762 THE CROSSROADS OF LIBERALISM The Crossroads of Liberalism Croly, Weyl, Lippmann, and the Progressive Era 1900-1925 Charles Forcey VJ.V W+W NEW YORK* OXFORD UNIVERSITY PR ESS 1961 The author wishes to thank the Macmillan Company for permission to quote from Herbert Croly, The Promise of American Life, Herbert Croly, Progres- sive Democracy, Walter Weyl, The New Democracy, and Granville Hides, John Reed. The New Republic has generously authorized extensive quotation from its columns. Parts of Chapters I, II, III, and VIII have previously been published in different form as "Croly and Nationalism/* New Republic, CXXXI (Novem- ber 22, 1954), "Leadership and 'Misrule by the People/" New Republic, in CXXXII (February 21, 1955), and "Walter Weyl and the Class War" Harvey Radicals is Goldberg (ed.), American (Monthly Review Press, 1957). The author grateful for permission to reuse these materials. Copyright 1961 by Charles Forcey Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 61-8370 Printed in the United States of America To the memory of HOWARD KENNEDY BEALE PREFACE This book grew out of my strong sense during World War II that the world we live in had become the plaything of mad- men. While finishing my undergraduate work after the war, I began to learn something of the recent history of the world. The United States seemed to have played a central role in that history, particularly in those periods when it had Presidents of liberal persuasion. To my undergraduate mind "liberalism" was, of course, a good thing. But that only made it more dif- ficult to explain the fearsome tragedies that had overtaken America and the world when liberals were in power. One war had ended in the bitter frustrations of Versailles, the other in the barbarism of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Though much of this could be blamed on illiberal forces in America and else- where, the excuse merely led to further questions. Why had the liberals had so little control over events? Were there fatal flaws in liberalism itself? My first impulse, which turned out to be an enduring one, was to seek an answer to such questions in the work of men who had faced them before. This took me back to the early decades of the century when, so it seemed to me, most of our chronic problems were still new enough to invite uninhibited speculation. I wanted men who had been neither too close to affairs to think nor too far from them to care. Soon I settled on three political journalists of the progressive era, Herbert Croly, Walter Weyl, and Walter Lippmann. They had a repu- tation for being both advanced and influential in their think- ing. It was said that they had had more than a little to do with some of the policies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. And they had founded in 1914 a progressive journal of viii THE CROSSROADS OF LIBERALISM opinion called the New Republic. The magazine provided them, as it would the later historian, with a convenient medium for exploring some of the dilemmas of liberalism. What follows is an analysis of the successes and failures of the three intellectuals, working at first separately and then to- gether on their magazine, in adapting American liberalism to modern conditions. Themselves middle class in background and deeply committed to the progressive movement, they tried to prove that both prosperity and freedom in a capitalistic democracy could be preserved by a reformist middle class. The rise and decline of their dreams in an era that mingled sublime progress with bloody carnage has a certain poignancy today. Much of the interest of Croly, Weyl, and Lippmann arises from their closeness to Roosevelt and Wilson. I have tried in the following pages to weigh the relationship between the "men of ideas" and the "men of power," and to suggest the circumstances under which the relationship remains most fruitful. The experience of various "brain trusters" with Franklin Roosevelt in the 'thirties has kept the problem a hardy perennial. Nor have American intellectuals in recent years been shy about flocking to the standards of at least two liberal leaders. The careers of the three intellectuals have given me a chance to touch on other matters that need only a brief mention here. Since all three men were pragmatists, their speculations allow some treatment of the viability of pragmatism as a philosophy for democratic government. Led by Croly, they also believed that nationalism might be made the binding force behind middle-class reform. Here they confronted directly that pecul- iarly twentieth-century dilemma: how nationalism with all its demonstrable power can be made to work for good within the framework of democratic practice and ideals. And since Croly and many of the men around him were also distinctively cultural nationalists, the book touches on the fate of cultural aspirations within a modern mass society. Finally, as supporters first of Roosevelt and then of Wilson during World War I, the PREFACE ix three writers worked at the vortex of the great controversy be- tween those who would make power and those who would make democratic persuasion the ruling force in world politics. This question, like the others, is still much with us today, though the replacement of the old "balance of power" with the present "balance of terror" leaves us none of the margin for error that Croly, Weyl, and Lippmann enjoyed. A brilliant course taught by Professor Eric F. Goldman at Princeton University first put me on the trail of Croly, Weyl, and Lippmann. His own work on the progressive era plus generously given encouragement have helped me greatly. I am similarly indebted to Professor Arthur S. Link, who was then (and is now) also at Princeton. A further acknowledgment of his aid will be found in my essay on sources. Professor Richard Hofstadter of Columbia University saw my study of the New Republic men through its initial stages. His teaching and writing about progressivism have provided much of the frame- work for the story that follows- He also read with great patience and perception a draft of this book that preceded the one here printed. The late Professor Howard K. Beale guided my doc- toral work at the University of Wisconsin. It is not too much to say that he gave his life to his students. His standards for the writing of history were severe, but not so the spirit with which he helped his students toward them. Though he read none of the later versions of this book, the spell of his discerning eye has hovered over every page of it. Several people who play a part in the story that follows helped me greatly. Mrs. Walter E. Weyl gave me complete access to her husband's invaluable diaries and miscellaneous papers. My talks with her about Walter Weyl and his col- leagues on the New Republic were wonderfully helpful, and her reading of an early draft of the chapter on her husband caught several errors. Justice Felix Frankfurter took time out several years ago from a very busy schedule to grant me an interview. He compounded his generosity by giving a critical reading to the first six chapters of a draft of this book. Judge x THE CROSSROADS OF LIBERALISM Learned Hand also talked to me on two occasions about his friends on the New Republic, and my note on sources records a further indebtedness to him. He too read with a sharp but humorously benign eye an earlier account of Croly's career and of Croly's (and his own) relationship to Theodore Roosevelt. Sir Norman Angell has also read one of the drafts of my manu- script. His very shrewd suggestions brought about a definite shift in the focus of the final version. Several personal friends have read this book in one or an- other of its earlier incarnations. They will forgive me if, count- ing the affection I feel toward them the sufficient token of my thanks, I merely list them here: Mr. Hamilton Cottier, Profes- sor Louis Filler, Professor Warren Susman, and Professor Charles Vevier. Since none of the people I have mentioned in this preface have seen the book in its present form, none of them have any responsibility for errors of fact or perversities of interpretation. In 1957 the William A. Dunning Fund of the History De- partment of Columbia University helped me with a grant for typing services, for which I am grateful. And I cannot close without a word of thanks to the many students I have had during the past eight years. They have shared and helped more than they know in the writing of each word of this book. Had my friend Howard Beale lived I intended to dedicate this book jointly to him and my wife, Pamela Cottier Forcey. Neither would have forgiven the exclusion of the other, and both would have been right. But Pam well knows the dimensions of my gratitude. CHARLES FORCEY New York, New York December 1960 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION BOOK I. IDEAS IN THE MAKING One HERBERT CROLY: NATIONALIST LIBERAL, 1900-1909 3 1. Three Intellectuals and a Politician. 2. Portrait of a Publicist 3. A Man and a Movement. 4. Middle-Class Intellectual in the Making. 5. From Positivism to Pragmatism. 6. The Ghost of Wilbur Littleton. 7. "The Promise of American Life." 8. Nationalism and Democracy. Two WALTER WEYL: DEMOCRATIC LIBERAL, 1900-1912 52 1. A Magazine and a Maverick. 2. A German-American Francophile. 3. The Dismal Science Unfolds a Promise. 4. A Scholar Adrift 5. The Scholar Becomes Publicist. 6. The Publicist and Progressivism.