry would inevitably follow" a Democratic victory in this fall's elections...

...It found: • The average Senator had a "Liberal Quotient" of 47 per cent...

...Consider, for example, the roll-call survey of 12 major measures by Americans for Democratic Action, the independent, liberal organization whose basic approach is perhaps a slight leaning to the left, but so slight that its program would seem rather conservative to the social democratic parties of Europe...

...It would be a gross distortion of that record even to say that the Democrats fought for and enacted a program as moderately reformist, in our day, as that of the New Deal and the Fair Deal...

...The average non-Southern Democrat voted for what the ADA felt was liberal legislation 83 per cent of the time, compared to the Republicans' 29 per cent...

...A mainland revolution would "probably be primarily under local auspices and local leadership...

...The record shows that far from pressing for a radical program, the Democrats pliantly did the bidding of President Eisenhower on most issues...

...2. Admission of China to the United Nations...

...We would emphasize the word apparent because the Eisenhower Administration itself nervously refuses to acknowledge that it has reformed...

...Countless Americans remained silent or apathetic, to be sure, but there could be little doubt that the aroused, articulate minority who did speak up reflected the doubts and fears of a substantial segment of public opinion...

...4. Neutralization of Formosa as a ward of the United Nations, with a free election among the people in five years to determine whether they prefer to join Communist China or remain an independent nation whose integrity would be guaranteed by the U.N...

...Will the Chinese Communists accept a settlement on these terms...

...But unless the language has lost its meaning, it seems clear enough that the Administration has abandoned its warlike position, that yesterday's appeasement and surrender have become today's patriotism and statesmanship...

...Here on one day was Secretary of State John Foster Dulles dropping his truculent tone and embracing the vocabulary of reason and negotiation...

...A number of American newspapers usually sympathetic to the Administration's foreign policies, including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, expressed grave concern that the Administration might be blundering into a hopeless trap in the Formosa Straits...

...Here, clearly, is an almost complete about-face by the Administration, so much so, in fact, that its principal spokesman, including the President and the Secretary of State, found themselves using the very language they had denounced as appeasement talk only a few days before...

...Here were both President and Secretary of State saying for the first time that they might not permit Chiang Kai-shek to phinge us into war to advance his own vain and vaulting ambitions...

...Having said all this, we remain convinced that there is a choice to be made...

...The Democrats controlled both houses of the last Congress, and there wasn't a single piece of legislation introduced, let alone passed, which would have nationalized or socialized a single industry in the United States...

...Despite all their shortcomings, the Democrats—and here we refer largely to the Democrats of the North —have consistently voted in Congress for a somewhat more progressive program than the Republicans...

...Many moderate liberals who rarely stray from the middle of the road were bitterly disappointed over the failure of the Democrats to pursue a more progressive course in such critical fields as race relations, health, housing, social insurance, resource development, and education...

...3. Evacuation of the offshore islands by Chiang's Nationalist forces...

...Americans who tend to shrug their shoulders and say, "What can I do?," may learn from this experience that by writing their Senators and Congressmen and the appropriate branch of the Executive Department, they can sometimes exercise decisive influence for good on the men who rule the country...

...The average Republican Senator voted the liberal position 29 per cent of the time...

...And there is always the real and disturbing prospect that however reasonably we may approach the whole problem, the Chinese Communists may decide that it suits their purpose to keep the flame of conflict alive and burning...

...Either we Americans dedicate ourselves to strengthening and preserving private enterprise," the official statement asserted, "using the only dependable political instrument available—the Republican Party—or we are certain to go down the left lane which leads inescapably to socialism...

...5. Agreement by Communist China to renounce force, and to place before The Progressive is an independent journal of opinion...

...Foreign public opinion played its part as well, for reports from allied nations unanimously emphasized a deepening fear over what seemed to peoples abroad a reckless, runaway policy by the Eisenhower Administration in the Far East...

...Democrats in the election this year...

...The old reluctance to negotiate is still there...

...We suspect that if there were some way of measuring the temperature of our editorials over the past decade or more, it would show that, if anything, we have been warmer in giving the Democrats their come-uppance on issues of foreign policy than the Republicans...

...We do this mindful of the grave weaknesses in the Democratic camp— its failure to present a meaningful alternative to Administration foreign policy, its weakness in pressing for urgently needed social legislation, its rejection of progressive-minded candidates for the Senate in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and New York, and the fact that it is dominated, in the committees of Congress, by some of the worst demagogues of the South...

...Here, a day later, was President Eisenhower talking as though he didn't really expect Communist China to surrender unconditionally to all our demands without acquiring some concessions in the process...

...It is simply that the Eisenhower Administration felt the lash of hostile public opinion on a major issue of foreign policy for the first time in its six years in office...