DEMOCRATS: Give Me Time

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At a Democratic luncheon in Cincinnati's Netherland Plaza Hotel, Adlai Stevenson explained his reason for beginning a one-day swing into Ohio in Senator Robert Taft's home town. Said Adlai: "I think of Cincinnati—and not New York—as the elephant's nest, or should I say the lair?"

It was on the issue these lines suggested —Ike's "captivity" to Taft and "the Republican Old Guard"—that Adlai Stevenson based most of his campaign last week. In warning tones Stevenson reminded his Cincinnati audience of "the fatal error" of the liberal Republicans who in 1920 supported Warren Harding. The Republican situation in 1952, implied Stevenson, was much the same.

Moving on to Columbus, Stevenson expounded the Democratic Party's concern for what he called "the family problems of a democracy," i.e., education, hospitalization, social security and housing. Said he: "I am glad to be in Ohio and I am glad to pay my respects to the uncrowned boss of the Republican Party—Senator Taft. At least you know where Senator Taft stands—even if you don't like how he stands."

Next day Stevenson went to Fort Dodge, Iowa, to dedicate the town's new airport. Out of the crowd which shivered under a cold, biting wind, a voice called: "Give 'em hell, Adlai!"

"Well, give me time," hollered Stevenson in reply. Then Stevenson told his largely agricultural audience that the Republican Party does not dare stand on its own farm policy record. "Instead." said he, "it has a 'me-too' candidate running on a 'yes-but' platform, advised by a 'has-been' staff."

At St. Paul, Minn. the same evening, the Democratic candidate stepped up his attack. He slashed at Eisenhower's tacit support of McCarthy: "My opponent has . . . cheapened the time-honored custom of endorsements." Ominously, he expounded on his portrait of Ike's advisers and their intentions: "The dominant Old Guard of the Republican Party has captured the candidate . . . With do-nothing, care-nothing, mindless mumbo jumbo, they will let America and the world slide into a depression, and such a misery bears the seeds of another world war."

Stevenson's aides were worried by the fact that he was not drawing crowds. His voice and manner, effective indoors, was sadly disappointing outdoors. As if to make up for these drawbacks, Stevenson was swinging harder.