Questions for Ike

Francis X. Bushman was a national idol in the silent picture days. So long as audiences could admire him from a distance, he was a box office-hit. But when the talkies made a movie actor's charm partly vocal, Bushman's popularity vanished.

General Eisenhower is another Bushman according to Senator Taft's campaign managers. They think that his popularity will wane as soon as he speaks out on issues. To catalyze the process, they have conjured up twenty-one "Questions for Ike." They hope that these queries, placed on petitions above a long list of signatures, will loosen the General's tongue.

Some of the questions are so loaded that a Taftman must rub his hands as he asks them. Most, however, merely cover, controversial issues which every other candidate has discussed already. No matter how Ike answers, the Taft people feel, he is bound to alienate somebody. As he plows through the list, making enemies, they believe that their candidate's chances will grow.

Ike's managers seem to agree. They have scheduled only a few non-controversial speeches for him upon his arrival in the U.S., and plan to closet him in Denver until the Convention.

Ike may profit by silence, but there is something inherently fearsome about voters blindly supporting a man, neither knowing nor caring where he stands. Moreover, it is hard to see how a Bushman-like silence will really help him in the scramble for delegates. His strength is in the Liberal Republican wing. To gain delegates, he must woo more conservative Republicans, who distrust him for his honeymoon with the Administration foreign policy. Many believe--and no Ike supporter has denied--that his domestic philosophy would ring pleasantly in the ears of conservatives.

But as presently planned, Eisenhower's campaign is almost unique in the history of American politics. He is taking advantage of the myth that military men are above politics to shirk one of the chief responsibilities of any campaigner for the most political of all offices. No candidate should have the privilege of picking and choosing his issues. It is surely in the national interest, and probably in his own political interest as well, for Eisenhower to speak out as soon as possible.