Heat About a Cold

Beside the President of the U.S., in his green-carpeted White House office one morning last week, stood a small boy leaning easily on aluminum crutches. Billy Jennings, 6, of Trumbull, Conn., the 1955 "Easter Seal Child" of the National Society for Crippled Children & Adults, had come to deliver to the White House the first block of seals. "You're doing all right there, feller," said the President, as he shook Billy's hand. Then he accepted the corsage the boy was to give to Mrs. Eisenhower, and explained why he had come instead: "She'd like to meet you, Billy, but she's in bed with a bad cold."

"Evil & Loathsome." Before the week was out, that bad cold had touched off one of the season's hottest political storms. The big blow began after Democratic National Chairman Paul Butler expressed the opinion that President Eisenhower will not seek re-election because of "a personal situation in the Eisenhower household." When he realized next day that this was quite cryptic, Butler extended his remarks: "Newspaper reports indicate that Mrs. Eisenhower's health is not too good. I believe that could affect the President's decision on making another White House bid."

At the White House President Eisenhower had the sniffles himself, and the chronic bursitis in his right shoulder was acting up enough to call for heat treatment at Walter Reed Hospital.* And when Butler's remarks reached him, his under-collar temperature shot up. Within a few hours Presidential Press Secretary James C. Hagerty had passed the word to New Hampshire's Republican Senator Styles Bridges: Ike thought Butler's comment about Mamie was a political foul.

Thus, getting the green light from a President who sometimes distresses them by recommending gentle treatment of Democrats, Capitol Hill Republicans happily turned on Paul Butler with a collective snarl. Arizona's Republican Senator Barry Goldwater rose on the Senate floor to call Butler's statement "another sample of person-smear tactics which have now become typical of Butler's idea of political warfare . . . Our distinguished President and his wife . . . are in sound, healthy and vigorous condition--in vivid contrast to the condition of the man who ran for a fourth term and withheld information of his mortal sickness from the nation."

With his white hair bristling, Vermont's usually mild Republican Senator George Aiken roared: "Why did Mr. Butler go to this inhuman length? . . . There can be only one answer. He does not want President Eisenhower to run for reelection. His statement could lead one to think he would be very happy if Mrs. Eisenhower were in poor health. . . Does Mr. Butler think he can make her sick by this kind of talk? . . . We have often heard the question asked, 'Just how low and evil and loathsome can an animal in human form get?' I think Mr. Butler answered that question very well."

And Also the Piano. Democrats on Capitol Hill were hardly enthusiastic in their defense of the national chairman. The tone was set by Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, who said that if Butler spoke an untruth about the health of the First Lady, "I would be the first to feel that he made a mistake." However, said Texas' Johnson, "it seems passing strange to me . . . that my delightful friends on the other side of the aisle should be so disturbed in this year 1955. In previous Administrations they talked about the President's health, the President's wife, the President's daughter and the President's piano, and everything else they could think of which concerned the President."

By week's end Mamie Eisenhower's cold was better, and she was up and about; White House Physician Howard M. Snyder said her health was fine except for a slight since-childhood heart condition that at times limits her activity. The President's sniffles had cleared up; his bursitis was well enough for him to play some golf and to swim in the White House pool (which he dislikes, but does on Dr. Snyder's orders).

Last week the President also:

P: Nominated Texas Democrat James Weldon Jones to be a member of the U.S. Tariff Commission, succeeding Oscar B. Ryder, 70, retired.

P: Issued a proclamation allowing the import of an additional 51 million pounds of peanuts to alleviate a drought-caused shortage that is pinching candy manufacturers.

P: Was left off the new roster of Washington's Burning Tree golf club until red-faced officials discovered the printer's error and hurriedly had another roster printed.

P: Met at the White House with the officers and men who exactly ten years before had participated in the heroic capture of the Rhine bridge at Remagen, Germany, and handed out 15 scrolls designating them as members of the "Society of the Remagen Bridgehead."

P: Stepped into the rose garden to greet a group of foreign students studying atomic energy at Illinois Argonne National Laboratory, found himself locked out when he tried to get back into the White House, had to ring the bell and wait for a Secret Service man to run around and open the door.

P: Breakfasted with 20 Republican women, lunched with 20 freshman Congressmen, 16 Democrats and four Republicans, and cracked: "I'm always bipartisan when I am in the minority."

* Also fighting colds last week: Britain's Sir Winston Churchill, 80, and Germany's Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, 79.

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