The Strain Shows

Bob Taft appeared seriously worried by the effect on delegates of the argument that he cannot win in November. Characteristically, instead of soft-pedaling the issue, Taft met it headon. If nominated, he cried, he will carry 30 states and win by a 5,000,000-vote majority.*

"Thy Servant Robert." At the start of the week, Taft, taking the wheel himself, drove from Washington to Baltimore for a meeting with the Maryland delegation. Asked if he had won any of them to his side, he said: "They just don't rush up to you and say, 'Now we're for you.' It just doesn't happen, that's all. It hasn't happened to General Eisenhower either." Commented Governor Theodore McKeldin, favorite-son candidate to whom the Maryland delegation is committed: "The understanding in this state is that I am for Ike. That is a correct impression."

Next day, in Hershey, Pa., after a private hour with Governor John Fine, Taft faced the Pennsylvania delegates, went through the usual question & answer routine. Later, Taft had lunch with Pennsylvania pols and pressmen, at which the minister of Hershey's All Saints' Episcopal Church invoked God's blessings for the President of the U.S. and "Thy servant Robert." Asked again if he hoped to have won over any delegates, Taft said: "I do not expect converts to come up to the altar and confess today."

Later in the week, he drove to Charlottesville for a meeting with the Virginia delegation. At the University of Virginia's Institute of Public Affairs, he gave a major recapitulation of his foreign policy and made some thought-provoking points. The aim of U.S. foreign policy, said Taft, should be "to assure the continued peace of the American people as long as that is consistent with liberty." It should not undertake "organized charity throughout the world . . . We should help when emergencies exist . . . [But] today I believe we have come to a point where there is no longer any justification for economic aid to Western Europe ... I don't agree [that] you may stop Communism by giving vast sums of money, say, to a country like India, to try to raise their standard of living. The amount you can raise somebody's standard of living . . . may be by 2% or 3%. By the time you get through, the Communist arguments would be just as effective because the contrast between what you have provided in India and what you yourself enjoy in this country today would be just as vivid . . ."

Imperialism? At one point, Taft managed to sound like a European neutralist criticizing U.S. "intervention." People who think that the U.S. should assume moral leadership of the world, said he, propose to use money and even arms "to see that the world does what we think the world ought to do. When you come to the last analysis, that is imperialism..."

The U.N., said Taft, is totally ineffective to prevent aggression because it was built on the assumption of agreement among the Big Four. What is needed is "an organization in which we agree beforehand to an international law denning what aggression is--defining what nations could do--and then agree to abide by the decision of an impartial tribunal..."

During Taft's visit, a newsman asked Delegation Chairman Floyd Landreth if the Virginia delegates were getting to like Ike better. "That might well be true," he replied. "If Eisenhower were nominated and the Democrats muffed it, Ike might win. If Taft were nominated, I don't know, but they would have to muff it pretty keen."

At week's end, Taft said a little wearily: "Frankly, I wish we could skip this next week and go right into the convention."

* In 1948, Harry Truman carried 28 states, had a plurality of 2,148,125; in 1944, F.D.R. carried 36 states, had a plurality of 3,588,304.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.