Evening star., 1950-03-12
Republican Principles
Traced to Harry Byrd
Writer Credits Vireinion
With Inspiring 6. O.P.
By Frank R. Kent

by fronk K. Kent
The similarity between the "declara-
tion of principles" recently made by the
Republicans and those espoused and ex-
pounded by Senator Harry F. Byrd Of
Virginia seems largely to have escaped
notice. Yet, they are almost identical.
This does not mean that Senator Byrd
has gone Republican,; rather it means
the Republicans have gone Byrd.
There is one great difference between
them. Senator Byrd has held his prin-
ciples lot longer and a whole lot more
firmly than the Republicans. So far as
he is concerned. they are not newly
acquired at all. With him they are con-
genital, inherited and inherent, though
he makes no claim of originality. freely
conceding that they were the principles
of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jack
son. They were also the principles Of
Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson,
of John w. Davis and Alfred E. Smith,
Of many millions of other American citi-
zens in every State. both past and
present.
In addition, they were the principles
Of Franklin Roosevelt, promulgated In
the party platform of 1892 and urged by
him in speech after speech indicting
governmental waste and extravaganza,
denouncing deficit financing, a swollen
Federal bureaucracy. high taxes and
heavy debt as dangers to the Nation. un-
equivocally pledging himself to end all
these. II ever man got mandate, he
got his in the majority given him on
election day. Yet, he clung to those
q Va Cd aff I.S.
inaugural About that time the doctrine
first enunciated by the late Mr. Hopkins
that I'VE are going to spend. spend,
spend. tax. tax, tax, elect, elect. elect"
took hold of the Roosevelt regime and
all those Jeffersonian, Jacksonian. Will
sonian and Rooseveltian principles went
"out the window" Political promises
had been broken in the past, but never
before with such speed and completeness.
So politically successful was this beau
tiful scheme Of buying the people with
their own money that after the 1884,
1886 and 1888 Democratic victories many
Republicans and most Democrats in
politics felt it expedient to ride with
the tide and were afraid to resist the
administration demagogues, backed by
the labor and farm leaders. the city
bosses and the Negro bloc. The real
opposition came from conservative Dem
ocrats who felt their party had been
betrayed, its solemn pledges violated and
- its control turned over to the radicals,
whose unsound economic theories soon
or late would wreck the Nation. Chief
among these was Senator Byrd. In
season and out, he has waged a gallant.
grim. unfaltering flght-often fighting
almost alone and yet, despite White
House opposition, accomplishing more
than is generally known. The simple
fact is that but for him there would
have been no fight at all within Con-
gress against the unrestrained waste Of
public funds, no effective voice raised
against governmental extravaganza and
payroll padding. Inevitably, he became
intensely unpopular with the two spend.
ing Presidents.
It is tribute to Senator Byrd that
the Republicans, desperately searching
for principles" that will appeal to the
voters against the Truman administra-
ton, should have adopted the Byrd prin-
ciples. They give him no credit. but that
Is what they have done just the same
first time in a long while.
When, in his recent interview with
Arthur Krock, Mr.. Truman said that "in
no sense does he tolerate deficit spend
ing" that he "hates deficits as much as
Harry Byrd ever could and it is only a
temporary condition brought on by neces-
stiles which could not be removed by any
genius of statecraft known or available to
him"-when those noble words from the
President made their appearance. 1t was
not the Republican Party, but Senator
Byrd, who in statement pounded Mr..
Truman with facts. riddled him with
figures and impaled him upon his own
tax and spending record until the pre-
tense of distaste for deficits was made
too ridiculous to be seriously maintained.
If the Republican Party has real sense
1t will let its publicity y-seeking progress
sives" with the liberal" columnist pro-
moters go their own way. They will
cling to the Byrd principles and 60 to
the country on the facts and figures Of
this penetrating and illuminating Byrd
statement. If once these really reach
and are understood blythe American
people. the conservative majority which
undoubtedly exists, despite sectional.
racial and other prejudices, might easily
be welded behind a conservative candi-
dste In presidential election.