slavery." Eisenhower, to his credit, refused to acknowledge these claims and made

general statements in favor of employer rights and reduced taxation.87 Eisenhower

would not support the Southern racial view and deflected Porter's views and requests

for a public statement with silence.88

 On the national level, Eisenhower's letters to Porter did not mesh well with the

moderate audience that Dewey and Brownell had envisioned, revealing the

ideological component that had largely been subsumed by appeals to Ike's popularity.

In May, Lodge wrote to Eisenhower saying that the Porter letters, while well-received

in Texas, were described by some as "to the right of Taft." He encouraged

Eisenhower to say as little about Tidelands and race relations as possible. This was

the tactic Dewey took in 1948 on the Tidelands issue and Lodge was fearful that

Eisenhower would be cast as a conservative which, in his opinion, would be a

deathblow to the campaign.89 Eisenhower thanked Lodge for his opinion and told him

that he did not like the ideological labels that had been affixed to certain political

views. Eisenhower claimed that he had simply defended his statement as his


8 H. Jack Porter, Letter to Dwight D. Eisenhower, 14 May 1952. Copy in Folder (H. J. Porter), Box 92,
Eisenhower Pre-Presidential Papers.

88 Porter explicitly asked Eisenhower to endorse a States' Rights position regarding civil rights when he
informed Ike that "I think that if you will point out the tremendous progress the negroes have made in
this nation, as compared to the lack of progress by the uncivilized Indian tribes who were placed on
reservations, you can make an excellent argument for handling these social problems on the state level,
where time, experience and education will rapidly create better relations among the different segments
of our society. Without about a ten-year period, the negroes received their freedom and the uncivilized
Indian tribes were placed on reservations. The negroes have been self-supporting, and have produced
great educators, scientists, doctors, lawyers, successful businessmen and artists, but the full blood
Indians on the reservation have produced one nationally known figure I know of, and that was Jim
Thorpe. I am not certain that Jim came from a reservation tribe." See Jack Porter, Letter to Dwight D.
Eisenhower, 9 May 1952. Copy in Folder (H. J. Porter), Box 92, Eisenhower Pre-Presidential Papers.




89 Henry Cabot Lodge, Letter to Dwight D. Eisenhower, 12 May 1952. Copy in Folder (Henry Cabot
Lodge, Jr.), Box 72, Eisenhower Pre-Presidential Papers. Lodge made a similar plea in a letter four
days earlier. See Henry Cabot Lodge, Letter to Dwight D. Eisenhower, 8 May 1952. Copy in Folder
(Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.), Box 72, Eisenhower Pre-Presidential Papers.