Right Rudder

European reaction to last Tuesday's election has been genuine amazement over "the American turn to the right while the rest of the world veers further to the left." While the degree of change in American foreign and domestic policy as been exaggerated by European observers, there is a strong element of truth in this description of the American European political cleavage. Whether this clear difference in political outlook will seriously affect the construction of a stable peace will be determined within the next two years as Republicans attempt to cross party lines in a bi-partisan foreign policy. The question is whether this policy will be truly bi-partisan or whether the old guard of the G.O.P. will refute its conversion to international cooperation and return to its own brand of economic nationalism.

The economies in our foreign policy is now the arguing point. Up until 1946 the questions of entrance into the UN and its allied organizations, and the British lean were essentially political, involving little divergence from accepted American over the counter relationships with the world. But the issued within the next two years will be tariffs, reciprocal trade agreements and lesser foreign loans. A continuation of the Roosevelt-Hull line would force Republicans to break with their past. On these little publicized subdivisions of policy, the country has less assurance of Republican views than on their UN stand. It must be remembered that Senator Taft, the new Majority leader, opposed U.S. acceptance of the Bretton Woods agreement, and was a strong reservationist when reciprocal treaties came up for ratification. Further, it should be recalled that the same Senator opposed the British loan in principle and has generally taken an individual stand that belies the newly-acquired Republican "religion."

Broadening the Republican picture beyond the stands of its leaders, it becomes increasingly obvious that internationalism, to the G.O.P, does not extend to the sacred confines of the American dollar. Traditional exponents of high tariff, the new majority party is again talking protectionism, led by its House majority leader, Joe Martin, long-tie friend of the "protected" Massachusetts shoe interests. This Republican line is fairly consistent: a majority of the G.O.P. Congressmen and Senators followed Taft's prodding and voted to kill the reciprocal trade agreements. Down the line on foreign economic questions, Republican voted in Congress are solid evidence of the party's reluctance to match world political leadership with the dollars and cents to make this leadership effective.

UN participation and the Bretton Woods agreement are only the keystones at the top of the new world security structure. The foundations of the peace lie deep in world economics, most fundamentally in the ability of the United States to cooperate with the reconstructing European powers. Tax cuts at home may well imply the withdrawal of U.S. troops from vital occupation zones. Cooperation cannot mean tariff protectionism, rejection of the Hull reciprocity program, and the curtailment of American foreign investment,--apparent objectives of the Republicans in the 79th Congress.

Americans must analyze this bi-partisan foreign policy carefully. Republicans achieved the majority in Congress with precious little said about foreign affairs. Thus the confusion within the G.O.P. on just what form American internationalism should take went by unnoticed. Distaste for Truman's domestic polities gave rise to an imposing carteblanche delivered to men of unknown sympathies. By 1948 Americans will know whether the Republican Party has become the new apostle of business like world cooperation or the avant-grade along the road back to the economic isolation of the 1920's.