was underwhelming at best and failed to excite the pro-Taft, pro-conservative base

that had favored Gabrielson's election a year earlier, but was the first step towards a

more oppositional stance.

 Conservatives in the press hoped for a more fervent attack than the statement of

principles put forth. Human Events saw the statement of principles as an outright

failure and another moderate stance that would not appeal to conservatives. Noting

that the off-year election strategy necessitated a broad, sweeping statement, the

editors believed that "the framers have failed to capitalize on strong, or potentially

strong, currents of popular reaction to their political adversary."82 The editors of

Human Events believed that the attacks on the Democratic Party were weak and

ineffective, and that stronger statements against communism and spending increases

should have been included. Some party members agreed. Arthur Acheson, a New

Yorker and party contributor claimed that "We are galloping, not drifting, into

Socialism, and the powers that govern the make-up of the Republican National

Committee sit around and fiddle."83 To outsiders, the Republican division appeared

fatal. The left-wing Nation commented that the statements' attacks on "me-tooism"

seemed mindless and reactionary and believed that Gabrielson's efforts for a

restatement of principles would drive all moderates from the party. The magazine

concluded that, based on the rightward shift in the GOP, "the Republican party seems

moved by a mass Freudian impulse to suicide," since, in its opinion conservatism was

out of step with the mainstream.84 While unaware of the widening divisions between

the conservatives in the party, the Nation believed that the Republicans were indeed


82 Human Events 7, No. 6, 8 February 1950.

83 Arthur Acheson, Letter to Owen Brewster, 10 April 1950. Copy in Folder A, Box 1, Summerfield
Papers.
84 The Nation 170, no. 3, 21 January 1950, 54.