Wide of the Mark

President Harry Truman came out swinging last week at his favorite political target -- the Republican 80th Congress.

The Republicans, said Harry Truman firmly, are using the congressional spy investigations as a "red herring to keep from doing what they ought to do." The investigations had produced no evidence not long known to the FBI and a federal grand jury, he added, and they served no useful purpose. "On the contrary, they are doing irreparable harm to certain persons, seriously impairing the morale of federal employees, and undermining public confidence in the Government."

Then the President swung with his other hand. Reading emphatically from a prepared statement, he blamed Congress for taking "no effective action on the proposals which I have submitted to curb high prices and to protect the average American citizen against the certain prospect of increased living costs." Said the President: "Our people will not be satisfied with the feeble compromises that apparently are being concocted."

Chicken Dinner. It took no professional politico to tell the President that both punches were wide of the mark. His criticism of the congressional investigations was irresponsible; as the onetime head of a Senate investigating committee he should have remembered Congress' inquisitorial duty. His swing at Congress went almost unnoticed: he had used the same punch too many times before.

Last week even his best-intended gestures somehow lacked the sure touch, and at least one had an odd consequence. Though the President could hardly be blamed for Senate failure to push through the anti-poll tax bill,* 2,000 Progressive Party members, led by Communist-line Singer Paul Robeson, picketed the White House last week in a protest demonstration.

There was one note of encouragement. Back from his two-day visit in Missouri (where his candidate for Congress ran last in a field of four), Harry Truman threw a chicken dinner at the White House for all living ex-chairmen of the Democratic Party. Jim Farley could not make it; he was en route to Europe. Neither could John J. Raskob, who had already predicted victory for Tom Dewey. But such oldtimers as Ohio's George White, who managed the unsuccessful Cox-Roosevelt campaign of 1920, and ex-Attorney General Homer Cummings arrived to assure the President that Democratic fortunes were looking up.

Hot Water. But at week's end, Harry Truman was in hot water again. Leaving Washington for a two-day cruise on the Potomac accompanied only by his naval aide, the President precipitately decided on his new Secretary of Labor: handsome, 47-year-old Maurice J. Tobin, Boston's popular ex-mayor and former governor of Massachusetts (1945-46). The one point the President had neglected was to get Tobin's acceptance in advance. A candidate for governor again, Tobin was in no hurry to make up his mind about accepting or rejecting the Cabinet job. Before he did either, he was going to have a talk with Harry Truman.

*But his own voting record on the question was recalled in the Senate debate; on a wartime amendment to exempt servicemen from poll tax, Senator Truman voted "Nay."

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