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Show GOP Tries to Face Fads: Changes Are Sure to Come By BAUKHAGE News Analyst and Commentator. WASHINGTON I don't want to get into semantics but I have to say something about the word "conservative", purely as a word, tf I am going to discuss some of tne undersurface terms in Washington Washing-ton recently. If it is fair to define a conservative as a person who has something to conserve, and I think the American people are naturally conservative m that sense, when you take away that something, Americans will join the radicals or anybody else to win back what was taken away. The majority of the people don't want a free lunch. They Just want a chance to earn enough to pay for ft H i BAUKHAGE their own lunch. But if they can't get lunch any other way, they'll take it how and where they , can get it. That is a lesson which certain cer-tain conservatives (in the p o 1 1 1 i c a 1 sense) are learning slowly. Last month Tom Dewey returned 1 from his political , grave to say at a ' Republican Lincoln Tlnv dinner that if This was my answer: "Dear Sir: I have your letter saying that you wonder which Is the most dangerous, the truck driver I referred to or an idiot with a vast radio audience and also that yon have heard me a few thousand times. I am glad to note we have so much In common." My reference to Taft which so Infuriated the letter-writer was in connection with an implication that Senator Taft IS the Republican party in the Senate as it exists today. to-day. This situation may change, though there are no present indications indi-cations it will. Taft rides the elephant, ele-phant, regardless of who happens to play the calliope. And, paradoxically enough, it will be Senator Taft, the strongest figure fig-ure in the senate, arch-Republican, symbol of reaction to his enemies, who probably will be a powerful factor in the enactment of more than one of the so called "social-service" "social-service" laws which are a vital part of the administration program. Housing and federal aid to education educa-tion are two measures which might be named. And although the Taft-Hartley Taft-Hartley act will have a new name, the imprint of its senatorial sponsor will not be entirely eradicated from its structure when it comes out of the hopper. Taft was able to drag out the labor bill hearings for two weeks longer than was originally planned, and I would not be surprised if these lines appear in print before his gently-led filibuster against the repeal re-peal is over, or at least long over. But that does not mean Taft or his party controls the senate. As this was written a theory was abroad that the Republican strategy strat-egy had developed to the point where, if the party would keep its "young Turks" in line the so-called so-called liberal Republican senators who tried and so dismally failed to curb Taft's power they could count on enough votes of the southern senators on most controversial issues is-sues (unless these issues step on the toes of southern tradition) to wrest control from the Democrats. the GOP tried to go back to the 20's, it would become the "deadest pigeon in the country." The harden of his theme was that the party was split wide apart and It had better get together, to-gether, slough off one extreme element which wants to "turn the clock back" and the other extremists who want to "out-promise "out-promise the Democrats." He demanded de-manded that the party stand for "social progress under a flourishing system of private enterprise en-terprise where every human right" Is expanded." Those op posed to "liberal and progressive progres-sive policies" should get out of the party. Here again we run into semantics what is "progressive," what is "liberal" for that matter, what is Sylvia? To one an owl, to another a nightingale. To the pinks, a "liberal" is a reactionary. To the conservative a "liberal" is a red. i Dewey said that the Republican , party (or the party as he sees it) believes in "unemployment insur- ; ance, old age assistance on an in creased basis, in broader social se-i se-i curity generally, in slum clearance, I in public development of our water ' resources, in farm price supports, in vigorous protection of the rights j of labor." And he seems to recognize that i all of us, Republicans included, will ! have to take certain things for granted. Certain social and political politi-cal changes which we may not like any more than our grandfathers , liked a lot of "new-fangled" ideas they met with, like the safety razor, say. The federal reserve board, the Income tax, women's suffrage all were once considered little less than the instruments of the devil himself by a lot of people who never think twice about them now. What policy the federal reserve board follows is debatable by either politi-;j politi-;j ' cal party, but nobody would be fool j, enough to try to eliminate the board ; as an institution. Both parties elalm they invented it. In fact, the expounders of this theory were only a little while ago pointing to defeat of the bill to exempt the tax on the inauguration inaug-uration as proof that the fate of the Democrats in the senate was a pretty dark one. They explained ex-plained it was symptomatic when 41 Rebublicans voted against the measure, and found to their surprise and pleasure that they were able to get six Democrats to join them, thus providing a majority and defeating de-feating the measure. That made things look very simple. sim-ple. But there is another side to that story. That vote backfired and hurt the Republicans more than it helped. It did more than a little to create Democratic solidarity, and the really deep-dishers on Capitol Hill are predicting that the Democrats Demo-crats are going to achieve enough unanimity from now on to maintain main-tain their majority on major issues. There will be, of course, matters where members of both parties will desert because the issue involved in-volved is such that the particular state or area from which the senator sen-ator comes has an interest which conflicts with the majority of his party. There will be some issues in which Democrats will join Republicans Republi-cans as well as vice versa. And, as I said earlier, there are some things that don't appear on the surface. sur-face. The burden of the attack against the Democrats, whether you call them New Dealers, Fair Dealers, or Trumanites, is that they seek government control of business. Now I believe most Republican leaders have the brains to admit (and if they haven't they can expect to be defeated, just as the liberals and conservatives were beaten in England) that the best way to kili government control the antithesis of free enterprise because it is gov ernment monopoly is to kill priv ate monopoly. The latter is a two edged sword against free enter prise. First, private monopoly kills competition. Second, it opens the way to government ownership. Today the intelligent leaders ol the GOP have to admit what I air. sure they believe at heart, namely that they will have to let the feder al government do certain things foi the people, if private enterprise can't or won't do those things. Tafl as well as the young Turks, know? that. They also know that privati monoply breeds state control. The size of the income tax, and ; how It's distributed is also a ! matter to be settled by the party In power, but I can't quite see anybody trying to eliminate Income taxes entirely. Other matters like the principles of government regulation of inter-, state commerce, of old age and nnemployemnt insurance and dozens of other activities seem to be here for good. If I am a Red for saying that, you can measure me for a suit of long underwear to match, tuck me into the one-hoss-shay and send me home. As a matter of fact I am really pretty much of a moss-back. Although Al-though I'd trade in my used airplane air-plane for a rocket, if anybody has a surrey with the fringe on top and I had a place to park it, that's what Td really prefer. Mention of Taft Evokes Criticism One can't discuss the Republican party without mentioning Mr. Taft. And whenever I say anything good on the air about Sen. Robert A. Taft, I get letters like the following from a man in Lakewood, New York (I had in the same broadcast described a truck-driver who nearly ran over me) : "I can see a picture of you," he writes, "looking down your long nose at that truck driver and believe be-lieve me, I know just exactly how you felt towards him. However, I wonder which is the most dangerous, dan-gerous, an idiot with a truck or an idiot with a vast radio audience. "You see, I look down my long nose at you just as you did the truck driver and I have the advantage advan-tage of having heard a few thousand thou-sand of your broadcasts. Through this medium I have explored your brain and believe me I find not much there. Your speaking of the truck driver as well as Taft's intelligence in-telligence is a fair measure of your own ..." |