POLITICAL NOTES: Silence Broken

Ever since ex-Secretary of State Jimmy Byrnes left Harry Truman's service in 1947, he had kept mum about politics. His silence during the presidential campaign led fellow South Carolinians to wonder whether he looked on the Dixiecrats with favor. But not until last week did he let anybody know how he really felt about things: in the midst of a speech on foreign affairs he let loose a hot blast of scorn at the domestic Fair Deal.

"We are going down the road to statism," proclaimed Jimmy as Washington and Lee University handed him an honorary doctor of laws degree. "Where we will wind up no one can tell. But if some of the new programs seriously proposed should be adopted, there is danger that the individual—whether farmer, worker, manufacturer, lawyer, or doctor—will soon be an economic slave pulling an oar in the galley of the state."

It was all the more striking coming from the man who, as Senator, had done so much to steer Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal through Congress, had been rewarded with Supreme Court robes and a Cabinet job.