REPUBLICANS: Happiness Through Health

Around the tables in the Continental Room of Washington’s Sheraton-Park Hotel, the state leaders of the Republican Party tried hard to hide their optimism behind worried looks and diffident words. But in foot-high letters, mounted on a red plush drape, a sign proclaimed the state of the nation: “Everything’s Booming but the Guns.”

Under way was a four-day clinic for G.O.P. state chairmen, aimed at teaching them how best to sell their product—Dwight Eisenhower—in 1956. The chairmen themselves were cause for additional Republican satisfaction. Under the Eisenhower leadership, the grizzled, opposition-minded G.O.P. pols of past years have to a large degree given way to more youthful men with more youthful outlooks. Among last week’s group were nine state chairmen aged 40 years or less: New York’s L. Judson Morhouse, 40; California’s Thomas W. Caldecott, 40; New Mexico’s Merrill B. Johns Jr. 39; North Dakota’s George Longmire, 39; Michigan’s John Feikens, 37; New Hampshire’s William W. Treat, 37; Oklahoma’s Douglas McKeever, 37; Oregon’s Wendell Wyatt, 37; and Wisconsin’s Philip G. Kuehn, 35.

Questions by Candlelight.

The clinic’s top instructor was Vice President Richard Nixon, who, in an hour-long candlelight session, conducted a question-and-answer period. A Nixon sampler:

Q.: What will the Democratic strategy be?

A.: “Their big drive will be to create the impression that the Republican Party, in economic policy, isn’t as interested in the average man as the Democrats are … In spite of the talk that the Republican Party isn’t for the wage earner, the fact is that more than 65 million wage earners are earning more, buying more and saving more than at any time . . . That simple fact, if repeated often enough, will outweigh all the arguments our opponents can drag up.”

Q.: How about the decline in farm prices?

A.: “I’m convinced that prices will be stabilized by reducing surpluses and broadening markets We will eventually reverse the trend toward lower prices in effect when we came to power.”

By and large, the state chairmen were much too happy about their party’s prospects to pay strict attention to the business of the clinic. Scoffed Washington State Chairman George Kinnear, when asked his opinion of the various “visual aid” political techniques that had been demonstrated: “It all costs too much money and needs too many trained people.” With only a couple of exceptions, the state chairmen even managed to shrug off the nagging farm price problem. Said Alabama Chairman Claude Vardaman: “Don’t forget, nobody’s shooting at those farmers’ sons. Peace is going to help us a lot. We can run on the end of the Knrpan

War just as the Democrats ran for 20 years on Hoover.”

The Ugly Crossroad. Only one question really worried the state chairmen: what, if by some not-to-be-thought-of circumstance, President Eisenhower were to refuse to stand for reelection? G.O.P. National Chairman Leonard Hall went around quoting a state chairman who had said: “When I get to that bridge, I’ll jump off it.”

Alabama’s Vardaman managed to become a leading figure at the meeting simply by telling of a hint he had had from Ike. In 1951, Vardaman recalled, he had gone to Paris to urge General Eisenhower to run for President, concluding his speech: “General, please do me a favor. Don’t try to stop us.” At that time, Ike smiled, shook hands, said nothing beyond wishing Vardaman a pleasant voyage home. A few weeks ago, Claude Vardaman went to the White House, reminded the President of their 1951 talk and pointed to the somewhat similar situation existing this year. The President laughed and replied, “Well, I went along with you then, didn’t I?” And that, says Vardaman, is “good enough for me.”

Before they left Washington, the state chairmen all signed a telegram aimed at persuading Eisenhower to run again. Its concluding sentence: “We like Ike better than ever.” They also unanimously adopted a resolution commending Dick Nixon for his work as Vice President. Then, one and all, they emplaned for Denver to see the President.

Of Man’s Mortality. Speaking to the state chairmen, Ike didn’t say yes, and he didn’t say no. What he did say, after delivering a hard-fisted lecture on the necessity for a take-nothing-for-granted campaign next year, was this: “While I have been forbidden to mention this subject by your chairman, I will bring up for a moment the question of one man and one man’s value. Now I just want to point out to you that I greatly appreciated your telegram, particularly where you said, ‘We like Ike better than ever.’ May I return the compliment and say I like the Republican Party more than ever.

“But we don’t believe for a minute that the Republican Party is so lacking in inspiration, high quality personnel and leadership, that we are dependent on one man. We don’t believe it for a minute. Now, as long as we have a man in the leadership position, why of course, as a party, we are going to be loyal, we are going to help in the fight.

“But humans are frail—and they are mortal. [We] never pin our flag so tightly to one mast that, if a ship sinks, you cannot rip it off and nail it to another. It is sometimes good to remember that.”

The state chairmen had their own interpretation of these words: if Ike’s health holds up, he will run. And, they thought, they had never seen him looking healthier.