Presidency and Legislation: Planning the President's Program

Early in 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower presented to the Congress—and the country and his party—some 65 proposals for new legislation, over and above appropriations. This presentation was a massive affair. First came six weeks of well-publicized preliminaries: cabinet deliberations, congressional briefings, press conferences, and a fireside chat. Then, in three annual messages to Congress—a State of the Union Address, a Budget Message, and an Economic Report—the President set forth his bundle of proposals, elaborating certain aspects, outlining the rest. Along with these came seven supplementing special messages, each filling in details on some particular: Taft-Hartley, farm price supports, social security, health, housing, atomic energy, foreign aid, and trade. And following the messages Administration-approved bills, conveyors of the ultimate details, were introduced in Congress.Throughout, one theme was emphasized: here was a comprehensive and coordinated inventory of the nation's current legislative needs, reflecting the President's own judgments, choices, and priorities in every major area of Federal action; in short, his “legislative program,” an entity distinctive and defined, its coverage and its omissions, both, delimiting his stand across the board. And—quite explicitly—this stand was being taken, this program volunteered, in order to give Congress an agenda, Republicans a platform, and voters a yardstick for 1954.