The Charlotte News
Thursday, September 25, 1952
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page
reports, via Jack Bell with the Eisenhower campaign train, that the
General and Senator Nixon had held a tearful reunion in Wheeling
The General was satisfied with the reasons given on Tuesday night by the Senator regarding the $18,000 expense fund collected for him by wealthy Californians following his 1950 Senate victory and used until his nomination for the vice-presidency the previous July. The General had embraced the Senator upon his arrival in Wheeling, saying, "You're my boy," and the two half embraced, both with tears in their eyes. The two only had 15 minutes to discuss the matter during the ride from the airport to the awaiting crowd of 7,000 at the Wheeling Municipal Stadium the previous night, where the General said that the Senator had been "subjected to a very unfair and vicious attack" and that as far as he was concerned, he had "not only vindicated himself" but had acted "as a man of courage and honor" and so stood "higher than ever before". The Senator said that he had laid before the people his case, which he believed they had "honestly misunderstood", because, as the General had said, anyone running for the presidency or vice-presidency had "to be as clean as a hound's tooth".
Of course, some of those hounds get into some pretty ugly looking meat and some even rummage around in the alley garbage.
During this morning in Wheeling, "absolute privacy" was ordered for the Senator as he rested in his hotel room after three days and nights with practically no sleep, according to his secretary. He would depart for Salt Lake City at 12:30 p.m., where he would speak this night.
Tom Fesperman of The News reports that General Eisenhower would arrive in Charlotte the following day at 8:15 a.m., the most excitement generated by a visit of a Republican presidential candidate since Herbert Hoover had come to town in 1928. Organizers of the "Breakfast with Ike" program predicted that more than 15,000 persons would jam into the Memorial Stadium to hear him, and that thousands of others would line Trade Street between the Southern Railway Station and the site of the 30-minute address. There was no indication yet as to the subject of the speech. This date, the General was making several stops in West Virginia and Maryland, as he headed toward Baltimore for a speech this night. He would stop briefly in Salisbury, N.C., the following morning before heading to Charlotte, to pick up 30 North Carolina supporters who would ride with him. The train carried about 70 campaign staff workers and 80 newspaper reporters and photographers, as well as several high-ranking advisers. The General was expected to be accompanied by his wife, Mamie, and her mother. A motorcade from the railway station to the stadium was scheduled to begin about 8:25.
Does that not mean that he is leaving the station ten minutes late for his own speech? Oh, we were thinking he was still on the whistle-stop routine. He is going to pause and talk to the peons for awhile.
This date, the General challenged Governor Stevenson to reveal the contributors to the Illinois State fund for certain appointed employees, designed to supplement the incomes of those who had taken a substantial cut in income to transfer from the private sector to public sector jobs. The Governor had already said that there could be no connection between the contributors to the fund and those who had received the benefits, as the beneficiaries did not know who the benefactors were—an omission from Senator Nixon's explanation. New Hampshire Governor Sherman Adams, the General's chief of staff, said in a statement issued at Martinsburg, W. Va., that the challenge issued by Senator Nixon to both Governor Stevenson and Senator John Sparkman to issue financial statements, could not be answered by "wisecracks and quips", a reference to the noted humor being employed by Governor Stevenson on the campaign trail.
Had the Governor had considerable perspicacity and inside knowledge of the future, he might have responded by asking the Governor of New Hampshire what kind of coat his wife was wearing and from what country it had come.
The General, in Kaiser, W. Va., said that the country was in "fine shape—except politically", that the national leadership had not performed well during the previous seven years. He urged that it was time to give leadership to those willing and able to "advance the cause of equality of opportunity". He accused the Democrats of attempting "thought control" at their convention in July—must be some of them Manchurian Reds at work. He had also said that most of the communications received in response to Senator Nixon's Tuesday night radio and television broadcast had been positive, wanting the Senator retained on the ticket, which the General said was all right with him. He also promised that as President, he would see to it that the country would get a dollar back again which would be worth more than 50 cents and that the country could not risk further inflation. At Cumberland, Md., he told a crowd of about 4,000 on the street that as President he would not seize the steel mills, for if he could, he could also seize someone's store or farm. He believed it was time to fight against encroachments on the Bill of Rights, the anniversary of adoption of which was this date. He indicated that he did not think anyone involved in the steel strike was deliberately seeking to break down the Constitution, but that the Government had been in power so long that it regarded itself as all-powerful. He again attacked the "series of blunders" which had led to the Korean War, saying it was only one of many blunders caused by the Truman Administration.
Governor Stevenson, back in Springfield, Ill., after his tour of New England, remained silent on political funds and the "'vindication'" of Senator Nixon, was examining how to mend political fences in the South, with campaign aides telling reporters that in the middle weeks of October, the Governor would be going back and forth between Springfield and key spots in both the South and Midwest. Senator Russell Long of Louisiana, a staunch supporter of the Governor, was an overnight guest at the Illinois Executive Mansion. Governor Robert Kennon of Louisiana had deserted the Democratic ticket, as had Governors Allan Shivers of Texas and James Byrnes of South Carolina. The Republicans were hoping to split the latter two states and perhaps others in the South, traditionally solidly Democratic. The Governor would campaign in Indiana and Kentucky the following day and Saturday, with a major television and radio speech to come from Chicago on Monday, after which he would visit Ohio and Iowa for the remainder of the following week. This date, he caught up on official state business and prepared for the campaign trips ahead.
The President said at his weekly press conference this date that all members of Congress should be required to make an annual accounting of all of their income, public and private, and that all top Government officials should be required to do likewise. He declined comment on the Republican Party's "'vindication'" of Senator Nixon, as well on the special fund established by Governor Stevenson. The President said that he had never had any such fund. The previous September, reminded the President, he had sent a message to Congress asking for legislation requiring an accounting of income for all top public officials. He said that, like Senator Sparkman, he had put his own wife on his Senate staff while in the Senate, helping to pay their board as it was extremely hard to get along under even lower salaries than presently allotted and without any Government expense account. He also said that he had never been sorry for firing former Assistant Attorney General Lamar Caudle, as Mr. Caudle, during his testimony of the prior day, had claimed he had heard, and also indicated that he had never heard of the White House "clique" to which Mr. Caudle had alluded as being responsible for his firing, according to that which he claimed former Attorney General J. Howard McGrath had told him. The news conference lasted only eight minutes and would be the last one for the ensuing three weeks, as the President was scheduled to depart Saturday on his 15-day whistle-stop tour of the country.
Mr. Caudle testified again before
the House Judiciary subcommittee investigating the Justice
Department, this time talking about going to the Jamaica Race Track
in New York, saying that if he were still a Federal official, he
would probably never go to another race track. He indicated that
Colonel Hallow had a bunch of sorry horses running that day, but that
one horse in the seventh race had done all right and given up the
daily double, but they were "sorry-trifling horses". He
said that they had bet on the horse and the daily double had paid
about $23 for a two-dollar bet, but then afterward sat there and did
not bet any more until the seventh race. (It sounds like he hit on two
The French Navy had given up hope of finding the submarine Sibylle in time to save the 48 men aboard, as the vessel had been missing on maneuvers off the Riviera since the previous morning. An oil slick had been observed, with various objects on the surface in the area where the sub had last submerged. The water was about 2,100 feet deep and the French Navy had explained that its rescue equipment could only go down as far as 180 feet. The sub, commissioned in 1942 by the British, had operated during World War II as the Sportsman, and had been credited in that role as sinking or damaging about 31,000 tons of enemy shipping in the Mediterranean. The British had turned the ship over to the French on a four-year loan the previous July. The following day, all of the ships in the naval squadron accompanying the submarine in the exercise would gather at the scene of its last dive to pay tribute to the crew.
Samuel Lubell, in the fourth in his series of articles examining grassroots reactions to the candidates since the conventions, finds that the major political question in the farm belt was regarding the traditionally isolationist farmers of German descent, whose swing from the Republicans to President Truman had provided him the surprising victory in 1948, giving him the narrow margins in five Midwestern states, Ohio, Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa, providing him the largest gains over FDR's 1944 results in the German-American farm areas. But these same farmers appeared as the most frustrated group of voters in the country in 1952. They had been strongly Democratic in 1932 and 1936, but had broken violently against FDR in 1940, providing the heaviest losses for him in those counties because of the war, whereas the predominant issues in 1948 had been economic, but now having turned back to war.
The News reports letters pouring in from adults and students, vying for two $25 bonds for the two best letters regarding why it was important to register and vote. It quotes from some of the letters. The contest was continuing, and so you can still send in your letters.
We say again, Mr. Robinson, it is imperative to register and vote to keep this man Nixon as far away from the White House as we can keep him. You might not like us for saying that now, might even think we're some sort of swamp Commie, but wait about 21-22 years…
On the editorial page, "Grandma, with 6 Petticoats, Was Lucky" finds the tour of the country by OPA administrator Tighe Woods, seeking input to price control policy from the housewives of the nation, to be intriguing. They appeared to be upset about the increased cost of living, rather than being concerned about which type of items were controlled or released from control. Merchants were unhappy about controls, and it was easy to see why, given the complexity of the regulations, examples of which it cites. It finds that even if the merchant did not make a slip in the labyrinthine calculations required by the regulations, by the time he finished, some of the women would have made their own slips on the home sewing machine.
This piece may be in a flow from last week's nipple story on the front page—or possibly not.
"An Injustice to Charlie Chaplin" regards the order by the Justice Department issued the prior week to bar re-entry to the U.S. by Charles Chaplin, who had sailed home to England for the first time in over 20 years, pending a determination by the Immigration and Naturalization Service as to whether or not he should be refused re-entry, either on the basis of moral turpitude, for his having been charged but not convicted under the Mann Act in 1944 for transporting a woman across state lines for immoral purposes, or for political reasons, given his association with liberal causes. Mr. Chaplin, though having resided in the U.S. for 40 years, had never become a U.S. citizen.
It notes that the Administration did not look favorably upon some of the laws passed by Congress regarding immigration, such as the recent McCarran Act, but was nevertheless required to enforce them.
But in the case of Mr. Chaplin, he had been provided a re-entry visa three months earlier and officials had even wished him "bon voyage". It had not been until he had departed that the order had been issued and so it was quite unfair, it asserts, to entangle him within the incompetency of the bureaucracy. It urges that the Department should press the matter for determination presently, rather than awaiting his attempt at re-entry to determine whether or not he was acceptable.
"Bacon Is Coming Close to Home" tells of the hog being the only animal barred by statute within the city. Recently, a report had surfaced that small cows were being popularized in fashionable sections of New England as a passive means of mowing the grass and supplying milk. A professor in Manitoba had suggested raising of hogs to combat the high cost of meat, using the cut grass as feed.
It indicates its disagreement with those who believed that the hog was an animal of good humor, but also finds it a too much maligned animal which responded nobly to tender treatment, and had superior habits of elimination when compared to the canine, also showing greater dignity when displayed at county fairs than many cows tracing their ancestry back to the Schleswig-Holsteins.
In England, where the weekly bacon ration was five ounces, herds of hogs were being X-rayed to determine the number of ribs which they possessed, varying between 13 and 17, to enable breeding of the ones with more ribs, to increase the bacon supply. It suggests that science was wonderful, that eventually pork might become so plentiful that it could be detected within a can of pork and beans.
A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "Another Gentlemen's Agreement", tells of Laura Hobson, the novelist, indicating in the Saturday Review that she had a remedy for the comic book craze among young people, that she had two young sons, one of whom was filled with a feeling of superiority when he read that the Navy had placed a ban on the selling of war comics aboard ships, on the ground that they were too filled with gore for the average sailor. She indicated that there had been no problem with comic books in her household as she had always given in to her sons' insatiable desires to read them, on the belief that eventually they would pick up more serious reading matter. She related of one of her sons six years earlier, during a trip to Bermuda in the summer, having found it difficult to get into town to find comic books, and thus being relegated to a lot of old books around the house, began reading, at age 9, David Copperfield, whose surname he pronounced "Cooperfield", which she decided not to correct, and which he still mispronounced at age 15.
The piece suggests that her experience perhaps provided hope to parents who were tired of trying to force-feed literature to children whose imaginations were energized by comic books. It notes, however, that "you can't give the children the Dickens unless you have a little bit lying around the house."
One point with which we would differ would be that Ms. Hobson should have quickly, and without fanfare, corrected the mispronunciation of "Copperfield" by simply stating it correctly, so that the other schoolchildren, when her son reached 15 and was still pronouncing it the wrong way, would not snicker in the corner and give him the "oops". Perhaps that derives from our own experience, though never in memory recalling having to utter it aloud, regarding the name Penelope as being pronounced "Pen-elope", probably through at least age 15. There were no Pen-elopes at our schools or otherwise within our experiential realm, and so we had been unfamiliar with the name's pronunciation when we came upon it in studying Greek mythology. Come to think of it, we don't believe we have ever met a Pen-elope, just as we have never encountered an antelope, which, undoubtedly, gave rise to our subliminal mispronunciation. We did always understand, incidentally, calliope, not as "calli-ope", and cantaloupe, not as "cantaloup-e".
We all, it might be remembered, come to these shores as strangers, both to language and custom, and have to learn, as with any immigrant, whether reading comic book material or higher forms of literature, or just listening to the others and their strange verbalizations, both correct and otherwise, how to pronounce words and use them in proper semantic formations. In any event, all "proper pronunciation", for the most part, comes about, we suppose, through something of a Hobson's Choice generated by the custom and habit of the "proper" ear, and, so, to that extent, is a series of subjective determinations objectified only through mass repetition and acceptance.
But please, please, stop trying to sound clever, Hollywooders, by pronouncing "homage" as "o-maj". It ain't "o-maj", man. It is pronounced "hahmage" or "ahmage". We ain't French in Amurica. And there ain't no word properly pronounced "o-maj", except among semi-literate Frenchmen who think they are Amurican.
And if you don't cease using "iconic" with every other breath or written paragraph to describe everything under the sun which you, subjectively, happen to like, we are going to start screaming at you, "shut up", at every encountered instance. We simply cease reading any news article or anything else which uses that word in other than its intended context of religious iconography. Truly, it is the first sign of a very limited vocabulary and no imagination. Stop it. Slap yourself in the face if you have the urge to say "iconic", and call it an "iconic slap", thus convincing yourself by negative sanction that it is overused, trite, jejune, pretentious and just downright stupid. Say what you really mean, such as "the epitome [not epi-tome] of styling", not "iconic styling", an "archetypical film", not an "iconic film", an "apogeal expression of art" or "the apex of artistic expression", use of "iconic" and "icon", respectively, in those latter phrases lending a quite ambiguous meaning, etc.
The O.E.D., incidentally, says this about that:
iconic, a.(aI"kQnIk) Also eiconic. [ad. late L. Wconic-us, ad. Gr.]
a. Of or pertaining to an icon, image, figure, or representation; of the nature of a portrait; spec. in Art, applied to the ancient portrait statues of victorious athletes commonly dedicated to divinities, and hence to memorial statues and busts executed according to a fixed or conventional type.
1656 Blount Glossogr., Iconic, belonging to an Image, also lively pictured. 1801 Fuseli in Lect. Paint. iii. (1848) 415 Iconic figures in metal began, says Pliny, to be the ornaments of every municipal forum. 1850 J. Leitch tr. C.O. Müller's Anc. Art (ed. 2) §123 note, An iconic statue of Lysander in marble at Delphi. 1881 E. W. Gosse in Fortn. Rev. June 703 In iconic sculpture the Royal Academy presents nothing so considerable as Mr. Boehm's+bust of Mr. Gladstone. 1882 Athenæum 29 Apr. 543/2 Several heads appeared to be eiconic.b. Of or pertaining to an image used in worship.
1890 Sat. Rev. 20 Sept. 348/1 Apparatus of the iconic character required by Roman Catholic devotion.c. Semiotics. Pertaining to or resembling an icon (sense 3b). Also transf.
1939 C. W. Morris in Kenyon Rev. I. iv. 415 The aesthetic sign+is an iconic sign (an 'image') in that it embodies these values in some medium where they may be directly inspected (in short, the aesthetic sign is an iconic sign whose designatum is a value). 1949 [see icon 3b]. 1956 E. H. Hutten Lang. Mod. Physics ii. 15 Sometimes, the sign is similar to the thing it stands for, in the manner in which a picture represents, and we have iconic signs. 1964 T. W. McRae Impact of Computers on Accounting v. 132 There are many kinds of model. The one described above is an iconic model, that is a physical representation of the original item. 1965 C. H. Springer et al. Adv. Methods and Models i. 6 He might use+an iconic model, which doesn't act like the real thing (as the analog model does) but only looks like it. 1966 M. Pei Gloss. Ling. Terminol. 118 Iconic, characterized by a symbolism which purports to present an image of the object described (Chinese pictographs). 1970 English Studies LI. 279 Non-roman notations are generally 'iconic', i.e. 'the symbols are not arbitrary signs, but in some way resemble what they stand for'. 1971 Language XLVII. 416 There is+growing evidence that language contains many elements which are iconic—that is, imitative of non-linguistic reality.icon
†3. a. Rhet. A simile. Obs.1589 Puttenham Eng. Poesie iii. xix. (Arb.) 250 Icon or Resemblance by imagerie. 1620 Granger Div. Logike 148 Metaphores are contracted similitudes. To which if the note be added, it is called Icon. 1676 Hobbes Iliad To Rdr., The perfection and curiosity of descriptions, which the ancient writers of eloquence call icones, that is images.b. Philos. (See quot. 1934.) Also transf.
a1914 C. S. Peirce Coll. Papers (1931) I. iii. iii. 195 It has been found that there are three kinds of signs which are all indispensable in all reasoning; the first is the diagrammatic sign or icon, which exhibits a similarity or analogy to the subject of discourse. Ibid. 196 There may be a mere relation of reason between the sign and the thing signified; in that case, the sign is an icon. 1934 Mind XLIII. 497 An icon is a sign which represents its object by virtue of having some character in common with the object: the colour of a colour-card as representing the colour of the object which it resembles is an icon, and a map as representing spatial relations is an icon. 1949 Poetry (Chicago) Jan. 234 Icons, images, which are the aesthetic signs of the poem, analogous to the symbolic signs of scientific discourses; they have, as signs, semantic objects, or refer to objects, and, in addition, as iconic signs, resemble those objects. 1954 W. K. Wimsatt Verbal Icon (1967) p. x, The term icon is used to-day by semeiotic writers to refer to a verbal sign which somehow shares the properties of, or resembles, the objects which it denotes.
We understand that the determined abuser of the language will, undoubtedly, protest and insist that the third, more modern usage, as further defined above under icon, covers virtually everything, as pertaining to a representation or imitation of another thing; but look more closely and the profound error in conception will be discerned. Moreover, the popular usage is not intended to convey the connotation of an imitation of the original, but rather the prototypical font of all human knowledge in a particular area, the very collective expression of the common weal in microcosm, be it a song, dress, cowboy hat, actor, actress, Gong Show reject, long ago fecked guitar plucker, show-toy cat, tress of hair, Pong game gone away, Kiss or Dare, Pez dispenser pusher, luckless, trampy miscreant lusher, or whatever you please, while conveying, actually, in the user the proto-Dorian convention, completely devoid of objectivity and, finally, all meaning, devolved to a nihilistic fantasy where what you subjectively feel is. Nine times out of ten, it ain't.
As example of bad usage of the term, take a well-known scene
Here, incidentally, is a good example of the misusage, right out of today's prints, appearing in a major publication, regarding a recently deceased theater and film director, producer and playwright, all references stripped, as the incidence of the problem is so frequent that it would be unfair to single out any one offender, all of them seemingly misled—or, misleaded, if you want to be, you know, with it—by each other: "Many of ___________'s theater productions have become iconic. He also won broad fame as a film director." With all due respect to Mr. ___________'s achievements, his productions should have been more than merely "iconic", that is imitations or representations of something, which we would hope any and all productions would be. Look, junior, if you can't think of anything else to use as a descriptor, just revert to your teen and younger years when everything good was "awesome" or "cool". That is at least better than "iconic". "Lionize" is always a good word to use in an obit. of a praiseworthy person, that is, should you wish to sound slightly educated.
The Associated Press collects a series of editorial comment from various newspapers regarding Senator Nixon's speech of the prior Tuesday night on his $18,235 expense fund. The New York Journal American, backing the Eisenhower ticket, finds the justification "magnificent" and that he had "fought like a man", a "gentleman", a "patriot", who was an "admitted partisan", and like a "plain Joe".
Nixonic, one might say, is more comic that iconic—no, not moronic, being reserved exclusively for the current occupant.
The New York Post, supportive of the Stevenson ticket and the source of the original story on the fund, describes the speech as the Senator's "private soap opera before a nationwide television audience", that undoubtedly there would be some, including General Eisenhower, who would regard "the performance as a thrilling evening in the theater", while others might have believed, as had the newspaper, "that the corn overshadowed the drama". It indicates that the great question regarding why the "millionaires club" had been paying a lot of the Senator's bills remained unanswered, whether it was "ethical, defensible or desirable" for a Senator to accept money from wealthy special-interest groups which had a direct stake in legislation. It concludes that he had promised to tell all regarding the accounting for the money, but had failed to do so.
The New York World-Telegram and Sun, which supported the Republican ticket, describes the speech as "extraordinary" and a challenge to Governor Stevenson to reveal the names of the contributors to his established fund for certain appointed Illinois State employees. It regards the Governor as being in the same "fix" as the Senator, for taking money for political purposes from outside sources, which might influence decisions.
The Richmond News Leader, supporting the Republican ticket, finds the speech to have been a "satisfactory answer" for voters and indicates that it did not intend to abandon its support of the ticket based on the Nixon incident. Yet, it asserts that the Senator ought remove himself from the ticket because taking the fund was wrong, and, though obviously he was going to stay on, it finds it disappointing.
The Birmingham News, supporting the Eisenhower candidacy, finds that there was no indication that the Senator had intended to do anything wrong, but there could be wrong intentions and effects under such practices, and that in failing to acknowledge that possibility, the Senator continued "to show a lack of judgment and sense of discrimination and propriety consistent with his satisfactory continuance" as a candidate for the vice-presidency.
The Chattanooga News-Free Press, supportive of General Eisenhower, finds that the Senator had shown himself worthy of the vice-presidency, and predicts that the address might prove potentially to be a decisive development in the campaign.
The New Orleans States, uncommitted to either ticket, finds that the Nixon matter would go down "as one of the great thrills of one of the most interesting presidential campaigns" in the country's history. But it could also boomerang, with those who were doing the smearing losing more public support than the man being smeared—albeit not being specific as to which came first, the chicken or the egg, in terms of "smear tactics".
The Miami Daily News, uncommitted, finds that the Senator had said everything except that he was sorry, that General Eisenhower had implied that the Senator had made a mistake, one which the General would be well advised to convince Mr. Nixon to admit, failing which, the Senator would continue to appear "morally insensitive and thereby seriously handicapped either in lashing Administration corruption in Washington, or as serving as Vice-President."
The Atlanta Journal, uncommitted, finds that, apart from the fund issue, the question had arisen whether Senator Nixon was qualified to be Vice-President, a heartbeat away from the Presidency, that courage was a fine quality, but that it took more than courage to be a good President, requiring also wisdom, judgment and "a sense of the fitness of things", the latter qualities it finds to have been lacking in Mr. Nixon's presentation of his case.
The Nashville Banner, endorsing the Eisenhower ticket, believes that the Senator had shown that he had nothing to hide, questions whether his detractors could demonstrate as much.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune, uncommitted, suggests that the Senator might have taken the ticket off the defensive and shifted the burden to the Democrats.
The Kansas City Star, endorsing the General, finds that the Senator had given all of the facts "most frankly, most dramatically and with rare courage", and thinks it might prove "the great boomerang of the campaign".
The Baltimore Evening Sun, supporting the General, finds that the Senator had not dealt with the underlying problem of propriety regarding the fund, questions whether it was wise to have a vice-presidential candidate "who was insensitive enough to sanction such arrangements". It believes that the Senator had probably minimized the immediate political difficulty, and that his challenge to Governor Stevenson to reveal the details of his fund in Illinois might also contribute to the same end, but that the problem of dealing with such practices would remain, until the Congress and the next administration faced and dealt with those problems.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, uncommitted, suggests the speech to have possessed several elements of a "carefully contrived soap opera" and that "several interesting discrepancies" had shown up, that the Senator "might be forgiven a certain laxness of political morality if he didn't know any better, but when he tries to hoodwink the people into believing that his lapse was merely an incident in a great moral crusade, the hypocrisy of it is too much."
The St. Louis Globe-Democrat, supporting the Eisenhower ticket, finds that "Nixon was an impressive witness in his own behalf", and that he had shown courage.
The Albany (N.Y.) Knickerbocker News, an independent Republican newspaper, suggests that the people had never seen a "more courageous performance by a politician", determines that the Senator was "a thoroughly honest and ethical gentleman" and a "definite asset" to the ticket.
The Portland (Me.) Evening Express, which supported the Eisenhower ticket, asserts that while the Senator had appealed largely to emotion, he had spoken "magnificently", had lain his head on the block against public opinion holding the axe, and the axe, it concludes, would not fall on him.
The Newark News, supportive of General Eisenhower, declares that if all members of Congress had each received a private fund of $18,000, the members would appear to represent the interests of private groups rather than those of their constituents as a whole or the public interest at large, that such circumstances should not exist, that the objections, on both moral and practical grounds, would remain, whether or not the Senator was asked to step down from the ticket.
The Newark Star-Ledger, uncommitted but friendly to the General, indicates that the Senator could not have failed to arouse the sympathy of the people and convince them of his "personal honesty and integrity", but had, nevertheless, failed to explain "the weakness of his judgment". It believes that the General would rebuke that poor judgment in strong terms, while allowing the Senator to remain on the ticket and spearhead the fight against corruption.
It might have added in that regard, putting him in charge of the chicken coop, or at least the Pig sty.
The St. Paul Pioneer Press, supportive of General Eisenhower, finds that the Senator had proved himself under fire, that he was a "clean and true American" who belonged as the future Vice-President. It challenges Governor Stevenson and Senator Sparkman to come clean as well.
The Buffalo Evening News, supportive of the Eisenhower ticket, indicates that the public, barring future developments, appeared prepared to accept Senator Nixon's accounting and regard the expense fund incident as closed, finds that he had submitted to it "bravely" and "candidly". It believes that the incident had a salutary effect on American politics, dramatizing the ethical questions which the country needed to face in placing the government "on a moral plane which would command universal respect."
Oh, Mr. Nixon will definitely do that over the next 22 years. Have no doubt. It will all become perfectly clear in time. You will see. Nixon's the One. Just ask him...
Drew Pearson tells of General Eisenhower being scheduled to speak in Baltimore this night to clarify the reasons why he had embraced some of the isolationists of his party and had tolerated such extremists as Senators William Jenner and Joseph McCarthy. Mr. Pearson indicates that the reason for his embrace of these positions and candidates dated back to his return to the country in early June, some five weeks before the Chicago convention in July. At that time, he was quite opposed to the isolationists and extremists, but his advisers had reminded him that he was a novice at politics and urged him not to antagonize anyone, rather to concentrate on winning the nomination.
But while in Denver during the summer, the General had another showdown with the extremists regarding McCarthyism, when his old friend Paul Hoffman had been asked to testify against the Senator in defense of General Marshall during the libel suit brought by Senator McCarthy against Senator William Benton of Connecticut regarding the latter's statements that Senator McCarthy had engaged in lies and fraud in his claims of Communists in the Government. Mr. Hoffman had asked the General whether his testimony would be embarrassing, and the General had said that it would not, that he might testify against Senator McCarthy, himself. That exchange had gotten back to RNC chairman Arthur Summerfield, who immediately then consulted with the General, advising him that if he opposed Senator McCarthy, he would also have to oppose Senator Jenner, and then, in turn Senator Harry Cain of Washington, who had consistently sided with Senator McCarthy. Eventually, General Eisenhower agreed, and when he got to Indianapolis recently, the home of Senator Jenner, who had openly called General Marshall "a front man for traitors" and "a living lie", he encountered an awkward situation when Senator Jenner sought to share the same stage with General Eisenhower, holding up the General's hand, prompting the General to move away on the platform, only to find Senator Jenner following him. Eventually, the the General issued a statement endorsing the entire ticket in Indiana, which included Senator Jenner, who had attacked the man who had made General Eisenhower's career.
He notes that Senator McCarthy had also attacked General Eisenhower, in addition to General Marshall, calling the former the supporter of all of the pro-Communist attitudes of the latter.
Marquis Childs tells of a great many admirers of General Eisenhower being troubled by his apparent difficulty in reaching his own decisions, though, he finds, it was not very surprising, given the General's military background. He came from a milieu in which orders were given and had to be obeyed or consequences paid.
He finds the difference between that world and the world of politics, which the General was newly confronting daily in 1952, to have been illustrated by the situation involving Senator Nixon, especially with regard to the personalities and viewpoints of those who had been arguing with the General as to what should and should not take place in response.
RNC chairman Arthur Summerfield, a large Chevrolet dealer in Detroit who had been backed by G.M., whose executives generally supported Republican causes, had been named chairman after General Eisenhower's nomination at the convention, much to the consternation of several of the key supporters of the General, believing that Mr. Summerfield, formerly a Taft supporter, would side with the Old Guard on important issues, thus sacrificing the moderate, independent vote so crucial for election. But Mr. Summerfield had proved completely loyal to the General and had done a great deal of practical work to enable him to achieve the nomination. He believed that the Nixon situation was nothing more than Democratic politics at work, and likely agreed with Senator Taft that since Senator Nixon's views were completely in accord with those of the wealthy Californians who had provided him the fund, it was impossible to say that they were buying him as he was already with them in the first place. Mr. Childs ventures that it was impossible for a person of Mr. Summerfield's background to understand the problem, vis-à-vis the ordinary voter, with identifying Senator Nixon with such wealthy interests.
The second person in charge of advising the General since the convention was Senator Frank Carlson of Kansas, a "timid man who has been conscious of the criticism from the regulars that Ike would be the candidate of the spenders, the do-gooders and the one-worlders." His effort had been devoted to ensuring the acceptance of the General by the Old Guard of the party, a job he had performed often with ineptitude, as in the arrangement with Senator Taft to have breakfast with General Eisenhower, after which the Senator issued a statement saying that the two were compatible on all of the issues, with their foreign policy being at odds only by degrees—communicating the inference that General Eisenhower was not far from the isolationist policy for which Senator Taft was identified. Senator Carlson had little experience in national politics and none in presidential campaigns.
The third person in charge of advising the General was Governor Sherman Adams, his chief of staff. He was a man of "scrupulous uprightness" who understood the impact of the Nixon matter, but his influence was difficult to assess compared to that of more forceful and forthright advisers to the campaign.
A fourth adviser with daily access to the General was Senator Fred Seaton of Nebraska, a newspaper publisher who had been appointed the prior December to fill the unexpired term of deceased Senator Kenneth Wherry. He sought to make up in zeal and devotion that which he lacked in experience.
Among the 50 are more staff members, there were able and practical people who knew their jobs, but few of them could provide the information on which the General could rely regarding how the campaign was proceeding. Some of the staff complained that the General was not really interested in such matters, and that when they placed before him newspapers and individual articles for him to read, he ignored them.
Mr. Childs concludes that the process and politics was so different from the military process with which the General had become so familiar, that it was proving troublesome, such that a number of people had begun to feel sympathy for the General for being caught in the middle of a division in the party, which he could not have anticipated while considering whether to run during his tenure as NATO supreme commander.
James Marlow suggests that the next move in the case regarding Senator Nixon would have to be made, if at all, by DNC chairman Stephen Mitchell, who had said shortly after the initial disclosure of the $18,000 expense fund that the difference between his recommendation that the Senator be taken off the ticket and that more forgiving approach, to wait and see what the evidence said, adopted by Governor Stevenson, was that he had "more facts" than had the Governor. He had not disclosed, however, what those additional facts were, and Mr. Marlow suggests that, if he did have any, then it could be expected that he would let them be known during the course of the campaign.
General Eisenhower had now had a week to process the information since revelation of the fund, and had come to the conclusion that Senator Nixon was "completely vindicated as a man of honor", following his address to the nation on Tuesday night.
Subsequently, should Mr. Mitchell provide further damaging information about Senator Nixon, General Eisenhower would be as hurt as would be the Senator, as it would bring into question the General's judgment in providing the Senator with his new approval after the revelation of the fund. But the Democrats had remained relatively quiet following the Tuesday night speech, having been quite vocal on the matter in between the revelation on Thursday night and the time of the speech. Mr. Marlow concludes, however, that even if the Democrats were not able to produce anything further regarding Mr. Nixon, they would likely not allow him and the General to "live in their reunion happily forever after. They'll probably bang away at Nixon until election day."
From Mr. Nixon's rather paranoid point of view, as well as that of the lieutenants surrounding him, they would likely have added to that latter phrase, "plus 22 years". Yet, it was that paranoia of Mr. Nixon and his lieutenants which ultimately led to his downfall in Watergate, not, as they liked to believe, some left-wing conspiracy fomented by the liberal press in conjunction with liberals of the Democratic Party, and other assorted Communists. Mr. Nixon was never more an object of concentrated ridicule or question by the press or the opposing faction of the opposing party than was any other nationally known politician in the history of the country. It was the case, however, probably from early insecurity regarding his family background, that he believed himself royal, in the sense of having risen by his own bootstraps from working class roots to eminent places in government, to the degree that he was beyond criticism, and that anyone who adopted a critical stance toward him was an "enemy" to be conquered, and if not readily amenable to subjection, destroyed. That was the Nixon complex which ultimately boiled over in Watergate—and which now envelops the present White House, albeit with quite different antecedent socio-economic reasons for a similar resulting complex. There is a great difference between arguing against another's position because it disagrees with your own, politically, and seeking to destroy the opposition if they refuse to see things your way.
Emblematic of that theme still running through our society is the dedicated effort on the part of some to destroy others because of statements made, which might be simple misunderstandings of what a person intended to say, imputing to those persons a kind of status of being "racist", "sexist", or what have you, based solely on imputed meaning to certain verbal statements. That is exactly the approach taken by Nazis and Fascists, when they abounded in Europe during the 1930s through the end of the war. If you are one of those who seeks to destroy a person, causing them to lose their job and their livelihood, etc., because of a statement they made, you are sick and need help in understanding your own problem. Seek it out and stop trying to destroy people because of their exercise of freedom of thought and freedom of expression. There is a direct connection with the fool we have presently in the White House and that very type of conduct, as he was elected by the people who have confused and misplaced reactions to that very sort of conduct, seeking to flail around for answers in experimental politics, seeking anyone who is different from those presently in power, to satisfy the urge for reaction to those who react badly to something as simple as unwanted speech. That can only lead to the same kind of disaster which beset Nazi Germany. If you do not like someone's speech, then argue with them and disagree with them, either in writing or verbally, but do not seek to harm their lives and livelihoods for mere disagreement, or you are no better than a garden-variety Nazi and will stimulate far worse reaction down the line than that which you rail against in the wrong way. Everyone has the right to their say, no matter how ugly the speech in which it is conveyed. Speech is speech and cannot hurt you any more than you allow it to do by not responding to it with proper counter-argument and marshaling of contrary facts. The fool in the White House and the fools who seek actively to harm others for exercise of speech are of a piece.
When you figure that out, we might begin to get somewhere, back on track, in this country, which has gotten way, way out in the cornfields, in the last three years.
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