State of the Union

A few hours before Dwight Eisenhower delivered his annual State of the Union message last week, he was still penciling away at his text. Bent on making the speech express his own outlook and aspirations, he had done most of the writing and rewriting himself, reworking key passages again and again. The result was so balanced, so moderate in tone that it stirred no notable reaction; moreover, Ike was saving his specific legislative recommendations for this week's budget message (sure to make Congress come alive, since the $72 billion proposed budget is the biggest in the nation's peacetime history).

But the message did make one point vividly clear: the domestic problem that bothers the President most is inflation, and in the fight against it he appealed beyond Capitol Hill to the nation. "Government's efforts," he said, "must be paralleled by the attitudes and actions of individual citizens." Business leaders must "studiously avoid those price rises that are possible only because of vital or unusual needs of the whole nation," and labor's wage increases "must be reasonably related to improvements in productivity."

"Freedom," he said, capsuling his own political philosophy, "has been defined as the opportunity for selfdiscipline. This definition has a special application to the areas of wage and price policy in a free economy. Should we persistently fail to discipline ourselves, eventually there will be increasing pressure on Government to redress the failure. By that process freedom will step by step disappear." From the inflation danger, the President went on to a broad survey of plans and hopes for the year ahead. Highlights:

Water. Making the best use of a limited supply "demands the closest kind of cooperation and partnership" between federal, state and local governments. In dealing with water problems, "each of our great river valleys should be considered as a whole."

Schools. "High priority should be given the school construction bill," and it should be enacted "uncomplicated by provisions dealing with the complex problems of integration," e.g., the Powell amendment, which helped kill off the school construction bill in the last session.

Integration. "I urge the people in all sections of the country to approach these integration problems with calm and reason, with mutual understanding and good will."

Disarmament. The Administration is willing to enter into any "reliable agreement" to reduce armament levels and "mutually control the outer-space missile and satellite development."

Foreign Relations. Congress should authorize U.S. membership in the proposed international Organization for Trade Cooperation and in the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency. "The world has so shrunk that all free nations are our neighbors. Without cooperative neighbors, the U.S. cannot maintain its own security and welfare." Besides keeping up military assistance, the U.S. must continue to give "aid to our friends in building more productive economies."

After Ike had left Capitol Hill, congressional comments on the speech ran from lukewarm to chilly. Nonetheless, the message contained a balanced statement of U.S. problems and prospects at the beginning of 1957. "Most of all," noted the often Ike-critical Washington Post and Times Herald, "it reflected what seemed to be a new air of confidence following the election. It conveyed a determination and briskness which the public may hope will be carried over into leadership for progressive measures."

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