National Affairs: Who’s a Liberal?

In Washington’s Willard Hotel 511 rapt students from 36 states plunked down their $12 tuition fees. In return they received an intensive four-day course in “practical politics” from the faculty of the National Citizens Political Action Committee. They were also handed some conflicting clues in the search for a liberal political party.

¶ Said Oregon’s Republican Senator Wayne Morse: not the Democrats. “A friend told me not long ago that the Democratic Party was the party of great liberal Presidents. He named Jefferson, Jackson, Wilson and Roosevelt—and then he stopped short . . . I pointed out that they’re all dead.”

¶ Said Democrat Henry Wallace: not the Republicans. “The power of the Republican Party rests in certain very large forces that just don’t believe in progressiveness—never have and never will.”

¶ Said N.C.P.A.C.’s Executive Vice Chairman C. B. (“Beany”) Baldwin: a plague on both houses. Republicans are “still controlled by the vested interests. . . . If the Democratic Party continues on the road to reaction as it has in the past 18 months, there will be a third party.”