"Time to Think About People"

Still confident that the U.S. economy will soon turn upward, still determined to avoid desperation moves that might bring on a red-ink torrent for years to come, President Eisenhower was nonetheless deeply concerned about the human dislocations of the recession.

"This," he told 1,200 Republican women in Washington's Statler Hotel last week, "is not an exercise in economic theory. All the economic indicators and high-sounding oratory in the world cannot fill the empty place in a pay envelope." He repeated his theme next afternoon at a White House meeting with the Executive Committee of the Governors' Conference. "This is a time to think about people," said Dwight Eisenhower, "and not about technicalities."

Ready to Encourage. The human problem nagging the President most is that of jobless workers at the end of their unemployment-compensation benefits, which differ widely from state to state, ranging from a 16-week time limit in Florida to 30 weeks in Pennsylvania. It was in an effort to ease the plight of such workers that President Eisenhower invited the governors' committee to the White House, presented a plan under which the states could draw federal funds to extend unemployment compensation for 13 weeks. Although the new plan included a complex formula aimed at maintaining the delicate balance of federal-state relationships, some of the governors seemed fearful of an invasion of states' rights. And, much to Ike's surprise, nearly all of them seemed unenthusiastic about the plan.

The governors could afford to be cool because state unemployment-compensation treasuries, constantly replenished by payroll taxes, are still well filled. With a record $320 million drain in February, the total pool decreased by only $173 million, leaving a huge balance of $8.2 billion. Despite gubernatorial coolness, the Administration will probably move ahead with some sort of plan expanding unemployment compensation. At the same time, it will continue speeding the flow of federal money into the economy. Last week the President ordered Housing and Home Finance Administrator Albert Cole to speed up the spending and lending of about $650 million in funds already appropriated for public housing, urban renewal, public-works loans to local governments, etc. He also instructed Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson to "encourage" the outflow of Rural Electrification Administration loans.

Not to Be Panicked. These were measures that might help tide the economy over until the upturn the President hopes for later this spring. But the President stands firm against a drastic antirecession tax cut before then. Said he in his speech to the Republican women: "This Administration is not going to be panicked by alarmists into activities that could actually make those hardships not temporary, but chronic."

Trying to fend off such alarmists, President Eisenhower met with Republican congressional leaders, asked them to hold out against tax-cut pressures until some time in May. Then, said Ike, if a tax cut does prove necessary, he wants an across-the-board measure that would include reductions in corporation and excise taxes as well as politically popular cuts in income taxes. But whether the President gets a 60-day wait-and-see period, or even a 30-day chance, depends largely on two events in the second week of April, Then will come the release of the Labor Department's unemployment figures for March, which might set off a tax-cut stampede. Then too will come the return to Washington of Congress after its Easter recess. And if the Congressmen of either party, after carefully sounding out the ideas of the folks back home, decide that a tax cut is the way to win votes in the November elections, then the President may have very little to say about what happens.

Last week the President also:

P: Spent half an hour with India's black-suited Vice President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, who later reported that he found Ike "not at all depressed about the future of the world." Added the visitor: "We found ourselves in great agreement on the fundamental principles of the New World: the sanctity of the individual, the rule of law, social justice and right means to attain right ends."

P: Accepted an invitation to deliver a mid-April speech at a Washington meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the International Press Institute. Subject: foreign policy.

P: Canceled a scheduled weekend visit to West Point because of the weather, boarded the Columbine III and went off to sunny Augusta. Ga. He got in 18 holes of golf that afternoon and 18 the next, played bridge, chatted with vacationing Republican Thomas E. Dewey, returned to Washington in time for a Monday-morning appointment with West Germany's Vice Chancellor Ludwig Erhard.

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