Warped Woof

In these days when the language of government grows continually more complicated, it's refreshing to find someone who can express himself in simple, folksy style. President Eisenhower, quite a direct fellow himself, also knows the value of the kind of adviser who can come right to the point and say what's on his mind in a few well-chosen cliches.

Engine Charlie Wilson, who last year echoed Secretary Dulles "bigger bang for a buck" talk with a declaration that "what's good for General Motors is good for the country," this Monday gave Detroit Republicans his solution to the unemployment problem. "Maybe a few workers will go back down south when it gets a little cold," he said, commenting on those who were imported from the South last year and now find themselves out of a job. Thinking, perhaps, that he wasn't fully understood, he drew a little analogy: "Personally, I like bird dogs better than kennel-fed dogs," he said. "The bird dogs like to get out and hunt for their food, but the kennel dogs just sit on their haunches and yelp."

No haunch man himself, Wilson may nevertheless be caught some day with his homilies down. If he is, there are a few other ways he can solve the nation's ills and still retain the dog-cared image. You can't teach an old dog new tricks might apply to any ex-communist, while the country's enemies, from Hiss to Ho Chi Minh, could be lumped under the heading of dogs in the manager. Although the Administration's critics usually bay at the moon, for those recurring embarrassments, like Senator McCarthy, there's the old wheeze about letting sleeping dogs lie. Any hint of co-existing with Russia could be neatly scotched by saying that such a move would be lying down together like dogs. Or, in reflecting on the thankless job of those who are trying to rid the government of 20 years of treason, he could say that his is a dog's life. While the canine cliche has a good, true ring to us, there is a small minority which thinks that Secretary Wilson is barking up the wrong tree. They could be right.