For President: Truman

The business of choosing a President will be uninspired and abnormally calm this year. From both major candidates the voters have heard too much carping and too much rhapsodic optimism. Many will show their dissatisfaction by turning to a third or fourth party, believing that the next four years are expendable, and hoping for something better in 1952. They fail to recognize, however, with what deadly speed history lopes from war to peace, from boom to bust. Rejecting the path of protest, the CRIMSON believes it must choose one of the two candidates whose election is possible. The CRIMSON supports the candidacy of President Truman.

It is impossible to enter here into a full discussion of both major candidates and their parties. But from a comparison of the two positions on certain basic issues, conclusions supporting the President can be drawn.

In their foreign policy, the two candidates are very much alike. Both are guided by their strongest associates. The global outlook of Mr. Dulles in Albany closely matches the views of Secretary Marshall in Washington. In the past year, the CRIMSON has objected to the Administration's policy reversal on Palestine, and its new-found warmth for Franco. The CRIMSON has also doubted the wisdom of a peace-time draft. However, it is unlikely that Mr. Dewey's advisers would lead him to change these unfortunate policies. At the same time, Mr. Wallace's ideas on foreign affairs must be rejected; they have degenerated into a stubborn apology for Soviet Russia.

Dewey's Efficiency

Differences in the domestic programs of the two candidates are more apparent. Mr. Dewey has tried to sell himself to the American public as the champion of governmental efficiency. In New York State, efficiency has meant continual surpluses: $163,000,000 in 1945, and $188,000,000 in 1946. It has meant a huge kitty of around $500,000,000 called the Postwar Reconstruction Fund. But Mr. Dewey's brand of efficiency has also meant far too little in large-scales housing and far too little in state adds to education. These aids have risen by 55 per cent in New York since 1989, but in the nation as a whole, they have jumped 141 per cent in the same period.

If he reaches Washington, Mr. Dewey has promised to retain the large surplus and to reduce income taxes--at the same time. This would mean drastic budget outs. A large majority of the budget now provides for national defense, foreign aid, and veterans' benefits. Since a combination of these items will continue to take up an immense proportion of the budget, Mr. Dewey would have to apply the axe to other federal operations. In this "economizing," he undoubtedy would be under great pressure from the Old Guard of the Republican Party such men as Representatives Hallock, Taber, and Martin. Just as housing and education have suffered in New York, in the nation the result would be the undermining, and possibly the scrapping, of many of the great social and economic agencies built up over the past sixteen years. This is what Mr. Dewey's efficiency would mean in Washington. And this is what makes the Governor's campaign difficult to understand. It is difficult to see where his proposed Department of Social Welfare would fit into such a "house-cleaned" Administration. And it is difficult to reconcile Mr. Dewey's talk of federal reclamation and flood control with his support of the Republican policy of leaving control of tide-lands oil to the separate states.

Truman's Program

Mr. Dewey's opponent has little of the Governor's efficient manner. Under great tension, Mr. Truman has frequently made serious errors, such as his angry request to Congress for the power to draft striking railroad workers. His administration has not been smooth. But what Mr. Truman stands for in the way of domestic institutions, and what he has stood for ever since he entered the White House, are measures of greater importance to the prosperity of the nation than efficiency for efficiency's sake. In January, 1946, the President asked Congress for minimum wage and full employment legislation, for an adequate housing program, and for a Fair Employment Practices Act. His subsequent domestic policies--and his 62 vetoes--have followed in the same direction. Mr. Truman has pushed for a liberal displaced persons bill, for strong civil rights legislation, for social security expansion, and for adequate curbs on inflation. Governor Dewey has said little or nothing about most of these measures, although some of them are in effect in New York State.

Two factors have prevented the realization of President Truman's domestic program: his own administrative weaknesses and the antipathy of the Republican-controlled 80th Congress. But because this program seems to be more beneficial to the nation than does the program of Governor Dewey and his party, the CRIMSON urges the election of President Truman.