National Affairs: I Know How They Feel

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The upshot was a tacit agreement among a bipartisan group of Senators to try to smother the Wherry resolution in committee, meanwhile prepare another document which would 1) affirm senatorial support of the Brussels agreement, 2) give the President specific authority to send troops to Europe. Whether the authorization would include the number of troops involved still had to be debated and would depend somewhat on the report which Dwight Eisenhower made on his return, when the resolution would be sprung.

Nothing New to Say. As for Harry Truman, facing his press conference once again, he said he would appreciate it very highly if the Senate would pass such a resolution, even though, he reiterated pleasantly, he did not need the Senate's O.K. Since he had to whip somebody, he whipped the White House correspondents and newspaper reporting for being at the bottom of the whole affair. At week's end, he went to the dinner of the Business Magazine Editors (see The Presidency) and laughed it all away.

"Somebody sent me a cartoon from Punch a day or two ago," he recounted, beaming, "in which the cartoonist was depicting an argument in the Senate of the Carthaginians, and one able Senator of the Carthaginians was saying that Hannibal should not be allowed to use elephants simply because the Senate should control the use of those elephants."* The President grinned and shrugged. "That has been going on ever since we have had Senates and Senators, and I have served ten years in the Senate and I know just exactly how they feel. And actually, no matter what they say for publication, when the time comes for action they will be right there . . . Honest criticism is necessary. I don't object to that. There is nothing new you can say about me anyhow."