February 25, 1954
Mr. Leslie A. Lyon
Lyon's Music Company
110-112 S. Green Street
Crawfordsville, Indiana
My dear Les: . . . After my first, and in the opinion of the great majority, my most unexpected election in our Senatorial District (the first time a Democrat had ever been elected from Montgomery and Putnam Counties), I began to hear a lot about my so-called personal popularity. Personal popularity, the Devil! It was the wise and capable backing I got coupled with my willingness and hustle to follow advice. . .
But . . . Les, there must be at least more than a dozen excellent reasons why I cannot be a candidate. To recite them in detail on paper would take a sheet reaching from your store to the Court House. So, I shall not try to set them down on paper. But I do want to thank you wholeheartedly for the generous compliment you have paid me by even suggesting you would personally like for me to run. . . Please remember me most kindly to all our good friends. Sincerely,
FOR BALANCE, LET CANADA GO IT ALONE
Response to a questionnaire from Congresswoman Cecil M. Harden,
March 4, 1954
Memo relating to Question No. 6.
I, a Democrat, along with thousands of others, not only voted for Gen. Eisenhower, but were glad to do so. . . No minor reason for doing so was that he promised to balance the budget—and soon. . . But the politicians have gotten in their work and he is wobbling just a trifle. . . At a very recent press conference, if he is quoted correctly, he said that if employment did not pick up in March, that fact would necessitate taking action, and tax reduction might be one of the first measures to be considered, and that the government wouldn't hesitate a second to do its utmost to stop any real recession. To me that is Roosevelt philosophy, pure and simple, which threw undue stress on consumer spending, and assumed the way to avert depression was to unbalance the budget, resort to pump priming, which can mean only one thing—more inflation.
There are three ways to balance the budget:
— Cut down spending and expenses, or
— Collect more revenue (increase taxes), or