A Progressive Look And Practical Answers

Last year's Republican campaign and the subsequent selection of Cabinet members indicated that the Nixon Ad ministration would anchor itself several degrees to the right of the Great Society. This prophecy may eventually be fulfilled. For the time being, however, the new team, especially in the do mestic field, often sounds and acts not unlike the Democratic crew it so recently replaced.

The liberal tone is coming from both predictable and unexpected sources.

Richard Kleindienst, Barry Goldwater's campaign field director in 1964 and now No. 2 man in a more stringent Jus tice Department, said in a Lincoln Day speech: "Law-abiding society will only come about through a continuous pro cess of social progress. New ground must be broken tc meet human needs --needs in such fields as education, housing, economic development and consumer protection." George Romney, never a fan of big government, has embraced Lyndon Johnson's housing pro gram in his new post of Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. He complains only that the Johnson bud get request of $3 billion for fiscal 1970 might be inadequate.

Strom's Carolina. It had generally been anticipated that Robert Finch, as Secretary of Health, Education and Wel fare, would be a progressive influence.

Last week, as the Justice Department brought desegregation suits against four Southern school districts, including Houston's, Finch ordered the cessation of federal financial aid to three other districts that had failed to develop satisfactory integration programs. One of them was in Senator Strom Thurmond's South Carolina.

In five earlier cases, Finch gave noncompliant local school authorities a 60day grace period in which to meet federal standards. This time the cutoff takes effect March 16, with no arrangement for retroactive subsidy in the event of compliance later. Further proceedings by Justice and HEW in both the North and the South are expected. Said Finch: "You've got de facto segregation in every part of this country, and we're going to go after it."

Farm Workers Too. Also in Finch's domain, plans are being refined to reform the welfare system. No specific proposal has as yet reached White House level for decision, but the two alternative schemes getting most serious consideration both involve establishing a national floor under welfare standards. The minimums being discussed--$30 to $40 per person per month--are higher than the amounts now being paid by many states. The Federal Government, which already contributes heavily to the welfare program, would help offset the higher benefits. For years liberals have been arguing for this type of reform, since it might help slow the migration of the poor from rural areas to the big cities.

The parlous condition of the nation's 3,200,000 farm workers has received little attention in the past compared with urban poverty, but both problems will be covered in a new program scheduled for publication this week. In it, the Administration will outline its specific proposals for the use of tax incentives to promote job-producing industrial activity in poverty areas. The White House has also directed the Labor and Agriculture departments to study the feasibility of extending the Taft-Hartley Act to cover farm workers. This move, long advocated by the A.F.L.C.I. O., would give them the right to organize unions and bargain collectively under federal protection.

Surprised Senator. At the other end of the social-economic scale, the Securities and Exchange Commission has continued the vigorous enforcement policies that Richard Nixon criticized in the campaign as "heavy-handed." Any Administration's influence over the SEC is limited because the commission members serve for specific terms. However, the President can change the chairman at any time, and it is Chairman Manuel Cohen who has promoted strong regulation of the securities industry. Nixon so far has not replaced him, but is expected to name Hamer Budge, the commission's ranking Republican, to the chairmanship. Budge has voted with the commission chief on the more controversial issues that have come before the commission.

While Richard Nixon and his men are, of course, instituting new policies in a number of areas, the degree of continuity has been high enough to deny the Democrats much cause for complaint so far. Democratic Senator George Mc-Govern of South Dakota confesses: "I'm pleasantly surprised at what seems to be a combination of prudence and progressive spirit." Congressman Morris Udall of Arizona points out that "after 1964, a lot of people complained that they had elected Johnson and gotten Goldwater's foreign policy. Now we've elected Nixon and, to a large extent, we're getting Johnson's domestic policies."

Actually, the momentum of government is such that most new administrations are obliged to carry on at least some of the policies inherited from the old. Moreover, once in office, a President seldom feels that he is totally committed to his party's platform and his own campaign rhetoric. To their credit, the Nixon men have been less concerned with liberal v. conservative ideological wrangling than with specific needs and practical answers.

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