OPINION: A Conspicuous Success

• Share

Columnists Joseph and Stewart Alsop, generally faithful supporters of the Fair Deals, have measured in small doses their praise for the record of Dwight Eisenhower as President. Last week the Broth ers Alsop gave a new estimate of the Eisenhower Administration.

"A long time has passed," they wrote, "since an American President has seriously asked the Congress to enact a serious and comprehensive program of legislation." With that, they gave the back of their column's hand to an old friend. "The programs of Harry S. Truman were mainly intended, after all, not to be enacted into law, but to put Congress on the spot. Truman himself would probably have been horrified if the lawmakers had actually voted for some of his more extreme and ill-digested suggestions, such as the Oscar Ewing health and social security plans."

The astonishment of being presented by a U.S. President with a broad and constructive legislative program, the Alsops decided, has thrown the "hardened old politicians of both parties" off balance—with happy results.

"It is high time to report," the Alsops reported, "that President Eisenhower's massive legislative program looks like a conspicuous success by both the important tests.

"Legislatively, the prospects are now excellent that an extraordinarily high proportion of the White House proposals will be approved by Congress. The President looks like getting most of what he has asked for without a fight. If he really fights for the rest, he should get almost everything he has asked for.

"Politically, the impact of the program has surpassed all expectation. The long, impressive drumfire of major messages, the careful preparation and aiming of almost all the shots, the unity and coherence of the whole barrage of proposals, have apparently inspired a strong new national confidence in Eisenhower's leadership."