Mixed Drinks

The only living ex-U.S. President stirred up a wind last week.

The world, said Herbert Hoover to 1,800 U.S. editors and publishers in Manhattan, had drunk too deeply of the "mixed drinks" of three ghosts: "the shade of Karl Marx with his socialism, the shade of Mussolini with his dictated economy, the spook of Lord John Maynard Keynes with his . . . perpetual endowment for bureaucrats. And we have contributed an American ideology of giveaway programs. It might be called the New Generosity. It is not yet a ghost."

He did not reject the idea of government aid for the young and the old. "Security from the cradle to about 18 or 20 years of age, and from about 65 to the grave," he said, "has always been sacred to the American people." But the middle group (20 to 65) "can find its own security only in a free but tough system of risk and self-reliance. It can be destroyed by taxes and the four mixed drinks . . ."

The Die Is Cast. Due in part to the "drinks compounded by the three ghosts," he said, European countries had splintered into a multitude of parties which had thrown them into "confusion and despair." He warned the U.S. against making the same mistake. To him the issue in the U.S. was clear: the two U.S. major parties should become opposites, the Republicans should become a frankly conservative party.

"I do not charge the real Communists to the American left wing," he explained. "They are agents of a foreign government." Telling the Republicans, "There is no room for you on the left," he told the Democrats, "Your die is cast, you are the party of the left." To some members of both parties he declared: "You are not in your proper spiritual homes . . . if there cannot be a reasonably cohesive body of opinion in each major party, you are on a blind road where there is no authority in the ballot box."

Against the Red Tide. Then he got around to the U.S. v. Russia. He had been against recognition of Russia when he was President, and he was still against it. This is not one world, said Hoover, but two worlds, dividing into a pitiless, atheistic community on the one hand, on the other, a community which still believes "in God, free nations, human dignity and peace."

Said Hoover: "What this world needs today is a definite, concrete mobilization of the nations who believe in God against this tide of Red agnosticism . . . The United States needs to know who are with us." He made this proposal: "The United Nations should be reorganized without the Communist nations in it. If that is impractical, then a definite New United Front should be organized of those peoples who disavow Communism . . . All this may give pain to some people. But by their cries ye shall know them."

"Somewhat Marching." An audience that had stood on its feet to cheer and whistle for him when he started cheered him warmly again when he sat down. But the next day the cries of pain arose.

U.N. Secretary General Trygve Lie, admitting that the U.N. was not working too well, declared that if Hoover's proposal were carried out, the U.N. would "no longer be what it was meant to be." Sumner Welles and other officers of the

American Association for the United Nations thought the suggestion was "shocking in its implication," and "might end the last opportunity for an agreement that would prevent a third World War." Eleanor Roosevelt, even-voiced mistress of the deliberate non sequitur, said: "Mr. Hoover's statement seemed a little odd, considering the fact that he is a Quaker. This seemed an action somewhat marching toward war . . ."

Harry Truman, who listened to Hoover's speech on the radio, had a different first reaction: he telephoned Hoover to congratulate him. Next day the White House explained that the President only meant to applaud the ex-President's call for "mobilization of the moral forces of the world."

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