Whoops & History

In 1953, Washington was a Republican town, and, therefore, there was no Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner. At least that was the explanation Democrats gave themselves last week as they sat down to the 1954 Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner--in Washington. In the Mayflower Hotel, ballroom, 1,450 Democrats, each of them $100 the poorer for the privilege, agreed that Republicans know nothing about running a government.

This new Democratic self-confidence causes Party Chairman Steve Mitchell to worry. He thinks all Democratic candidates should run scared this fall; that way the party will sustain activity at the local level. But at the dinner Mitchell seemed to enjoy the rousing, gleeful speeches.

Adlai Stevenson was not present because of "a geological expedition into my interior," his way of explaining an operation for kidney stones. But Harry Truman was. Off the cuff, Harry cracked jokes for ten minutes and, turning serious, warned: "We can't have the friendship of the free world if we are going to insult our friends and allies."

But it was Texas' Lyndon Johnson, Senate Democratic leader, who sounded the war whoop. "I don't wish to give the impression that Congress has been idle," he scoffed. "Far from it. We have solved the vital problem of who cut the colonel out of the photograph and left the private in."

Attacking the Administration's foreign policy, he cried: "We have been caught bluffing by our enemies . . . We stand in clear danger of being left naked and alone in a hostile world . . . You remember what the Vice President said . . . 'Isn't it wonderful that finally we have a Secretary of State who isn't taken in by the Communists, who stands up to them?' Maybe he never really said it. Possibly it was his famous dog Checkers. But Fala would never have said that."

Two days later, the Democrats were whooping again. By then, they had moved to New York City, a Democratic town. It was Harry Truman's 70th birthday. By way of celebration (and, incidentally, to benefit the Harry S. Truman Library in Independence, Mo.) a cut-rate $70-a-plate dinner was held in the sprawling Waldorf-Astoria ballroom.

Truman spoke of the importance of Presidents. "The pages of history," he said, "unfolded powers in the presidency not explicitly found in Article 11 of the

Constitution." In developing this theme, Truman gave his successor some pointed advice. "Out of ... the political arena, a new and different President emerged--the man who led a political party to victory and retained in his hands the power of party leadership. That is, he retained it, like the sword Excalibur, if he could wrest it from the block and wield it." Presidential words carry great weight, said the ex-President, but they must be backed up by action: "Today there is the same need for a combination of words and action concerning the hysteria about Communism ... It is not the business of Congress to run the agencies of government ... A successful administration is one of strong presidential leadership. Weak leadership--or no leadership--produces failure, often disaster."

Thus inspired, the Democrats left the Waldorf, determined to act on their premonition that, as a Republican town, Washington's days are numbered.

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