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Home , Friedrich Naumann, Liberalism in Germany, Lujo Brentano, National liberalism, New Liberals (Germany)

Sonderdrucke aus der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg

JÖRN LEONHARD

Progressive Politics and the Dilemma of Reform

German and American in Comparison, 1880-1920

Originalbeitrag erschienen in: Maurizio Vaudagna (Hrsg.):The place of Europe in American history : twentieth-century perspectives. Torino: OTTO Ed., 2007, S. 115-132 7

nova americana in english

edited by Maurizio Vaudagna

ce of Europe in American History: Twentieth-Century Perspectives

Tiziano Bonazzi, Darla Frezza, Claudio Zambianchi, Giuliana Muscio, Giuliana Gemelli, Antonella Cardellicchio, Jam Leonhard, Raffaella Baritono, Marco Mariano, Mario Del Pero, Jennifer Klein, Elisabetta Vezzosi, Maurizio Vaudagna, Manuel Plana, Alessandra Lorini, Simone Cinotto

OTTBEDITORE THE PLACE OF EUROPE IN AMERICAN HISTORY: TWENTIETH- CENTURY PERSPECTIVES

edited by M. Vaudagna

OTTBEDITORE The Place of Europe in American History: Twentieth-Century Perspectives Edited by M. Vaudagna

Collana Nova Americana in English Comitato scientifico: Marco Bellingeri, Marcell° Carmagnani, Maurizio Vaudagna

Prima edizione gennaio 2007

©2007, OTTO editore – Torino [email protected] http://wvvw.otto.to.it

ISBN 88-95285-02-6 ISBN 978-88-95285-02-3

E vietata la riproduzione, anche parziale, con qualsiasi mezzo effettuato, compresa la fotocopia, anche ad use interno o didattico, non autorizzato. PROGRESSIVE POLITICS AND THE DILEMMA OF REFORM: GERMAN AND AMERICAN LIBERALISM IN COMPARISON, 1880-1920

JORN LEONHARD

I. INTRODUCTION: LIBERALISM AS AN EXHAUSTED POLITICAL CONCEPT AFTER 1945

Speaking at a conference of German liberals in December 1948, which led to the foundation of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) in West , , later the president of the Federal Republic, asked his audience whether the label "liberal" could still be used to identify a that regarded itself as part of the tradi- tion of political liberalism. The fact that the conference members voted in favor of the Free Democratic Party instead of the Liberal Democratic Party as its official party name indicated a widespread skepticism. The very concept of liberalism, representing the am- bivalent experiences of the nineteenth century, seemed too closely tied to the German liberals' Kulturkampfof the 1870s and the capitalist Manchester School. In the eyes of so many, this had prevented liberals from exercising a more progressive social policy that in turn could have bridged the gap between bourgeois liberalism and social before 1914, and especially after 1918.1 In 1950, Thomas Mann, one of the most prominent representatives of the German- educated bourgeoisie and its impact on the political culture of the German middle classes, went even further. Reflecting upon the fate of liberalism after the experience of European from his position as American exile, Mann pointed out that the very term "liberal" had become void and meaningless. Against the background of the fascist challenge and European liberals' inability to prevent its rise, Mann demanded a redefinition of how and equality could be reconciled. In contrast to what he regarded as a liberal primacy of liberty, Mann pointed to equality as the "leading idea of the current epoch." What the postwar period needed, in Mann's eyes, was a social emancipation distinct from the totalitarian model. But while liberalism seemed to represent political emancipation, constitutions, and political institutions as the bourgeois legacy of the nineteenth century, "social emancipation" could no longer be defined by a simple reference to a concept that seemed semantically exhausted. In the same context, Mann pointed to the necessity to transform the paradigm of bourgeois into "." If Goethe, at the end of his life, had declared that every reasonable individual was actually a liberal, Mann underlined that at present every reasonable human being was to be a socialist.2 How are we to explain the obvious exhaustion of the semantics of liberalism, reflec- ting the exhaustion of liberal political agendas after 1945? Was it a particularly German

115 PROGRESSIVE POLITICS AND THE DILEMMA OF REFORM response to the experience of liberals' electoral decline and their failure to prevent the rise of fascism? Or was it a general European and transatlantic trend that needs careful explanation? Either way, the answer lies in a comparative understanding of the chal- lenges and transformations of European and American liberalisms from the end of the nineteenth century. In contrast to approaches which define liberalism as a universal set of more or less unchanging ideas which appear to have proved their validity under changing circumstances,' this paper first concentrates on a comparative analysis of how liberals in different historical contexts, in Germany and the United States, responded to a rapidly transforming and political world, beginning in the 1870s.4 Secondly, the interaction between liberal discourses in Germany and the United States, the dialogue and transfer, is given particular attention in order to contribute to an analysis of Europe's place in American political culture at the beginning of the twentieth century. The starting point of this examination is the apparent triumph of liberalism in nearly all western European of the 1870s. Had , in his Culture and Anarchy of 1869, not defined the success of the English liberal idea as "the legislation of middle-class parliaments ... the local self- of middle-class vestries ... the unrestricted competition of middle-class industrialists ... the dissidence of middle-class Dissent and the of middle-class Protestant religion?" 5 Towards the end of the century, it appeared that was already a symbol of the British nation as the most progressive power in the world, as well as a personalized style of politics. Benjamin Jowett, vice-chancellor of Oxford University, thus commented on Gladstone's role in the home-rule debate by pointing to the apparent triumph of an evolutionary reform strategy by which liberals seemed to have stimulated even their conservative counterpart for the good of the country: "Liberals have, to a great extent, removed the impression they had created in that they were the friends of disorder. Do you know, I cannot help feeling that I have more of the Liberal element in me than of the Conservative? This rivalry between the parties, each surprising the other by their liberal- ity, has done a great deal of good to the people of England."6 The same triumph of liberal principles could be observed in other contexts. The Gilded Age and the open frontier in North America seemed to offer unrestricted possibili- ties for the future of individual liberty.' In Germany, liberals achieved what they had been seeking from the early nineteenth century on. The unified German nation-state of 1870, although excluding Austria, was regarded by most contemporaries not just as Bismarck's creation but also as a success of German liberalism. Together, progressive and national liberals won an impressive majority of 52% of the seats in the first general elections of the new Reichstag in 1872. Given the democratic franchise, this was a remarkable political success.' The new nation-state provided a stable framework for further political and con- stitutional reforms, as the successful coalition between Bismarck and the national liberals seemed to indicate. Germany's economic strength, together with the rise of bourgeois

116 JORN LEONHARD culture and the successful implementation of a Rechtsstaat – a state founded on the , as the completion of the Civil Code in 1900 illustrated – reflected a silent yet very successful bourgeois revolution, indicating an impressive learning process from the days of the 1848 revolution on.9 This triumph of liberal Realpolitik, to use Ludwig August von Rochau's famous phrase from the 18505, 10 seemed to mark the essence of Germany's modernity as both a successful industrial society and a strong nation-state. How are we to explain the difference between the perception of liberal successes in the 1870s and the fact that, after 1918, liberalism had already become an ideology in defense? Or that, after 1945, most political parties in Europe and certainly in the U.S., despite incorporating many traditions of liberalism, avoided identifying too closely with the nineteenth-century semantics of liberalism? In other words, how are we to under- stand the ideological and programmatic crisis of an ideology that had shaped the "long" nineteenth century more than any other contemporary political movement? In order to approach this question from a comparative angle, this paper looks at liber- als' responses to particular challenges as they developed in Europe and the United States starting in the last third of the nineteenth century. These multiple challenges character- ized a structural transformation that developed gradually, just around the period when the triumph of liberalism seemed so obvious. What liberals had to respond to was the outcome of modernization made possible by their constant fight for political participa- tion, as well as social and economic emancipation, from the start of the dual revolution during the last third of the eighteenth century. However, from the mid-1870s onwards, a whole set of complex challenges began to overlap:" the changing meaning of nation- state and in Germany after 1871 and the emergence of empire-politics in the United States and Germany; the emergence of a new market of mass politics with new forms of ideological communication and political mobilization; the fundamental impact of highly-intensified industrialization, rationalization, and urbanization on societies; the First World War as a fundamental challenge to the traditional architecture of state, nation, and society; and the post-1918 period with its political and ideological polarization in a period of social tension, economic crisis, and political destabilization. This paper concentrates on attempts made to reformulate liberal agendas after 1880 in Germany and the United States against the background of distinct political traditions and connotations of liberalism. Given Thomas Mann's remark about the antagonism between liberalism on the one hand and social emancipation and social democracy on the other, the presence, or absence, of a distinct in the two societies as an attempt to respond to new social conditions seems fundamental. It is with regard to these problems that liberals had to define their position towards the meaning of state and society in an age of mass democracy. An analysis of this problem may also contribute to an understanding of the erosion of European liberalisms and their crisis in the context

117 PROGRESSIVE POLITICS AND THE DILEMMA OF REFORM of rising fascism on the European continent and the very different development in the United States.

2. GERMANY: THE LIMITS OF SOCIAL LIBERALISM IN AN AGE OF FRAGMENTED SOCIO-CULTURAL MILIEUS

From the 1880s onwards discussions over a necessary reformulation of liberal positions intensified among German liberals. Confronted with the consequences of dynamic industrial development and the emergence of an independent and strong party representing the working classes' interests, the circle around and his Nationalsozialer Verein sought to bridge the ideological gap between liberalism and the Social Democratic Party. Naumann openly criticized German liberals who, because of their primary focus on constitutional and legal agendas, had never really developed a posi- tive response to a modern industrial society and the emergence of a strong working class. In Naumann's eyes that also explained the crisis of liberalism's political legitimacy that became obvious around 1900 with continuously decreasing electoral support in general elections. A merely political, constitutional, or legal definition of progress, which had dominated the liberal paradigm of the pre- and post-1848 period, would not gain liberal- ism any popularity. 12 Naumann's premise was derived from his experiences of Christian , which, under the sway of Germany's dynamic industrial development in the 1870s and 1880s, had sought reconciliation between social classes. As a young theologian under the influence of Johann AdolfWichern and later as a protestant minister, Naumann had observed the social consequences of rapid industrialization. His initial response was not to attack the concept of , but rather a vague anti-, which sought both to go beyond traditional paternalism and to respond positively to the rise of the SPD after the end of the anti-socialist legislation." Given the agenda of German and progressive liberalism under in Wilhelmine Germany, there was not much common ground between Naumann's position and that of organized party liberalism. For Naumann, German liberalism in general and Eugen Richter's party in particular represented an inflexible and old-fashioned liberalism of notables (Honoratiorenliberalismus), staunchly opposed to any idea of social or economic state intervention. The contemporary criticism of German "Manchester" liberals referred to the fact that the social expectation of most German liberals, be they national or progressive, was still that of the early nineteenth century: the bourgeois model of a harmonious middle class in which all members would sooner or later, and as the result of a natural process, become property owners and hence be qualified for active political participation." This model ruled out even modest attempts at social reform, not to mention the implementation of compulsory social insurance schemes. Despite certain tendencies from the 1890s onwards, which indicated at least the start of a reorientation of progressive liberalism, intellectually stimulated by

118 J .5 RN LE 0 N HARD and politically fostered by Theodor Barth, 15 social liberalism still provoked widespread resistance among many progressive liberals in Germany. In 1896, Ludwig Bamberger could still not see any fundamental difference between the regulation of working hours in bakeries and a state's trade monopoly, as they seemed to stand for the same mistaken principle.' Confronted with the intransigent position of the Protestant churches in Germany, Naumann gave up his Christian socialist beliefs and began to focus more on party politics. His Nationalsozialer Verein, modeled after the Nationalverein of the late 1850s, was meant to function as a political storm trooper, balancing between the political representatives of the working classes and the established parties of Germany's . At the same time, Naumann supported 's nationalist and imperialist position, as formulated in Weber's Freiburg inauguration lecture." Naumann linked the idea of a necessary German expansion to the concept of social reform. Liberal could therefore be directed against the contemporary anti-socialist integration policy, the so- called Sammlungspolitik. The result was a very ambivalent program which entailed support of navy armaments, demands for the unrestricted right of workers to form coalitions, an aggressive colonial policy against Britain, and a democratic franchise in all regional and local elections. However, in terms of party politics, this progressively oriented social imperialism had no chance. Naumann's Nationalsozialer Verein remained without major influence among the liberal electorate." On the other hand, Naumann's political program, the introduction of plebiscitary elements in order to make a German more popular and to change it into a bulwark against the vested interests of conservative elites, did not convince many social democrats. It was only after the Daily Telegraph Affair that Naumann gave up the idea of a social monarchy and began to support the British parliamentarian model. But more importantly, Naumann's political ideas reflected problematic aspects of the liberal concept of parliamentarianism in Germany. Both in Naumann's ideal of social monarchy and in Max Weber's concept of a plebiscitary Ffihrerdemokratie, the assumption dominated that highly developed industrial societies could not rely entirely on a representative parliamen- tarian principle, but needed additional plebiscitary elements and a charismatic ruler like Gladstone in Britain in order to achieve a minimum of social cohesion.° Regarding the liberal concept of society and the necessary political responses to its transformation, Naumann did more than just criticize the traditional assumptions of German liberalism which he regarded as stagnant and characterized by a retrospective ideal of social harmonization. In clear contrast to the early bourgeois concept of a soci- ety of equal state citizens, forming a homogeneous middle class, he also recognized the existence of distinct class interests in any modern society. However Naumann's concept of Gesamtliberalismus, a movement encompassing middle and working classes and opposing traditional conservative elites, remained a theory. Although a political

119 PROGRESSIVE POLITICS AND THE DILEMMA OF REFORM coalition, according to the model of a block "from Bassermann to Bebel" from national liberals to social democrats, developed in the regional state of Baden under exceptional circumstances, Naumann's expectation that such a program would enlarge the liberal electorate in the Reichstag elections was never fulfilled. The agrarian middle classes could not be won over to the liberal camp and continued to vote for conservative candidates, and representatives of the old Mittelstand continued to insist on socio-economic protec- tion. Progressive social liberalism as a reformulation of the liberal agenda was confronted with more and more cemented socio-cultural milieus that characterized not only German political parties but also Germany's political culture in general. This proved to be a major burden already before 1914, but even more so after 1918.20 Despite the intellectually significant influence of middle class reform associations in Wilhelmine Germany – from the school of new political economists in the 1870s around Gustav Schmoller and Lujo Brentano to the Nationalsozialer Verein, the Verein Ai- Sozialpolitik, the Gesellschaft fiir Soziale Reform, and the Evangelisch-Sozialer Kongre_ if – lib- eral revisionism never became a political program that could mobilize much popular sup- port.21 Despite integrating the liberal revisionists, the Fortschrittliche Volkspartei did not become a spearhead of social liberalism. Cooperation with the social democrats remained exceptional and reflected strategic rather than programmatic common features. Further- more, the progressive 's electorate remained small and regionally fragmented. The political mass market with its new forms of communication and its mobilization of voters continued to be a major problem that all liberal parties found difficult to respond to, particularly in comparison with the more stable socio-cultural milieu parties of the social democrats and the catholic Center.22 Nowhere did the German liberals' dilemma become more obvious than in local politics. On the one hand, liberals were still strongly represented in municipal councils and could, as illustrated by numerous examples from the 1870s, make cities places for successful liberal politics, especially in implementing social politics. On the other hand, however, this relatively strong position was only guaranteed by restricted franchises, which provided liberals with comfortable majorities and secured the survival of a politi- cal style that continued to be dominated by municipal notables. Progressive liberals who demanded the end of undemocratic franchises in regional and local elections questioned at the same time the very basis of successful liberal politics.23 From this perspective it was no accident that progressive liberals, and in particular the supporters of social liberalism around Naumann, utilized nationalist and imperialist agendas to present themselves as a convincing political alternative, encompassing the dynamic forces of the new German nation-state. In fact, it revealed that German liberals, experiencing the limits of domestic power and the pressure from more successful politi- cal competitors on both and , had to look for compensatory discourses in order to appear as a popular and progressive movement. But in stark contrast to the

120 JORN LEONHARD progressive nationalism of German liberals between the mid-1860s and the early 1870s, which had been regarded as an essentially modernizing force providing the framework for further political, constitutional, legal, and economic reforms after 1871, liberal na- tionalism in the era ofWilhelmine Weltpolitik reflected a defensive position of liberalism, unable to compete with the nationalist agenda of the right. 24 It was this constellation that limited German liberals' of political action even more. In combination with the connotations that many liberals still associated with social democracy, it postponed the development of a proactive concept of social liberalism, and it became a major obstacle when progressive liberals and social democrats were forced to cooper- ate in order to provide a more stable basis for Germany's first democratic republic after 1917/18. The legacy of German liberalism before 1914 thus reflected the ambivalence of mo- dernity: first, a progressive analytical framework, as Max Weber and Friedrich Naumann demonstrated, which conceptualized the complex relations between state and society; secondly, a restricted political influence in the federal state before 1914; thirdly, a seri- ous polarization of the socio-cultural milieus by which the liberals became "sandwiched" between the catholic Center Party and the social democrats; and fourthly, a tendency of many liberals of a younger generation to develop compensatory discourses, focusing on both imperialist and social reform agendas in order to demonstrate the 's ability to respond to both the need for integration at home and increasing international competition.

3. THE UNITED STATES: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE UNITED STATES TOWARDS THE END OF THE CENTURY AND THE LIMITS OF HEGEMONIC LIBERALISM

Any comparison between European and American liberal agendas has to take into account fundamental historical differences. It was this contrast between Europe and the United States that gave transatlantic liberalism its particular character. 25 Three factors, which had marked essential lines of conflict and shaped the emergence of European liberalism from the last third of the eighteenth century on, were missing in the U.S.26 First, there was no Ancien Regime and no aristocracy of a European kind, which meant an absence of a reactionary, legitimist, or restorative as existed for example in Germany and France after 1789, challenging the political and social consequences of the French Revolution and thereby catalyzing the emergence of a liberal movement. Secondly, the lack of conservatism also contributed to the lack of socialism, and was thus part of the answer to 's famous question of 1906 "Why is there no socialism in the United States?"27 There was no such clearly defined ideological enemy against which a strongly organized and self-confident workers' movement could have developed in the way it did in European societies. Thirdly, and this aspect is often overlooked, there was no conflict between church and state in the United States which had done so much to

121 PROGRESSIVE POLITICS AND THE DILEMMA OF REFORM promote the rise of European liberalisms. British reform-liberalism after 1815 is difficult to imagine without the program for catholic emancipation and, later in the century, against the traditional church establishment. French liberals from 1815 onwards and especially in the Third Republic derived their political identity not least from the fight for a clear separation between church and state. 28 In Germany, the Kulturkampf of Prussian liberals against the supposed Romish principles and the Catholic Church's influence on state and society generated a strong anti-catholic identity for liberalism.29 The absence of these three lines of conflict led, in 's words, to a certain emptiness in the American political landscape, consisting of economically active individuals without the sharp ideological conflicts so characteristic of European societies in the nineteenth century. Gunnar Myrdal, the Swedish sociologist who has become in many ways a Tocqueville of twentieth-century America, remarked that the "American Creed," as one of the foundations of American liberalism, was essentially a political culture of consensus.3° As James Fenimore Cooper wrote in 1828, Americans seemed to share a basic Weltanschauung, a consensual set of values, which had been derived from the founding history of the republic and stood in stark contrast to European societies with their ever-renewed post-revolutionary conflicts over the past and future of state, church, and society." This is not to deny conflicts in American society, but it stresses an important point of comparison: in the United States, political and social conflicts did not ultimately challenge the belief in the universal equality of men and their equal , although there was a long and painful debate over who exactly counted as men - a debate which reflected the long-term dominance of an anglo-saxon white male political culture and became more intensive, in both the course of the Civil War in the 1860s and in confrontation with mass immigration towards the end of the century. In other words, the long absence of ideological conflicts typical of Europe in the United States meant that debates and conflicts took place within a basically liberal framework, as it had evolved from the revolutionary period and the political culture of the founding fathers. This marked a fundamental dif- ference between American and continental European societies.32 Against this background, the last third of the nineteenth century marked a fundamen- tal watershed for liberals both in European societies and across the Atlantic. From the last third of the nineteenth century onward, and especially around 1900, a general im- pression of crisis and transformation developed. For the United States, this meant that the individualistic and egalitarian promise of the American dream – "equal rights for all, special privileges for none" – came to be challenged." With the frontier closed and the United States on their way to an imperial power, dollar diplomacy and the end of traditional agrarian capitalism led to a critical moment. The traditional value concepts of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, Jefferson's ideal of an autarkic, demo- cratic republic of virtues based on a religious concept of work ethic, and the localism of

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democratic institutions and the geopolitical isolation of the United States came under severe pressure. Large cities, the building of railways, monopolies, and economic trusts led to a transcontinental incorporation, which seemed to leave behind both the agrarian ideal of the epoch of 1776 and the laissez-faire liberalism of the Gilded Age. Politics, as Max Weber observed while traveling in North America, was made a business with a new management-type of a politician.34 The social challenges of industrialization, rapid urbanization, and mass poverty forced liberals in very different contexts to explain how the classical liberal agenda of individual freedom could be preserved under dramatically changing circumstances. Although the traditional focus of British liberals on and unrestricted market forces continued to be a major point of orientation in the United States, there also developed a critical school of social liberals. But in contrast to Britain, American social liberals at least concen- trated on a theoretical discussion of socialist premises. These American reform discourses took place primarily in universities and scientific communities and thus represented a phenomenon of an intellectual elite." Basically, one can identify two different generations of these progressive American liberals. By attempting to reformulate liberalism on the basis of a critical evaluation of American society, John Commons, Richard Ely, Edward Ross and an older generation remained within the framework of key liberal values such as individual liberty, equality of opportunities, and social fairness. But in contrast to traditional liberals with their strong anti-state orientation, they already advocated a proactive and interventionist state. Distancing themselves from socialist theories of class-warfare, they felt a much closer affinity to intellectual and social liberals in contemporary Germany, who came to be known as Kathedersozialisten. Here the transfer of contemporary interpretative knowledge from Germany to the United States became an important catalyst for the development of American liberalism. Men like , Gustav Schmoller, and Ludwig von Brentano, as well as the Verein fiir Sozialpolitik, founded in 1872, served as models for pragmatic and scientifically based social politics. 36 The influence of this new school of national economists in Germany, who not only insisted on economic consequences but also an ethical foundation for social politics, on American liberals around Ely can hardly be overestimated. Ely stressed the importance of social. Christianity as a means to overcome classical premises of in Germany: "Professors of political economy finding themselves forced to abandon every hope of reconciling adverse interests of society without a moral and religious regeneration of the various social classes, turn to Christianity, and appeal to it for co-operation in their endeavors to bring about an era of and harmony."37 The generation of Ely and Ross, in accordance with the new school of political economists in Germany, advocated social reform, moderate state intervention, and eco- nomic regulation. At the same time, they tried to amalgamate this program with the value

123 PROGRESSIVE POLITICS AND THE DILEMMA OF REFORM concepts of a particular American tradition, such as the ideas of social Christianity and organic . By distancing themselves from socialist premises, this generation contributed to the absence of socialism as a possible political alternative in the United States. Reform discourses in American society could not develop within a socialist frame- work, and the possibility of a cooperating with the social democratic workers' movement was ruled out - a clear contrast to developments in Germany before 1914. Rather, it fol- lowed the model of the early Fabians in Britain with their middle class ideals.38 The efforts of the second generation of American liberals, who concentrated on a reformulation of liberalism between 1901, the year President Roosevelt was inaugurated, and 1918, came to be known as the Progressive Movement. It was based on a reform movement, rather than particular party ties as in European societies, and, in accordance with Alexander Hamilton's concepts, it regarded the United States as an industrial na- tion with imperial ambitions, no longer in terms of 's agrarian republic. as an urban intellectual movement of the East Coast meant the "confident, purposeful and successful effort of a new middle class of ambitious professional and sci- entific experts to bring system and rationality to a society suffering from the evils – even if democratic – of disorder, inefficiency and localism." 39 The consequence was a program of centralized executive power, a proactive foreign policy, and cultural reconstruction of American society. For the first time, a new elite of intellectuals and scientists, managers and administrators, who emerged as a result of educational and university reforms and a professionalization of research, production, and management, became more influential in American politics after 1910.4° That America needed a new balance between state and society was also a basic premise for , spokesman for a group of progressive intellectuals, among them Walter Lippman and Walter Weyl, who in 1914 founded the weekly New Republic as an organ of progressive liberalism against agrarian ." Croly identified a fundamental crisis which was about to challenge the American promise of individual liberty and eco- nomic wealth: "During the past generation, the increased efficiency of organisation and politics, the enormous growth of an individual irresponsible money power, the much more definite division of the American people into possibly antagonistic classes ... [have questioned] American national cohesion ... These changes ... have brought out a serious and a glaring contradiction between the demands of a constructive democratic ideal and the machinery of methods and institutions which have been considered sufficient for its realization."42 From the beginning, Croly regarded the weakness of the American execu- tive, in particular the presidency, as a major obstacle for reform. For him, the American Constitution with its focus on decentralization, localism, and anti-statism prevented the development of a truly democratic state, capable of fulfilling its moral and educational functions. Against the tradition of individual liberty and equality, Croly favored a politi- cal and social elite of experts and charismatic citizens. For him, the average American

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needed "the sincere and enthusiastic imitation of heroes and saints."43 It was no accident that President Theodore Roosevelt took up this argument and used it to coin the political motto of "New Nationalism."44 In his attempt to achieve an improvement of the social situation of the masses, Croly was deeply influenced by his perception of Bismarckian Germany. The German chancellor, in his historical function to organize the new nation-state of 1871, could not follow a laissez-faire policy. His attempt to win the support of the industrial workers by state-led social insurance legislation alienated him from theories of strictly individualistic liberalism. The framework of an empire could not work according to a democracy with unrestricted market forces. Thus, Bismarck's role had been to translate a program "of responsible administrative activity into a comprehensive national policy." Bismarck, in Croly's eyes, had succeeded in bringing about "the all-round development of Germany as an independent national economic unit." , with her educational system and as the nucleus of the empire of 1871, became a model of a state in which skilled scientific experts and industrial efficiency went hand in hand. Croly was full of enthusiasm when commenting on the German model: "In every direction German activity was organised and was placed under skilled professional leadership, while at the same time each of these special lines of work was subordinated to its particular place in a comprehensive scheme of national economy."45 Croly's concept of "reconstruction," developed through the perception of contempo- rary Germany and its modernity, was at the same time a critique of anti-state, laissez-faire liberalism in the United States. In contrast, Croly favored a stronger federal government and state planning as a means of social and moral progress, as well as a new expert role for American intellectuals. Without advocating socialist positions, he also argued for the implementation of a general scheme of social security. The ideal of the regulatory state became reality, at least partly, during the First World War through wartime economy and the mobilization as well as the organization of national resources by the state, such as the War Industries Board, the National War Labor Board, and the Food Administration.46 From this perspective, Woodrow Wilson's wartime executive represented a prototype of rational and organized political planning, anticipating many elements of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal efforts in the 1 930s. 47 It generated, in the eyes of the progressives, a new type of expert-manager politician with all the qualities of a charismatic national leader. America's entry into the war seemed to mark the beginning of an era of a new "conscious social ideal," as Croly remarked." The writer for the New Republic commented on America's entry into the war: "Never was a war fought so far from the battlefields for purposes so distinct from the battlefield."49 However, the end of the war also brought the end of wartime statism, "war time socialism," and the failure of Wilson's internationalist concept of the role of the United States in the postwar world. The far-reaching hopes of many progressive liberals turned into disillusions.5°

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4. CONCLUSION: EUROPEAN AND TRANSATLANTIC LIBERALISMS AND THE DILEMMA OF DEMOCRATIC MODERNITY

(1) The dynamic social and economic transformation of European societies from the last third of the nineteenth century on was mirrored by American experiences. Whereas liberals in European societies had to reformulate the concept of progress in an age of rapid social disintegration, American liberals had to respond to the end of the Jeffersonian ideal of an economically independent republic shaped by localism, agrarian production, and foreign political isolation. They also reacted to the legacy of the Gilded Age with its unrestricted market forces and to America's transcontinental incorporation on the basis of economic trusts and monopolies. The apparent triumph of liberal successes from the 1870s on provoked a critical evaluation of the liberal para- digm. Responding to a dramatically changing environment, liberals in both Europe and North America from the 1880s on began to reformulate the agenda of liberalism by shifting their focus from political emancipation, constitutional achievements, and economic liberty to a new balance between state and society, the social question, and a new meaning for the interventionist and regulatory state. (2) In stark contrast to Hobson's and Hobhouse's New Liberalism in Britain, which was essentially anti-imperialist - imperialism was opposed because a democratic society could not agree to the imperial practice in the colonies - German social liberals around 1900 strongly advocated a German Weltpolitik. Friedrich Naumann's and Max Weber's position, which linked social reforms to an active imperial policy of the new , was much closer to liberal imperialism than the New Liberalism of Britain." The nationalist discourse about social reflected a search for popularity while liberalism itself was under increasing pressure from more successful parties with more stable milieus, such as the Catholic Center and the Social Democratic Party. Whenever progressive liberals tried to integrate the concept of social democracy, for instance through a reform of the franchise, giving workers an equal vote in regional and local elections, they also put the last remaining strongholds of liberal politics at risk. In contrast to the practical limitations in facing modernity, the contemporary German analysis of the liberal dilemma proved to be adequate and influential well beyond Germany, as demonstrated by the stimulating perception of Germany among American progressive liberals from the 1870s on. Basically, two periods of intensive perception can be distinguished: an earlier generation, represented by Ely and his contemporaries, was influenced by German political economists of the 1870s; a later generation after 1900 looked rather towards Max Weber's analytical framework of rationality, the organizational state, and the function of charismatic rule in democratic societies. If one looks carefully at the conceptual paradigms, then Max Weber's analysis of the dilemma of liberalism seems to be much more modern compared with the writings of the in Britain.

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American progressive intellectuals like Croly came close to Weber's analytical concept of the modern state. Concerned with the prospect of democracy in a modern state and in an industrialized as well as rationalized society, Weber tried to find an answer to the question of how, under the conditions of a modern, highly fragmented but inevitably organizational society (Organisationsgesellsch aft) liberty could still be maintained. These questions pointed to the modern challenge to traditional liberalism, with its focus on a classless ideal of social harmony rooted in Germany's pre-industrial era. Even if one is to admit that Weber was prepared to concede too much too early to the importance and power of the modern organization of state and society, as his concept of a plebisci- tary Fiihrerdemokratie revealed, his analysis nevertheless revealed problems which New Liberalism in Britain, with its traditional focus on the moral betterment of society, had not yet discovered.52 Its reform agenda, despite all its intellectual stimulation, had much of a noble reformulation of a classical liberal tradition. It certainly revived the humanist potential of liberalism, but it remained essentially an ideological paradigm of the nine- teenth century. American progressive intellectuals' perception of Germany was extremely selective: whereas the modernist aspects seemed to stimulate American discourses about social reform, the practical complexities, programmatic ambivalences, and political as well as socio-cultural limitations of German liberalism before 1914 were neglected. As so often occurs, the perception told more about the motives of those looking for intellectual and analytical stimuli abroad than about the reality of the object of perception itself (3) In their attempts to respond to new political and social challenges, American progres- sive liberals were, at least before 1914, looking particularly to Germany, to the new school of political economists or, as in Croly's case, to the modernity of Bismarck's politics. Before 1914, Germany, and not just Britain, served as a stimulating impulse to reformulate the balance between state and society in the United States. In particu- lar, the new meaning of the regulatory and interventionist state with a centralized executive became a prominent feature. However, the hopes associated with the state's role during the First World War and the prospect of a new era of proactive planning and regulation were not fulfilled, as the post-1918 era demonstrated. Yet they did not simply vanish: many elements of the New Deal legislation mirrored premises that had been conventionalized by progressive intellectuals. (4) The difficulties and limitations, which liberals experienced when they had to react to the challenge of transformation, point to a more fundamental problem, namely how liberals responded to the consequences of modernity in all its political and so- cial complexities. Paradoxically, what liberals were confronted with from the 1870s onwards was in itself the result of their earlier achievements. To a certain degree, after the 1880s European liberals became victims of their own previous successes, which limited their ability to present themselves convincingly as a movement that was still

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progressive, a spearhead of progress, even though they were able to stimulate reform discourses temporarily before 1914. In all European societies, the belated or limited success of liberals in conceptualizing social liberalism and implementing it as a means to bridge the gap between liberalism and social democracy became a major cause for the erosion of liberalism in the early twentieth century. This seems to be a common European feature rather than just an isolated German experience. In the United States, on the other hand, the New Deal period showed how influential the progressive movement could be as a major watershed for American politi- cal culture and reform discourse in the long term. In Germany, the consequences of the erosion of liberalism for the survival of civil society were fundamentally different, as the history of the 1920s and 1934s demonstrated. In stark contrast to the United States, the presence of deeply rooted ideological conflicts and the socio-cultural polarization of society reduced the freedom of liberal politics in post-1918 Germany. Both analytical and conceptual modernity, as well as political erosion, marked but two sides of the same coin of German liberalism in the early twentieth century.

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1. Theodor Heuss, "Speech at the Party Founding Conference, 10th/11th December 1948," in Bundesvorstand der Freien Demokratischen Partei, ed., Zeugnisse liberaler Politik. 25 Jahre F.D.P. (Bonn, 1973) 13-15, see H. Kaack, Zur Geschichte und Programmatik der Freien Demokratischen Partei, 3rd edn. (Meisenheim, 1979), 12. 2. Thomas Mann, "Meine Zeit" (1950), in id., Gesammelte Werke, vol. 11: Reden und Aufiiitze, part 3 (/Main, 1990), 322-23. 3. See Guido De Ruggiero, Storia del liberalismo europeo (Napoli, 1925); "Liberalism," in: International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 9 (New York, 1957), 435-42; Harold Laski, The Rise of European Liberalism (London, 1936); Anthony Arblaster, The Rise and Decline of Western Liberalism (Oxford, 1984); see also the main text collections: E. K Bramsted, K. J. Melhuish, eds., Western Liberalism. A History in Documents from Locke to Croce (London, 1978); Lothar Gall, Rainer Koch, eds., Der europiiische Liberalismus im 19. Jahrhundert. Texte zu seiner Entwicklung, 4 vols. (Frankfurt/Main, 1981); , ed., Les liberaux. Textes choisis, 2 vols. (Paris, 1986). 4. For a detailed analysis of contemporary political language and the place of liberalism in France, Germany, Italy, and Britain see Jorn Leonhard, Liberalismus. Zur historischen Semantik eines europiiischen Deutungsmusters (, 2001). 5. Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy (1869), ed. J. Dover Wilson (Cambridge, 1971), 63; see also Matthew Arnold, "Irish Catholicism and British Liberalism," in Fortnightly Review 30 (1878): 26-45; id., "The Future of Liberalism," in Nineteenth Century 8 (1880): 1-18; id., "The Nadir of Liberalism," in: Nineteenth Century 19 (1886): 645-63. 6. Benjamin Jowett, quoted in M. Asquith, Autobiography (London, 1936), 110-111. 7. See Hans Vorlander, Hegemonialer Liberalismus. Politisches Denken und politische Kultur in den USA 1776-1920 (Frankfurt/Main, 1997), 137-165. 8. Dieter Langewiesche, Liberalismus in Deutschland (Frankfurt/Main, 1988), 135. 9. See David Blackbourn and Geoff Eley, The Pecularities of German History. Bourgeois Society and Politics in Nineteenth Century Germany (London, 1984); Langewiesche, Liberalismus, 128-232. 10. Ludwig August von Rochau, Grundsiitze der Realpolitik, angewendet auf die staatlichen Zusteinde Deutschlands (Stuttgart, 1859). 11. James J. Sheehan, Der deutsche Liberalismus (Munich, 1983), 213-258; Heinrich August Winkler, "Vom linken zum rechten Nationalismus: Der deutsche Liberalismus in der Krise von 1878/79," in id., Liberalismus und Antiliberalismus. Studien zur politischen Sozialgeschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts (Gottingen, 1979), 36-51; Lothar Gall, Europa auf dem Weg in die Moderne 1850-1890, 3rd edn. (Munich, 1997), 72-80; Vorlinder, Liberalismus, 167-175. 12. Friedrich Naumann, "Der Niedergang des Liberalismus. Vortrag auf der 6. Vertretertagung des Nationalsozialen Vereins zu Frankfurt am Main 1901," in id., Politische Schrifi-en, ed. Theodor Schieder, vol. 4: Schriften zum Parteiwesen und zum Mitteleuropaproblem (Cologne, 1964), 215-36. 13. Peter Theiner, "Friedrich Naumann und der soziale Liberalismus im Kaiserreich," in: Karl Holl, Gunter Trautmann and Hans Voriander, eds., Sozialer Liberalismus (Gottingen, 1986), 72-83; Peter Theiner, Sozialer Liberalismus und deutsche Welipolitik. Friedrich Naumann im Wilhelminischen Deutschland (Baden-Baden, 1983). 14. Lothar Gall, "Liberalismus und `biirgerliche Gesellschaft'. Zu Charakter und Entwicklung der liberalen Bewegung in Deutschland," in Historische Zeitschrifi- 220 (1975): 324-356; Wolfgang J. Mommsen, "Der deutsche Liberalismus zwischen, Ilassenloser Biirgergesellschaft' und Organisertem Kapitalismus'. Zu einigen neueren Liberalismusinterpretationen," in Geschichte und Gesellschaft 4 (1978): 77-90.

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15. Lujo Brentano, "Die liberale Partei und die Arbeiter," in Preuflische Jahrbucher 40 (1877): 112-23; I. Jastrow, Sozialliberal. Die Aufgaben des Liberalismus in Preuflen, 2nd edn. (, 1894); Theodor Barth, Neue AuAaben des Liberalismus. Nach einer in Munchen am 28. Januar 1904 gehaltenen Rede fiber Liberalen Revisionismus (Berlin, 1904); id., Was ist Liberalismus? Eine Gegenwartsfrage! (Berlin, 1905); L. Haas, Die Einigung des Liberalismus und der Demokratie (Frankfurt/Main, 1905); Der Liberalismus und die Arbeiter. Seinen Arbeitskollegen gewidmet von einem Arbeiter (Berlin, 1906); Friedrich Naumann, Gegenwart und Zukunfi- des Liberalismus (Munich, 1911).

16. Theiner, "Naumann," 73, and Langewiesche, Liberalismus, 195-98. 17. Max Weber, "Der Nationalstaat und die Volkswirtschaftspolitik" (1895), in: id., Gesammelte Politische Schrifien, ed. J. Winckelmann, 3rd edn. (Tubingen, 1971): 2-25; Wolfgang J. Mommsen, Max Weber und die deutsche Politik 1890-1920, 2nd edn. (Tubingen, 1974). 18. Dieter Duding, Der Nationalsoziale Verein. Der gescheiterte Versuch einer parteipolitischen Synthese von Nationalismus, Sozialismus und Liberalismus (Munich, 1972), 47-52; Theiner, "Naumann," 73-74. 19. Friedrich Naumann, Demokratie und Kaisertum, in: id., Werke, vol. 2 (Cologne, 1964); Mommsen, Weber, 416; Theiner, "Naumann," 74-75. 20. Friedrich Naumann, "Der Niedergang des Liberalismus," in id., Werke, vol. 4 (Cologne, 1964) 215, Friedrich Naumann, "Klassenpolitik des Liberalismus," in ibid., vol. 4, 255-57; Heinrich August Winkler, "Der riickversicherte Mittelstand. Die Interessenverbande von Handwerk und Kleinhandel im deutschen Kaiserreich," in id., Liberalismus, 83-98; Theiner, "Naumann," 76. 21. Raliger vom Bruch, ed., "Weiler Kommunismus noch Kapitalismus." Bfirgerliche Sozialreform in Deutschland bis zur Ara Adenauer (Munich, 1985). 22. Theiner, "Naumann," 80-81.

23. Langewiesche, Liberalismus, 200-211; James J. Sheehan, "Liberalism and the City in Nineteenth-Century Germany," in Past and Present 51 (1971): 116-137. 24. James J. Sheehan, "Deutscher Liberalismus im postliberalen Zeitalter 1890-1914," in Geschichte und Gesellschaft 4 (1978): 29-48; Wolfgang J. Mommsen, "Wandlungen der liberalen Idee im Zeitalter des Liberalismus," in Karl Holl and G. List, eds., Liberalismus und imperialistischer Staat (Gottingen, 1975), 109-147; Langewiesche, Liberalismus, 216-222. 25. Lore Blanke, "Liberalismus in den USA 1776-1996. Ein Uberblick im Spiegel der deutschen und amerikanischen Historiographie," in Jahrbuch zur Liberalismus-Forschung 8 (1996): 43-67. 26. James J. Sheehan, "Vorbildliche Ausnahme: Liberalismus in Amerika und Europa," in Jurgen Kocka, Hans-Jurgen Puhle and Klaus Tenfelde, eds., Von der Arbeiterbewegung zum modernen SoziaLstaat. Festschrift fur Gerhard A. Ritter zum 65. Geburtstag (Munich, 1994), 236-248. 27. Werner Sombart, Warum gibt es in den Vereinigten Staaten keinen Sozialismus? (1906), new edn. (Darmstadt, 1969). 28. Sheehan, "Ausnahme," 237-238. 29. Karl-Egon LOnne, Politischer Katholizismus im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt/M., 1986), 151-92. 30. Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma. The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (1944), new edn. (New York, 1962); Walter Jackson, Gunnar Myrdal and America's Conscience (Chapel Hill, 1990), and Sheehan, "Ausnahme," 239.

31. James Fenimore Cooper, Notions of the Americans Picked Up by a Travelling Bachelor (1828), quoted in Sheehan, "Ausnahme," 239. 32. Sheehan, "Ausnahme," 242.

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33. Quoted in Vorlander, Liberalismus, 169. 34. See Wolfgang J. Mommsen, Max Weber. Geseaschaft, Politik und Geschichte (Frankfurt/M., 1974), 88-89. 35. Vorlander, Liberalismus, 172-174. 36. Jurgen Herbst, The German Historical School in American Scholarship: A Study in the Transfer of Culture (Ithaca, 1965). 37. Richard T. Ely, French and German Socialism in Modern Times (New York, 1883), 244-245; Vorlander, Liberalismus, 161-162. 38. A. M. McBriar, Fabian Socialism and English Politics 1884-1918 (Cambridge, 1966), 119-121, 307-309; Vorlander, Liberalismus, 163. 39. David M. Kennedy, "Overview: The Progressive Era," in The 37 (1975): 453-468, 460; Robert H. Wiebe, The Search for Order 1877-1920 (New York, 1967); Samuel P. Hays, The Response to Industrialism: 1885-1914 (Chicago, 1957); David F. Noble, America by Design. Science, Technology, and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism (Oxford, 1977); Vorlander, Liberalismus, 187-188. 40. Vorlander, Liberalismus, 187-188, Paul F. Bourke, Culture and the Status of Politics, 1909-1917. Studies in the Social Criticism of Herbert Croly, Walter Lippmann, Randolph Bourne, and Van Wyck Brooks (Ph.D. Wisconsin, 1967); Charles Forcey, The Crossroads of Liberalism. Croly, Weyl, Lippmann and the Progressive Era, 1900-1925 (London, 1961), 121-217; Richard Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism in American Lift (New York, 1962), 408-420. 41. Paul F. Bourke, "The Status of Politics. The New Republic, Randolph Bourne and Van Wyck Brooks," in Journal of American Studies 8 (1974): 171-202; Vorlander, Liberalismus, 192. 42. Herbert Croly, The Promise of American Life (New York, 1909), new edn. by Arthur M. Schlesinger (Cambridge, 1965), 269-270; Vorlander, Liberalismus, 193. 43. Croly; Promise, quoted in Hans Petersen, "Liberal" im Amerikanischen. Eine Studie zur historischen Semantik im gesellschafilichen Kontext (Kassel, 1992), 55. 44. Croly, Promise, 265-267, 286-288; Vorlander, Liberalismus, 195. 45. Croly, Promise, quoted in Petersen, Liberal, 58. 46. Robert D. Cuff, The War Industries Board: Business-Government Relations During (Baltimore, 1973); James Weinstein, The Corporate Ideal in the Liberal State: 1900-1918 (Boston, 1968), 214-254; Vorlander, Liberalismus, 197. 47. William Leuchtenburg, "The New Deal and the Analogue of War," in John Braeman, Robert Bremner and Everett Walters, eds., Change and Continuity in Twentieth Century America (Columbus/Ohio, 1964), 81-143. 48. Croly, Promise, 139. 49. New Republic, 21 April 1917, 337; Vorländer, Liberalismus, 205; Jorn Leonhard, Nom Nationalkrieg zum Kriegsnationalismus - Projektion und Grenze nationaler Integrationsvorstellungen in Deutschland, GroLbritannien und den Vereinigten Staaten im Ersten Weltkrieg," in Ulrike v. Hirschhausen und Jorn Leonhard, eds., Nationalismen in Europa. West- und Osteuropa im Vergleich (Gottingen, 2001), 204-240. 50. Sidney Kaplan, "Social Engineers as Saviors: Effects of World War I on Some American Liberals," in The Journal of the History of Ideas 17 (1956): 347-369; Vorlander, Liberalismus, 204. 51. Karl Rohe, "Sozialer Liberalismus in Grabritannien in komparativer Perspektive. Zur Gesellschaftstheorie des New Liberalism 1880-1914," in Holl, Trautmann and Vorlander, eds., Liberalismus, 110-125; Michael

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Freeden, The New Liberalism. An Ideology of Social Reform (Oxford, 1978); id., "The New Liberalism Revisited," in Karl Rohe, ed., Englischer Liberalismus im 19. undfriihen 20. Jahrhundert (Bochum, 1987),133-154. 52. Rohe, "Liberalismus," 120-122.

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