Something for the Boys

"This is the Bible for the Democratic Party," said a White House intimate.

He was talking about President Truman's annual message to Congress on the State of the Union: His summary was correct. Standing in the congealed political atmosphere of the reassembled 80th Congress, Harry Truman had carefully spelled out in his dry, flat voice the Democratic campaign platform for 1948.

The speech was frankly addressed over the heads of his audience to the nation's voters. It was as frankly designed to cut the ground from under his presidential rivals. There was something in it for everyone: for minorities (strengthened civil rights legislation), for farmers (continued price supports and crop insurance), for labor (a 75-c- minimum wage, up from 40-c-), for the foreign-born (admission of D.P.s).

"Hole In the Ice." For everyone else, there was a whole grab bag of social and economic promises: extended unemployment compensation, health insurance, reclamation, federal aid for education and housing. Except for universal military training and the European Recovery Program, there was little or nothing that Candidate Henry Wallace could not approve. By bearing down hard again on his ten-point anti-inflation program, the President was aiming right at the Republicans' most vulnerable point.

Actually, the message contained little that Harry Truman had not recommended in scattershot fashion before. But by failing to assign any order or priority to his sweeping proposals, the President was obviously, and shrewdly, gunning for every vote he could reach.

If there was any doubt about his political intent, it was exploded by one big switch in his political philosophy. After having twice vetoed Republican tax-cut bills, the President suddenly offered a tax-reduction plan of his own. He proposed a flat $40 tax cut for every taxpayer (and each dependent), to be balanced by in creased corporation rates (from 38% to approximately 50%). The President's plan would not change the total of existing revenues. But it would give some tax relief to low-income taxpayers (who vote), and take it out of the hides of corporations (who don't).

Artillery. Republican Congressmen listened to the President in frigid silence. In Harry Truman's 43 minutes on the Speaker's rostrum, G.O.P. applause spattered forth only twice: when he promised to enforce the Taft-Hartley Act, when he urged "strong armed forces." After it was over, one newsman noted: "They had to cut a hole in the ice to get him out of the Chamber."

When Republicans had thawed out, they let Harry Truman have it. The most telling attacks centered on the President's tax proposals. House Ways & Means Chairman Harold Knutson, who already has his own $5.6 billion tax-reduction bill on the fire, cried: "My God, I didn't know inflation had gone that far. Tom Pendergast paid only $2 a vote and now Truman proposes to pay $40." Cracked House Majority Leader Charles Halleck: "What, no mule?"*

Then Senator Bob Taft took to the radio and unlimbered the Republican artillery. With a cold eye on the nation's pocketbook, he riffled through the President's list of proposed legislation. Said Bob Taft: "The Federal Government comes forward again as Santa Claus himself." The whole list of requests, Taft estimated, would run to around $10 billion a year in new expenses. Asked Taft: "Where is this money coming from?"

Swing to the Left. This week the President tried to answer that question with his budget message for fiscal 1949. With an expected federal income of $44.5 billion, the President recommended expenditures of $39.7 billion (up $1.9 billion over last year). Major items: $11 billion for defense, $7 billion for international commitments, $6 billion for veterans, $5 billion for interest on the debt. Also included in the proposed expenditures was a $1.3 billion chunk to start the wheels rolling on the new domestic legislation the President had proposed. The expected $4.8 billion surplus, said Harry Truman firmly, should be used to reduce the towering ($256 billion) public debt.

Washington insiders heard that at least half of Harry Truman's Cabinet disagreed with his speech. Republicans accused him of demagoguery and of trying to "out-deal the New Deal." The remnant of New Dealers in the palace guard called the speech "a great document." What was quite apparent was that the President had drastically changed his campaign strategy. Harry Truman, the man who privately prefers the middle of the road, had publicly swung to the left again in an effort to help Candidate Truman.

*A reference to the post-Civil War promise of Northern carpetbaggers to freed slaves: "Forty acres and a mule."

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