REPUBLICANS: Stassen's Ten-Year Plan

Like many another American fighting a homesick war in the Pacific, Captain Harold E. Stassen had plenty of time and inclination to wonder what all the shooting was about back home. Last week Civilian Stassen stood up before the Manhattan convention of the National Association of Manufacturers-and unfolded a plan marked by the patriotic optimism that veterans know well. What he suggested was, in effect, a U.S. conference—on the lines of the UNO conference at San Francisco—of the U.S. people, and a Ten-Year Plan. Said he:

"Let us all agree upon a thorough ten-year test. Let us begin promptly to join together—government, labor, business and agriculture—and to do everything possible to champion and encourage and develop the basic American system.

"At the end of ten years of united vigorous support let us observe the result, while we then make our decisions as to future policies. I am confident that if we do this it will result in a clear-cut demonstration of the superiority and high value of our system. . . .

"There is a pressing need now, not of more labor-management conferences, but of a real postwar economic conference, including the leadership of business and of labor and of agriculture . . . some of our ablest economists, and representation from both of our political parties."

Republican Stassen got no cheers from Democrats, and he well knew that some members of his party would object on the ground that the G.O.P. should not help bail the Truman Administration out of its troubles. But Candidate Stassen, a determined contender for President in 1948, knew that the people were sick of hit-or-miss government, that his proposal would not fall entirely on deaf ears.