Two by Two

To Washington last week went the chief executives of 45 states,* for Eisenhower Administration briefings on domestic and foreign affairs. Invited to the conference by the President, the governors--25 Democrats, 20 Republicans--studiously considered state, national and international problems. But their attention kept wandering to a subject that weighs heavily upon governors of both parties visiting Washington: politics. As a result, the conference became a two-ring political circus featuring a two-headed Democratic donkey and a similarly afflicted Republican elephant.

A Change of Name? The extra head on the donkey put in a somewhat embarrassed appearance in connection with a Democratic strategy conference scheduled by National Chairman Paul Butler immediately after the governors' conference. When the Eisenhower-arranged meeting was over, Ohio's independent Governor Frank Lausche promptly headed for Columbus, leaving behind a sharp rejection of Butler's invitation to the Democratic session. Said Lausche: "I do not contemplate joining a political meeting to figure out ways and means of defeating the man who has just been my host." The same afternoon, Lausche had an angry answer from New York's Governor Averell Harriman. Snapped Democrat Harriman: "I totally and utterly disagree with Mr. Lausche. We are here as governors, and not as guests of anyone."

The Democratic split became plainer when attention focused on Texas' tall (6 ft. 2 in.) Governor Allan Shivers. Less than three weeks earlier, Stephen Mitchell, Butler's predecessor as Democratic national chairman, had said that Shivers and certain other Democrats who supported Dwight Eisenhower in 1952--specifically South Carolina's James F. Byrnes and Louisiana's Robert F. Ken-non--should be kept out of the 1956 Democratic National Convention. In Washington last week, Shivers announced that he wanted to have words with National Chairman Butler, and muttered: "I want to know whether he's going to run this loyalty business or whether Mitchell is going to run it. I want to know whether it will be the chairman or the former chairman, and whether there will be two sets of rules."

One morning, after the Democratic governors breakfasted with their party's congressional leaders as guests of Speaker Sam Rayburn in the House dining room, Shivers and Butler huddled between the steam tables in the serving kitchen. When they emerged, red-faced from external and internal heat, Chairman Butler said: "The groundwork has been laid for unity and strength in the Democratic Party in Texas. If the Democratic Party is realistic enough to look for converts to the party ... it generally will have to be realistic enough to take back the penitents."

Although this represented Paul Butler's first sharp departure from the line of Former Chairman Mitchell, he was still out of tune with Allan Shivers. When Shivers was asked whether he could support Stevenson in 1956, the Texan showed that he was anything but penitent. Stevenson, he said, would have to make "considerable changes." What changes? "Oh," said Shivers, "he'd probably have to change his name."

The Monkey's Paw. Some Republicans chortled at this Democratic show, but their two-headed elephant put on just as spectacular an exhibition in the other ring. Not long after Indiana's Governor George North Craig arrived for the conference, he handed out a statement pouring scorn all over his old Indiana rival, U.S. Senator William Ezra Jenner. Craig's specific target: a speech Jenner had. made attacking the Eisenhower Administration's Asia policy and charging that "hidden appeasers" in the Administration were plotting a surrender to Communism in Asia.

Said Craig: "I am bitterly disappointed that this Senator should represent the state of Indiana . . . Were he more conscious of the true attitude of the people of his own state, he would know that they are united behind the President's foreign policy of patience, firmness and friendliness, which has brought us closer to peace than at any time since World War II. By any measure, Senator Jenner is a Johnny-come-lately to the field of self-styled experts on foreign affairs. An examination of his voting record will reveal that he has voted consistently against necessary preparedness programs and against international cooperation with other nations. In view of his past performances, the spectacle of Senator Jenner second-guessing President Eisenhower is not unlike an elementary pupil second-guessing Einstein. There is a faction of the Republican Party that will be against the President under any and all circumstances. Fortunately, their number grows smaller day by day. In the eyes of this group, the Eisenhower policies are wrong, even though they have brought the onrush of Communism to a standstill and appear to assure peace."

From Jenner there was a prompt answer in the same tone: "I am profoundly shocked that a governor of the sovereign state of Indiana would issue a statement on foreign policy obviously dictated by the palace guard who are seeking to control the Republican Party, as they have dominated the Democratic Party for years. I am not surprised that the power-seekers, who want to make President Eisenhower a captive, would try to use Governor Craig as the great mouthpiece, but I am deeply disturbed that they have succeeded . . . Governor Craig has served as the monkey's paw for the palace guard. He has no background in foreign policy. He is "in over his head. I do not mind Governor Craig's being a monkey in Indiana. The people of Indiana know him. But I do mind his being made a monkey of in Washington . . . This is the call to battle. If good Americans stand firm, we can at last win the fight to drive from our Government the men who are secretly working to tie us into a collectivist One World more friendly to Communism than to the United States."

Then the two-headed donkey and the two-headed elephant lumbered out of the tent.

* Missing: Colorado Democrat Ed Johnson and Oregon Republican Paul L. Patterson, who begged off because their legislatures were about to adjourn, and Florida Democrat LeRoy Collins, who canceled his trip because of the death of Florida Chief Justice John E. Mathews.

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