The Turn to the Future

With the clatter of pots and pans in the political kitchen, the cries of brawling candidates in the national living room, and the static of charge and countercharge on the party line, the true voice of the U.S. political system has a hard time getting through to the people. But last week, for a moment in history, the election-year hubbub died low, the lines cleared, and from San Francisco came the clear tones of a political leader turning squarely to the future of a Republican Party once known, however justly, for its dedication to the past.

For those grown fond of the din, the 1956 Republican National Convention may well have seemed dull, and, compared to the Democratic meeting (or past G.O.P. conventions), it was. There were no fights, no cliff-hanging situations. With hardly a discordant tock to its tick, it ran off with multi-jewel precision. At the flick of a hand from Hollywood's George Murphy, the convention entertainment director, singers of all shapes and sizes appeared to entertain the delegates. At the drop of a G.O.P. hero's name, sign-toting Young Republicans in varsity sweaters snake-danced down Cow Palace aisles like half time at College Stadium. At the rap of a gavel from Permanent Chairman Joe Martin, the demonstrators vanished like so many genii.

Over the Shoulder. The Republicans heard the sounds of the past. Rough-hewn Joe Martin looked over his political shoulder and spoke of "the past that despoiled our heritage with the indelible stains of corruption and Communism." Patriarch Herbert Hoover, erect and unbowed at 82, touched off one of the convention's most heartfelt demonstrations, thanked the old friends who had stood up for him through thick and thin ("And some of those years where they stood up were pretty thin"), traced the development of man's freedoms from Greece and Rome to Runnymede to Philadelphia, A.D. 1776, and its "fulfillment of God's purpose that the mind, spirit and enterprise of man should be free."

Tom Dewey, a Republican of later vintage, looked to the less distant past. "Mr. Truman," said he, added to Chicago's "enlightenment of the day by declaring that Mr. Stevenson could not win. Then he went further. He solemnly warned the country that it should not risk a trial-and-error Administration under Mr. Stevenson ... I should say this--that the nation is indebted to Mr. Truman for this involuntary lapse into objectivity."

Moment of Quiet. The renominations of President Dwight Eisenhower and Vice President Richard Nixon were unanimous. The President was soon to note the historic disparities of the Republican Party in telling how it gathered in "Free-Soilers, Independent Democrats, conscience Whigs, Barnburners, Soft Hunkers, teetotalers, vegetarians and transcendentalists." But in 1956, Republicans were united in knowing whom and what they wanted. Dwight Eisenhower could have brought on a "wide open" presidential nomination only by his own irrevocable withdrawal. And for months Ike had tried to avoid the appearance of dictation by withholding his all-out endorsement of Nixon. The fact: only by an unvarnished turndown of Nixon--in itself a denial of a "wide open" convention--could the President have changed the final results.

The snake-dancing, the balloon-popping and the voice-lifting finally died away--and it was this moment when the clear tone could come through. In accepting his nomination, Dwight Eisenhower devoted himself to a single subject: the future. By applying new and progressive ideas to old and established principles, the U.S. through the Republican Party could reach for a greater tomorrow. In that tomorrow, the pain of crippling disease would be vastly reduced, political wisdom would ensure justice and harmony, and the means would be at hand for "the full realization of all the good things of the world.

"My fellow Americans," concluded the President, "the kind of era I have described is possible." The great auditorium in San Francisco was hushed, and from that hush had come a voice that Americans of all faiths and factions could hear and understand, as rarely before, in the tumult and shouting of U.S. election years.

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