Foul Ball!

It's an outrage, that's what it is! An outrage! The sacred institutions of this country are crumbling before our very eyes. And who is responsible? Russian spies? Subversives and sabotcurs? Not on your life. The President of the United States is the guilty party and none other.

"Oh, let Nixon throw out the first ball," says Eisenhower. "I think I'll try to work in a few holes of golf that day. I really can't be bothered with the opening of the baseball season."

The responsibilities of office seem to rest pretty lightly on the General these days. We didn't raise a fuss when he started going off to Augusta every few days for a vacation on the golf course. Previous presidents, to be sure, have found that the job takes all day every day, but we weren't going to get upset about it. "Maybe the work load is a little easier at the beginning, before things really get rolling," we thought. "Let's give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, isn't he appointing plenty of Harvard men?"

But suddenly, and without warning, he went too far. Seven presidents, for almost half a century, have performed the solemn task of throwing out the first ball. Does Eisenhower care? Does the welfare, the morale of the country worry him? Is he concerned about the example he is setting the nation's youth, the nation's public servants? Apparently not. All he seems to care about is a game of golf.

Morality and conscience are to be just memories. Duty and responsibility are passing out of our vocabulary.

Cheer up, Malenkov. It looks as though Hitler and Stalin were right about the decadence of democracy. With the baseball opener down the drain, the rest shouldn't take long. Armed services appropriations and foreign aid bills will lie forgotten on the desk, or perhaps in the bottom of a golf bag. Cheer up, Kremlin. It looks like easy sailing from now on.