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Returning the Republican Party to Eisenhower
Recently, one of our members mentioned that it was imperative to return the GOP away from its current path and urged a return, not just to the principles of Reaganism, but also to fall further back to the days of Dwight Eisenhower. The University of California-Santa Barbara runs an online archive of political documents pertaining to the history of the American executive called the American Presidency Project. It is an invaluable resource for primary research and it includes the national party platforms for most election years dating back to the 1840 Democratic platform under Martin Van Buren.
Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear! From out of the past come the thundering hoofbeats of the great horse Tricky Dick! Ike Eisenhower rides again!
Perusing the party platforms from 1952 and 1956 is an interesting exercise. There are things in there that are just too anachronistic to pay much attention to. Sections of both years are devoted to improving the post office. (From 1952: We pledge a more efficient and frequent mail delivery service. By 1956, there were 7 full paragraphs devoted to how much Ike had improved mail delivery.)
In 1952 they were none too pleased with the last 20 years of Democrats:
We charge that they have arrogantly deprived our citizens of precious liberties by seizing powers never granted.
We charge that they work unceasingly to achieve their goal of national socialism.
We charge that they have disrupted internal tranquillity by fostering class strife for venal political purposes.
We charge that they have choked opportunity and hampered progress by unnecessary and crushing taxation.
They claim prosperity but the appearance of economic health is created by war expenditures, waste and extravagance, planned emergencies, and war crises. They have debauched our money by cutting in half the purchasing power of our dollar.
We charge that they have weakened local self-government which is the cornerstone of the freedom of men.
We charge that they have shielded traitors to the Nation in high places, and that they have created enemies abroad where we should have friends.
We charge that they have violated our liberties by turning loose upon the country a swarm of arrogant bureaucrats and their agents who meddle intolerably in the lives and occupations of our citizens.
We charge that there has been corruption in high places, and that examples of dishonesty and dishonor have shamed the moral standards of the American people.
By 1956 they were damned pleased with themselves. “Our many economic and social advances of the past four years are the result of our faithful adherence to our 1952 pledge to reverse a 20-year Democratic philosophy calling for more and more power in Washington.” And then they went on to list how much more government that they had created. Such as the creating the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, creating a flood insurance agency, subsidized rents, expanded Social Security, paying farmers not to grow food through the Soil Bank Program, and, of course, lots of benefits for government employees.
We will vigorously promote, as we have in the past, a non-political career service under the merit system which will attract and retain able servants of the people. Many gains in this field, notably pay increases and a host of new benefits, have been achieved in their behalf in less than four years.
The Republican Party will continue to fight for eagerly desired new advances for Government employees, and realistic reappraisement and adjustment of benefits for our retired civil service personnel.
Nothing makes you want to vote Republican more than the knowledge that they’re taking care of each other in DC. Well, that and the pledges for an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution, and a hardy endorsement of the United Nations.
In foreign affairs the 1956 GOP pledged Israel’s security and reinforcing the Palestinian mission to the UN. (Well, that worked, right?) Furthermore, the Republicans “…continue to oppose the seating of Communist China in the United Nations, thus upholding international morality.” The VP they re-nominated in the year of 1956 would completely destroy that notion as president in 1971.
And then there’s this on trade: “Barriers which impede international trade and the flow of capital should be reduced on a gradual, selective and reciprocal basis, with full recognition of the necessity to safeguard domestic enterprises, agriculture and labor against unfair import competition. We proudly point out that the Republican Party was primarily responsible for initiating the escape clause and peril point provisions of law to make effective the necessary safeguards for American agriculture, labor and business.” (Emphasis mine.)
There’s lot more. From balanced budgets to a return of the Gold Standard. It’s all pure gold.
Published in History
This dovetails beautifully with my latest project. I’m narrating “Eisenhower’s Sputnik Moment,” an excellent historical study of the Eisenhower administration from the standpoint of space and defense. It has deepened my respect for the man (and my disrespect for Kennedy and especially Johnson…) even though I’m a firm supporter of space exploration. I wish we could have done it the way Ike wanted to. We would have had a space station, supported by Saturn 1 flights, and built a lunar lander in orbit. That’s what Von Braun wanted too; he had plans for sending groups of 50 people to a lunar base.
I just wrapped up the recording and have most of the book edited. It will probably be available on Audible in a month or six weeks. If anyone would like a sneak preview of the finished parts (not to mention providing me with a little proof-listening), I can post a link to the MP3 files on DropBox.
And just to make the linkage a little firmer, I graduated from Eisenhower College in 1974.
Not really. Truman was convinced the Democrats were going to get thumped in ‘48 and thought Eisenhower could keep the White House for them. After 16 years of FDR/Truman the GOP only had to nominate the right man. That man was not Gov. Thomas Dewey (NY).
I think Ike was probably Truman’s second choice. If he had to pick a 5-Star to run for President it would have been his Secretary of State, George C. Marshall. Only Marshall wasn’t interested in elective office. Truman often referred to Marshall as the greatest man he ever knew.
Eisenhower said that one of the main reasons (and I believe it was the deciding factor) he decided to run as a Republican, rather than as a Democrat, was that he believed in the two-party system and was very worried about its continued existence if the Democrats won the presidency again in 1952. He had ample reason to worry — the Democrats had controlled the presidency over the past twenty years and both houses of congress for eighteen of those years.
This Coolidge quote is Goldberg’s Suicide of the West in a nutshell. It is its thesis statement.
I don’t know how we got here from where you started, but on a “liberal” site, we’d have ended up debating Mao and Chavez, or Fidel and Marx, so I’m good.
National Review refused to endorse Ike, you know.
Regarding US Postal Service reform, I seem to recall a more contemporary US President lamenting how a large retail store was exploiting the mail service. “We get a bad deal out of it,” I think he said. Always promising to make better deals someday, that one*.
*Heh, I just did a McCain and called a sitting president “that one.”
It seems to me that the statements of the platform quoted above bear a striking resemblance in style to the Declaration of Independence.
And this was the Republican senator from West Virginia at the time, before Robert Byrd.