Summit County Labor News

Vanishing Republicans?

The Chicago Tribune has flipped its isolationist lid. It is worried. And it is desperate. It sees the present session of Congress as the last round up for the Republican party as an effective force.

What finally pulled the plug for The Tribune was the decision last month of a New Jersey Republican Congressman to switch to the Democratic party because he would feel more spiritually at home.

The Tribune scathingly refers to the switching Congressman, Vincent J. Dellay, as a "wayward brother" and "one of those 'modern Republican' creatures invented by Mr. Eisenhower's idea men."

The reason for Dellay's switch goes a little deeper than the "usual sense of prudence which suggests when the time is ripe to leave a sinking ship," it says.

"The fact is," The Tribune snapped in its editorial, "the Republican party, as it has developed, or, more properly, degenerated under Mr. Eisenhower and his palace guard, now stands for pretty nearly everything that can be found in unadulterated form under a Democratic wrapper."

"The Tribune says the great achievement of President Eisenhower has been the destruction of the Republican party "as a repository for any recognizable body of orthodox doctrine."

The result "is that the Republican party has never been feebler, more disunited, or more lacking in leadership and direction than at present," it concluded. "So it may be well to take a good, long look at the Republicans at this session of Congress, for, as an effective force, they seem likely to vanish as completely as did the Whigs of a century ago."

We disagree with The Tribune. The Republican party is not what's disappearing, it's outdated economic and social thinking that is disappearing. That's what is really gnawing at The Tribune. But who can say that The Tribune is not going down fighting!