As this is written, we have had a three and one-half year period of Republican control of the executive branch of our government, and most of my illustrations therefore will be drawn from relatively current events. I will not, however, neglect the period of Republican Congressional control, in 1946-1948, for there, too, we should find supporting evidence if my thesis is sound.

Surely if the consensus which I have described did not actually exist, the newly elected Republicans in one of these two occasions would have put forward and executed programs and policies in fundamental conflict with those of their Democratic predecessors.

Yet the two periods of Republican control have produced no such phenomenon. To take this qeustion at its simplest level: no New Deal legislation has thus far been replaced. Indeed, in the 1952 campaign Republican candidates devoted a major share of their speeches trying to convince the voters that any such counterrevolution was the furthest thing from their minds....

The same general conclusion results from a more particular examination of Republican actions in 1946-1947 and 1952-1956. Measuring the actions of the present administration against the three broad propositions stated above, I think it is beyond dispute that the large body of its proposals, and certainly those which have been successful, lie well within the area of compromise staked out by the present consensus.

Many Democrats may continue to suspect that acceptance of New Deal concepts by Republican leaders amount to no more than lip service. They may assert that agencies such as the Labor Board or the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are administered by Republican appointees who do not believe in them, are in unsafe hands, and they will certainly point to the favoring of special interests.

Yet, in the broad view, Democrats can take pride in the extent to which the ideas have now been generally accepted. Instead of an effort to reverse the direction of New Deal legislation in such fields as social security, minimum wages, and the like, the Republicans have agreed to modest extensions in several areas. Social security coverage and benefits have been expanded. The minimum wage rate has been increased. Support for public housing as well as mortgage insurance has continued....

The present administration's farm policies are under heavy attack. I feel that the attack is justified. Yet on objective consideration, not even here can it be said that the Republican party has challenged the premise of federal responsibility for maintaining farm income at reasonable levels....

In this election year most of us will exercise our right to criticize or applaud the efforts of the administration in the domestic field. Some may think that it has not gone far or fast enough; others may think it has gone too far. But its stated policies and objectives clearly accept the first of the underlying premises of the New Deal: that the federal government is responsible for certain minimum economic standards for all.

The specific proposals advanced by the Eisenhower Republican administration offer us, however, an excellent case study of divergent views at work within the generally accepted consensus. The Democrats, in the first two years as the minority in Congress, and in the second two years as the majority party, advanced counterproposals or criticisms of each administration bill. These counterproposals ordinarily called for significantly higher levels of effort or assistance than the administration was willing to advocate. The result was a bargaining situation. But as is characteristic of most bargains, the give-and-take was on matters of degree, not principle.

A typical example was the President's proposal for an increase in the minimum wage to $.90 an hour. The Democrats put forward a figure of $1.10 an hour. The political processes then became engaged both within and outside the Congress in the operations of bargaining and negotiation, and a compromise of $1.00 an hour was finally adopted.

Though the Eisenhower administration presents an instructive case study in the operations of the consensus, we did not need to await the arrival of a Republican in the White House to confirm the fact that the postulates of the New Deal on economic security had become permanent features of our landscape. It was clear, I think, as early as 1947, when the Republicans secured a majority in both houses of Congress for the first time since 1928.

No piece of New Deal legislation, for instance, had been damned with more vehemence or ardor by the minority in the country and in Congress than the Wagner Act. By the tenets of the Republican diehards, it was the work of the devil. But far worse than devilish, some insisted it was "unconstitutional" and must be extirpated root and branch.

Proposals which would have gone far towards this end were introduced, of course, in the Eightieth Congress, yet none of them succeeeded, in spite of Republican majorities in both houses. The Taft-Hartley Act, which emerged as the compromise, cast formidable new obstacles in the way of union organization and conferred advantages upon management vis-a-vis labor which had not been therefore a part of the law.

One may argue, as I have, that these features are ill-advised; that strictures in the act make it unduly difficult to organize unions, particularly in parts of the South; that some of the "rights" conferred on management do more harm than good if our objective is a healthy, peaceful relationship between these two great participants in our productive process; and that these weaknesses would seriously threaten our economic welfare in a period of depression.

Yet it is significant that in the final analysis even those responsible for drafting this new law did not challenge the fundamental premise of the Wagner Act, namely, that labor should be protected in its right to organize, and that it should approach the bargaining table upon terms of substantial equality with management.

The second of our three subheadings of the welfare state was the proposition that the federal government is responsible for affirmative measures for the promotion of full employment of our human and natural resources....

On this second proposition, it may be that the quality and strength of our political agreement has not yet been convincingly tested. We still hear talk in some Republican circles about the inflationary effect of full employment, and the corresponding advantages of four or five million unemployed to cushion upward pressures on the price level.

Yet the administration did not hesitate to act in opposition to these voices during the economic recession of 1953-54. The timing and tempo of its use of fiscal controls in general support of the economy may provide questions for legitimate political disagreement and debate. But it cannot be charged with denying the need for government action.

I find it personally inconceivable that a Republican administration would again permit an economic cataclysm even approaching the intensity of 1929....

Of course, full employment is only part of the broad objective which calls