A Good Beginning

Holding up their partisan yardstick, the Democrats measured off the record of the 83rd Congress last week and ruled it a Republican fiasco. In a radio report to the nation last week, Dwight Eisenhower measured the 83rd's first session against the broad aims and purposes of his Administration and ruled it a good beginning --"I repeat--only a little more than a beginning."

Behind all the diverse acts of Congress and the Executive, said Eisenhower, lay his "clearly defined purpose," to strengthen freedom and faith in freedom both at home and abroad. In pursuit of this objective, the Administration had scored some notable successes abroad. Said Ike: "Berlin and Korea have been two of the scenes chosen by the Communist world for flagrant acts of aggression since World War II. Today precisely these same two places present dramatic evidence of the will of free men to stay free and to make freedom work."

Mutual Confidence. To strengthen the cause of freedom in the U.S., the Administration had labored to give the nation a government "honored at home and respected abroad." The federal payroll had been cut, and Government employees who were clearly bad security risks had been "swiftly expelled." Less dramatic but even closer to Ike's heart was the task of establishing mutual confidence between Congress and the Executive. This confidence, noted the President, "is not easy to perfect at a time when one great party, after 20 years of political life in the opposition, ousts another from office." Nonetheless, "both the executive and legislative branches have worked with patience and good will to insure that this government is not divided against itself."

The Administration's economic program had been designed to promote individual liberty and initiative. Said Ike: "To free our economy from bonds that denatured healthy and necessary competition, we abolished a labyrinth of needless controls." And while the $258 billion increase in the federal debt in the last 23 years forbade immediate lowering of taxes, "the Executive and the Congress reduced the previous Administration's budget request for the current year by almost $13 billion . . . some $80 for every American."

Future Hazard. Despite his evident pride of accomplishment, Ike saw no grounds for complacency. "I know of no official of this Administration," he said, "so foolish as to believe that we, who in January came to Washington, have seen and conquered all the problems of our nation. The future, both immediate and distant, remains full of trial and hazard. The end of our staggering economic burden is not yet in sight. The end of the peril to peace is not clearly in view."

Ike's measurements doubtless stretched the six months' accomplishments about as far as they would go. But they indicated that Dwight Eisenhower has learned how to maintain his broad objectives amid the pressures of everyday specifics, and is beginning to feel more at home in the business of government.

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