The President's News Conference

THE PRESIDENT. Please be seated.

I have no particular announcements to make, but I will listen for questions.

[1.] Q. Mr. President, I would like to get this out of the way before we get into more confusing matters. There's a Representative Mack¹ of Washington State who has assailed what he said is your proposal to increase the area of Olympic National Park. Have you gotten such a protest?

THE PRESIDENT. Never heard of it.

¹Representative Russell V. Mack of Washington.

Q. Have you proposed increasing that area out there?

THE PRESIDENT. No. I never heard of it.

Q. Not familiar with it at all?

THE PRESIDENT. I don't even know where Olympic National Park is, unless it's Mount Rainier.

Q. Washington State. [Laughter]

THE PRESIDENT. Unless it's Mount Rainier.

Q. The Olympic peninsula.

[2.] Q. Mr. President, can you tell us something about your talks with Governor Stevenson ?

THE PRESIDENT. I think the Governor pretty well covered the ground this morning. His report of the meetings was entirely accurate.

[3.] Q. Mr. President, I have been asked to ask you the following question.

THE PRESIDENT. Shoot.

Q. Do you approve the Justice Department's prosecution of Ray Brennan of the Chicago Sun-Times, for revealing a tie-up between gambling, hoodlums, and politicians in Chicago?

THE PRESIDENT. The Department of Justice is handling the matter, and it knows how to handle it. And they will be right, in whatever manner they handle it. [Pause] Well, well!

[4.] Q. Mr. President, any statement on the resignation of Mr. Cox?²

THE PRESIDENT. I haven't received his resignation.

²Later the same day the White House released the text of the exchange of correspondence in which the President accepted the resignation of Archibald Cox as Chairman of the Wage Stabilization Board.

[5.] Q. Mr. President, in the reorganization of the Democratic Party, which seems to be in the offing, do you think that a State chairman of the caliber of men like Averell Harriman would be worthwhile ?

THE PRESIDENT. Certainly. [Laughter]

Q. Mr. President, what is this--what is this reorganization of the party? I hear about it---

THE PRESIDENT. I don't know what is intended to be conveyed by reorganization. It is a continuation of the Democratic National Committee on the basis the National Committee always worked on, and it is with the intention of keeping the Democratic Party alive so that it can take over the Congress in 1954.

Q. Are you pretty confident you can, sir ?

THE PRESIDENT. Sure. I am always confident when it comes to the Democrats.

[6.] Q. Mr. President, there has been a recurrent rumor here, for about 3 weeks now, that Justice Frankfurter³ is resigning, to be replaced by.

THE PRESIDENT. I haven't heard about it. The Justice was down to see me with the other Justices just a few days ago, and he gave me no indication that he intended to quit. That's a right good job. I don't think I would quit it. [Laughter]

³Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter of the United States Supreme Court.

[7.] Q. Mr. President, in view of your action in the coal thing,⁴ are you considering trying to control other wages ?

THE PRESIDENT. The controls will continue as they always have been.

⁴On the preceding day the President had approved the agreement of the Bituminous Coal Operators' Association and the United Mine Workers of America (signed September 29, 1952, to be effective October 1), which extended their 1950 contract for at least 12 months and amended it to provide an increase in wages of $1.90 a day. The Wage Stabilization Board had ruled earlier that only $1.50 a day of the increase could be approved under stabilization policy.

Q. Do you think it will be more difficult, after allowing this increase?

THE PRESIDENT. I can't answer the question.

Q. Are there other contracts like that?

THE PRESIDENT. I don't know of any.

Q. You don't know of any?

THE PRESIDENT. No.

Q. Mr. President, along that line, is it your intention that your order the other day would cover the anthracite miners, too ?

THE PRESIDENT. I don't know. That hasn't come up to me.

Q. That hasn't come up ?

THE PRESIDENT. No. The order spoke for itself. I think that the letter⁵ that I wrote very plainly set the thing out. I don't think it needs any further explanation that I can see.

⁵ See Item 341.

[8.] Q. Mr. President, I didn't get a chance to see Governor Stevenson. Was it agreed between you that Mr. Mitchell ought to stay as national chairman?⁶

THE PRESIDENT. Yes. [Pause ]

⁶Stephen A. Mitchell, chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

It's a lot easier to write sitting down than it is standing up, isn't it?

[9.] Q. Could you tell us, Mr. President, of any of the plans for the Democratic Party in the aftermath of the election?

THE PRESIDENT. No. I don't know of anything special that is necessary for me to mention. I think everything necessary has been said about it.

[10.] Q. Mr. President, do you agree with Senator Taft's evaluation of Eisenhower's Secretary of Labor-designate?⁷

THE PRESIDENT. I have no comment on that. The Secretary of Labor-designate is a very fine gentleman.

⁷Martin P. Durkin of Chicago, Ill., general president of the United Association of Journeymen Plumbers and Steamfitters of the U.S. and Canada and a Democrat.

[11.] Q. Mr. President, what do you think of Ike's Cabinet?

THE PRESIDENT. I have no comment. You want to give these people a chance to operate. Let's find out what they'll do. This comment in advance never does anybody any good. If they make any mistakes, why they will certainly be pointed out by the Democratic Party. And if they do what's right and get along all right, I'll be just as happy as anybody else.

[12.] Q. Mr. President, did you and the Governor reach any conclusion about how you will take care of the deficit of the Democratic National Committee ?

THE PRESIDENT. Well, it will be taken care of in the usual way. We'll raise the money and pay it off, as we always do.

[13.] Q. Mr. President, is there any possibility of your attending the coronation of our Queen next June?⁸

THE PRESIDENT. I wish I could, but I know very well that I can't go. I'm sorry. I would like very much to be there. I have been very cordially invited by several people on the other side, but I can't go.

⁸Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, who was crowned on June 2, 1953.

Q. Why couldn't you go, sir?

THE PRESIDENT. I'll be having too much to do. I think I am going to spend a good deal of time resting. That will be going on about that time.

Q. Will the resting still be going on, in June?

THE PRESIDENT. No, I am sure I can't go. I would like to very much.

[14.] Q. Have you made up your mind on what you are going to do?

THE PRESIDENT. No, I haven't. I don't know what I am going to do. As I say, I am going to see what it's like not to have anything to do all day. I have been working 17 hours a day now straight for 30 years, and that's a long time.

[15.] Q. Mr. President, how would you say the changeover is going?

THE PRESIDENT. What's that?

Q. How is the changeover going, with these new Cabinet people coming to town?

THE PRESIDENT. They will get all the information that we can possibly give them. It will be the most orderly turnover that has ever been made from one administration to another.

Q. Mr. President, will the Eisenhower people have somebody down here to work with the OPS and ESA staffs?

THE PRESIDENT. It has been suggested to them, but I don't know whether they will or not. It has been suggested to them. I suggested to him when he was here, that he send people for information in every department of the Government and it would be furnished to them, and he has so far gone a long way toward doing that.

[16.] Q. Mr. President, do you have any comment on the further delay of the ratification of the German treaties of the German---

THE PRESIDENT. No, I have no comment on that.

[17.] Q. Mr. President, at your last press conference you said you were not going to live in Washington, or have an office.

THE PRESIDENT. No. No, I have lived in Washington for 18 years, and that's quite long enough.

Q. Would you like to tell us where you are going to live ?

THE PRESIDENT. Independence, Missouri, at 219 North Delaware Street. [Laughter] Q. Telephone number?

THE PRESIDENT. The telephone number is not in the book.

[18.] Q. Mr. President, when you and Mr. Stevenson talked things over, presumably the election, did you decide why the Republicans won?

THE PRESIDENT. No. I am leaving that up to you. You fellows know all about everything. I have seen you speculate on what I am going to do, what I haven't done, and what will be done in the future. Why don't you speculate on this which is past, and come up with the answer? You are perfectly capable of doing it. [Laughter ]

Q. I thought we would appeal to authoritative sources.

[19.] Q. Visiting your home in Independence, the guard told me that that enormous fence was something you had to bear with because you were President. Can you tear it down now?

THE PRESIDENT. No, you can't. When Herbert Hoover went back to his home in California, after 1932, the souvenir hunters almost tore his house down, and he had to put a fence around it. And we are going to leave that fence there, not because we like it, but it's just the American way to take souvenirs. It was said in the First World War that the French fought for their country, the British fought for freedom of the seas, and the Americans fought for souvenirs. And I think that was correct. [Laughter]

[20.] Q. Mr. President, it has been said that you have been asked to write a newspaper column.

THE PRESIDENT. Oh, I have been invited to do most everything. You can't name anything that I haven't been asked to do.

Q. Do you contemplate doing that?

THE PRESIDENT. Well, no. I have been fussing at columnists for a long time. I think it would be bad for them for me to turn into one. [Laughter]

Q. Wouldn't you like to come to President Eisenhower's press conferences?

THE PRESIDENT. NO, I would have no desire to do that.

Q. You wouldn't?

THE PRESIDENT. When I get through with press conferences, I am going to stay away from them. That will be up to him. That will be his funeral, not mine.

Q. Mr. President, do you think Ike should continue to have press conferences?

THE PRESIDENT. Well, of course. I think they are a good thing. I think it's one institution in this country that is entirely different from all the other countries in the world, and I am sure he will continue them.

Q. Mr. President, in that connection, do you feel that regular press conferences add to the function of government?

THE PRESIDENT. I really do, yes. It's one way that the President has to get his ideas over, in a way that people can understand. I think they are a good thing, and I have had, I think, most pleasant ones. I think I have had just about as much fun out of them as you have.

Robert G. Nixon of the International News Service: Thank you, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT. That's all right, Bob.