Time - Man of the Year/Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso/moy/eisenhow/eisenhow.010

Text File | 1992-08-29 | 9KB | 166 lines

                                                                                November 12, 1956

The People's Choice



     At 11:15 a.m. on a clear, blue Pennsylvania Election Day,
the new couple from the farm over on Route 10 stepped into the
one-room, white clapboard Cumberland Township election house
outside Gettysburg. They identified themselves to an election
official, and workers at the roughhewn wooden table checked their
names in the record books. "Housewife," said the listing of the
woman's occupation. After her husband's name, the record read:
"President of the United States."

     Under the light of four naked electric light bulbs, by the
heat of a small oil stove, the President of the U.S. marked his
ballot in the election of 1956. It took him just 45 seconds. For
Mamie Eisenhower, the process was somewhat longer. She popped out
of the booth to ask if one X would take care of the whole ticket.
Assured that it would, she marked her ballot, and said: "Fine,
that takes care of everything." Then she and her husband dropped
their ballots in the battered, wooden ballot box that showed the
wear and tear of many elections, and headed back to the farm.

     "That's Swell!" Within minutes President Eisenhower was
flying back to the White House (Mamie returned by car later in
the day). There, as he had during most of the closing week of the
campaign, he turned his attention away from politics and toward
the tense international scene. He talked on the telephone with
British Prime Minister Anthony Eden, sent off messages on the
cease-fire to France's Premier Guy Mollet and to India's Prime
Minister Nehru; he met with his defense and diplomatic advisers
to discuss the whole pattern of developments in Europe.

     But by 7:30 p.m. the President was engaged in the pursuit
that occupied most citizens of the land. Dressed in sports coat
and slacks, he sat down to dinner in the living room on the
second floor of the White House with Mamie, his son, Major John
Eisenhower, and John's wife, Barbara. Their table was placed
before the television set so they could watch the early returns.
When Presidential News Secretary James Hagerty brought in press
reports that the President had swept Connecticut and the
Republican U.S. Senator Prescott Bush was re-elected, Ike's
reaction was a broad smile and an exultant "That's swell."

     "Principles & Ideals." Through the evening, as the size of
the victory rolled into a landslide and then into an avalanche,
President Eisenhower kept no chart as Franklin Roosevelt had done
on election nights. He depended entirely on the television set
and press reports brought in by Secretary Hagerty and son John.
At 10 o'clock, as previously planned, he dressed and rode off to
the Sheraton-Park Hotel, where the Republican National Committee
had set up its victory headquarters. There, surrounded by members
of his Cabinet and other close associates, preparing to make his
victory appearance before 2,300 cheering Republicans in the
hotel's ballroom (and on the nation's television screens), he
refused to watch Adlai Stevenson's television concession of
defeat. He had not looked at Stevenson during the campaign, he
said, and he did not intend to start at that late hour.

     "We Want Ike!" chanted the 2,000 in the ballroom as the
President and Mrs. Eisenhower, the Vice President and Mrs. Nixon
made their entrance. Before the cheering, celebrating throng the
President was solemn. Said he: "It is a very heart-warming
experience to know that your labors, your efforts of four years
have achieved that level where they are approved by the United
States of America in a vote. Such a vote as that cannot be merely
for an individual. It is for principles and ideals for which that
individual and his associates have stood and have tried to
exemplify."

     A Deeper Base. From the start of the campaign, there had
never been any real doubt that the people of the U.S., by their
vote, would approve the principles and ideals of the Eisenhower
Administration. But it was not a victory without obstacles.
Candidate Eisenhower had to come back from a heart attack and
prove to himself and the people that he was again well enough to
assume the full burdens of the presidency. Then he had to
confront another opponent in the form of an ailment that few
Americans could identify or spell - ileitis. But he defeated
both, and his health was never an important issue in the
campaign. One big reason: everywhere he went, the people saw a
picture of good, vigorous, glowing health.

     Politically, his opponent was not so much Adlai Stevenson as
it was the Democratic party. But from the time the President
first took to the campaign trail, there was every indication that
he would also defeat that foe. Everywhere he went -- from Peoria
to Portland, Ore. to Miami to Philadelphia -- cheering,
applauding crowds poured out to greet him. Democratic campaigners
sought to establish that their candidate was the "man of the
people" in this election, but the President's welcome all across
the U.S. and his votes on Election Day showed that the people
knew their man.

     What had Dwight Eisenhower and his Administration given the
people of the U.S. that brought their overwhelming approval? The
Republican campaign slogan summed it up well: peace, progress and
prosperity. The Eisenhower Administration had ended one hopeless
war and had kept the sparks of new wars from landing on the U.S.
Under new economic policies, the U.S. had reached new heights of
prosperity for both labor and capital. The Administration had
balanced the federal budget, and cut taxes, and had shown proper
concern for the welfare of its citizens, e.g., in the broadening
of social security, in programs for better schools.

     But there was a deeper base for the people's approval. In
their campaign slogan, the Republicans left out another "P" that
was the most important of all: principle. The people sensed that
Dwight Eisenhower held to basic and important American principles
that worked, as the President put it, for "every American man,
woman and child, whatever his station, his calling, his religion
or his race."

     "The Individual is Supreme." When Dwight Eisenhower spoke in
what his bitterest critics called platitudes, the people
understood what his opponents did not: he was indeed the voice of
America, speaking the language that America understands and
believes. "The individual is of supreme importance," he said.
"Government's function is to provide the climate in which those
people can work in confidence and security . . . The spirit of
our people is the strength of our nation. Strength is not just in
arms and guns and planes; it's not just in factories and in
fertile farms. It's in the heart, the heart that venerates the
heritage we have from our fathers, the heritage of freedom, of
self-government. That is the basic strength of America."

     Because they believed Dwight Eisenhower when he said that he
was working for "what is good for all of us," U.S. farmers voted
for him, although they were not specifically satisfied with his
Administration's farm program, and labor union members voted for
him, although their leaders urged them not to. Because they could
clearly see what the Eisenhower Administration had done, the
people rejected the charge that it had been working for the
special interests of "big business." The major polls verified
that the avalanche of votes that swept Dwight Eisenhower into a
second term began piling up many months ago when the people saw
how his Administration was performing in Washington. It was more
than a personal victory; it was a victory for everything that
Dwight Eisenhower and his Administration have stood for.

     Knowledge & Confidence. President Eisenhower said that he
sought re-election in order "to finish what I've started. There
is so much to do," he said. "There are so many things yet
unfinished." He mentioned specifically the need for better
schools, for aid to economically depressed areas, for help to
small business, for better roads, new air safety measures, more
security for the aged, and liberalization of the immigration
laws. He knows that there is more to do, also, for the
consolidation of gains already made -- for the restoration of
government that is closer to the people, for sound fiscal
policies, for the reconstruction of the Republican Party, and --
above all -- for world peace.

     In his hour of victory, President Eisenhower pledged himself
to continue working for the principles that he and his
Administration have stood for since January 1953. "With whatever
talents the good God has given me," he said,"with whatever
strength there is within me, I will continue, and so will my
associates, to do just one thing: to work for 168 million
Americans here at home and for peace in the world." With the
knowledge and with the confidence that he would do just that, the
American people have given him one of the clearest mandates in
the history of free elections.