It would be all too easy to pass off President Eisenhower's campaign for re-election as a species of "leap-year liberalism" that may succeed in returning the President to the White House, but will surely send the rest of the nation back down the road to the Crystal Palace. Granted, there was justification for fearing such an about-face in 1952, when the General was something of an uninitiated commander crusading for the wrong side. At the head of a party which had spent the previous twenty years blocking every major social advance, he seemed like a quarterback at the mercy of his own old guard: he wanted to break through and win, but he didn't call any plays of his own. He endorsed all Republicans, including Senator McCarthy; he decided it was wise not to speak up in General Marshall's defense; he called TVA a form of "Creeping socialism;" he came to an entente cordiale with Senator Taft; he accused the Truman Administration of harboring those three villains, Corruption, Communism, and Controls; and he promised, dramatically, to "go to Korea" and get this country out of its mess.

But 1952 is not 1956: the fighting has stopped in Korea, and Washington, as far as we can tell, is no longer a "mess." Candidate Eisenhower has been President Eisenhower for four years, and his own political philosophy is part of the printed record. And it is a philosophy that qualifies as "liberal." It is clear from public statements that Eisenhower does personally believe in and accept reciprocal trade, a form of federal aid to education, a program of national health insurance, foreign economic aid and the peaceful use of atomic power for the benefit of the whole world, a more liberal immigration law, equal rights for all, Social Security, and America's international obligations and the United Nations. In short, President Eisenhower has said a clear "Me too" to the American liberal tradition.

And in foreign affairs, Eisenhower has done more than echo the traditions of the New and Fair Deals. When he has personally taken over the duties of Secretary of State, he has been able to take actions that no Democrat, however much he might have wanted to, could have afforded to take. The President accepted a Korean truce on terms that Stevenson, had he been in the White House, would probably have been forced to reject in order to prove to the country that he was a loyal American. The President calmed down the country when the Chinese shot at airplanes, and he kept us out of a hopeless war in Indo-China when his own Vice-President was urging action. And most important, the President went to Geneva, where he became chummy with the Soviets and apparently convinced them that neither the East nor the West could afford to bear the guilt of starting the Third, and last, World War, in which atomic and nuclear weapons might wipe out Man himself. Could Stevenson have afforded to be this? We doubt it. Would the Republicans have accepted the ensuing "competitive coexistence" if it had come from a Democrat who had been attacked for giving Alger Hiss a character reference? We doubt it. Would Senator McCarthy have refrained from shouting "traitor"? We doubt it.

Our doubts about Stevenson's ability to make real headway with his program of 1952--which this paper heartily endorsed at the time--have led to our general approval of many words and actions taken by President Eisenhower during the last four years. For by his own enunciated domestic and foreign policies, the President has effectively consolidated the domestic and foreign gains achieved under 20 years of Democratic rule. Candidate Eisenhower promised in 1952 that he would not turn the clock back, and he did not. What concerns us now, however, is that the time for consolidation has passed: those of he Old Guard who are going to accept this government's international and domestic obligations have done so; for the others, we can't wait all day. For four years this country has marked time to let the rear guard come barely into view. Four years is enough. It is now time to be once again on the march. It is because we believe that Adlai Stevenson will provide the leadership demanded by the next four years--to move forward, out of the current disease-like complacency, toward a New America and a New World--that we endorse him for the Presidency.

For really, in spite of his acceptance of liberalism, Eisenhower has not led at all in the last four years. The President of the United States must be a three-in-one man: a political leader, a national leader, and a world leader. Eisenhower has been respected, to be sure; and he has probably been freer from political and foreign criticism than any other President in recent times. But as for leading--either his party, or the nation, or the world--he has failed. The most damaging criticism that we are forced to level against President Eisenhower is that he has failed to utilize his great prestige and his commanding respect to grapple with the urgent problems of the day: in short, to move forward and to lead forward. Simply put, this is not an era of peace and prosperity, and to the extent that the President has acceded to the popular wish to forget about school shortages, racial tensions, juvenile delinquency, mental disease, communism in South America, poverty in Asia, nationalism in Africa, neutralism in Europe--to the extent that the country has tried to play the role of a complacent suburb in a revolutionary world, to just this extent, President Eisenhower's four years must rank not as mere consolidation, but dangerous regression.

I. Political Leadership

One example of Ike's liberal attitude is his stand on aid for education. But it is also an example of his lack of vigor. When the crucial debates were taking place, the President was convalescing after his operation. He sent not one word to Congress during the debate. This proved a disastrous silence, if Ike is as earnest as he seems, his supporters are not: the bill was defeated by the decisive votes of a unified Republican bloc.

The President's energy has been greatly sapped by his illnesses, but it is not only reason for his failure to exert political pressure. In foreign trade, after asking for a long-range reciprocal trade program, he agreed to an ineffective one-year compromise. Similarly, when Republican Congressmen killed a public housing bill, the enacting of which he had termed a "moral obligation," the President said nothing.

He has sent liberal message after liberal message to Congress--on civil rights, on immigration, on countless subjects--but there have been few legislative results.

There is great doubt, moreover, that the President would be able to put forward even his present program during the coming four years, and he surely would get less support from Congress in the future than he has in the past. His age, his health, and the Constitution's prohibition of a third term all combine to force him into the role, not of a moulder of party policy, but of a popular, but passive mouthpiece. Already in the present campaign, his so-called "truth squads," led by Joe Martin and William Knowland, give more of a clue to how new the Grand Old Party has become than all of Eisenhower's commendable phrases put together.

If the Old Guard still maintains its influence despite the President's view, it is sure to reassert itself through Mr. Richard Nixon should the President pass on. A New Nixon is supposed to have emerged. But the Vice-President's ability to change his principles at any time makes him even more frightening than any disagreeable, but principled conservative. Nixon in the White House would seem subject to every political breeze, no matter how ill its direction.

If Mr. Nixon seems all too willing to accommodate himself to the prevailing Ike view, Republican legislators unfortunately have proven themselves most unwilling to follow. Stevenson, by contrast, has shown an amazing ability to get his highly diversified party behind him. He skillfully overcame a potential party split in his Chicago civil rights manoeuverings, and while we would have preferred a stronger stand, he showed a keen sense of the political realities by taking the issue, in effect, out of the platform altogether. He has, by contrast, shown during the campaign, that he is willing to press for things in which he firmly believes, over the opposition even of his own advisers. His civil rights statement in Arkansas and his recent speech on the H-bomb are two strong cases in point. And his vigorous executive activity when he was faced with an opposition legislature as governor of Illinois prove that he should have no temptations to become a hesitant President where party leadership is concerned. For the programs Stevenson has been putting forth in this election, especially those concerning social legislation and foreign policy, he should have a good chance of finding strong Congressional support.

II. National Leadership

The President has not only failed to secure party support for liberal policies; he has also failed in his duty to think ahead of and educate the nation. In civil rights: despite the chaos which has reigned in the South since the Supreme Court ruling, Ike has neither called a White House conference nor used any other means to help create a "climate of acceptance" in the South. While the President says he must enforce the decision, he, unlike Stevenson, has never told the South that he and the rest of the nation think integration is right.

In federal aid to education: Eisenhower has attempted to reveal to the nation its educational inadequacies through his White House Conference on Education. But Stevenson through the campaign and previous speeches has done much more to dramatize this problem to an inert American public. While Eisenhower of late has concentrated on keeping the issue quiet, Stevenson has envisioned new areas, such as pay for teachers and scholarships for higher education, where federal aid must supplement the threadbare finances of the states.