Lining Up the Ducks

During a recent visit to Peking, Chancellor Helmut Schmidt went to see a model farm that raised poultry for the city's best restaurants. Surveying hundreds of quacking ducks, he murmured, "They remind me of my party congress."

Schmidt was only half joking. Since becoming Chancellor 18 months ago, he has stood somewhat aloof from his Social Democratic Party, refusing to get involved in the endless theoretical debates on how democratic socialism should be built. Instead, the cool, pragmatic Chancellor has concentrated on managing West Germany's affairs of state. Although Schmidt has always been highly regarded by the voters (in one recent poll, 70% of the West Germans gave him a favorable rating), he has never been popular with his party's left wing, the Jusos (Young Socialists). Complicating matters, ex-Chancellor Willy Brandt, who remains as chairman of the party, has often appeared to be denying Schmidt his allegiance by allowing the left to speak up against government policy. Lack of support from Schmidt's own party could be disastrous in 1976, when he will have to fight for reelection. Thus, as the S.P.D. congress got under way at Mannheim's Rosengarten last week, the question on everybody's mind was would Brandt back up Schmidt and rally the party behind the Chancellor in his re-election bid.

Brandt did, in a 2-hr. 10-min. speech. Standing under a gigantic orange and white banner bearing the current party Slogan--RESPONSIBILITY FOR GERMANY--Brandt urged Social Democrats to "stand in full solidarity behind the Chancellor and the government he leads." He smacked down the left, telling them that abstract discussions were no help: "You can't do anything with the colored balloons of philosophic formulas and quick and easy slogans." Brandt defended the party's coalition with the Free Democrats and lashed out at the opposition Christian Democrats for negativist policies. The C.D.U., he declared, "is becoming a security risk for our country."

After that rousing curtain raiser, Schmidt had the convention in his lap. In a conciliatory speech full of profuse praise for Brandt, the Chancellor reassured the 436 delegates that his government was doing everything possible to advance the party's aims, within the limitations of the coalition. The congress voted down a laundry list of Jusos resolutions calling for government control of industrial investments, nationalization of key industries and banks, a $1,953 limitation on monthly personal incomes and a hefty "luxury" tax on a wide variety of consumer goods.

Brandt and Schmidt were re-elected to their party posts, with 407 votes each. This was nothing short of a triumph for Schmidt, who in 1973 had received only 286 votes for vice-chairman. The Chancellor can now go into the election campaign with firm assurance that his party is behind him.

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