Need For Unified National Government in United States Transcends All Party Issues, Declares Walter Lippmann

"For more than two years the United States has had a government divided within itself," declared Walter Lippmann '10, in an exclusive CRIMSON interview by long distance telephone from Long Island late last night.

"As a result, the consideration of major problems has had to be postponed, and even emergency measures have been taken only after prolonged and destructive debates. The greatest need of the hour is that the people should give a decisive mandate to one party, so that Congress and the Executive may be in a position to fight the depression instead of fighting each other.

"This need for unity in the government seems to me to transcend all the issues and the personalities involved in the campaign.

"The final mood of a campaign is mostly illusion born of hope and fear," said Mr. Lippmann, as he went on to discuss the last days of the campaign and sum up some of his recent statements. "No public question is discussed on its merits. It is hardly possible to trust the candidates to make reliable statements of fact. Their versions of what happened in the past become so distorted by their anxiety to persuade that they are positively grotesque. One can watch the process of intellectual disintegration as the candidates keep on talking through the interminable weeks of the campaign. In this atmosphere, the loser generally resorts to a whirlwind campaign, and the winner is greatly tempted to make promises in all directions.

"However, in any broad national view of the election, the tendency to political realignment overshadows in dynamic importance, the personalities and the alleged issues. But now that the campaign is completed, every American citizen, eligible to vote, must shoulder his duty and go to the polls to cast his ballot tomorrow. The dregs of the debate ended, the American people will do well to place a unified executive and legislative administration in Washington, giving one party the undivided support of the nation, that it may meet the depression on even terms."