The Nome Nugget

Eisenhower
Bids for Farm
Vote,
Says GOP
Congress
Will
Assure
Farmers an 'Enduring
Prosperity

By MARVIN L. ARROWSMITH

INDIANAPOLIS, (AP) — President Eisenhower bid for the nation's farm vote Friday night, saying election of a Republican Congress will help assure American farmers "a foundation of enduring prosperity."

Speaking to a wildly cheering, capacity crowd of 15,000 in Butler University fieldhouse, the President jabbed at the Truman administration for what he termed the farmers' "serious loss in buying power" in 1951-52.

And--in a separate speech at a smaller rally of GOP colleagues--he sounded a challenge to Republicans to spur "our horses . . . and to get to going" in the party's drive to maintain control of Congress in the Nov. 2 elections.

Eisenhower stopped over in the Indiana capital in the midst of the farm belt on his way to Denver, where he ended an eight-week work and play vacation Friday.

The chief executive's major address last night-broadcast nationwide by radio and telecast in 15 farm states-marked another step-up in his personal campaign to swing voters into the Republican column this fall.

During the first 21 months of his administration, he said, "we have gone far toward building for our agriculture a foundation of enduring prosperity, in an America at last at peace."

He said there never had been more constructive farm legislation than that passed by the GOP-controlled 83rd Congress, and he blamed "the old farm law" for a "steady decline in farmers' buying power."

On the speakers platform with Eisenhower at Butler Fieldhouse were Secretary of Agriculture Benson, whom he warmly praised, and Republican candidates from the farm belt area.

There had been reports from Washington that GOP leaders counseled against having Benson on the platform, presumably because of some Republican opposition to the administration's controversial farm program.