Really Rolling

On 1-day-plus-seven, the beachhead was secured and rapidly expanding. The Ike-for-President movement had grown solidly in the week since Dwight Eisenhower announced that he would accept the Republican nomination.

Evidences of Ike's popular support piled up with each mail delivery. New Eisenhower-for-President clubs were putting out their banners all over the country, hastily ordering batches of posters and campaign buttons. Hard-working Ikemen in Washington and Topeka spent hours on the phone straightening out enthusiastic amateurs who happened to have opened rival Ike clubs in the same town. In Los Angeles, the day after Ike's announcement last week, the switchboard of the county registrar's office was temporarily swamped with calls from prospective voters, asking how & when they could register.

The Ike movement was not making much of a dent in the Taft stronghold in the Midwest. Snapped the Chicago Tribune last week, commenting on Eisenhower's candidacy: "The American people are asked to buy a pig in a poke. They are asked to accept as a Republican a man whose whole career has been achieved through New Deal patronage . . . Why should the party advertise that it is utterly wanting in conviction by accepting a candidate who represents the basic tenets of the opposition?"

To balance the chilliness in the Midwest, there was a burst of Eisenhower sentiment in the South. The Atlanta Constitution, the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser, the Greenville (Miss.) Delta Democrat-Times and other respected Southern newspapers came out last week for Ike. Wrote the strongly Dixiecratic Talladega (Ala.) Home: "We are for Eisenhower because we believe him to be an honorable gentleman who would restore honor to our national Government."

In Washington, Ikeman Jim Duff exulted: "We're really rolling now. If it ever stops rolling, it won't get started again. But I don't think anybody can stop it."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.