THE PRESIDENCY: A Familiar Air

there was something mighty familiar about the way Harry Truman was acting. Almost every time he got a chance to say a few words in public, he had a mouthful of invective for his opponents and fulsome praise for his Administration.

One day he dropped in at an electric-power consumers' conference in Washington's Willard Hotel and shot a 2,200-volt charge into the private power business. Harry Truman barked that the companies are carrying on a multimillion-dollar propaganda campaign against public power development, and hinted that he might call for an investigation. Said he: "What these private power companies are actually doing is deliberately and in cold blood setting out to poison the minds of the people . . . a leaf right out of the books of Karl Marx and Adolf Hitler."

Before the flash and smoke of the charge was gone, Truman rose before a Jewish National Fund banquet and threw the switch on members of Congress who voted to cut military and foreign-aid expenditures. "There are some people who would rather play politics than have strong defenses," he said. "They would rather embarrass the White House than checkmate the Kremlin."

By week's end Washington correspondents had diagnosed the condition. The President was acting and talking just as he did in 1948 when he stormed across the U.S. in his give-'em-hell campaign. He had started the whistle-stop campaign he had promised to conduct for his party's nominees in 1952.

Last week the President also:

¶ Vetoed the "Tidelands" bill, which would give the states clear title to the oil-rich lands off their shores. That would give the states, he said, "a free gift of immensely valuable resources, which belong to the entire nation."

¶ Asked Congress to approve a five-year $4.2 billion program for expansion of atomic-weapons production.