State of the Union

The applause that greeted President Eisenhower as he strode down the aisle of the House to deliver his seventh annual State of the Union message last week was warm and enthusiastic--as if designed to show that the glittering assemblage of Congressmen, Cabinet members, Supreme Court justices, foreign diplomats and distinguished visitors, almost to a man, liked Ike. Just as unmistakable was the fact that never before in his presidency had Dwight Eisenhower confronted a Congress--almost two-thirds Democratic--so openly skeptical of his programs and philosophy, so thoroughly pervaded on the eve of the traditional message by the spirit of show-me.

President Eisenhower mounted the rostrum, took his place before the blue-topped lectern in a blaze of a dozen klieg lights. He looked well--erect, dignified, relaxed, smiling broadly as he acknowledged the applause, "Thank you! Thank you!" He sounded well--his voice was firm, alert, vital--as he prefaced his speech by saying Happy Birthday to the presiding officers. Vice President Richard Nixon, 46 that day; Speaker Sam Rayburn, 77 that week. Then President Eisenhower set about "showing" the 86th Congress by refusing--even with the Communist planet orbiting the sun and the U.S.S.R.'s Anastas Mikoyan orbiting through the U.S.--to change the measured pace of his own concept of living with cold war. The keynote of the State of the Union, 1959: "The material foundation of our national safety is a strong and expanding economy. The basic question facing us today is more than survival. It is the preservation of a way of life."

"Tremendous" Sums. Keeping the peace today, said the President, calls for resolution, wisdom, steadiness and unremitting effort. The U.S. can put no confidence in treaties with the Communists except where such treaties are ''self-enforcing." The U.S. has therefore mustered air, sea. land forces that are a powerful deterrent to general or limited war. has linked up with nearly 50 nations in collective security agreements. The problem: U.S. spending on national defense, atomic energy, foreign military aid will, by the President's budget (to be presented to Congress next week), total $47 billion in fiscal 1960, or more than 60% of the federal budget. The U.S. is already investing $7 billion a year in missiles, developing fighter planes that cost 50 times as much as World War II models, buying bombers that cost more than their weight in gold.*

''These sums are tremendous." said the President, "even when compared with the marvelous resiliency and capacity of our economy." And beyond that, with an annual population growth of three million, the U.S. will also have to meet higher costs in federal aid to health, education, water resources development, highway construction, urban renewal programs. He would, he promised, soon convene a committee of educators, businessmen, labor leaders and professional men to make a new study of new "national objectives"--which presumably could be pursued by private as well as Government effort. The common denominator of cold-war defense and domestic growth: fiscal integrity. ''Thrift is one of the characteristics that has made this nation great. Why should we ignore it now?"

"A Balanced Budget." That proposition defined, the President bore down on his central point for 1959: "I shall submit a balanced budget for the next year, a year that is expected to be the most prosperous of our history to date. If we cannot live within our means during such a time of rising prosperity, the hope of fiscal integrity will fail."

Specifically he would:

P: Request the Treasury Department to prepare tax reforms (which many headlines called TAX CUTS ) for use "at the proper time,'' designed to "enhance incentives for all Americans to work, to save, and to invest";

P: Set up a new Cabinet committee to study wage-price stability;

P: Ask Congress to amend the Employment Act of 1946, to write into U.S. law the determination of the Federal Government to keep price levels steady;

P: Urge congressional legislation "to make more effective use of the large federal expenditure for agriculture," which ran in fiscal 1959 to $5 billion for farm price supports and brought the U.S. hoard of stored-up surplus farm commodities to a total value of $9 billion and an annual cost for storage, interest and handling of $1 billion.

"The Shining Prospect." "All of us know." said the President, "that to advance the cause of freedom we must do much more than help build sound economies." The U.S. had taken strong stands in Lebanon. Formosa, Berlin (heavy applause) that were "clear, right and expressive of the determined will of a united people." The U.S.'s allies in Europe are experiencing new internal vitality. But the U.S. has not yet marshaled all of its powerful moral forces.

In this world context, it needs at home 1) to legislate a cleanup of crooked labor unions, and 2) to advance civil rights and equality of opportunity under the law. And beyond setting domestic examples, the U.S. at all times should seek "to replace force with a genuine rule of law among nations." Implied promise: a presidential proposal to remove current restrictions to full U.S. use of the World Court to settle disputes.

Then, to his top-heavily Democratic audience, the President spoke one of his finest perorations:

Let us remind ourselves that Marxist scripture is not new; this is not the gospel of the future. Its basic objective is dictatorship, old as history. What is new is the shining prospect that man can build a world where all can live in dignity. We march in the noblest of causes--human freedom.

If we make ourselves worthy of America's ideals, if we do not forget that our nation was founded on the premise that all men are creatures of God's making, the world will come to know that it is free men who carry forward the true promise of human progress and dignity.

Thank you very much.

*Gold is valued at about $500 per pound; the Air Force's supersonic Convair B58 bomber costs $26.7 million at $568 per pound: the Navy's lighter North American A3J nuclear bomber costs $17.6 million at $651 per pound.

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