What's in a Name?

Should newspapers stop calling the President "Ike"? Last week the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser solemnly drew itself up to full stature and announced that "Ike" had been banished from the paper as an undignified nickname for the President of the U.S. The New York Daily Mirror snapped back: "Ike's Still Ike to Us." Up on the bulletin board of the New York Herald Tribune's Washington bureau went a notice: use "President Eisenhower" in the lead of a story, "General" thereafter. The Washington Post, after paying its respect by calling him "President Eisenhower," uses "Mr. Eisenhower" for the rest of the story. "Ike and Mamie" are still good enough for the tabloid New York Daily News. But the staid Washington Star agreed with the Advertiser that "Ike and Mamie" are undignified now that the Eisenhowers are in the White House; the wire services have settled for "President Eisenhower," "Mr. Eisenhower," or just plain "Eisenhower." President Eisenhower himself doesn't care. His view: the formal use of titles neither adds nor subtracts from the dignity of the office.

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