Rebels Without a Cause

For a stridently liberal organization like Americans for Democratic Action, two kinds of pleasure are possible. It could keep on losing bitter battles, and then its members could feel the pleasure of martyrdom. Or it could win--maybe even see a real A.D.A. type elected President--and savor the taste of power.

Alas, poor A.D.A. As the faithful gathered in Washington last week for the organization's 15th anniversary convention, it was plain that both kinds of pleasure have largely eluded them. They don't feel like martyrs, and they certainly don't have an A.D.A.-type President.

Missed Wagon. A.D.A. was founded in 1947 as a camp of non-Communist liberalism, in opposition to the Red-riddled popular front built around Presidential Hopeful Henry A. Wallace. But the following year the Wallace movement vanished like smoke in a windstorm, depriving A.D.A. of its original reason for being. In 1948, before the Democratic Convention, A.D.A. rooted against Harry Truman; some prominent A.D.A. members, including Chester Bowles and Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., called for a Democratic ticket headed by General Dwight Eisenhower, then a political enigma. But after getting re-elected in 1948, Truman deprived A.D.A of the pleasures of opposition by trying to outdeal the New Deal. In 1952 and 1956, A.D.A. lost with Adlai Stevenson, but Ike failed to provide A.D.A. with any flaming causes. A.D.A. had to confine itself to jabbing needles, like calling Ike a "sunburned Coolidge."

In 1960 A.D.A. again missed the winner's wagon, showed a mild preconvention preference for Minnesota's Senator Hubert H. Humphrey, an A.D.A. member. The organization cannot forgive Kennedy for saying back in 1953 that he was "not comfortable with" the A.D.A. type. Aside from Agriculture Secretary Orville Freeman and Presidential Assistant Arthur Schlesinger Jr., no prominent Administration officials hold A.D.A. membership cards. Chester Bowles, Soapy Williams, Arthur Goldberg and Abraham Ribicoff had all ceased to be members before they joined the Administration team. Presidential Special Counsel Ted Sorensen was an A.D.A. fire-eater in his college days, but drifted out five years ago. "If an organization is large enough," says a White House insider, "the President may feel that he has to explain an action to it, or even consult it. The A.D.A. is not one of those organizations." Statistically, A.D.A. claims 50,000 members (mostly inactive), operates on a yearly budget of $130,000 from offices in a small Washington building that it shares with a rathskeller and a beauty parlor.

Lukewarm Peace. At the 15th-birthday convention (theme: "Growth for the Future"), A.D.A. appeared to have made a lukewarm peace with the Kennedy Administration. A.D.A. Chairman Samuel Beer, professor of government at Harvard, allowed that the organization was "fundamentally in agreement" with the Administration, and that "increasingly, we identify our best hopes with the promise of John Kennedy's presidency." That left A.D.A. once again with nothing much to say. Some speakers complained that the economic recovery was too sluggish and the Administration's civil rights program was "sadly inadequate." A.D.A. Vice Chairman Joseph Rauh, a Washington lawyer, denounced the Administration's bill to legalize wiretapping as "the greatest threat to civil liberties in America today." But nobody seemed very excited.

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