The Voice of the Opposition

Tanned by the Barbados sun, the wear & tear of November's electoral defeat apparently erased by a restful holiday, Adlai Stevenson returned last week to the political arena. The setting for his first major address since the Eisenhower victory was the Grand Ballroom of Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria. There, before 1,700 Democratic bigwigs assembled for the $100-a-plate Jefferson- Jackson Day dinner, Stevenson assumed the mantle of leader of the constructive opposition.

The Charter. He spoke with the neat, oratorical pace and lilt that carried his audience nostalgically back to mid-October. He reeled off jest after well-phrased jest, spoofing the Republicans ("To the victor belongs the toil") and spoofing his own party. ("We Democrats are in a mood to love everybody. And, of course, we would be delighted if a few million more people would love us.") He also defined a commendable charter for a Democratic minority party.

"We shall fight them to the end when we think they are wrong," said he. "But our central purpose, our guiding light, must be something different: it must be to keep on working positively and constructively for the good of the country. Of course, it is easier to express these lofty sentiments than to practice them. Undoubtedly we shall have our partisan moments. But let us never be content merely to oppose; let us always propose something better."

With the charter defined, Stevenson sidestepped it with attacks on the character of the Administration--attacks of the kind that no other leading Democrat, in or out of Congress, has yet found it necessary to make.

Attack No. 1. The Eisenhower Administration is a government by businessmen:

"History warns us," he said, "that government by a single group, no matter how high-minded and patriotic it may be, exposes government to genuine dangers. There is always the tendency to mistake the particular interest for the general interest--to suppose, in the immortal thought recently uttered before a committee of Congress, that what is good for General Motors is good for the country . . . While the New Dealers have all left Washington to make way for the car dealers, I hasten to say that I, for one, do not believe the story that the general welfare has become a subsidiary of General Motors."

Attack No. 2. The Eisenhower foreign policy is a policy of dollar and bully-boy diplomacy:

"The fact that we have been in a position to contribute . . . arms and money does not entitle us to preach or threaten . . . We want not sullen obedience, but friendly cooperation from our allies . . . We want no satellites; we want companions in arms ... I hope I have misread the signs of the revival of the discredited 'dollar diplomacy' . . . Ours must be the role of the good neighbor, the good partner, the good friend--never the big bully."

Call Foul. Stevenson's old admirer, New York Times Correspondent James Reston, had liked Stevenson's speeches better than Ike's during the campaign. But, while reminding the Administration of its duty to keep the opposition informed, Reston did not hesitate to call foul on parts of Stevenson's $100-a-plate speech. "The judgment of Mr. Stevenson's own Democratic associates in the Congress and of many of his personal friends in the State Department," wrote Reston, "was that the warning [by Secretary Dulles on the need for defensive unity in Europe] was necessary, that it had the backing of public opinion in this country, and that ... it actually did a lot of good."

This week Stevenson went to Washington for a tea party with fellow Democrats and a lunch with President Eisenhower. Early in March he will take off on a private citizen's journey round the world.

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