National Affairs: Let Us Face It

Republican Old Guardsmen had something besides poll figures (see Democrats) to worry them. Connecticut’s Senator Raymond Baldwin was in their hair again. Husky, 54-year-old Ray Baldwin delights in needling those he labels the “stuffed shirts” of his party. As a freshman Senator, he frequently pricked the G.O.P. leadership, at times bluntly told it that its program would appeal only to voters who were already Republican.

Last week Senator Baldwin, a Willkieman in 1940, sounded his rebel cry in public. In an article in the American Magazine, he hit hard at “rock-ribbed ultra-conservatism” and at the record of the G.O.P. leadership in Congress. Wrote Baldwin:

“Everyone but a diehard Republican will say, I believe, that we started off very badly, indeed. . . . Let us face it. In the opening months of this year’s session, the Republican majority in Congress, under the guidance of the party’s senior leaders from hard-core Republican states, approached national issues from the old-line Republican point of view in most instances. That meant that many of them pushed for severe curbs on labor . . . for immediate wide-scale tax reduction . . . for abolition of rent control . . . and it meant that they showed a noticeable disinclination to take any immediate effective action against high prices and the housing shortage. . . .

“When we Republicans were swept into control of both Houses . . . there was excited talk about a Republican trend which would make victory in 1948 inevitable. Now we know better. If we are to remain the majority party we must act effectively in the interests of a majority of people. If we act in the interest only of a minority of rock-ribbed Republicans, we shall again become a minority party.”