Sawing Off a Limb

One day last week Springfield's Illinois State Fair drew the biggest crowd (225,000) in its history. The main attraction: the broad grin of Dwight Eisenhower, entirely surrounded by Republican politicians.

Nothing Personal. Ike flew to Springfield to help the G.O.P. ticket and. especially, Senatorial Candidate Joseph T. Meek, former lobbyist for the Illinois Federation of Retail Associations, disciple of the Chicago Tribune. There was nothing personal in Ike's help for Meek. The senatorial candidate was not at the airport to meet the President. At lunch in the governor's mansion, Meek was not seated at Ike's table. When the presidential motorcade left for the fairgrounds, Illinois' Governor William G. Stratton and Indiana's Governor George Craig rode with Ike. Meek rode with his family, six cars behind. On the rostrum, when Meek was introduced, he bounded out of his chair, waved to the crowd and turned to shake hands with Ike. Startled, the President remained seated.

Stratton introduced Ike, and the applause was tumultuous. Speaking from notes printed in large block letters on pieces of cardboard, the President worked into a recital of the progress made since he took office with a Republican Congress. The Korean war had been ended. Said Ike: "Obviously, all of us know that the composition that was reached in Korea is not satisfactory to America, but it is far better than to continue the bloody, dreary sacrifice of lives with no possible strictly military victory in sight." At home, the President said, controls had been lifted, inflation avoided, a sensible farm program and other vital legislation enacted. Then the President came to the meat of his speech. While the Eisenhower program was being passed, he said, "there have been sitting on the sidelines . . . the prophets of gloom and doom."

Crooked Fence. Said he: "Some of them saw a great inflation . . . They have been proved wrong. Others then started preaching depression, depression." The President was reminded of Lincoln's story of "a farmer [who] built a fence that was so crooked that every time a pig bored a hole through it, he found himself on the same side from which he started.

Now." said Ike. "these economic prophets of doom have been building up a lot of fences of what they called economic statistics. But . . . they built them so crookedly that every time they bored through them, .they came out on the side of pessimism and depression ... I think all of us are getting rather tired of crooked-fence economic policies." Not until the end of the speech did the President get around to Meek. Ike said he hoped it would not sound like a political speech "if I should suggest to you the possiblity that it might be a good thing to increase the size of the delegation that you send from Lincoln's party to Washington."

Meek was satisfied. Ike had not used his name, but the President seldom does use a candidate's name. And if the President's endorsement had been less than warmhearted, the President's attack was aimed directly at a target Illinois voters could identify. Meek's opponent is Senator Paul Douglas, who last spring bet his political shirt on a depression. Economist Douglas had gone up and down Illinois, asserting that hard times had arrived and were about to get much worse. Said an Eisenhower aide: "Douglas got himself out on a limb and we're sawing it off."

Dusting the sawdust off his hands, Ike flew back to Washington, picked up a lot of paper work, and with Mamie took off for Denver and semi-vacation. On the plane the President signed into law 41 acts of Congress in 40 minutes, then relaxed. At Denver he greeted his mother-in-law, Mrs. Elivera Doud, and said: "Well, we're back again, Min. Boy, am I delighted."

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