Evening star., 1952-10-26
Denies Gov. Stevenson
Is High-Minded
Writer Says Superiority Legend
Has Worn Thin
By Frank R. Kent

By Fronk R. Kent
AS the campaign approaches it's end.
the legend consistently sought to be
established that Gov. Stevenson is a
conSplcuouSly high-minded, notably can
did candidate who scorns evasion and
deSpiSeS distortion of the truth has worn
pretty thin 1t is somewhat ironical
that the men most responsible for spoil
ing this pretty picture of the Democratic
candidate should be President Truman
and eX-President Herbert Hoover.
1t would be difficult indeed, to find
two individuals in whom the contrast
IN their intellectual equipment, their
ethlcal standards in public and private
llte their characters. careers and achieve
mentS Is as great. In them the contrast
is practically complete and it is un-
necessary to say that their cooperation
IN the job of destroying the Stevenson
pretense of "unmitigated nobility" was
entirely unconscious. Characteristically
Mr.. Hoover in his recent speech, dealt
with undiSputable facts and figures The
main theme of the Stevenson campaign
has been that the Republican Party is
the party OF reaction. iSolationism and
Wall Street domination. BY the time
Mr. Hoover got through displaying the
record there not only seemed little sense
IN the Stevenson charges but it was
pretty clear that he had been guilty Of
making them without foundation in fact.
Since then two things seem worth
noting. One is that Mr. SteVenson's
allegations Of the utter WickedneSS Of
the Republican Party have been consid-
eraoly less sweeping and emphatic. The
second is that there has been no answer
from the Democratic side to the docu-
mented Hoover charges of willful mis-
representation. And though these charges
hit Mr.. Truman as we'll as Mr.. Steven
son, there has come from the President
no reply either, though certainly they
have not slowed him down. Even Mr..
Hoover's factual comparison of the cor
ruptlon in the Harding administration.
OF which he was part, with that of
the Truman administration brought no
retort. Strong as was the Hoover refu-
tatlon, there are plenty who believe that
Mr. Truman whose declared purpose
was the reverse. has really done more to
smear the picture of a high-minded
Stevenson determined to conduct high
level campaign.
He has achieved this by the violence
and coarseness of his language, his un-
restrained personal abuse of Gen. Eisen-
mower and his general disregard of the
truth The reason this damaged the
Stevenson picture is that Mr. Stevenson
is no longer in position to dissent from
the truman strategy has, in fact, con-
graduated him and urged a continuance;
is now frankly running on the Tru-
man record. Apparently he has COM
pletely forgotten the Washington mess"
Tor the mere mention of which he was
rebuked by Mr.. Truman. OF course,
wholly aside from the aid of Mr.. Tru-
man and Mr.. Hoover, Mr.. Stevenson
himself has done no little to detract
from that hlgh-minded legend and to
nullify his own declared purpose to be
absolutely candid with the voters.
For example. he has cleverly evaded
the question as to whether, if elected,
he would continue ex-Mayor O'Dwyer
as our Ambassador to Mexico. Mr.. Tru-
man, it will be recalled. appointed Mr..
O'DWyer Ambassador under pressure
from Boss Eddie Paving Block Flynn
of New York after the Kefauver Crime
Committee had thoroughly discredited
Mr. O'DWyer by revealing his connec-
ton with various notorious gangsters.
such as Costello
His appointment is widely regarded
as the most indefensible of Truman ap-
pointmentS. Nor has Mr.. Stevenson.
though hammering hard upon Gen.
1ke's support Of Senators Mccarthy.
Jenner and KEN, explained his support
OF John Cashmere, the Tammany cam
dldate for the Senate in New York Mr..
Cashmere is so tough that neither
the Liberal Party nor the Americans
Tor Democratic Action, both of which
are strong for Stevenson, could swal-
low him and have presented candidates
OF their own. But the high-minded
Mr.. Stevenson swallowed him.
In brief, Mr.. Stevenson is doing in
New York exactly what he denounced
Gen. Ike for doing in other States. His
support of Mr.. Cashmere is for exactly
the same reason the general supports
Mccarthy, to wit. that he is the nominee
OF his party in his own State-and
thus on his team. Yet Mr.. Stevenson
has had the extraordinary effrontery
to highly praise himself for not being
IN that position. Nothing could be
more hypocritically false.
Adding to all this, the degrading sir.
render OF Mr.. Stevenson to the labor
bosses on their demand for complete
repeal of the Taft-Hartley law and
TO the Negro leaders on the question
OF an FEPA and the Senate rules, which
ne had once asserted were the business
OF the Senate and not of the Executive
add all this up and the picture of
Mr.. Stevenson as a high-minded, candid
candidate who scorns evasion and de-
spises misrepresentation becomes some-
what absurd.