It Is Deep & Real But ike Can Still Repair It

In Washington, the biennial election of the League of Republican Women came close to hair-pulling when the Old Guard girls snatched away and tore up the sample ballots of the Eisenhower Republican faction . . . To Republican Dwight Eisenhower from Michigan Republican William Doerfner, a General Motors steering-gear executive, came an angry letter: "I will no longer support you, nor will I support the Republican Party, as long as it condones your proven unsound monetary politics and your New Deal-inspired international WPA . . ." In New Hampshire, the reactionary Republican Manchester Union Leader editorially called the President of the U.S. a "stinking hypocrite" (see PRESS) . . . In Colorado, G.O.P. State Chairman Edgar Elliff, asked by a newsman to assess the Eisenhower popularity, replied scornfully: "Which Eisenhower do you mean--Dwight or Edgar?" . . . And with the smiling approval of other Republican Senate bigwigs, Minority Leader William Knowland baited the Republican President by regularly upping the amount by which he thought the Eisenhower budget should be cut (Bill's latest figure: $3 billion).

The Republican Old Guard is back on its feet. Not since 1952 has it been so in evidence. Its battle flag is the curl-your-hair Eisenhower budget, first unfurled by Treasury Secretary George Humphrey. But the size of the budget actually is less at issue than the things it stands for. Says a top Eisenhower Republican: "The fight was bound to come, and if it had not been the budget, something else would have started it." The reason the fight was bound to come lies deep in the chemistry of the Republican Party.

The Old Guard stands for the kind of entrenched-organization Republicanism that gathers strength and influence from the congressional seniority system. It is backed by the influence of articulate, conservative businessmen and business organizations such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (TIME, May 13). It mistrusts most of the New Deal social legislation and the Eisenhower extensions and additions to it; e.g., it opposes the whole theory of federally supported school construction and health reinsurance as part of the pattern of "creeping socialism." Its old inner rumblings of isolationism make foreign aid especially suspect. The Old Guard is the party of Taft (William H. in 1912 and Robert A. in 1952). It is at its strongest in the organization-minded U.S. Senate, where Old Guardsmen pretty much run things and come-lately Eisenhower Republicans spend their time on the District of Columbia Committee (on the current District Committee: New Jersey's Clifford Case, New York's Jacob Javits, Kentucky's Thruston Morton).

Most Old Guard Senators are genuinely fond of Dwight Eisenhower as a fine fellow. They were even willing to go along with the thing called Modern Republicanism when Ike first used the term. But they were awaiting an opening--and they got it when George Humphrey, without any hint of reproof from the President, called into question not only the budget and its programs but, in effect, Ike's leadership.

With that opening, the Old Guard set out to propagate its own drastic party line: Dwight Eisenhower, in his five years in office, has badly damaged the Republican Party and left it weaker than he found it in 1952.

The Conservative Future

The Old Guard has worked out--mostly under the guidance of Arizona's Senator Barry Goldwater--a case against Ike based on a highly selective list of statistics. Since 1952, says that case:

sb Republican membership in the House has dropped from 221 to 201, in the Senate from 49 to 47.

sb Only Ohio and West Virginia have replaced Democratic governors with Republicans. Democrats have ousted Republicans from the statehouses of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington.

sb Democrats have taken over nearly a dozen state legislatures. Nationwide in January 1957, there were 141 fewer Republican state senators than in January 1953, and 308 fewer G.O.P. state representatives.

sb In 1956, Eisenhower's ideological coattails were of decisive help in only three U.S. congressional races (Hartford, Conn., Jersey City and Wheeling, W. Va.) and one U.S. Senate contest (Prescott Bush's Connecticut victory).

The Old Guard conclusion: Ike won despite his Modern Republicanism, not because of it, and the future of the Republican Party lies in the Old Guard brand of conservatism. "I'm convinced that the American mind is a conservative mind," says Arizona's Goldwater, who has suddenly arrived (after his major Senate speech denouncing Eisenhower Republicanism--TIME, April 22) as the Old Guard's most articulate spokesman. "The workingman is the new capitalist. Conservatives are going to win the next election, and the group which wins the 1958 elections will control the 1960 elections."

To explain away the fact that most of them were elected on a support-Eisenhower platform, the Old Guardsmen make a final point in their case: somehow or other, since 1956 Ike has "changed" because "they" (i.e., the "men around Eisenhower") persuaded the President to forsake his solid Republicanism in favor of a leftward course featuring such "giveaways" as school construction, health reinsurance and expanded foreign aid.

The Facts of Life

The Eisenhower Republicans state their case against the Old Guard in shorter and simpler terms. They believe that the social legislation of the New Deal is a fact of U.S. history, that social security, for instance, is as basic to the national fabric as free enterprise. They see gradually expanding Federal Government as the price of rapidly expanding national growth, and foreign aid as the price of international leadership. In addition to the top administrative officials of Government and a sturdy bloc in Congress, Eisenhower Republicanism includes the major elected Republicans who are closest to the voters: the 19 G.O.P. governors, not one of whom has openly joined the.Old Guard attack. It also includes the delegates who have whipped the Old Guard at every national party convention since 1936. And in a certain sense, it includes the 35,575,420 Americans (57.3% of those voting) who cast their ballots for Ike in 1956.

To the Old Guard charge that from the 1956 elections came a mandate for conservatism, the Eisenhower Republicans ask: Who won the elections? Their answer: Dwight Eisenhower won (actually in 329 out of 435 congressional districts) --and so, in the main, did the congressional Democrats who had worked long, hard and effectively to sell the idea that they, not the Republicans, would best support the Eisenhower program. Ask the Ikemen: How can the Old Guard possibly consider the election of a Democratic Congress a mandate for Republican conservatism?

As for the charge that Eisenhower has somehow changed (or been changed by a mysterious "they") since 1956, "they" point out that virtually all the major proposals in Ike's 1957 program were recommended by "him" in previous years, and formally affirmed in the platform of 1956.

The Reasons Why

If the right-wing case is fallible, why has it gained so much headway? The answer, made even by Ike supporters: President Eisenhower has let it.

In retrospect, one of the most important of all Dwight Eisenhower's 1952 campaign declarations was his promise to restore the prestige of the presidency, to be the President of all the people. In keeping that promise, he has generally stood above the give-and-take that goes with another presidential responsibility: the responsibility of being a party leader. Ike seems to find something distasteful in precinct-level party politics. On the one hand, he has bestowed few favors on Eisenhower loyalists, and he has avoided giving them active leadership in their congressional fight against the Old Guard. On the other hand, he has refused even to show presidential displeasure with those who make political gains by attacking his budgetary program, e.g., the Barry Goldwaters, Bill Knowlands (or even the George Humphreys). Ike's detachment is one of the reasons for his popularity; it is also one of the reasons for his party's troubles.

Despite all the ruckus kicked up by the Old Guard, Eisenhower Republicanism is dominant within the Republican Party. But the President, say downcast Ikemen, must use it functionally. Some highly realistic Eisenhower Republicans are determined that Ike must pay some attention to political details that bear so heavily on party morale; he must give his followers the same political support he expects them to give him; he must use his prestige to impose sanctions on the hatchet-throwers. An example of what can be done is found in the series of regional meetings being held by G.O.P. National Chairman Meade Alcorn. The first two, in Omaha and Providence, were near disasters, with Eisenhower sending perfunctory hope-you-are-well notes and the reactionaries making all the noise and most of the news. But to the next two, in Salt Lake City and Louisville, President Eisenhower sent fighting messages on behalf of his sort of Republicanism. Result: Alcorn, who had been down in the dumps, came away vastly encouraged by the response and much more hopeful for the Republican future.

The real danger in the 1957 Republican split is that the Old Guard's noisy attack makes it seem wider than it is. "Some Republicans," says conservative Columnist David Lawrence, "mistakenly assume the wave of criticism is a tide, and instead of battling it, they swim with its political currents." By taking the necessary political measures, Dwight Eisenhower can place the Old Guard revolt in its proper light. Only then can the Republican Party present to the voters its strongest argument for election: the Eisenhower record as a national leader.

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