An Education

At their father's table, the talk was largely about politics. It was lively conversation, rarely dwelling on subjects like business and economics. One result: the Kennedy boys grew up to be active, able, enthusiastic politicians. But though they have plenty, they did not learn deep lessons about money, at least not in its relationship to economic policy and principle. Only now is John F. Kennedy getting his economic education--the hard way.

Many businessmen now charge that President Kennedy is antibusiness. He is not against business; the problem is one of understanding. In both his public and private talk, and even when he is trying to be most conciliatory, he tends to refer to business as "them''--as though "they"' were some strange entity. When he crushed Big Steel, he surely did not anticipate that he was triggering a crisis of confidence in the business community. He did not seem to realize that intervening bluntly in the U.S. economic system is something like slapping a lady: no one can really tell what will happen, but the results will almost surely be dramatic.

Now the gulf between the President and "them" is great. One bitter New York investor, recalling how the stock market plunged after Dwight Eisenhower's 1955 heart attack, muttered last week: "I wonder what would happen if Kennedy had a heart attack.'' Donning cap and gown at Yale's commencement exercises. President Kennedy delivered a speech on economics that was characteristically stronger on style than on substance. And even though he was trying to hold out a hand of friendship to U.S. business, he could not resist a threat of the sort that has so shaken business confidence. "If a contest in angry argument were forced upon it." he said, "no Administration could shrink from response, and history does not suggest that American Presidents are totally without resources in an engagement forced upon them because of hostility in one sector of the society." Such talk served only to broaden the gulf between the President and "them."' And that certainly was not what he intended. For a basic point of his speech was that all segments of the nation's society must now work together in the interest of economic progress. With the economy moving at a pace that cannot be accepted as satisfactory, no one could afford to disagree with that aim.

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