Still Waiting to Hear

To hear President Kennedy on the campaign trail, about the only thing that really counts is whether the next U.S. Congress will be even more lopsidedly Democratic than the last. In some ways, what Kennedy does not say is more significant than what he does.

Kennedy argues that he needs even more Democrats in Congress in order to put through his domestic welfare programs. Last week in Connecticut, he passed the word again. On the green in Waterbury, he cried: "Too many times I have seen fights won and lost by one. two or three votes, on housing, and medical care for the aged, and education, and farming, and all the rest. I don't want to see the next two years spent with a Congress in the control of the Republicans* and an Executive in control of the Democrats, and nothing being done which must be done if this country is going to move ahead."

In the Midwest, the President resounded his theme. In Springfield, Ill., he spoke of agriculture: "In the last 21 months we have not. by any means, solved the farm problem. But we have achieved the best two-year advance in farm income of any two years since the Depression. At the same time we reduced our wheat and feed grain surpluses by 700 million bushels."

In Chicago, countering a charge made by Eisenhower a fortnight ago, he held forth to $100-a-plate diners in the vast new McCormick Place exhibition hall. "I am not asking for one-party government," he insisted. "I am asking that you vote for the one party which is willing to work for progress. I am asking for enough help to get the job done. In the 87th Congress the health-care bill was defeated in the Senate by one vote, the full powers of the trade bill were saved by one vote, the original emergency public works bill was defeated by one vote, and in the House the farm bill was defeated by five votes and the tax bill saved by twelve."

Through it all. the President avoided anything more than passing reference to the international problems of the U.S. Cuba might as well have been on another planet. A White House aide explained--at least in part--the strategic thinking: "Medicare, depressed areas, aid to education--these are still the issues that are going to get votes or lose them." Maybe so--and maybe not. In any event, at week's end Kennedy canceled trips into several states, flew back to Washington suffering from a cold accompanied by a slight fever. His illness, plus the fact that he is bypassing foreign policy while on the stump and has not held a press conference in six weeks, makes it unlikely that the voters will hear before Election Day from their President about the issues that seem to concern them most.

* There is not the faintest chance that Republicans will control the next Senate, only an outside possibility that they will take control of the House.

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