National Affairs: Look Out, Neighbor

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Out of Washington's Union Station late last week rolled the presidential railroad car, the "Ferdinand Magellan." Accompanied by daughter Margaret, Harry Truman was off on his first major whistle-stop tour of the 1952 campaign, an 8,soo-mile trip which will carry him through 24 northern and western states.

At Fargo, N. Dak., where he made his first speech, Truman swung right into a pitch that Adlai Stevenson has carefully played down—the appeal to class interest. Said Harry: "I have been fighting for the common man. I've been fighting against the special interests, and they are out to get me and to destroy all I have done." Eisenhower, declared the President, is simply fronting for "all the special-privilege groups from the oil lobby to the China lobby . . ."

"This unholy crew," charged Truman, are trying to make corruption the big campaign issue. "I know of nobody," said he, "who has found a way to prevent some people from being . . . dishonest. If anybody has a formula, I'm sure the American Bankers Association would pay a lot to get it ... Last year there were something like 600 defalcations and embezzlements in the banks of this country. One out of every 300 bank officers was found to be crooked. And the record of the Internal Revenue Bureau is a lot better than that."

Truman praised North Dakota's nominally Republican Senator William ("Wild Bill") Langer, who was traveling on the Truman train. Langer has stood ace high with Truman ever since 1947 when he cast the deciding vote in committee against Senate investigation of the Kansas City vote fraud. -

On the back of the Eisenhower train, noted Truman, was a sign reading "Look Ahead, Neighbor." Cracked the President: "What it ought to say is this, 'Look Out, Neighbor.' " If the Republicans should win, said Harry, the voters would have to look out for mortgage foreclosures, 1932-style unemployment, wage cuts and World War III.

Nobody had fully appreciated the high level which the 1952 campaign had previously attained until Harry Truman went into action.