Stand for Something

NATIONAL AFFAIRS THE NATION Stand for Something

It was a worried Republican Party which itself up off the mat again on election night and ruefully surveyed the returns. The Democrats had won again -- in the only Congressional Districts in contest, in the big cities, in upstate New York towns which had been safely Republican for years. Most important, the Democrats won back the crucial Senate seat in New York, which both parties had accepted in advance as the first real 1949 test of Harry Truman's Fair Deal line.

There were a few exceptions, notably in New Jersey, where Republican Governor Alfred Driscoll rode back into office over the crumbling remains of Hague empire. But few Republicans could share Governor Tom Dewey's strange conclusion that the New York election "is a setback and not a gain" for the Fair Deal.

Even the Democrats showed certain spurious concern for the plight of the Grand Old Party. Said National Chairman Bill Boyle: "I earnestly pray that these failures will persuade the Republican Party that it must develop a program of its own if it wishes to preserve not only its own political party but the two-party system." Matters had hardly gotten to that extreme stage yet. A closer danger was that Republican diehards in the Midwest seize on the defeat of Internationalist John Foster Dulles as one more proof that the bipartisan foreign policy was a political albatross.

This hardly made sense, since Herbert Lehman, who beat Dulles, was no isolationist but a down-the-line supporter of the Administration's foreign policy. What did hurt the cause of internationalism was the defeat of a man who had a firmer, more realistic grasp of the workings of foreign policy than Lehman.

On the basis of the election, one Republican seemed best qualified at the moment to speak. Said New Jersey's Driscoll: "One thing that riles me is this talk that the Republican Party mustn't be a 'me-too' party. It all depends on what you're me-tooing. If it's the Ten Commandments, then 'me too.' If it's the Preamble to the Constitution, then 'me too.' If it's a strong national defense without wasting money, then 'me too.'

"But when Mr. Truman comes out for socialized medicine, then the Republican Party has an issue on which to put up a real battle. And we've got to let the people know that we want decentralization of government and make them see why home rule is vital for this country . . . We found in New Jersey that if we were to have a winning team we had to stand for something. We do."

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