Opinion: Too Many People . . .

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Boyish of face and gleaming of tooth. Ronald Reagan earned a reputation among cinemagoers as a pleasant young man in white ducks, whose deepest thought was reserved for the next dance. But in his private life, Reagan has always been regarded as a man concerned with issues beyond the tinsel of Hollywood. As president of the Screen Actors Guild, Reagan was a leader of the fight in the mid-'40s against a Communist attempt to take over Hollywood's trade unions.

Once an outspoken Democrat, Reagan is now a staunch Republican, has developed into a remarkably active spokesman for conservatism. Out of the movies for the past four years, he has become a traveling ambassador for General Electric (he hosts TV's General Electric Theater), spends much of his time carrying conservatism's gospel to audiences across the nation. Reagan's thesis: "Too many people today are inclined to depend on a centralized Government to furnish the answer to all our problems."

Last week Reagan appeared before an enthusiastic audience in Whittier, Calif. (the home town of an admirer, Richard Nixon). Still boyish of face and gleaming of tooth. Reagan attacked existing governmental medical programs as being wasteful, said that "three out of four Veterans Administration beds are filled with patients suffering diseases or injuries neither originated by, nor aggravated by, military service." He criticized the social security system as a mushrooming monster, and warned that federal aid to education was "the foot in the door to federal control.''

As for the nation's farm problem. Reagan declared: "All of the farm mess' is concerned with the 20% of agriculture coming under Government regulation and subsidy." To back up his charge, Reagan cited a case in New Mexico where "citizens learned they could rent state-owned land for 25¢ an acre and receive $9 an acre from the Federal Government for not planting the land."

Reagan argued that the Federal Government was running "more than 19,000 businesses covering 47 lines of activity—from rum distilling to the manufacture of surgical equipment. Operating tax free, dividend free and rent free in direct competition with its own citizens, the Government loses billions each year in the businesses." Once in business, Reagan noted, the Government is reluctant to get out: "Congress ordered the liquidation of the Spruce Products Corp. in 1920, but 30 years later it was still in existence. The corporation was founded in World War I to find spruce wood for airplane frames."

Reagan's exhortation to his audience: "Weigh the price we must pay in individual liberty and whether these programs qualify as things the people can't do for themselves. Then write to your Congressmen and Senators."