New Offensive

Dispensing with the jargon of professional economists, Dwight Eisenhower last week issued an economic report to the nation that began bluntly with one of the biggest pieces of news since V-E day. "The paramount fact about the economy at midyear," he wrote, "is that the recent decline in economic activity has come to a halt." Two big specifics:

P: While unemployment is higher than during the Korean war, it is on a par with comparable months of 1949 and 1950 and "has shown some tendency to diminish of late."

P: Wage levels have continued to rise, while prices have virtually held steady, bringing an increase in real wages and a situation where "the value of the people's money has remained entirely intact."

The President's conclusion: "The overall performance of the American economy thus far during this Administration has been better than during any earlier time." 'This, he added, was especially notable considering the difficulties of "shifting from a war to a nearly peacetime economy."

Ike's report meant that the Administration had met a recession and licked it not by the kind of pump-priming and governmental interference dear to the hearts of New Dealers, but by trimming Government expenditures and by giving private industry the kind of climate and incentive that allow enterprise to flourish.

To politicians, the report had another sharp point. Its flat comparisons with the Truman Administration were a resounding reply to the old Democratic slogan of 1952: "Don't let them take it away." Clearly, the Administration believed that it had found a positive, workable G.O.P. economic philosophy, and fully intended to take the offensive with it in the fall elections.

In specifics, the offensive ranged through the power-partnership programs of Interior Secretary Douglas McKay, through the new tax program (TIME, Aug. 16). the controversial Atomic Energy bill and Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson's program for flexible price supports on farm products.

The Democratic reaction to the new offensive was keen and swift. Democrats found their handiest targets in Ezra Benson, whose plain, logical arguments won surprising victories for his program both in the House and in the Senate (see THE CONGRESS). The Democratic high command built up steam for a big meeting at Sioux Falls. S.Dak., late this month, where Adlai Stevenson and other top Democrats will commiserate with the farmers. The Democratic Digest, which sets the party line, slapped Benson's picture on the cover of its September issue, along with the dubious headline: FARMERS GET THE BUSINESS.

The Republicans, showing a new kind of surefootedness, backed down not one step. Out from National Committee headquarters went the word that one of the G.O.P.'s chief campaigners in the fall will be Ezra Benson, who already has been booked for speeches in 16 states west of the Alleghenies in September and October.

Eisenhower had made a 180DEG turn in the U.S. Government's attitude toward the national economy, and he and the Democrats were both prepared to fight out the fall elections on that issue.

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