REPUBLICANS: Definite Separation

As the campaign train rolled into Seattle, the pickets who had dogged Senator Robert Taft’s trail up the coast massed to meet him. Outside the King Street Station, some 300 of them swung into action with boos, jeers and taunting placards (“Taft’s G.O.P. is not for me”). Led by Washington’s Communist-line ex-Representative Hugh De Lacy, they surged around the Taft automobile.

Someone started pitching vegetables at the car. Alarmed, one of the Taft party slammed the car-door, catching the flesh of Taft’s palm in a steel vise. Then one picket broke forward, thrust his head into Taft’s face and cried: “You goddamned son of a bitch.” Taft wrenched his hand free, grimacing with pain, and the car drove off to his suite in the Olympic Hotel, where six stitches were taken in his palm.

It was obvious that the pickets were still doing Bob Taft more good than harm. That night, a well-disciplined band of Communist hecklers tried to break up his coast-to-coast broadcast, finally stomped noisily out of the hall one by one. Washington Republicans, whose party loyalty had been much stronger than their personal enthusiasm for Taft, now rallied warmly to his defense. Labor leaders urged their members to stop the demonstrations. Quite aside from any effect on Taft himself, the picketing was too obviously an attempt to stop free discussion of public problems.

Terrible Blunder. No such side issues distracted Bob Taft from speaking his mind on those problems. So far he had stoutly defended the actions of the Republican 80th Congress, had sharply attacked the domestic policies of President Harry Truman. Two nights later, in Tacoma, he made his first major speech on U.S. foreign policy.

Like his other speeches, it was clear, reasoned and packed with facts. He began by pointing out that foreign policy is by law largely controlled by the President. Then he launched into his main indictment: “The results of the foreign policy of the Administration during the past three years have created a situation as bad or worse than that which existed before the war and have brought the world to a state of economic collapse.”

Beginning with Teheran, charged Taft, the U.S. adopted a policy of “complete surrender” to Stalin and sold the principles of the Atlantic Charter down the river. Franklin Roosevelt’s notion that appeasing Stalin would transform him into “an angel of light” had been a terrible blunder. Though U.S. policy toward Russia had later stiffened—largely on Arthur Vandenberg’s urging—”we have won the war, but we have lost the peace.”

Taft pointed to other Democratic mistakes. The old Morgenthau plan to reduce Germany to a pastoral state was one. Piecemeal foreign aid was another. The “Mr. Fixit philosophy” of meddling in other countries’ affairs was a third. What did this “policy” add up to? Chaos, said Taft. He concluded: “Our general attitude has been one of policy and expediency instead of law and fair dealing. … I maintain, therefore, that … we could not have made a worse mess of our foreign policy than we did.”

Like most critics, Bob Taft had a harder time constructing a new policy than punching holes in the old one. Since a Democratic President still controls foreign policy, said Taft, it is the duty of the Republican Party to cooperate whenever possible, to be vigilantly critical, and to suggest changes in only general terms. As a beginning, he suggested seven general principles. Among them; adherence to the U.N. (without Russia if necessary) and maintaining the veto until agreed international laws could be established; rebuilding Germany with checks against rearmament; peace with Japan; a strong Army & Navy.

None of this was any great departure from present policy. The Republican New York Herald Tribune, which has supported Taft on domestic issues, complained that the speech was “studded with escape clauses.”

Long Step Forward. Nevertheless, the speech was a long step forward toward a foreign-policy plank for the 1948 Republican platform, and toward making a definite separation between Republican and Democratic policy. For that, GOPsters could thank Policymaker Taft. The speech’s effect on Taft’s chances as a candidate was another question. It was not the kind of speech to rouse a partisan audience. Said one listener: “Taft is one of the best professors of government now in politics.”

Bob Taft had already realized how exacting and exasperating the lot of a campaigner can be. During the week he had to backtrack on three statements.

Leaving Portland, Ore., newsmen noticed a passage in his prepared speech urging “support” for everyone who had voted for the Taft-Hartley Act. When the reporters asked whether Taft was thus urging support for Democrats too, he changed the word to “gratitude.”

In Los Angeles, he had said that he was opposed to any further social legislation until 1949—when he hoped the U.S. would have a Republican President. Last week at Gearhart, Ore.,* he admitted that social legislation would have to be passed before election time next year. The estimated $1 billion-a-year Taft plan: federally subsidized but locally administered aid for health, education, housing, unemployment and extension of unemployment insurance to domestic and agricultural workers.

In Corvallis, Ore., in response to a question from the audience, he remarked that “half of the C.I.O. unions are Communist-dominated.” The next night he said that what he really meant was that “a number of C.I.O. unions, less than half” are Communist-dominated.

This week, as the Taft train turned east again, Taft had not yet come out into the open as an official candidate. He said he would make a definite announcement by letter to the Ohio State Republican Committee.

* Driving to Gearhart from Tacoma, Wash., the Taft car was stopped by local police at Tenino, Wash., and Driver Walter Tooze, Portland circuit judge, was fined $10 for speeding. Outside of Tenino, the car was stopped again by state police. When Judge Tooze complained, the trooper said: “I am very much concerned over Senator Taft’s safety. You drive slower.”