To the Editor:

Is it possible we could have a political party whose platform pledged to continue expansion of Social Security; broadened coverage in unemployment insurance; improved housing; and better health protection for all our people, or would this be undermining the free enterprise system and socialized medicine?

Could a national party promise to perfect programs of assistance to the millions of workers with special employment problems, such as older workers, handicapped workers, members of minority groups, and migratory workers, and assure equal pay for equal work regardless of sex, or would this be considered socialism and more of the nanny state?

If they declared, we believe that America does not prosper unless all Americans prosper and that government must have a heart as well as a head, would this be welcomed or considered class warfare and a call for the redistribution of wealth?

If they insisted we safeguard our precious soil and water resources for generations yet unborn, would they be respected or ridiculed as tree huggers and environmental wackos?

Is it possible to have a national party that promised to extend the protection of the federal minimum wage laws to as many more workers as is possible and practicable; continue to fight for the elimination of discrimination in employment because of race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry or sex; insure that every child has the educational opportunity to advance to his own greatest capacity; expand the school milk program to encourage further use of the school lunch program, or is this more big government and socialist thinking?

If such a party came to power in the United States, would the right-wing shut down the government with cries of socialism, Marxism and class warfare?

Would Glenn Beck predict radicals captured America and would Rush and Sean be sounding the alarm that socialism and communism were at hand? Would the TEA party be out marching, declaring our freedoms were being taken away?

In fact, such a party did once exist.

Those pledges are taken directly from the Republican Party platform of 1956. How the elephants have changed!

Charles Lawrence

Johnston