Evening star., 1952-07-11
Dirksen Emphasizes
1aft's Experience
In National Affairs
BY the Associafed Press

BY the Axscciatad Press
CONVENTION HALL, Chi
cago, July 11.-Here are some
tertual excerpts from the speech
of Senator Drksen OF Illinois,
nominating Senator TAFT of
Ohio to be the Republican pres
identiGl candidate:
We are here to assert a moral
cause and to select q leader who
can and will grid himself with that
cause.
The real reason for our failure
in other days was moral. We
were half licked before we began.
We had forgotten how to fight.
We forgot the moral origins of
our party. We had forgotten that
our party, to justify itself, must
be an organized conscience. We
were so busy conjuring up prom
ises and Establishments that we
forgot our moral purposes and also
forgot America. We were content
to coast along and wait for the
fruit of victory to drop into our
outstretched hands without so
much as shaking the tree. We
thought victory was in the bag
and that it was not even necessary
to pull the drawstring to keep it
there.
There is a fading faith in the
integrity Of those who administer
our national affairs. Once we
hailed the eagle with outstretched
wings as the symbol of freedom,
strength and faith. Today mink
is the hallmark of the new moral
climate.
Once it was deemed the pri-
mary duty of Government to keep
the Nation at peace. In the last
20 years those in power have given
us the biggest, costliest, bloodiest
war in the history of Christendom
They have given us more. They
have given us an undeclared, un-
constitutional, one-man war in
Korea, now in its third year. It
has become an inferno for the
holy blood Of American youth. AS
one Korean CT put it, I'VE can't
win, we can't lose, we can't quit" "
He might have added, 1--WE can
only diet"
Those in power have made it un-
fashionable to be an American.
Alger Hiss and his theological con-
federates are the new symbols Of
the larger viewpoint, while q great
American like Gen. Macarthur had
to be sacked.
You seek o winner. How nat
tural that is! Twenty years Of
Illustration and defeat are bound
up in your hopes and mine. They
embody more than that. The pas
sion for victory is nourished also
by our fears for the republic.
The first test of q winner is
whether he has steadily, con-
sistently won. From the time he
first sought public Office in 1921.
the man I shall give you has been
winning without exception. Thir-
ty-one years of continuous victory
is an unparalleled recommends
tion for a winner.
He win appeal to young Amer
leans of military age, for in him
they will find the greatest assur-
ance against earmarking for per-
manent war and the steady dis
location of their lives for genera
tionS to come.
His name will appeal to all
groups, all races. all creeds. all
hearts who know the evils Of war.
You want a leader who has been
seasoned and ripened in the hard
school of Government experience
at State and national levels. I
shall name such q leader. And
what q rich source of assurance
that will be In days ahead.
You seek q man Of courage.
Courage In battle is one thing.
But the quiet, steady courage Of
the commonplace is indeed q
sublime virtue. Nowhere is it
more brutally tested than in pub
lie service.
When the 80th Republican Con-
greSS assumed control in 1947 there
were many posts which he could
command. He did not have to
seek q position on the Senate
Labor Committee. Yet he saw
the autocracy of labor leadership
making the same mistake which
the forces Of capital made in an
earlier era. He saw the need to
-evise the labor laws. and to q
statute he freely gave his name,
knowing the slings and siurs and
Smears which would be heaped
upon him.
All this he serenely accepted.