Evening star., 1954-10-10
President S Program
AT Stoke in Elections
Eisenhower Asks Voters to
Give Him Supporting Cost
By Fronk R. Kent


By Fronk R. Kent
These midterm congressional cleo.
tions are about as vital to the Nation
as any held In long time. They could
turn out all right-and perhaps they
will. On the other hand. the pollsters,
prophets and prognosticators are al
most unanimous In forecasting the
loss Of Republican control in both
House and Senate. And. that would
put the governmental machinery Of
the country into the most awkward
conceivable position.
It has happened before that the
President in the White House has
been Of one party and the Congress,
its committee chairmen and presiding
officers belonged to the other. Almost
incredible inaction has followed. The
President, Of course, was unable to
get through any program worthy Of
the name. Nor could the Congress en-
act any law Of which he sufficiently
disapproved to veto. The inevitable
result was confusion. ineptitude. dis
order and stagnation. AS Gen. Eisen-
hover pointed out, under such condi-
tions politics runs wild" and all classes
Of our citizens are adversely affected.
That Is why the President has
pitched into the campaign and is ap-
pealing to the people who voted for
him two years ago to give him q de-
pendable party majority in the next
Congress that will enable him more
fully to carry out his promises. Con-
sidering that in the recent Congress
the loss of even single vote was
serious to the administration pro-
gram, 1t was extraordinary that so
much of it got through in the session
that ended in August. OF course, II
control were lost, what remains OF
the presidential program would be
shot to pieces and the administrator
forced merely to mark time during the
next two years.
It Is not only that In such q situa-
ton politics runs wild" but with o
Democratic majority In either branch
nothing the President recommended
would be enacted If only because he
recommended 1t. The demagogues in
both parties would have O gorgeous
time and the conscientious and COM
petent members would correspondingly
suffer. The real suffering. however,
would be in the White House, where
for the first time in % years we have
a sincere, earnest, capable President
whose one idea Is to serve all the
people and make this better country.
The President, eoncededly as popular
as he was, is doing the best he can to
convince those who supported him in
1852 that it is to their interests as we'll
as his. to have a supporting Congress
and that without one condition harm
full to everybody will exist. There should
be no need to point this out. It not
only has been demonstrated in the past
but it is logical and almost inevitable.
Nevertheless, it is not easy to convince
all the Eisenhower people today that
their votes for members Of the House
and Senate who will support General
Ike are almost as essential as they were
two years ago to elect him. Most Dem
ocrats concede that II the President
were running again this year he would
be elected without trouble. But. that
isn't the trouble. The trouble lies in the
basic difficulty in politics Of q strong
candidate transferring his strength to
weaker candidates.
-.... ...-..
Perhaps it can be done but political
history is full Of instances where it has
been tried and failed-and there are
very few cases in which it has sue
ceeded. This does not mean that Mr..
Eisenhower's appeal for support of Re-
publican candidates on November may
not be effective. And, it certainly does
not mean that should the Democrats
gain control of Congress, he would cease
his fight for the rest Of his program.
On the other hand, that fight so far as
he is concerned would be intensified.
What 1t does mean, however, Is that
once they gained control of Congress in
1854 Democratic politicians would be
concentrated upon gaining the presi-
dency in 1856. The ambition to regain
the White House would be dominant.
Ike needs help and is asking for It.
Basing their view on the alleged fact
that most Of the Eisenhower voters do
not realize the necessity Of coming out
to vote next month and that the normal
political tendency is for the party in
power to lose seats in the off-year elec-
tions, most Of the journalistic and poll
tical observers concur in the prediction
that the Democrats are sure to control
the House by considerable majority
20 or more-and the Senate by O
smaller but nonetheless decisive one.
1t is possible to argue in detail about
this and at great length. Possibly the
professionals are right, but they have
been wrong. The most recent instance
was in 1948-when 95 per cent indicated
the election Of Thomas e. Dewey as
President. Also. there is a new kind Of
President in the White House, still high
in popular esteem. and it is just pos
sible, once the people fully understand
the situation, he can transfer some Of
his strength to party candidates, with
out being himself on the ticket.