THE PRESIDENCY: A Day in the City

Like any other vacationer who has to take time out for a trip to the city. Dwight Eisenhower tried to cram a great deal of activity into one 10-hour day last week. When he arrived at New York's La Guardia Field, the President was still drowsy-eyed from his in-flight sleep, but well-rested for the schedule ahead.

He had just finished breakfast in the cream-colored presidential suite of the Waldorf-Astoria when U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge dropped in on his way to the U.N. Then Vice President Nixon arrived for the swearing-in of his Committee on Government Contracts, set up to enforce anti-discrimination clauses (TIME, Aug. 24). At 11:30 a.m., Harold Riegelman, Republican nominee for New York's mayoralty, turned up. Ike gave Candidate Riegelman half an hour of his busy day, followed it up with a friendly endorsement.

After lunch Ike drove through cheering crowds (an estimated 1,250,000 saw him during the day) to the flyspecked Board of Elections building, where he registered for the November city election by signing his name in the registry book, giving his address as 60 Morningside Drive (his old residence as president of Columbia University). Then he headed deeper into the Lower East Side, joined Governor Tom Dewey, Cardinal Spellman and other dignitaries at a birthday celebration for Elder Statesman Bernard Baruch. The city was honoring Baruch on his 83rd birthday with the dedication of Baruch Houses, a $32 million, Federal-city slum-clearance housing project named for Baruch's father, Dr. Simon Baruch.

In one short day, in politically sensitive New York, the President proved his awareness of political currents. He had 1) demonstrated his antipathy toward racial discrimination; 2) given his blessing to public housing; and 3) for the first time, put his presidential backing behind a G.O.P. candidate for municipal office.