CHIPS OFF THE OLD BLOCK

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

Reading Monday's issue I was such by the endorsement of Adlai for President, as contrasted with an apparent scandal in the Young Democrats. If looks as though the young democrats are indeed taking after the old ones. I wonder just why the CRIMSON feels justified in endorsing the old ones.

The reasoning seems to be this. We are liberals. The Democratic Party, professes to liberal. Ergo, we endorse the Democratic candidate. Is the cause of liberal development always furthered by keeping the same party in power?

I am an Illinois resident and a Republican. I know that Stevenson is a high minded liberal of good character. But what about the Democratic Party he has to lead? It advocates civil rights vociferously every four years, but the Democratic South blocks these measures and continues legalized segregation decade after decade. Kefauver investigated corruption, but many Northern Democratic city bosses keep up their tolerance of organized gangsterism to maintain party strength. Truman claims to be honest, but he is unable to stop the tax fixing said widespread petty corruption in his own administration. And as far as civil rights and personal liberties go, McCarran's bite is a good deal more deadly than McCarthy's bark ...

Liberalism In Action

Measure by measure I am personally more a Democrat than a Republican. But the Republican eightieth Congress measure was a good deal more liberal than most people think ... a Republican President and Congress would in practice be more liberal than people now suspect.

When assessing the prospects of liberal government in America in the next four years, we ought to look not only at the Republican platform but at the real accomplishments of Republican leadership in New York, California, and the eightieth Congress. By the same token, we ought to look not only at the Democratic platform but at the men who wrote it. Despite Stevenson's leadership, Pendergrastism, not the principles of Wilson and Roosevelt, seems to be the moving force of the Democratic Party in 1951 ...  Frank A. Olson '53