Who's for What

When a newsman last week asked a candidate's pressagent what his man would talk about in his next speech, the pressagent replied: "I guess it will be the speech again." All four of the Democratic Party's leading avowed candidates are stuck in similar ruts. Reason: the freeze-up created by the party leaders' indecision on whom to back.

The four are badly divided on only one issue: compulsory FEPC. Harriman is strongly for it, Russell strongly opposed; Kefauver and Kerr are weaseling. On foreign policy, none of them differs appreciably with the Truman-Acheson line. All are increasing the vitriol content in their remarks about Eisenhower.

But there are vast differences in emphasis as they tour the hustings. Harriman, the 100% Fair Deal man, trades in quick, slashing, sometimes outrageous pronouncements. At Golden, Colo, last week, he said:'"We can show Taft's policies are what Stalin would have us do; Taft is Stalin's candidate." At Cheyenne, Wyo.: "The Republicans haven't had a new idea since Harding's time." At Boise, Idaho: The forces opposed to price and wage controls are "ignorant special-interest groups . . . laying the basis for the crack-up the Kremlin has been looking for."

Southerner Dick Russell's main objective is to persuade voters that he is not a sectional candidate, and to call attention to his position as chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee. At Denver last week, he attacked Taft and Eisenhower for "unrealistic" tax-and budget-cut promises. At the same time, Russell assailed the Truman Administration for "inexcusable waste" in rearmament, and for its stretch-out of aircraft production. He said it was "little short of a national disgrace to be outproduced in jet planes by Soviet Russia." Russell was also busily defending his opposition to FEPC, which he calls an "adventure ... in socialism."

Last week in Manhattan, Estes Kefauver was still attacking "the bosses" who oppose him. He was also busily dispensing Kefauver handshakes and Kefauver platitudes. Sample: "What we need is more democracy, not less democracy."

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