With Rancor Toward None

For the annual speech on the State of the Union, the floor of the newly redecorated House chamber was crowded to capacity with Senators and Representatives. Members of the diplomatic corps trooped in, followed by the Cabinet. The U.S. public watched through the peering lenses of television cameras, listened through a row of radio mikes.

Just after 1 o'clock, the President strode down the middle aisle and mounted the rostrum. He flipped open his big ring notebook and began to read.

Long Look. He spoke as chief of the world's mightiest nation, and he spoke to the nation and to the world. "The state of the Union," he said, "continues to be good." Abroad, "the greatest danger has receded." At home, "we have met and reversed the first significant downturn in economic activity since the war." In his flat, Missouri twang, and in simple, homely terms, the President restated U.S. aspirations for itself and for its friends.

Standing at the mid-century mark, he took a long look ahead to the year 2000 and presented a heady vision of sustained U.S. prosperity. Said the President: "If our productive power continues to increase at the same rate as it has increased for the past 50 years, our total national production 50 years from now will be nearly four times as much as it is today. Allowing for the expected growth in population, this would mean that the real income of the average family in the year 2000 A.D. would be about three times what it is today." That would mean an average family income of $12,450 a year, a national output of slightly more than a trillion dollars ($1,000 billion).

Like a good Fourth of July speech, the President's message spoke of the founding fathers; unlike many modern state documents, it spoke simply and unaffectedly of religious faith. More than any State of the Union address in recent years, the speech matched the occasion in tone and content. In 1948 Truman had defiantly demanded an anti-inflation program from a hostile Congress. In 1949 he was still crowing over the defeat of the "privileged few." This year Truman spoke confidently of pride in U.S. achievement, and with rancor toward none.

Partisan Packages. Midway in the speech, some of the brass nickels of partisanship did get mixed in with the golden vision. The prosperous millennium can be achieved, said Truman, "only if we follow the right policies"--i.e., the Fair Deal, including such disputed measures as repeal of Taft-Hartley, the Brannan plan, aid to education, and health insurance.

Here the listening Congress realized that it was back on familiar ground. And when Truman added "at present, largely because of the ill-considered tax reduction of the 80th Congress, the Government is not receiving enough revenue to meet its necessary expenditures," a booming guffaw came from deep in the Republican ranks on Truman's left.

Harry Truman stopped and laughed himself. Democrats cheered and clapped. In the uproar, Russian Ambassador Alexander Panyushkin glanced around in bewilderment, then stared perplexedly at the President, who was waggling a finger at the Republicans. Good-natured as it was, it was still a hooting of the President.

When Harry Truman finished, Congressmen gave him a long standing ovation. But Republicans were plaintively aware that Truman had staked a claim to the concept that Republicans had long considered their special political property: the American dream of expansion and prosperity. Columnist Walter Lippmann diagnosed their bafflement: "Truman's technique is never to deal with problems, but only with the excellent results that would be achieved if the problems had been solved . . . leaving the critic no target to shoot at, no antagonist to get hold of, only the thin air to thrash around in. No wonder so many Republican politicians exhibit the symptoms of being on the verge of a nervous breakdown."

But many a U.S. citizen would remember Harry Truman's vision of 2000 A.D. longer than the angry arguments about how to attain it. And it was possible that the vision, in the long run, was most worth remembering.

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