Tougher & Better

Dwight Eisenhower slapped hard on the Cabinet table in front of him, snapped Republican congressional leaders out of their early-morning reverie. "It's a dole," said the President of the U.S. "I'm not going to stand for it." Ike was angered by the attempts of congressional Democrats to turn his unemployment-compensation bill into a loosely drawn federal handout to the states. And last week's humiliating defeat of the Democratic bill in the House of Representatives (see The Congress) was impressive evidence that Dwight Eisenhower--looking better and feeling better, more willing to fight for his own programs, more willing to use the big stick of his veto power against programs he opposes--has galvanized his party into the most effective, best coordinated action since he took office.

"I Do Believe . . ." Ike's free-swinging mood was implicit in his answers at his news conference, his sixth in a row after a long period of ducking out. Items:

ON RECESSION: "I do believe that there is very continued and emphatic evidence that the decline is flattening out."

ON DEFENSE REORGANIZATION: "Either we are going to do the right thing for the country and its defensive mechanism, or we are not . . . The essentials of the plan that I laid out are, to my mind, mandatory if the U.S. is going to be properly defended as economically as possible."

ON VICE PRESIDENT NIXON'S FUTURE: "We are warm friends. I admire him and I respect him. I have said this dozens of times; but, more than that, I have got a duty, as I see it, to keep him as well-informed on the operations of this Government, all of the major decisions, as I possibly can . . . Now, when it comes to the successor, as far as I am concerned the candidate will be named by the Republican Party, and I submit that I think there are a lot of darn good men that could be used."

ON HIS OWN TEMPER: "I would be less than human if I were always a Pollyanna."

ON NEWS CONFERENCES: "I believe [the American people] want to see the President probably capable of going through the whole range of subjects that can be fired at him . . . The press conference is a very fine latter-day American institution."

ON OUT-OF-TOWN VACATIONS: "I do not believe that any individual, whether he is running General Motors or the United States of America, can do the best job by just sitting at a desk and putting his face in a bunch of papers . . . Actually [the President] ought to be trying to keep his mind free of inconsequential detail and doing his own thinking on the basic principles and factors that he believes are important, so that he can make clearer and better judgments."

"I Enjoy ..." The President's renewed enthusiasm for his job was apparent, too, as he tackled its massive problems on a day-by-day basis. At one recent Cabinet meeting, the discussion swirled around the topic of economic recession. Said one participant, as the session broke up: "You must get tired of talking about this same subject day after day." Came the reply: "Oh no! I enjoy the give and take." Similarly, White House visitors find themselves kept after their allotted time by a President eager to talk about national problems and issues. In fact, the President has thrown his own hours-minutes-seconds schedule off the track to the point that Appointments Secretary Tom Stephens, as one White House staffer puts it, has "chewed his nails down to the knuckles."

Along with revived energy, the President has suddenly come to feel at home with his big and little political powers. Never before has he used his veto weapon with such telling effect as in his refusal to sign the recent whole-hog rivers and harbors pork barrel (TIME, April 28) and the Democratic attempt at freezing high farm supports at their present level. Those vetoes told the Congress, which had long since come to the point of discounting presidential influence, that Ike means business. For the first time G.O.P. congressional leaders are able to count on partisan coordination--instead of benign nonpartisanship--from the White House. Says Republican Whip Les Arends of Illinois: "Those veto actions firmed things up as far as we Republicans are concerned."

Mostly because of President Eisenhower's determination to do battle, the prospects are good that Congress will preserve the essentials of his foreign aid program, his reciprocal trade bill and his Pentagon reorganization plan--despite the entrenched hostility and opposition to all three on Capitol Hill. If his present mood continues, Dwight Eisenhower might make 1958 the most successful year of his Administration so far.

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