Nation: The Mood Back Home

Thw Mood Back Home While congressional Republicans journeyed home last week to deliver Lincoln’s Birthday speches and mend fences, a clutch of Democrats also took advantage of the traditional recess to gauge their constituents’ mood in the wake of the Pueblo incident and the ene my’s new aggressiveness in Viet Nam.

The mood they encountered in their districts scattered across the U.S. was one of restiveness and frustration tempered by a cautious disposition to wait and see. A new sympathy for President Johnson’s burdens was widely evident. Concerning the war, as Connecticut Representative Donald J. Irwin observed after visiting his Fourth Congressional District, “it seems that the doves have become more dovish and the hawks have become more hawkish in the last few weeks.” Adds Irwin, a supporter of current U.S. policy: “I’ve found very little voter sentiment in favor of pulling out of Viet Nam.”

Not Without Honor. Philadelphia Congressman William Green, at 29 youngest member of the House and youngest political boss in the U.S., walked through his Fifth District to sample opinion among its many ethnic groups. Green, whose father, the late Representative Bill Green, ran the Philadelphia Democratic City Committee before him, said he found “a hunger for peace in Viet Nam.” Yet virtually none of his constituents favored U.S. withdrawal, and many complained that Johnson had not acted firmly enough in seeking return of the Pueblo.

In midwinter, few constituents seemed intensely worried by the prospect of summer rioting in the cities. Nearly all said they were for civil rights, but not for open housing laws. “The whites should live with the whites,” said one woman. “The colored people should stick together.”

In his largely rural Indiana district, Representative Lee Hamilton heard a Columbus storekeeper puzzle over the war: “I just don’t know; people are more disturbed and confused than I have ever seen them.” Some of Hamilton’s constituents argued that the U.S. should attack North Viet Nam with nu clear weapons, but generally the mood was moderate.

Iowa’s John Culver detected in his Second Congressional District a similar sentiment: “Although they don’t like to see our power muscle-bound in a nuclear age,” he said, “I think the people here are inclined to favor Johnson’s policy.”

Illinois’ Ninth District embraces Chicago’s Gold Coast as well as the city’s crowded West Side tenements. In both neighborhoods, Representative Sidney Yates encountered uneasiness with the war. “But, to use a hackneyed phrase,” Yates declared, “they don’t want peace without honor.”