REPUBLICANS: Happiness Through Health

Around the tables in the Continental Room of Washington's Sheraton-Park Hotel, the state leaders of the Republican Party tried hard to hide their optimism behind worried looks and diffident words. But in foot-high letters, mounted on a red plush drape, a sign proclaimed the state of the nation: "Everything's Booming but the Guns."

Under way was a four-day clinic for G.O.P. state chairmen, aimed at teaching them how best to sell their product—Dwight Eisenhower—in 1956. The chairmen themselves were cause for additional Republican satisfaction. Under the Eisenhower leadership, the grizzled, opposition-minded G.O.P. pols of past years have to a large degree given way to more youthful men with more youthful outlooks. Among last week's group were nine state chairmen aged 40 years or less: New York's L. Judson Morhouse, 40; California's Thomas W. Caldecott, 40; New Mexico's Merrill B. Johns Jr. 39; North Dakota's George Longmire, 39; Michigan's John Feikens, 37; New Hampshire's William W. Treat, 37; Oklahoma's Douglas McKeever, 37; Oregon's Wendell Wyatt, 37; and Wisconsin's Philip G. Kuehn, 35.

Questions by Candlelight.

The clinic's top instructor was Vice President Richard Nixon, who, in an hour-long candlelight session, conducted a question-and-answer period. A Nixon sampler:

Q.: What will the Democratic strategy be?

A.: "Their big drive will be to create the impression that the Republican Party, in economic policy, isn't as interested in the average man as the Democrats are ... In spite of the talk that the Republican Party isn't for the wage earner, the fact is that more than 65 million wage earners are earning more, buying more and saving more than at any time . . . That simple fact, if repeated often enough, will outweigh all the arguments our opponents can drag up."

Q.: How about the decline in farm prices?

A.: "I'm convinced that prices will be stabilized by reducing surpluses and broadening markets We will eventually reverse the trend toward lower prices in effect when we came to power."

By and large, the state chairmen were much too happy about their party's prospects to pay strict attention to the business of the clinic. Scoffed Washington State Chairman George Kinnear, when asked his opinion of the various "visual aid" political techniques that had been demonstrated: "It all costs too much money and needs too many trained people." With only a couple of exceptions, the state chairmen even managed to shrug off the nagging farm price problem. Said Alabama Chairman Claude Vardaman: "Don't forget, nobody's shooting at those farmers' sons. Peace is going to help us a lot. We can run on the end of the Knrpan

War just as the Democrats ran for 20 years on Hoover."

The Ugly Crossroad. Only one question really worried the state chairmen: what, if by some not-to-be-thought-of circumstance, President Eisenhower were to refuse to stand for reelection? G.O.P. National Chairman Leonard Hall went around quoting a state chairman who had said: "When I get to that bridge, I'll jump off it."