<--PREV Doc #1227  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #1229 Document #1228; December 31, 1954 To Aaron W. Berg Series: EM, AWF, Name Series The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XV - The Presidency: The Middle Way Part VI: Crises Abroad, Party Problems at Home; September 1954 to December 1954 Chapter 13: "A new phase of political experience"   Dear Aaron: Thank you for your memorandum. I could not agree more fully with your statement that the real need is for building up the Party at the precinct level; I was most interested to find at least one of your correspondents--the precinct chairman from Texas--is actively at work at that level.1 Apparently his efforts were well repaid in the election of Bruce Alger.2 I shall have the memorandum studied by one or two of my close associates. Meantime, my sincere gratitude to you, and of course, to Miss Lizee.3 With best wishes to you and Mrs. Berg for a fine 1955, and with warm regard,4 Sincerely 1 Berg's memorandum outlined the results of an informal polling throughout the country of the National Committee of Columbia University Alumni for Eisenhower. The party was "missing the boat," according to the poll, by "not simply and succinctly enlightening the public" about the accomplishments of the Administration. "It is strongly urged that a vigorous educational campaign be waged at popular levels in order to combat and dispell [sic] the propaganda that the Republican party is not a party of the people. It has made great strides in twenty months, why not say so in dynamic, unequivocal terms?" (Memorandum to the President, Nov. 1954, AWF/N). Berg would later write Eisenhower that it was "truly tragic" that the Republican party was "throwing away its many great opportunities, thus threatening the completion of the so important job to which we were all so sensitive but two short years ago, and which you despite this have done so much to advance" (Dec. 27, 1954, ibid.). 2 Bruce Reynolds Alger (A.B. Princeton University 1940), a Texas real estate and development executive, had won the only Republican victory in the state in the November congressional election. Eisenhower had openly supported Alger, who based his campaign on his backing for the President's legislative program (New York Times, Nov. 3, 26, 1954). 3 Miss Lizee was the secretary of the Columbia committee. 4 Berg's wife was the former Virginia Housman. Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. To Aaron W. Berg, 31 December 1954. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 1228. World Wide Web facsimile by The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission of the print edition; Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/first-term/documents/1228.cfm <--PREV Doc #1227  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #1229

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