OCR Text |
Show Top Democrats Prepare 1958 Campaign Themes charged that foreign and defense policies were "timid and weak" and he laid responsibility at the door of the White House. Mr. Stevenson charged that the administratoin had "deliberately lulled the people into dangerous slumber." "I say we have been misled from beginning to end," Mr. Stevenson Ste-venson said, "about our most vital concerns, about the power of the Communists, about our broad position in the world." o Leading Democrats are busy setting the theme for the coming November elections that party officials and most neutral observers ob-servers believe will increase the Democratic power in Congress and may lead to the recapture of the presidency in 1960. Former President Harry Truman, Tru-man, twice defeated presidential candidate Adlai S. Stevenson and former Secretary of State Dean Acheson teamed up recently to attack the Eisenhower administration adminis-tration in hard, specific terms. The three leading Democrats blasted off at a $100 a plate dinner din-ner February 22. Neutral observers noticed these tilings about the speeches on this occasion. 1. They constituted a frontal attack on President Eisenhower personally. 2. They showed the Democrats in a buoyant, self-confident role. ! The keynote speech of former President Truman showed the predominant group of the party willing to proclaim civil rights with a take it or leave it attitude toward the South. 3. It indicated that at 73 Mr. Truman still is a power to reckon with in the internal affairs of the party. The dinner at which the three leaders spoke was called specifically speci-fically to honor him rather than as the traditional Jefferson-Jackson Jefferson-Jackson day dinner. The turnout was big and the funds gratifying, according to reports from the Christian Science Sci-ence Monitor. Mr. Truman told the gathering which included just about all potential presidential candidates that unlike 1956 he intended to make his choice of a candidate well known in advance of the convention. All this apparently means that Mr. Truman intends to play a big part in internal affairs of the party in the next several years. In his arraignment of the Republican Re-publican party Mr. Truman said the current business slump was a "Republican recession" and |