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President's Powers. Against any interpretation of the President's "inherent powers" that go as far as Truman's steel seizure, which the Supreme Court declared illegal.
Resources. For schemes like TVA ("a great experiment"), but favors more voice by the people of the regions affected on how they should be organized and run.
Tidelands. For state as against federal ownership.
U.M.T. Against it while draft continues.
Inflation. Against the present Administration's policy of using the Federal Reserve System to weaken the dollar.
Government. Promises to "reorganize and streamline" the Government by "principles of competent, imaginative management . . . We will take out of the files the unfulfilled reports of the Hoover Commission; we will dust them off; where necessary, we will ask Congress to enact them."
Eisenhower's education about the "issues ' was particularly significant because the Democrats have fostered an attitude about Eisenhower which a Manhattan taxi driver recently summed up in the phrase (quite seriously intended): "But after all, he is just a hero." The idea (not uncommon about heroes) is that Ike's past achievements spring from some mysterious and possibly noble qualities which, however, are not connected with the job he would have to do as President, and have nothing to do with such practical matters as organizing ability, power to make decisions, skill in analyzing situations, etc. Ike had to be specific to prove that a hero doesn't necessarily have a head of clay.
The Homestretch. As Ike's education progressed, he gradually became his own top adviser. At the beginning, Eisenhower's hastily assembled staff was disorganized. But the organization improved fast. Republican National Chairman Arthur Summerfield does not try to manage Ike's train; he concentrates chiefly on that large part of the campaign which does not revolve directly around the candidate.
Ike's personal campaign adviser is New Hampshire's Governor Sherman ("The Rock") Adams, a self-effacing, efficient liberal Republican who was Ike's floor manager at Chicago. He has been somewhat hampered by his lack of clearly defined authority. Also among the top advisers: Senator Fred Seaton of Nebraska, Herbert Brownell, Tom Dewey's Nebraska-born lieutenant, Congressman Walter Judd and Harold Stassen.
In the homestretch of the campaign, Ike is in top form, with a new self-assurance and gusto. The 200-odd speeches, the 40,000 miles by train, plane and car, the motorcades in the chill wind, the 2 a.m. platform appearances seem to have left no mark on him. His voice is only slightly hoarse (he yelled lustily at the Army-Columbia football game). His enthusiasm for talking to people and exchanging views with them seems to grow. He has coined no great phrases, although some Ike sentences pack a weighty punch. Samples:
¶"The only way ... to win World War III is to prevent it."
¶"The worst indictment against the present Administration is not that corruption exists, but that it has been consistently condoned."
¶"We cannot . . . win the peace with a foreign policy of drift, makeshift and make-believe."