Plain as Nose Above Water

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial Writer Rufus Terral examined the mixture of metaphor that streamed out of President Eisenhower's press conference last week, grasped his pencil like a sword and fired this broadside of ironic gripeshot:

"Mr. Eisenhower said at his press conference that Britain had a heroic row to hoe in trying to keep its economic nose above water, and that it is trying to cut the cloth to what it has, not to what it would like to have. As we understand it, what the President is saying here is that the British are having to sink or swim in their effort to plant the seedbed of a viable economy, and that they cannot insist upon sewing too fine a seam in doing it. To put it another way and quite simply, the United Kingdom has its back to the wall in its Spartan efforts to climb out of the slough of despond, and there is no use crying over spilt milk; whilst, if they are but allowed in their own way to put the best face on it they can, the country must eventually be able to stand again on its own bottom, though we cannot expect to let them eat cake and have it too. A remarkably clear statement of plain fact, we would call it. and we can't understand how some people can have the guile to go about pretending they hadn't quite caught what it was the President said."

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