Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1956-11-04
The Voters Take. Over

For all practical purposes the presi-
Dental campaign of 1956-one of the
strangest, certainly, in many long year
lis over. The candidates haYe stumped
this land from end to end No oratorical
stone has been left unturned if, per-
chance, vote might be lurking beneath
1t. The issues" such as they are, have
been examined, dissected and, indeed,
mutilated in speech after speech, foray
upon foray. And now the hour is at hand
when the candidates retire and the voters
take command. In very short while we
will know what their verdict is.
If this campaign has been note
worthy for one distinguishing feature,
that has been the search by Adlai Ste
venson and his running mate, Senator
Kefauver, for an effective, vote-getting
issue. And in the beginning it looked as
though some significant issues we're
emerging. At least, there were some rela-
lively clear-cut differences between the
stands taken by the Democratic and Re-
publican candidates on such questions as
farm price supports, labor legislation and
fiscal policy. These issues still may be
of great Importance in the long view But
little has been heard of them in recent
weeks. The Democratic campaign did not
seem to be getting off the ground, and
Mr.. Stevenson decided to try new tack.
In series of speeches, he held out
hope for an end to the draft in the fore
Seeable future and urged in strong terms
that the United States take the lead in
disseminating H-bomb tests. At first, this
seemed to have a considerable emotional
impact and a number of respected SCI
ertists rallied to Mr. StevenSon's sup
port The administration hit back hard,
especially on the H-bomb test question,
but the really devastating blow came
when Premier Bulganin made public a
letter to the President in which he said,
In effect, that the Soviet government
agreed with Mr.. Stevenson. This, of it
self, was a kiss of death, but worse was
to come
Just as Mr.. Stevenson was trying to
fight his way out of the decidedly unwel-
come Bulganin embrace, the roof fell in
in the Middle East. With only a week
left in the campaign, Israel attacked
Egypt. Britain and France, our foremost
allies, broke away from United States
policy, vetoed action in the Security
Council and launched their own assault.
Surely, there has never before been
anything quite like this in the closing
days of presidential campaign.
In a matter of "a hours the props
were pulled from under the Republican
party of peace" theme. The admins
trations foreign policy, at least in its
application to the Western Alliance and
the prevention of war in the Middle East,
was ripped up one side and down the
other But this shocking turn of events
posed more battling problem for Mr..
Stevenson than for Mr. Eisenhower. With
a shooting war under way and possible
bigger war in the off1ng, the President
could draw upon that reservoir of trust
which the people unquestionably have in
him. His military experience, his pres
tige abroad, Immediately became greater
assets than before He could-and did
promise no American involvement in the
war under present circumstances. He
could-and did-pledge to use all of the
resources at his command to localize the
fighting and end the war.
But where was Mr. Stevenson to
turn? He could hardly hope to hold any
audience with dissertations on farm fis-
cal or labor policies. The draft and H
bomb test proposals had suddenly be-
come highly inappropriate. Obviously,
he had to plunge into the war issue, and
with little time for careful thought or
preparation. OF course, he could attack
the administrations failures" and he
has done So But mere criticism of
popular President who is promising to
keep the country out of a war that is
already under way is a very risky bust
ness. politically speaking. II Mr.. Ste
venson was to prevent swing to the
President in the hour Of danger, 1t was
necessary that he offer some persuasive
and constructive alternative proposals of
his own. 1t was imperative that he tell
the people what he would do, If elected,
which Mr.. Eisenhower was not already
promising TO do 1t was not enough
merely to indorse the Eisenhower policy
OF no involvement and an end to the war
1t was essential that Mr. Stevenson spell
out hon he would do this. And If he has
been something less than effective In this
respect, which was the case as this was
written, he can hardly be blamed For the
simple truth is. we suspect, that neither
Mr. Stevenson nor the President really
knows at this time precisely what should
be done or how to DO 1t.
II Is In this climate, then, that the
campaign endS-a climate OF uncertainty,