Presidential Papers, Doc#1989 To Edward Everett Hazlett, Jr., 17 September 1956. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower
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Doc #1990

Document #1989; September 17, 1956
To Edward Everett Hazlett, Jr.
Series: EM, AWF, Name Series
The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XVII - The Presidency: The Middle Way
Part X: Cracks in the Alliance; May 1956 to September 1956
Chapter 21: "Grave difficulties in the Suez crisis"

 

Dear Swede: I shall follow your advice and at this moment shall attempt no lengthy answer to your fine letter of the twelfth.1 I give you merely my own personal report on my health, which is that I really do feel splendid.

On Wednesday evening I am to make about a twenty minute talk on the Columbia Broadcasting System,2 and the following day I go out to Iowa where I will attend informally (and without a major address) the plowing contest at Newton, Iowa.3 Then, after returning here, I shall go out to Illinois only three or four days later to deliver a major farm speech.4

Give my love to Ibby and the children, and again my thanks for your note.5

With warm regard, As ever

1 Hazlett, in a lengthy reply (AWF/N) to Eisenhower's August 20 letter (no. 1963), had congratulated Eisenhower on his renomination and advised the President to relax and not answer until after the election.

2 On the President's address of September 19, the first of a series of television campaign speeches, see Public Papers of the Presidents: Eisenhower, 1956, pp. 779-88.

3 The Eisenhowers would visit Mrs. Eisenhower's birthplace in Boone, Iowa, and attend the National Field Days and Plowing Matches near Des Moines on September 20 and 21 (President's daily appointments). On the President's remarks while in Iowa see ibid., pp. 702-15.

4 The Eisenhowers would travel on September 25 to Peoria, Illinois (President's daily appointments). Discontent with farm prices had caused concern within the Administration (as early as 1955) about the farm vote (Eisenhower, Waging Peace, pp. 15-16; Schapsmeier and Schapsmeier, The Politics of Agriculture, pp. 150-54). The sharpness of this speech would be interpreted as reflecting fresh concern for the midwestern farm vote (New York Times, Sept. 25, 26, 1956), and there is some evidence to support that analysis (see, for example, no. 1975). But the President's outline of the Administration's farm program would not diverge from his previous policy statements. He would again score the Democratic program of rigid price supports (see Public Papers of the Presidents: Eisenhower, 1956, pp. 796-804); for background on price-support policy see no. 1841. The farm vote would not threaten Eisenhower's reelection, but it may have contributed to local Republican losses (Adams, Firsthand Report, pp. 218-19; Congressional Quarterly Almanac, vol. XIII, 1957, pp. 803-4; and Edward L. Schapsmeier and Frederick H. Schapsmeier, "Eisenhower and Ezra Taft Benson: Farm Policy in the 1950s," Agricultural History 44, no. 4 [1970], 376). For a description of the Administration's campaign strategy and the farm vote see Schapsmeier and Schapsmeier, The Politics of Agriculture, pp. 170-79.

5 The references are to Elizabeth Hazlett and to the Hazletts' two married daughters, Mary Elizabeth Scott and Alice Kessing.

Bibliographic reference to this document:
Eisenhower, Dwight D. To Edward Everett Hazlett, Jr., 17 September 1956. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 1989. 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/1989.cfm

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