THE WEEK

• The Advantages of an Indian Training (satya- graha at hyde park)—From Mrs. Roosevelt’s memoirs, Installment III, published Tuesday, December 2, 1958, in the New York Herald Tribune: “Another distinguished visitor to Hyde Park was Prime Minister Nehru of India, who came to luncheon one day . . . To an extent I had never before witnessed, Mr. Nehru has the power to concentrate. Once at a dinner, I noticed that he seemed to have completely detached himself from his surroundings. He ate but he obviously was ‘not present.’ He was far away and thinking about something entirely unrelated to the dinner-table conversation. On another occasion, I observed that he was not listening to what I was saying to him and, for the moment, was even unaware that I was trying to carry on a conversation. This power of self-detachment and concentration is less unusual in India. . .”

• For a moment there, before the Congress of American Industry, Paul Butler’s charge that the Republicans met defeat because “sensible voters” would not fall for “the nineteenth-century hobgoblin” that a Democratic candidate was a “socialist, hairbrained, spendthrift radical . . .” seemed to bring the Grand Old Party back to life. Normally imperturbable Meade Alcorn jumped to his feet, discarded his prepared banalities to retort that “the dominant wing of the Democratic Party is controlled by . . . the Wayne Morses, the Soapy Williamses, the Hubert Humphreys and the Reuthers”; that it was the Administration’s firmness on Quemoy and Matsu that inspired the country to resist Democratic “appeasement.” But, alas, force of habit carried Mr. Alcorn along to the usual old conclusions: the Republicans are every bit as “progressive” at home and abroad as Democrats; so that, after all, no blood was drawn. Mr. Butler had aimed his sights at a “nineteenthcentury hobgoblin,” a Republican Party groping toward a free society, but became convinced that that Party is dead, so, though he pulled the trigger, the bullet whistled right through the ashes of the Republican mummy.

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• The Advantages of an Indian Training (satya- graha at hyde park)—From Mrs. Roosevelt’s memoirs, Installment III, published Tuesday, December 2, 1958, in the New York Herald Tribune: “Another distinguished visitor to Hyde Park was Prime Minister Nehru of India, who came to luncheon one day . . . To an extent I had never before witnessed, Mr. Nehru has the power to concentrate. Once at a dinner, I noticed that he seemed to have completely detached himself from his surroundings. He ate but he obviously was ‘not present.’ He was far away and thinking about something entirely unrelated to the dinner-table conversation. On another occasion, I observed that he was not listening to what I was saying to him and, for the moment, was even unaware that I was trying to carry on a conversation. This power of self-detachment and concentration is less unusual in India. . .”

• For a moment there, before the Congress of American Industry, Paul Butler’s charge that the Republicans met defeat because “sensible voters” would not fall for “the nineteenth-century hobgoblin” that a Democratic candidate was a “socialist, hairbrained, spendthrift radical . . .” seemed to bring the Grand Old Party back to life. Normally imperturbable Meade Alcorn jumped to his feet, discarded his prepared banalities to retort that “the dominant wing of the Democratic Party is controlled by . . . the Wayne Morses, the Soapy Williamses, the Hubert Humphreys and the Reuthers”; that it was the Administration’s firmness on Quemoy and Matsu that inspired the country to resist Democratic “appeasement.” But, alas, force of habit carried Mr. Alcorn along to the usual old conclusions: the Republicans are every bit as “progressive” at home and abroad as Democrats; so that, after all, no blood was drawn. Mr. Butler had aimed his sights at a “nineteenthcentury hobgoblin,” a Republican Party groping toward a free society, but became convinced that that Party is dead, so, though he pulled the trigger, the bullet whistled right through the ashes of the Republican mummy.