"Right on the Line"

THE PRESIDENCY

"Right on the Line"

"Magnificent!" cried Minnesota's religiously Democratic Senator Hubert Humphrey--referring without qualification to the inaugural speech just delivered by a President of the opposite political faith. Humphrey was not alone in his estimation of Dwight Eisenhower's speech (TIME, Jan. 28); rarely before in U.S. political history had the ideals and ideas of one man struck so responsive a chord among politicians, pundits and just plain people of generally divergent opinions.

Democratic and Republican Congressmen alike joined in the chorus of praise for the President's dedication to "the building of a peace with justice in a world where moral law prevails." Ike, crowed Wisconsin's Senator Alexander Wiley, ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, had "laid it right on the line, not only to the American people but to the world." The Senate's top Democrat, Texas' Lyndon Johnson, said the Eisenhower speech had "set forth goals and objectives with which every American will agree."

Presidential Inspiration. Newspaper columnists and editorial writers added their encomiums. "One of the great inaugural addresses of all times has just been delivered by President Eisenhower," wrote David Lawrence, a conservative Democrat. "It probably was the first message at an inaugural ceremony directed in its entirety to all the peoples of the world as well as to the people of the U.S." Wrote Fair-Dealer Doris Fleeson: "From start to finish the President decisively repudiated the isolationist-nationalist sentiments with which his party was so long identified. The new Democratic Congress will have no choice but to uphold him."

Editorialized the Democratic Atlanta Constitution: Ike's speech was "inspiring and filled with patriotism. It was in the best tradition of such speeches . . ." Said London's Daily Telegraph: "Every sentence proclaimed the President's absorption with what he now clearly regards as his remaining mission in life--the creation of a true and lasting peace . . . The whole tenor of his inaugural address suggests that in the next four years we shall see this grand design persistently pursued. This dedication should be an inspiration to the world."

Congressional Responsibility. What all the praise meant was that Dwight Eisenhower had arrived at the peak of one of the great American public careers and had succeeded as had few men before him in expressing the thoughts and hopes of a whole people. Whether he maintains that peak depends on the way the President can implement his ideas with specific deeds that can assure lasting peace to what he called a "shaken earth." And-- although it was not especially noticeable last week in the hearings on the Administration's Middle Eastern proposals--there was also a heavy burden of responsibility on the Congressmen who had been so effusive in their praise. For as Lyndon Johnson carefully noted: "Our task is to find means that will achieve [the President's] ends."

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