Now Is the Time

Has the Republican Party a real and immediate future?

Some months ago the question might have been answered with a prompt "no" by many a U.S. voter, Republicans included. One reason: President Truman's popularity stood at an unprecedented high.

But by last week the U.S. political climate had undergone a change. Republicans in Washington were looking up. One G.O.P. Senator, assaying the future of his party, went so far as to crow: "It isn't just that the Truman honeymoon is over; he's already in the divorce courts. The way he chastised those House committees [in his wage-rise speech] is perhaps the worst blunder of its kind since Wilson called those fellows a 'little group of willful men.' If Truman keeps that up he'll split the Democratic Party wider than it has ever been." The Senator, with traditional party optimism, thought that the G.O.P. could win the 1946 elections.

On the floor of Congress, Minnesota's egg-bald Representative Harold Knutson said: "This is definitely a labor government, and there can no longer be any doubt that the President proposes to give labor all that they ask for, and perhaps more. ... If [he] wants to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor and purchase his re-election at the expense of the public, the onus for doing so must rest upon him. . . ."

The Nerve Center. This feeling of renewed hope in G.O.P. Washington was based on a hunch that the Truman popularity would continue to drop. The hunch might be wrong. But the hope it kindled had several results. It perked up sagging G.O.P. morale. It whipped Republican Congressmen into a determination to draft a program of their own--and soon--probably before the G.O.P. National Committee meets in Chicago on Dec. 7. It also started the first hot-stove-league talk of 1948 presidential candidates.

So far there were no new names. There was still no substantial talk of top-ranking war heroes like MacArthur, Eisenhower or Marshall. The men now discussed were mostly those who had competed for the nomination in 1944. But their positions had shifted; they were seen in new lights. It made for good political gossip.

Tom Dewey had remained almost clam-silent since his defeat last year, plugging away as governor of New York. This week his hand-picked candidate for mayor of New York (Judge Jonah J. Goldstein) was slated for a decisive beating at the polls, which was not likely to enhance Tom Dewey's political prestige. Governor Dewey also had his own personal hurdle ahead: he must win re-election as governor next year. (Current gossip had Jim Farley as his Democratic opponent.) But if Tom Dewey won in 1946, he could be a strong contender for the 1948 presidential nomination. For one thing, he would have New York's huge block of delegates in his pocket.

Man from Ohio. John Bricker was by no means dead and buried. Ready to run for the Senate next year, he was an almost certain winner unless Ohio's Governor Lausche, the Democrats' wonderboy, ran against him. One high-placed Republican who keeps his finger wetted to the political winds thought that if a G.O.P. presidential convention were held today, John Bricker would win, hands down.

Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg had also grown taller. A year ago, Michigan's Governor Harry F. Kelly was set to run against him in next year's GOPrimary. But now that Big Van had become a foreign policy statesman of decision and note, the opposition to him at home had collapsed.

Biggest question mark among top contenders was Captain Harold E. Stassen, U.S.N.R., Minnesota's ex-Governor soon to return to civilian life. Many a young GOPster, and many of all ages from the West and Middle West, looked to him as their leader, but he had been out of the political arena too long to be properly gauged. He has told friends that he will seek no office between now and 1948, but will discuss national and international issues freely. He is said to feel strongly that plain, unvarnished talk will pay off in the next few years.

An End to Coasting. Aside from the candidates, there were other questions. Ex-National Chairman John D. M. Hamilton, apparently with his thoughts on the take-it-easy school of Republicans headed by Massachusetts' Joe Martin, wrote recently in Liberty: "It's time ... to abandon a strategy based upon such thoughts as 'We can coast along and win.' 'The Democrats are hopelessly split,' or 'Give them enough rope and they will hang themselves.' We have been coasting--but generally downhill. The Democrats are always split--until election day."

That was why National Chairman Herbert Brownell insisted that G.O.P. Congressmen write a party program. It will almost certainly be along general lines: even the congressional elections are too far away for politicians to be specific. The real dilemma of G.O.P. program-writing is this: as the opposition party, how "conservative" and how "liberal" should it be?

To date Republican tacticians have largely confined themselves to running against Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. This stemmed partly from long habit, partly from respect for new President Truman. But the bars are down now, and Harry Truman can expect the same unchecked criticism which the G.O.P. showered on the New Deal.

Immediate objective of the G.O.P. high command is to capture control of the House and perhaps even of the Senate next year. Realistic GOPsters admit that in this battle the state of the U.S. economy will play an important part--i.e., if the U.S. is in a slump or a state of confusion either because of or in spite of the Truman Administration, the job of winning will be that much easier. Their ultimate objective is, of course, 1948. And there the G.O.P.'s great hope is that for the first time in 16 years it may not have to fight either a massive sociological trend or a Democratic leadership that has been the most persuasive in U.S. political history.

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