National Affairs: Adlai’s Pitch

From the same giant platform, but before a slightly smaller crowd than had listened to Ike, Adlai Stevenson made a major bid for the farm vote at Newton. Gone were the Stevensonian subtleties, the sophisticated quips, the careful acknowledgment of social and economic complexities. Instead, Stevenson struck out harshly at the Administration and its farm policies, promised the farmers everything but the moon on behalf of the Democrats. For all this he was handsomely rewarded with 30 bursts of laughter and applause.

In 1952, said Stevenson, the President pledged himself and his party to 90%-of-parity price supports. He would not attack Ike’s motives and was charitably “willing to believe that [Ike] did not fully understand what he was saying . . . in 1952.” But the President had to assume responsibility for the policies of Agriculture Secretary Benson. “Secretary Benson was his hired man, and if a farm is mismanaged, the farmer is responsible, not the hired man.”

Blessing in Abundance. Bitingly, he pointed to a decline in cotton, wheat, corn and rice prices since 1952, but noted that peanut prices have gone up slightly. “This administration has a fine record on peanuts,” he laughed. But the farm price slide constitutes a “farm depression.” From the past, Stevenson dragged out a familiar Democratic tactic: run against Herbert Hoover. The last time the Republicans succeeded in keeping “the stock market up and the farm market down,” said Stevenson, “was the last time they were in office, with Hoover at the helm.”

By telling city consumers that high supports are the reason for high food prices, the Eisenhower Administration has set “city against country and country against city.” Actually, contended Adlai, in an astonishing defense of a support program leading to continuing surpluses: “Abundance is not a blight but a blessing.” Farm production can remain high without harm; surpluses can be distributed where they are needed through a bigger school-lunch program, a food stamp plan for the needy, a world food bank.

Needed: Easier Credit. What he wants to do, said Stevenson, is tell “the rest of the country the truth about farming.” His message, as he summed it up: “The farmer just isn’t getting a fair share of our national prosperity.” The Democratic platform, according to Adlai, points the way to better days on the farm: 90% parity, more and easier credit, extension of production and marketing agreements, promotion of Eisenhower’s soil bank, which Stevenson called “a good Democratic idea.” To these proposals Stevenson added one of his own, pitched straight at his corn-and-hog-growing audience: special payments to hog growers to encourage early marketing and ease seasonal price fluctuations.

Both before and after his Newton speech, Stevenson had been busy outlining his views, attacking Ike and making campaign sallies. Highlights:

Foreign Policy. Ike’s “peace” speech stated “only half the facts.” “When [the President] pointed with satisfaction to ‘the free nation of Viet Nam’ he left out the fact that half of that nation . . . has been lost to the Communists. When he talked of defending Formosa . . . he must have forgotten that . . . President Truman [first] sent the Seventh Fleet to defend Formosa . . . [His] passing reference to Suez gave no hint of the awesome fact that within the past few months, Russia has gained the foothold in the Middle East she has sought for centuries.”

Communism in Government. “As I have repeatedly said, I have never doubted the verdict of the jury which convicted [Alger Hiss]. If [that] places me in disagreement with what President Truman says (TIME, Sept. 17), that is where the record must rest.” Once he had delivered this carefully prepared statement at a Washington press conference, Stevenson refused to answer another question as to whether he actually believed Hiss a traitor.

Natural Resources. Republican “giveaways” must be stopped, and the policies of conservation “which were in effect for years before the Eisenhower Administration” must be restored. Watersheds, public lands, national forests and parks, minerals and the soil must all be protected more rigorously against those who would exploit them. “This administration,” said Adlai at Denver, “shows tender solicitude for the great private corporations but thoughtless disregard for the public’s property, our public forests, our public lands, our national parks and our precious resources.”