Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1950-03-05
Believes 6. 0. P. Still
An Effective Force
Writer Expresses His Faith
In Republicans Future
By Frank r. Kent

The same professional liberals" who.
in 1913, were Solidly certain that poor
Mr.. Truman as they then used to call
him, would be overwhelmingly beaten.
are now Just as unitedly prophesying
that the Republican Party as now con-
stituted cannot win an election In the
foreseeable future. The journalistic
trumpeters of the New Deal. the Fair
Deal and the welfare state particularly
are insistent that the Grand Old
Party" is in pitiable state. "all washed
up" gone beyond recall.
Admittedly, the prospects are not
bright However. there are several rea-
sons why the present attempt of the
liberal columnists to sweep the Re-
publican Party up in corner and apply
a match to it seems absurd. One. OF
course, is the extraordinary rapidity with
which the whole political scenery in this
country can shift. Another is the fact
that though defeated in the last three
presidential elections not one of those
defeats was of a kind to convince any
unprecedented student of politics that
majority of the people of the United
States favored either the Democratic
candidates or the Democratic policies.
Extremely few will dispute that in 1910
and 1914 the Democratic victories were
due to the war. In 1948 majority OF
the people entitled to vote simply did not
vote and Mr.. Truman owed his success
partly to the almost solid South, where
he was-and is-extremely unpopular.
and partly to the failure of Republicans
to 60 to the polls. The result was q
Truman election by total vote so small
as to make the subsequent talk OF a
mandate" from the American people
completely ridiculous.
A third reason is the internal dissen-
sion in the Democratic Party. which.
while not so loudly publicized land sell
dom mentioned by the liberal column
ists) is actually deeper and more bitter
than the factional feuds Of the Republic
cans. The combination upon which the
Democrats have relied for Is years-union
labor, Negroes in the Northern cities the
radical splinter parties and the big-city
machines-is not only getting increas-
ingly harder to hold together but steadily
engenders more and more antagonism.
There is no doubt at all that the resent
ment is growing among Democrats all
over the country at the degrading sub
SeTVleIlCy VI Glich pal " w oAAs A"SN
bosses.
Now even some of the pro-labor pub
licists of the Fair Deal are beginning to
feel that the openness with which the
Democratic Party has become labor
ridden creates certain reaction. This
notion has been greatly strengthened by
developments in Ohio, where the labor
bosses of all factions have combined to
drive Senator Taft out of public life this
fall. Accepting the challenge, Senator
Taft went directly to the Ohio people
and already has had response which
even his enemies concede pretty well
insures his election. Ohio is supposed
to be politically the most significant
State in the country, but the distaste OF
the people for labor boSsed party has
also been shown in New York, where
g Gov. Dewey has twice been elected
against almost united labor-boss opposi-
ton.
Considering all these facts 1t does
seem a little far-fetched to talk OF the
Republicans as the only party with in
ternal trouble. Or, to assert that they
have no chance to win either this year
or in 1882 Perhaps, they may again go
down to defeat, but right now there isn't
the slightest foundation for the sort OF
propaganda to that effect with which We
are being flooded. And it is getting
pretty tiresome, too. The fact is that
with a first-class candidate and any luck
at all the Republicans ought to win IN
1952-no matter what happens this year.