Third Party Gets Raspberry, Cheers

Kirtley F. Mather found himself on a "grievous and uncomfortable" middle ground of uncertainty between the distinct positions pro-Wallace of F. O. Mattheissen and pro-Democratic Party of Seymour Harris last night during the Liberal Union's forum on "The Third Party in 1948."

"I have come to confess my weakness," Mather said, "and to state that I do not know for whom I will vote next November. I am prepared to go to the polls and hold my nose whatever the decision."

Matthiessen offered admission that Wallace will not win but said that "to keep issues alive you must keep them in the public domain."

The third-party movement "will have no value, however, if it collapses in November," he added, "and it will only succeed in the end with a really solid base of organized labor."

Building for a permanent third party nevertheless "has to begin where you are" in his view, no matter how much of a toss-up it is whether the inevitable realignment of the Democratic Party will occur through the South's bolting or the liberal-labor bloc's joining with the Wallaceites.

According to Harris the relevant issue is the danger of completely free rein for Republican policies which the Wallace campaign helps to ensure. He cited both reactionary domestic economic policy and perversion of the European Recovery Program for business interests as the "kind of the nonsense you could expect to get out of the Republicans and their Wallaceites supporters."

On the political front, Dwight Eisonhower appears to him the current best Presidential alternative and he remarked that friends in Washington report Like is "all ready to run" on grounds of foreign policy if either Taft, Dewey, or Martin get the GOP nomination.

Despite his indefinite general attitude, Mather declared that support of Wallace did not represent "the proper appraisal of the obvious debits alongside obvious assets"; "making almost certain victory of the most Republican of Republicans" against "laying the foundations for victory four years from now." He furthermore strongly disapproves of the Wallace stand on ERP, holding that one should "work to influence the details of its potentialities for tremendous progress." But he left open the possibility that he may vote for Wallace later on