REPUBLICANS: King Log & King Stork

Columnists Joseph and Stewart Alsop last week archly recalled Aesop’s fable of the frogs that were “so annoyed with the stolid tyranny” of their inanimate monarch, King Log,* that they asked Jupiter to remove him. Jupiter sent them King Stork, who thereupon gobbled up the frogs.

The story had a pat application, the Alsops wrote, to a lot of Republicans who have been complaining of Harry Truman’s “executive usurpation,” particularly in foreign affairs. If Tom Dewey is elected, some old Republican croakers might find him a King Stork.

Wrote the Alsops: “The struggle of real significance to the country is not the contest between Dewey and Truman. It is the inevitable post-election battle between Dewey and his party’s Old Guard . . .

“Those close to him already predict that the first item on the agenda of his administration will be a strong act of leadership, probably in the sphere of foreign affairs. This will be aimed to answer the most pressing current political question: Who is to be master in Washington, Dewey or the Old Guard?”

*According to Aesop, not Alsop, the frogs became contemptuous of the sluggishness of King Log.