Let's Hit the Ball

Into Washington last week, after a brief golfing vacation at California's Cypress Point, flew the Republican candidate for President of the U.S., clearly willing and ready to start swinging on two months of hard campaigning. At the airport, spotting a sign that said WE CONSERVATIVE DEMOCRATS LIKE IKE, Dwight Eisenhower got off an apt remark for a Republican candidate in 1956. "You're not conservative," he said. "You're just discerning Democrats."

"The Old Order Chcmgeth." At the presidential press conference the 186 correspondents were also thinking campaign thoughts. Had Ike changed his mind about barnstorming? "Well, no, I have not ... Now that doesn't mean that if I so chose, that I couldn't go to an area other than in Washington to make a significant political speech." Recalling 1952, when he logged 52,000 air miles and 36,000 more by train, Ike declared: "That is what I call barnstorming, and that I am not going to do."

Wasn't his new Republicanism a reversal of old Republicanism that opposed New Deal legislation? "The world moves, and ideas that were good once are not always good. I believe it was Tennyson that said: 'The old order changeth and giveth place to new lest one good custom should corrupt the earth.'* We have gotten into the type of civilization now where the Government must interest itself more in the old age security, in unemployment insurance, and all that sort of thing . . . I believe in it, I stand for it, and I don't care who brought it up."

Was he satisfied with the G.O.P. plank on segregation? "Here is a problem . . . charged with emotionalism, where everybody has got to work hard with all of the strength he has, and I think that the more that work is done privately and behind the scenes rather than charging up on the platform and hammering desks, the better and more effective it will be."

The Terror of Enemies. Would 1956 bring a high-toned campaign that might as in 1948 lead to G.O.P. catastrophe? "This Administration has a record. Now, I am going to stand on that record, but I am going to make certain, that as accurately as I know how to do it, that record is made forcefully clear to the American people, and I am going to show what we are trying to do in the future and to let the record and the way we have attempted to carry out every promise we have ever made be the earnest of what we intend to do and how we intend to do it in the future."

At week's end the President participated in ceremonies on the White House south lawn marking a three-cent stamp issue honoring labor. For the union men present, headed by A.F.L.-C.I.O. President George Meany, he had a bow and a reminder: "It is sometimes well to pause for a moment and to think how far--under this system of freedom, with intelligent work-ingmen--how far we have come, with 66 million people employed at the highest real wages that have been experienced in the world's history. In so doing they have produced the strongest economy, an economy whose productivity is the envy of the world--and I am proud to say the terror of any who would be our enemies."

Last week the President also: P: Heard John Foster Dulles report on the 22-power Suez conference, expressed hope that this week's meeting between Egypt and a five-nation committee from London would lead to peaceful settlement of the tension.

P: Announced that there had been a second Russian atomic explosion within the week, and commented: "It is notable that al though Soviet diplomats throughout the world talk about the possibility or plans for abolishing the atom weapon from the arsenals of the world, that they go right ahead . . . testing these weapons." P: Said that the Administration will make available intelligence reports on foreign affairs to Opposition Candidate Stevenson during the campaign. P: Paid his second visit this year to Washington's Griffith Stadium, where he told Yankee Slugger Mickey Mantle: "I'd like to see you hit one tonight, Mickey, but of course I want the Nats to win." Mantle slammed his 47th homer, but Nats Outfielder Jim Lemon outshone him by becoming the first Senator to hit three homers in one game at Griffith Stadium. Ike, who rose and lustily cheered all three, hugged Lemon, told him: "You were terrific." Final score, despite Lemon's power hitting and fine fielding: New York 6, Washington 4.

P: Received the credentials of Dr. Ibrahim Anis, first Sudanese Ambassador to Washington. Said Dr. Anis, a general practitioner as well as a diplomat: "He looks very fit indeed."

* Exact quote from Morte d'Arthur: "The old order changeth, yielding place to new, and God fulfills himself in many ways lest one good custom should corrupt the world."

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