National Affairs: Debut in Duluth

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The Gay Deceivers. Turning to domestic policy. Stevenson used "the crisis in agriculture" as his prize example of Republican promise-breaking. He quoted Dwight Eisenhower as saying in his 1952 farm-policy speech at Kasson, Minn.: "The Republican Party is pledged to the sustaining of the 90% parity price support, and it is pledged even more than that to helping the farmer obtain his full parity, 100% of parity." Said

Stevenson: "If an innocent and gullible Miss Minnesota feels aggrieved by these gay deceivers I will gladly be a witness in a breach-of-promise suit against the Republicans, because I was at Kasson that famous day. And I am happy to recall that I did not outbid or even try to match the Republican promises to the farmers." Then Stevenson made the statement that the farm-conscious Minnesotans wanted to hear. Said he: "We must return to the 90% supports which the Republicans thought so well of in 1952, until they decided it was time for a change—after the election ... At the risk of mis understanding and misrepresentation, I will say again and again that restoring 90% price supports to meet the present emergency is not to say that they are a solution, but only that it is a better program than sliding supports that slide only one way."