THE PRESIDENCY: Morale Is the Seed

Despite enough international and domestic problems to exhaust a dozen men. the President of the U.S. was frisky as a platoon commander. Last week President Eisenhower delivered three speeches in two days, consulted with Administration and military leaders on the problems of U.S. continental air defense, conferred with NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe Lauris Norstad (see FOREIGN NEWS), with the visiting chiefs of Western Europe’s Common Market, its Coal and Steel Community and its Atomic Energy Community, had a nonpolitical chat with New York’s visiting Governor Nelson Rockefeller, rounded it all off with 54 holes of weekend golf at Gettysburg.

Battle Hymns & Electoral Votes. The week began amid a Dixieland band smash of Runnin’ Wild! and Ain’t She Sweet? as the President walked into a $100-a-plate Republican dinner at the Sheraton-Park Hotel with Mamie Eisenhower on his arm. Ike gave the 3,000 guests no soothing syrup.

“Morale is the seed of future victory.” he said. “I hope the party transforms itself into one gigantic recruiting service. Cromwell’s army of Roundheads marched into battle singing hymns, and never once were they shaken, because he had drilled into them that they had a cause for which to work. Sound government is the greatest cause we could have today . . . Except for the support of some discerning Democrats it is the Republican Party that fights for responsible, sensible and progressive policy in government.”

The President delighted his Republican audience with some joshing remarks about Mamie. “After the 1952 campaign, one of the expert political analysts told my wife, I thought very unwisely, that she was responsible for 74 electoral votes. I have never before admitted to her that I thought that was an underestimate. Now in 1956, a man came in with what was obviously a rather preposterous proposal. Finally she said to me, ‘If you do that, I’ll take my 74 electoral votes and walk out.’ “

Evolution v. Revolution. Next day the President flew to Atlantic City to address the American Medical Association, warned the medical profession against contributing to inflation with bloated fees (see MEDICINE), gave a medical twist to his pleas for a balanced budget: “Habitual violation of a balanced diet can lead to ruined health; deliberately to unbalance the federal budget in time of huge indebtedness and rapidly increasing prosperity can bring about an enfeebled economy.”

In an off-the-cuff address to a national conference on civil rights in Washington, the President said that to settle the civil rights problem, one must have “those feelings of compassion, consideration and justice that derive from our concepts of moral law. I say moral law rather than statutory law because I happen to be one of those people who has very little faith in the ability of statutory law to change the human heart, or to eliminate prejudice . . . The important thing is that we go ahead, that we make progress. This does not necessarily mean revolution. In my mind, it means evolution.”