REPUBLICANS: Mr. Majority

At the Yale Club’s annual dinner in Washington last week, Yaleman Robert A. Taft rose before a cheering throng of fellow alumni. Relaxed, Bob Taft talked about the new Administration. Said he: “Some progress has been made, but it seems slow and will seem slower in the future … I think it’s going to get worse before it gets better. But I think a year from now the Administration will be very popular . . . I think they’re doing pretty well.”

Bob Taft’s use of “they” was, in a sense, misleading: he should have said “we.” For the Senator from Ohio has be come the second most important man in the Eisenhower Administration.

The Reason: “Principles.” All through the last half of 1952 and into early 1953 the pundits predicted almost every day that a disastrous Eisenhower-Taft split was inevitable. But there was no split. Musing on the Eisenhower-Taft alliance last week, a top-level Democrat said: “On January 2, I would have given you ten to one that it wouldn’t last the month out.

Now it’s ten to one that it will last in definitely.”

Why is Bob Taft so cooperative? Friends last week remembered a 1948 Taft speech at Washington’s Burning Tree Club. Democrat Steve Early arranged the party to honor Taft, who had just lost his second campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Taft rose to his feet and told his friends: “It isn’t the honor or the glory of the office, the yacht and the White House and all the protocol. I believe deeply in my principles, and I want to put them into effect. The office of President has the power and the prestige to put those principles into effect. That’s why I keep running for the job.”

In Dwight Eisenhower, Bob Taft has found a man who holds the same basic principles; the new way for Taft to put those principles into effect is to be a good majority leader.

Learning to Make Soap. Time after time. Taft has adroitly recovered fumbles and carried the ball for the White House on Capitol Hill. When Congress and the White House got their signals mixed on the Government Reorganization bill, Taft unscrambled the mess. He skillfully steered through the Senate the nomination of Charles E. Bohlen as Ambassador to Rus sia, although he frankly said he would not have nominated Bohlen. When the resolution condemning Russia for perverting the Yalta and Potsdam agreements got snarled up in confusion, reporters hurried over to ask Taft what he thought. Their jaws dropped in amazement when he said: “I’m not thinking a thing until I hear from the State Department.”

At times. Old Hand Taft has been mildly irked at some of the political amateurs in the new Administration. But he recognizes their problems and their handicaps. Said he: “It’s like taking the twelve top executives of Procter & Gamble and wiping them out. Then you put in the twelve top men of A. T. & T. The telephone men are good executives, but they don’t know how to make soap. If these men can understand what they’re doing in their own departments in twelve months, I think they’re doing pretty well.”

Hardly a day passes without some contact between the majority leader and the White House. In addition to the regular Monday-morning conference with congressional leaders, the President often has private conferences with Taft.

“Mr. President” & “Bob.” There are signs that the working relationship may broaden to the social and personal fields. The only Washington social affair Dwight Eisenhower has attended this year outside the call of duty was a tea given by the Tafts in honor of Mamie Eisenhower.

President and Senator have played golf together at Burning Tree, and the President invited Taft to fly to Georgia this week for a golf holiday at the Augusta National Golf Club. Taft’s great respect for the presidency still causes him to address his friend as “Mr. President,” even on the goll course. But the President has taken to calling the majority leader “Bob.” All this does not mean that Eisenhower and Taft will have no differences in the future; it does mean that their relationship is firm enough not to be destroyed by differences.

Working with a Republican executive is an unusual experience for Taft. Said he: “I spent eight years in the legislature of Ohio and this is my 15th year in Congress. Except for two years back in the ’20s in Ohio, this is the first time that I have served under a Republican executive. I find it a novel experience.”

Talking to his fellow Yalemen about problems that go with patronage last week, Taft cracked: “I think sometimes I’d rather go back to the minority.” But he does not think he is going back. He told reporters that he expects Dwight Eisenhower to run and be re-elected in 1956. As for his own ambitions, he wants to go on being an effective Mr. Majority.