The People's Choice

(See Cover)

At 11:15 amon a clear, blue Pennsylvania Election Day, the new couple from the farm over on Route 10 stepped into the one-room,, white clapboard Cumberland Township election house outside Gettysburg. They identified themselves to an election official, and workers at the roughhewn wooden table checked their names in the record books. "Housewife."' said the listing of the woman's occupation. After her husband's name, the record read:"President of the United States."' Under the light of four naked electric light bulbs, by the heat of a small oil stove, the President of the U.S. marked his ballot in the election of 1956. It took him just 45 seconds. For Mamie Eisenhower, the process was somewhat longer. She popped out of the booth to ask if one X would take care of the whole ticket. Assured that it would, she marked her ballot, and said: "Fine, that takes care of everything.'' Then she and her husband dropped their ballots in the battered, wooden ballot box that showed the wear and tear of many elections, and headed back to the farm.

"That's Swell!" Within minutes President Eisenhower was flying back to the White House (Mamie returned by car later in the day). There, as he had during most of the closing week of the campaign, he turned his attention away from politics and toward the tense international scene.

He talked on the telephone with British Prime Minister Anthony Eden, sent off messages on the cease-fire to France's Premier Guy Mollet and to India's Prime Minister Nehru; he met with his defense and diplomatic advisers to discuss the whole pattern of developments in Europe. But by 7:30 p.m. the President was engaged in the pursuit that occupied most citizens of the land. Dressed in sports coat and slacks, he sat down to dinner in the living room on the second floor of the White House with Mamie, his son. Major John Eisenhower, and John's wife, Barbara. Their table was placed before the television set so they could watch the early returns. When Presidential News Secretary James Hagerty brought in press reports that the President had swept Connecticut and that Republican U.S. Senator Prescott Bush was reelected, Ike's reaction was a broad smile and an exultant "That's swell."

"Principles & Ideals." Through the evening, as the size of the victory rolled into a landslide and then into an ava lanche, President Eisenhower kept no chart as Franklin Roosevelt had done on election nights. He depended entirely on the television set and press reports brought in by Secretary Hagerty and son John. At 10 o'clock, as previously planned, he dressed and rode off to the Sheraton-Park Hotel, where the Republican National Committee had set up its victory headquarters. There, surrounded by members of his Cabinet and other close associates, preparing to make his victory appearance before 2,300 cheering Republicans in the

hotel's ballroom (and on the nation's television screens), he refused to watch Adlai Stevenson's television concession of defeat. He had not looked at Stevenson during the campaign, he said, and he did not intend to start at that late hour.

"We Want Ike!'' chanted the 2,300 in the ballroom as the President and Mrs.

Eisenhower, the Vice President and Mrs.

Nixon made their entrance. Before the cheering, celebrating throng the President was solemn. Said he: "It is a very heart-warming experience to know that your labors, your efforts of four years have achieved that level where they are approved by the United States of America in a vote. Such a vote as that cannot be merely for an individual. It is for principles and ideals for which that individual and his associates have stood and have tried to exemplify." A Deeper Base. From the start of the campaign, there had never been any real doubt that the people of the U.S., by their vote, would approve the principles and ideals of the Eisenhower Administration.

But it was not a victory without obstacles. Candidate Eisenhower had to come back from a heart attack and prove to himself and the people that he was again well enough to assume the full burdens of the presidency. Then he had to confront another opponent in the form of an ailment that few Americans could identify or spell -- ileitis. But he defeated both, and his health was never an important issue in the campaign. One big reason: everywhere he went, the people saw a picture of good, vigorous, glowing health.

Politically, his opponent was not so much Adlai Stevenson as it was the Democratic Party. But from the time the President first took there was every indication that he would also defeat that foe. Everywhere he went--from Peoria to Portland. Ore. to Miami Philadelphia--cheering.

crowds poured out to greet him. Demo-that their candidate was the "man of the people" in this election, but the President's welcome all across the U.S. and his votes on Election Day showed that the people knew their man.

What had Dwight Eisenhower and his Administration given the people of the U.S. that brought their overwhelming approval? The Republican campaign slogan summed it up well : peace, progress and prosperity. The Eisenhower Administration had ended one hopeless war and had kept the sparks of new wars from landin on the U.S. Under new economic policies, the U.S. had reached new heights of prosperity for both labor and capital. The Administration had balanced the federal budget, and cut taxes, and had shown proper concern for the welfare of its citizens, e.g., in the broadening of social security, in programs for better schools.

But there was a deeper base for the people's approval. In their campaign slogan, the Republicans left out another P that was the most important of all: principle. The people sensed that Dwight Eisenhower held to basic and important American principles that worked, as the President put it, for "every American man, woman and child, whatever his station, his calling, his religion or his race."

"The Individual Is Supreme. When Dwight Eisenhower spoke in what his bitterest critics called platitudes, the people understood what his opponents did not: he was indeed the voice of America, speaking the language that America understands and believes. "The individual is of supreme importance," he said. "Government's function is to provide the climate in which those people can work in confidence and security . . . The spirit of our people is the strength of our nation.

Strength is not just in arms and guns and planes; it's not just in factories and in fertile farms. It's in the heart, the heart that venerates the heritage we have from our fathers, the heritage of freedom, of self-government. That is the basic strength Because they believed Dwight Eisenhower when he said that he was working for "what is good for all of us," U.S. farmers voted for him, although they were not specifically satisfied with his Administration's farm program, and labor union members voted for him, although their leaders urged them not to. Because they could clearly see what the Eisenhower Administration had done, the people rejected the charge that it had been working for the special interests of "big business." The major polls verified that the avalanche of votes that swept Dwight Eisenhower into a second term began piling up many months ago when the people saw how his Administration was performing in Washington. It was more than a personal victory; it was a victory for everything that Dwight Eisenhower and his Administration have stood for.

Knowledge & Confidence. President Eisenhower said that he sought re-election in order "to finish what I've started. There is so much to do,'' he said. "There are so many things yet unfinished." He mentioned specifically the need for better schools, for aid to economically depressed areas, for help to small business, for better roads, new air safety measures, more security for the aged, and liberalization of the immigration laws. He knows that there is more to do. also, for the consolidation of gains already made--for the restoration of government that is closer to the people, for sound fiscal policies, for the reconstruction of the Republican Party, and--above all--for world peace.

In his hour of victory, President Eisenhower pledged himself to continue working for the principles that he and his Administration have stood for since January 1953. "With whatever talents the good God has given me," he said, "with whatever strength there is within me, I will continue, and so will my associates, to do just one thing: to work for 168 million Americans here at home and for peace in the world." With the knowledge and with confidence that he would do just that, the American people have given him one of the clearest mandates in the history of free elections.

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