The Atlantic Report on the World Today: Washington

DEMOCRATIC gloom in Washington reached its all-enveloping point the day after the Minnesota primary. No matter how the party politicians here twisted and turned, they could see no answer to what they now generally consider the twin dilemma facing the party: 1) how to nominate a candidate acceptable to the party leaders around the nation who might stand a chance against the immensely popular Eisenhower; 2) how to prevent the Republicans, under the seemingly nonpolitical leadership of the President, from winning much of the Negro vote in pivotal Northern states while retaining a fat chunk of the Southern conservative vote.

The stunning Minnesota upset of Adlai Stevenson by Senator Kefauver is, of course, far from the same thing as the dogged Tennesseean’s nomination as his party’s standard bearer. But the politicians, practically all of whom dislike and distrust Kefauver, for the first time began to fret and worry as to whether they could stop him. If the senator wins the Florida primary in May and the California primary in June, what once was taken for granted here — that Kefauver couldn’t get the nomination even if he swept all the primaries — may be a very uncertain bet.

The controlling votes at the convention again will be in the hands of hostile state and local leaders — “bosses” to Kefauver and his devoted followers. But there is a big difference this time. In 1952 the “bosses” drafted Stevenson, a fresh and captivating figure untarnished by a primary scrap. Whom would they produce in 1956? Governor Harriman of New York or Governor Lausche of Ohio? Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri? There is even some talk here of turning to Harry Truman, though his age — he will be seventy-two this month — would eliminate much of the agehealth issue against Eisenhower. Besides, Truman insists he is not a candidate. Except for Truman, no one mentioned thus far seems to have the touch that Stevenson demonstrated in running up more than 27 million votes against Eisenhower.

“Nothing succeeds like success” is an old saw of politics. Already one can hear some “Well, why not Estes?” talk in Washington. If the senator sweeps the remaining primaries against Stevenson the “Why not Estes?” chorus may drown out the protesting voices. It would, indeed, be hard to explain away the ditching of a candidate who twice demonstrates his vote-pulling power with the rank and file. And it would be doubly difficult to get away with what Kefauver would surely call a big steal, in front of the television camera in the Chicago stockyards.

The American primary system is certainly an imperfect method of expressing party will. But it also is true, as one of the Democratic senatorial liberals said after the Minnesota voting, that if the party rejects a man who keeps winning the primaries, then it had better quit calling itself the “ party of the people ” and get another label.

The opposition to Kefauver

It is difficult to synthesize the determined opposition to Kefauver within the party leadership and among his colleagues at the Capitol. Kefauver is the lone-wolf type to his colleagues. He was a freshman senator, though a ten-year House veteran, when he became famous through his televised crime hearings, He has deserted the South on the race issue as well as on other issues which bind the conservative on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line. A number of his colleagues express their opposition in personal, often petty, terms.

Kefauver is a master of the platitude, and he has the folksy grin and grip. Yet his voting record on domestic matters stands up with most of the Democratic liberals, and his views — and voles — on foreign policy matters strongly parallel the views of Stevenson and other Democratic internationalists, including Truman.

The President and Southern defiance

President Eisenhower in recent weeks has been handling the question of the South’s resistance to the Supreme Court’s public school decision in a manner which both his friends and his enemies agree combines statesmanship and political astuteness. The President is for “some progress” on integration but with “ moderation.” And the day after the Minnesota primary, he welcomed under the GOP “ umbrella ” both the Northern Negro voter, increasingly disenchanted with the divided Democratic Party to which he has been so faithful for twenty-four years, and the Southern Democratic conservative, who fears that his own party, under Northern domination, will do more to enforce the Court’s edict than the Republicans would.

The President blandly refuses to concede that any Southern leaders “ defy ” the Supreme Court or that anyone “in any responsible position anywhere has talked nullification.” He knows perfectly well, of course, that the legislatures of Alabama and Georgia have in fact both passed nullification resolutions, and that those of Virginia and South Carolina have passed milder interposition resolutions. He knows, too, that while many of those who led the Eisenhower Democrats four years ago may have avoided the ugly word “defy,” they have in point of fact defied the Supreme Court. He also knows that the “ massive resistance ” and the “passive resistance” called for by Virginia’s Senator Byrd may very likely be a more effective bar to even gradual implementation of the Court’s ruling than scattered violence or the scandalous language of a Senator Eastland.

Yet it is very difficult to attack the President’s position — a position which bears much resemblance to that of both Stevenson and Kefauver and which is taken in Washington to be expressive of the general mood of the nation. Every responsible leader in Washington knows that the situation in the Deep South is serious and that, as the President has indicated, there must be enough movement forward to avoid a freezing of positions in a manner reminiscent of the foreboding decade which preceded the Civil War just a century ago.

But such statesmanlike thoughts are difficult for the Democrats to stick to whenever Vice President Nixon comes into view. They recall his “ great Republican Chief Justice” speech; they assume that, if nominated again, Nixon will be plugging that line without letup in the Northern cities. And they can’t figure out what to do about it except to holler “foul,” a procedure which does not sway voters.

Which way will farmers jump?

The Democrats’ twin dilemma of candidate and race issue has left the Republicans smiling — except when they think of the farm vote. A good many Republicans here were happy to see Stevenson go down in Minnesota but unhappy to read the rural returns from that state. Some of them said frankly, but quietly, that the farm revolt is serious and that even a new farm bill with plenty of cash pouring forth from it may not be enough to stop a Democratic trend. This is, in fact, one of the reasons the GOP is expected to work so hard for the Negro vote.

All these ruminations on politics are expressive of the mood of the Capital this spring. Foreign visitors are constantly amazed and generally confused by the American political scene. Back in 1848 Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in his famous Democracy in America: —

“For a long while before the appointed time is at hand, the election becomes the most important and the all-engrossing topic of discussion. . . . The whole nation glows with feverish excitement; the election is the daily theme of the public papers, the subject of private conversation, the end of every thought and action, the sole interest of the present. As soon as the choice is determined, this ardor is dispelled; and as a calmer season returns, the current of the State, which has nearly broken its banks, sinks to its usual level; but who can refrain from astonishment at the causes of the storm?”

Humphrey versus Moscow

The Eisenhower Administration is moving no faster than an iceberg to find a response to the new Russian challenge. Yet on the record, just about everybody from the President and Secretary of State Dulles on down has said that some changes need to be made. The problem, essentially, is one of attitude rather than of money or of how to convince the Congress or the public as to what should be done. It boils down to two questions: What should be the American attitude toward the rest of the non-Communist world, ally and neutral included ? and, What is the American responsibility?

One official who has been in on much of the struggle to win the President’s approval puts it this way: There are two factions in the Republican Party and hence in the Administration. One is composed of those who believe with Lincoln in the “great principle or idea ” that “in due time the weights would be lifted from the shoulders of all men and that all should have an equal chance.” The other is composed of those who believe that America should base its actions abroad on its own security, on denying nations to the Communists, and not on any philosophical views about the brotherhood of man.

The President’s visceral reactions are with the first group, but his conservative instincts and military training are with the second. Above all, Eisenhower will seldom move without prior staff agreement; and agreement at the Cabinet and National Security Council tables must be a compromise which goes beyond the wishes of the second group but falls short of the desires of the first. Since power is so often expressed in terms of personalities in Washington, the key to this problem is likely to bo found in the minds of the leading men around the President.

Without question, the most powerful figure in this Administration next to the President is Treasury Secretary Humphrey. Although he has generally been termed an Eisenhower Republican, Humphrey is in fact much more of a conservative. Behind his desk is a portrait of Andrew W . Mellon, the man who gave him his first big chance in the business world and the man he considers to have been the nation’s greatest Secretary of the Treasury.

Scattered through the government — in the Budget Bureau, at the State Department, and elsewhere — are Humphrey men. The so-called 4-11 Club consisting of Humphrey, foreign aid boss John Hollister, Under Secretary of State Herbert Hoover, Jr., and former budget director Rowland Hughes is not a club of equals. Humphrey is the chief; the others are his loyal followers.

Strictly business

To Humphrey the talk about a new Soviet challenge is nothing more than a tempest in a teapot because Moscow has merely shifted the nature of the Communist problem a little by its switch in tactics. Humphrey agreed to the idea of a tenyear, $100 million a year development aid program for two reasons: it is a more businesslike way of handling such projects as Egypt’s Aswan Dam, and since State insisted on some long-term aid to counter Soviet moves, this was the cheapest way out.

Humphrey strongly opposes anything even vaguely resembling a Marshall Plan for Asia or the Middle East; he thinks there are too many organizations in the aid field as it is. But above all, Humphrey believes that the United States has no obligation to aid underdeveloped nations simply because America is rich and prosperous and the free world’s leading power. He views nations in the traditional business manner: What are the trading possibilities? What raw materials do they have that we need? Can they pay for what they buy here?

Humphrey concedes that in some areas, notably Korea and Formosa, the United States is bound for prestige reasons to spend funds which make little sense otherwise. But in such cases as India he casts a highly jaundiced eye at the idea of aiding a nation which will not sign up as an ally and whose leaders are so friendly to the Soviet enemy. The argument that the American interest in India is to help make the democratic process work gets nowhere with Humphrey.

Secretary Dulles came back from his Asian tour convinced that the neutrals as well as our allies need our continuing help. The President subscribes to this view, and his foreign aid message to Congress was replete with the word “ urgent. ” But action is more important than words. And in the coming months the quiet but powerful voice of George M. Humphrey is likely to have a great effect on what the Administration actually does.