Campaign Fervor

As Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower stepped into the lobby of Washington's Statler Hotel one night last week, convention-attending members of the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America (see Music) broke into a serenade. Surprised and delighted, the President of the U.S. listened to Keep America Singing, waved his appreciation, and then moved on to the Presidential Room. There, 500 district leaders of the National Citizens for Eisenhower Congressional Committee, flashing big "Let's Back Ike" badges, gave him a wall-shaking welcome. This was the stuff campaigns are made of, and Dwight Eisenhower responded glowingly because he was, in fact, campaigning.

The President's appearance was the result of a quick change in plans. Vice President Richard Nixon had been scheduled to speak that night; the President was to drop by for a few informal words the next day. But a 21-8 vote in the House Agriculture Committee against the Eisenhower farm plan prompted a presidential decision: he would use the occasion for a speech he had been readying for just such an impasse. Before the wildly sympathetic Citizens (he was interrupted 36 times), and before the radio and television microphones and cameras, the President laid down a straight, hard pitch for his legislative program.

Partial Progress. First off, he told them that he was delighted that the Citizens for Eisenhower leaders had revived their 1952 campaign organization to get behind pro-Eisenhower candidates for Congress in the 1954 election. "The legislative program that you and I support," said he, "is . . . designed to protect our freedoms, to foster a growing, prosperous peacetime economy, and to fulfill the Government's obligations in helping solve the human problems of our citizenry." Despite "highly publicized distractions," the program has made considerable progress on Capitol Hill. Congress has moved appropriations bills faster than usual, has supported Administration moves to cut expenditures, has enacted a road-building program, has cut excise taxes, authorized the St. Lawrence Seaway, and approved a mutual-security treaty with the Republic of Korea.

"But," said the President firmly, "much still remains [undone] that is of vital significance to every American citizen." Still pending: bills to accomplish a fairer distribution of the tax burden, broaden unemployment insurance and social security, improve housing conditions and strengthen the internal security net. Said the President, aiming at would-be security watchdogs on Capitol Hill: "Scarcely need I assure such an audience as this that I--and my every associate in Government--will keep everlastingly at the job of uprooting subversion wherever it may be found. My friends, I do not believe that I am egotistical when I say that I believe that every American believes at least that about me." His audience responded with a campaign-hot roar.

Flash of Strength. Then he turned to the hottest political issue of 1954: his farm program. The present farm law encourages production of great surpluses, prices some commodities out of the market, and costs the Federal Government $30,000 every hour for storage alone, he declared. "Minority clamor," he said, has concealed the fact that a change from rigid to flexible price supports would affect less than one-fourth of farm income. "Circumstances are too critical" to permit a year's extension of rigid supports, as proposed by the House Agriculture Committee. Yet, said he, he had been told that it would not be good politics to change the farm program in this election year.

"Now--I want to make this one point clear," he said, as he toughened his manner and slowed his speaking pace. "In this matter I am completely unmoved by arguments as to what constitutes good or winning politics. And may I remark that, though I have not been in this political business very long, I know that what is right for America is politically right." The crowd roared at this flash of Ike's greatest political strength, i.e., his ability to combine honest partisanship with a nonpolitical appeal. When he had finished talking, he got a standing ovation. Then the voice of Marty Snyder, General Eisenhower's World War II mess sergeant, brayed through the hall: "Who are we going to elect in 1956?" Roared the crowd: "Ike!" Dwight Eisenhower grinned broadly.

* Next day Presidential Assistant Sherman Adams provided new confusion about 1956. He told the Citizens meeting that there are "three conditions" that might cause Eisenhower to retire at the end of one term. He named only one --the loss of Congress to the Democrats in the November elections. Said he enigmatically: "The other two will come along later."

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