Eve of the Big Show

The housekeeper at Chicago's Conrad Hilton hotel, although outwardly neutral like all the hotel employees, is wearing (according to Ikemen) an Eisenhower button on her slip. That is one of the latest eve-of-battle bulletins from Chicago, as the city braces for C-day amid tornadoes of campaign literature, jungles of telephone wire, rivers of ice water and the thunderous fizz of headache powders.

A Big Factor. On the Hilton's ninth floor, a huge photograph of Bob Taft proclaims to visitors that they are entering Taft headquarters. Jack Martin (908-A), Taft's executive assistant, is not missing any details. "The elevator service is a big factor," he says. "A lot may depend on whether a delegation can get upstairs or not."

Two floors above, Senator Lodge is presiding over Eisenhower GHQ. The place is plastered with 300 Ike pictures and blossoming with other Ike propaganda, including a necktie (worn by Press Secretary Jim Hagerty) that proclaims "Yo prefiero a Ike," "I mi piace Ike," "Fuer mich Ike," and so on, in 27 languages, all told.

Ikeman Ronald Welch is brooding over convention arrangements. His notebook is crammed with entries ranging from bands, calliope, "banner-towing helicopters," TV sets and tea parties to "impromptu demonstrations." The plans for "impromptu demonstrations" are only slightly less elaborate than those of another Eisenhower staff for D-day eight years ago.

Chicago is blase about conventions, and professes to see little difference between politicos, Elks and fertilizer salesmen, but the city is nevertheless pulling its sprawling self together. Traffic to the convention hall (near Chicago's stockyards) is being rerouted, streetcleaners are busier than they have been for years, and cops have orders to be polite for a few days. Police also announced that "the lid" would be clamped on in Clark Street's numerous strip joints, though Chicago lids have a way of not staying on much more firmly than a stripper's bra.

"Bring Your Wife." Hotels have given more than 11,000 rooms to the Republicans. The Blackstone (where Eisenhower will stay) has produced such cocktails as the Eisenhower Eye-Opener (whisky sour), the Taft Teaser (Manhattan) and the Dark Horse (old fashioned). The Palmer House, mindful of the footwork delegates will have to do, is putting a bottle of foot lotion into each room. A major tourist attraction last week was the new eight-room, $40,000 presidential suite at the Congress Hotel where hundreds of visitors, held back by museum-like ropes, gazed at the master parlor and bar, the mahogany beds, the solid-gold faucet handles in the bathroom. In this suite Bob Taft is staying.

As delegates began to arrive, William ("Doc") Reid, 73, Republican committeeman of Chicago's tough 16th ward for 36 years, issued some advice to conventiongoers: "Take your wife. Every candidate has a headquarters you can leave her at for entertainment while you go someplace else...Take three or four extra shirts and a dozen handkerchiefs to last you clear through. Handkerchiefs for wiping off perspiration. Bring along a box of your own brand of cigars. The kind they pass out at conventions are no good."

The statistic-of-the-week was issued by the Carrier Corp., which figured that 12,000 bodies in the convention hall will generate enough heat to cook 16,000 steaks an hour. It did not say whether the steaks would be rare, medium or well-done.

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