Moderate Thoughts

Few U.S. politicians labor so devotedly over their speeches as Adlai Stevenson and few get so much mileage out of them. Since 1953 Stevenson has published three volumes of speeches and articles. Latest of these is What I Think (240 pp.; Harper; $3), a collection of Stevenson pronouncements since the end of the 1952 presidential campaign.

Despite the implied promise of its title, What I Think offers few specific commitments. Among the few:

BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT: "The New Deal legislation of the thirties helped to provide a 'built-in' consumer demand that business could then work to satisfy . . . I hope this quarter-century will see a frank recognition that every new frontier in American progress has been, and will always be, opened up by the joint enterprise of business and government."

TAX CUTS: "Business is booming right now. If it slacks off we will want and need to reduce taxes in order to stimulate private spending. But we cannot be for tax reductions in bad times in order to stimu late spending, and also for tax reductions in good times just because there is the prospect of a balanced budget surplus."

THE FARM PROBLEM: "I will say again and again that restoring 90 percent price supports to meet the present emergency is not to say that they are a solution, but only that it is a better program than sliding supports that slide only one way."

PUBLIC HEALTH: "There is emerging impressive evidence . . . that the most promising approach to this problem of distribution of medical service lies in the development of voluntary, private, prepayment health insurance programs."

MASS EDUCATION : "I'm not coming out in favor of the maladjustment of individuals, but at the same time overemphasis on the 'well-rounded,' 'well-adjusted,' 'well-balanced' personality seems deliberately designed to breed mental neuters."

THE MIDDLE EAST: "One must, I think, accept the overall assumption that an Arab world with a friendly orientation to the West is better for Israel than an Arab world with a friendly orientation in the other direction. One cannot take issue with the striving . . . to improve relations . . . in the Arab world."

COEXISTENCE WITH THE U.S.S.R.: "Personally I am weary of the long semantic argument about coexistence. If we exclude the solution of atomic war, and if we exclude the solution of surrender, all we have left is some form of armed truce which we can call coexistence or anything else you like."

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