The applause that greeted President Eisenhower as he strode down the aisle of the House to deliver his seventh annual State of the Union message last week was warm and enthusiastic—as if designed to show that the glittering assemblage of Congressmen, Cabinet members, Supreme Court justices, foreign diplomats and distinguished visitors, almost to a man, liked Ike. Just as unmistakable was the fact that never before in his presidency had Dwight Eisenhower confronted a Congress—almost two-thirds Democratic—so openly skeptical of his programs and philosophy, so thoroughly pervaded on the eve of the traditional message by the spirit of show-me.
President Eisenhower mounted the rostrum, took his place before the blue-topped lectern in a blaze of a dozen klieg lights. He looked well—erect, dignified, relaxed, smiling broadly as he acknowledged the applause, "Thank you! Thank you!" He sounded well—his voice was firm, alert, vital—as he prefaced his speech by saying Happy Birthday to the presiding officers. Vice President Richard Nixon, 46 that day; Speaker Sam Rayburn, 77 that week. Then President Eisenhower set about "showing" the 86th Congress by refusing—even with the Communist planet orbiting the sun and the U.S.S.R.'s Anastas Mikoyan orbiting through the U.S.—to change the measured pace of his own concept of living with cold war. The keynote of the State of the Union, 1959: "The material foundation of our national safety is a strong and expanding economy. The basic question facing us today is more than survival. It is the preservation of a way of life."
"Tremendous" Sums. Keeping the peace today, said the President, calls for resolution, wisdom, steadiness and unremitting effort. The U.S. can put no confidence in treaties with the Communists except where such treaties are ''self-enforcing." The U.S. has therefore mustered air, sea. land forces that are a powerful deterrent to general or limited war. has linked up with nearly 50 nations in collective security agreements. The problem: U.S. spending on national defense, atomic energy, foreign military aid will, by the President's budget (to be presented to Congress next week), total $47 billion in fiscal 1960, or more than 60% of the federal budget. The U.S. is already investing $7 billion a year in missiles, developing fighter planes that cost 50 times as much as World War II models, buying bombers that cost more than their weight in gold.*
''These sums are tremendous." said the President, "even when compared with the marvelous resiliency and capacity of our economy." And beyond that, with an annual population growth of three million, the U.S. will also have to meet higher costs in federal aid to health, education, water resources development, highway construction, urban renewal programs. He would, he promised, soon convene a committee of educators, businessmen, labor leaders and professional men to make a new study of new "national objectives"—which presumably could be pursued by private as well as Government effort. The common denominator of cold-war defense and domestic growth: fiscal integrity. ''Thrift is one of the characteristics that has made this nation great. Why should we ignore it now?"