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Show THE AMERICAN W&y - 1 A GOLDEN fe'-- OPPORTUNITY fegtel" mam By Georf Peckmmi rtiL The man who last November 2 made monkeys of the pollsters and confounded practically all of the experts, has a golden opportunity oppor-tunity to be one of the truly great presidents of this nation. Deserted by the leaders of his own Democratic Party, he waged a campaign, in the face of every possible discouragement, that aroused the admiration of the American people, even including those millions who did not vote for him. He just would not be licked, and he wasn't. The American Amer-ican people love a fighter, and today Harry Truman is beloved throughout the 48 states of the Union (Maine included). As he himself declared on the eve of his triumph, he owes nothing to any man, certainly not to his party. He can be exactly ex-actly the kind of a president he wishes to be; he is free and untrammelled. un-trammelled. No other president, with the possible exception of George Washington, has ever gone to the White House with positively no strings attached to him, owing' nothing to anyone. Harry's only debt is to the rank and file of the American people who elected him. For one, I am going to believe that "The Champ" intends to give this nation the best administration adminis-tration he knows how. If he fails to make a place for himself in history as one of the "greats" among the handful of great presidents, presi-dents, it will be due to errors of judgment, not to errors of the heart. The election campaign waged by our President and President-Elect President-Elect leaves no doubt as to the Truman courage and determination. determina-tion. We can safely assume that he will battle just as strenously on the legislative front as he did on the campaign front for what he sincerely believes is best for the most of the American Ameri-can people. As one of those American people, peo-ple, I have an obligation and a desire to be helpful. Please do not consider me bumptious in offering some advice to the man who will preside over our destinies des-tinies for the next four years. I wpuld refer our president to the erudite sayings of two great Chinese philosophers Confu-cious Confu-cious and Lao Tzu. Over 2,400 years ago, in the 5th Century, B. C, Confucius said: "Government is good when it makes happy those who live under it and attracts those who live far away." That most certainly describes the kind of government we had in America for a century and a half. And again Confucius said "The wise and good ruler is benevolent without expending treasure; he lays burdens on the people without with-out causing them to grumble; he has desires without being covetous; cove-tous; he is serene without being proud; he is awe-inspiring without with-out being ferocious." That most certainly describes the qualities of two of our great presidents, Washington and Lincoln. Lin-coln. And again Confucius said: "The wise and good Lao Tzu said: 'In the highest antiquity, the people did not know they had rulers. In the next age, they loved and praised them. In the next, they despised them. . . If the government is prying and meddling, there will be constant infractions of the law .... The people starved because those in authority over them devoured too many taxes. . . . The people are difficult to govern because those placed over them are meddlesome med-dlesome " Could it be that Lao Tzu had in mind such things as price controls, rationing with its black markets, free medicine, federal aid to education, public housing, excess profit taxes, etc.? It could be, Mr. President. |