THE LIBERAL DILEMMA AGAIN

...Phillips stood out most gloriously in his older years He advanced steadily It was he who favored the eight-hour day...

...by all means But when the war broke out both Garrison and Phillips lent then aid...

...m political discussion, in the pi ess in movie and radio programs, we expect too little, and by taking an ignoble view ol human capacities, we cause then deterioration lather than then expansion In other words, Miss Stapleton sees Ihe threat to a democratic society not merely in the absence of a long-range economic program and a liberal party capable of winning and holding power, or in the menace of an expanding Soviet Union, but in a vulgar and mercenary culture which reduces all values to "darling dollars...

...Sclilcsinger expatiating on the imbecility of tlie progressive mind and the dangers of optimism, on the conn.iiy she maintains thai The full development of tin enei gies of oui people needs a new stimulus The chief let and iiircdraiire to then giowth at present is that the sights aie set too low In leach mg...

...Thus far our schools have failed to define the goals ol demociacy oi to pi ovule tin humane and hbeial training bo then achievement, but until thev do the barbarians, among the leadeis and the led will wreck the welfare state and destroy any hope for a world com inanity To further this world organization Miss Stapleton recommends thaw we begin now to strengthen the United Nations and to cooperate more closely with those countries which aie already prepared to limit their sovereignty...

...Miss Stapleton would improve our foreign broadcasts, marshal leading scientists, artists, and statesmen to present our story, and organize meetings of social scientists and jurists to suggest ways and means of reducing national frictions...

...Ills "apostasy" was icgarded as scandalous and there were members of his own family who wished to have him adjudged insane and put away in a sanitarium...

...The Russian obstacle to such a plan is not minimized, bul she is not prepared to admit that further efforts to negotiate with the Soviets would be futile, and she offers many concrete suggestions for the more effective communicating of democratic ideas to F.urope and Asia So far it has been the Soviets who have sponsored the culture conferences...

...Ross and Sclilcsinger how ever...

...still disorganized and ineffective, because they still do not know what they think or when' thev wish to go, Laurence Stapleton's The Design of Democracy is a modest and unpretentious effort to tell the well-intentioned but bootless democrat what he believes and why he believes it...

...Thev followed unswervingly the dictates of their conscience, listened solely In Ihe voice of Clod, regardless of the consequences that might befall them...

...He knew that during the period of Reconstruction in the South the struggle was not a battle for white supremacy but a struggle between the landed aristocracy and the landed proletariat...

...but he does not distort historical truth lo serve his dramatic, story-telling pur pose He does not invent thoughts and dialogue for bis principal characters, he does not fictionalize...

...It is richly documented...

...The crucial events of the time are presented in human and saliently dramatic terms The author never misses an opportun ity lo portray tfyo conflicts of the age as these affected the lives of men...

...A staunch Jeffersonian, he believed in the equalization of property...

...she attacks specialization, the emphasis upon technique for its own sake, "the divorce of power from purpose...

...Heroes of Abolitionism TWO FRIENDS OF MAN...

...The story of his lifelong crusade is as interesting as any novel Garrison launched Tin- Liberator wilh the delih • rate intent of provoking the public Agitation was his forte, thundering denunciation his specialty In the lirsl number of the paper be composed a Ilamiug salutatory to the public, declaring "I am in earnest I wilt not equivocate I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch AND I WILL BF...

...He was heard, all right There were all sorts and varieties of Abolitionists, each sect with its particular politics and panaceas, but Garrison was the inspiring force behind them all...

...Year after year, despite mounting hostility and malign persecution, they persevered in the cause they had espoused, a cause which finally prevailed...

...They hated slavery more than they loved the Union, whereas with Lincoln Unreverse was true...

...Miss Stapleton...

...certainly they dwell upon man's iniquities with more relish than they do his tenuous virtues...

...Unlike Messrs...

...42a pp...

...Tiro Friends of Man is a vivid, well written, tensely exciting history of the Stirling fight for reform in the nineteenth century, a light led by these two fearless champions of human freedom...

...Let them go...

...We gel the history of the Abolitionist movement, the story of the Civil War and the period of Reconstruction We see the relations of these two men to Lincoln and are given an iconoclastic portrait of Lincoln's altitude toward Ihe Negro and the task of emancipation...

...Ralph Korngold explains how it was that Garrison, an urn '('generate in dividuahsl, his heart wrung to fury and compassion by the plight id the slaves, remained indifferent to the ex ploitat ion of white workers ill the North...

...Little, Brown & Company...

...The Liberal Dilemma Again 'I HI III- .',/( . \ Oh III V< H l< l< V l'"i l.unii'im Stapleton Ocjoid Uill i eistty 1'itss :'/') pp $4 00 Reviewed by DANIE AARON IF THL FATE id litx*ialism is a perpetual state of ensis, most of the hooks which attempt to deal with the dilemma oi which propose a strategy foi liberals to follow seem to have had very little effect Perhaps, as the late Charles Beard told a meeting of political scientists several years ago, their authors are moved "by an arrogance that mis lakes personal opinion foi divine revelation" Hot whatevei llie reason, the liberal commentaries of the last few veins seem to he either incantations to democracy, sentimental and abstract, or hard-boiled manifestoes tailing foi icalism and tough-mindedness...

...Wendell Phillips went on to fight in behalf of other, equally good causes, and he continued to fight until his death, even if it meant losing his friends...

...Both stories are unified and caught within a single and steady focus...

...The alternative to this positive and pragmatic approach to world peace, she implies, is to fall into the Soviet habit of opposing any policy of mutual concession and to prepare for war...

...He became the leading agitator of his age...

...Once drawn into the orbit of antislavery agitation...

...The lank and tile of the progressive voting public are still, as the word goes, "bewildered...

...i WENDELL PHILLIPS, the •¦<¦< mid friend of man, was the , n of a pain elan, the descendant of a Brahmin family, a man of wealth, and yet he dedicated himself sclfb'ssly and throughout bis long life to the cause of Abolition, even though in Boston at the tunc Abolitionists were looked upon as dangerous radical...

...We are a long way from the constitution making stage, but she feels it would be useful to discuss the principles on which a limited world government could be established a gov eminent "with powei to make and to enforce law governing interna tional conflicts, and to determine the terms under which nations would have to accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the international court...

...THE BIOGRAPHIES or these two stout hearted, incorruptible saints arc told with tenderness and fine un derstanding...

...They appeal almost exclusively to economic motives, to self-interest, as the enduring realities, and as a consequence they never face the problem of whether or not an enlightened political and economic Program can be sustained by a debased electorate...

...We follow the series of events, the pressures and counterpressures, that led to the Emancipation Proclamation...

...5.00...

...The nineteenth century progressive reformers repudiated the capitalist ethos of their day because it sanctioned an unjust economic system, but also because it warped and degraded men's minds The New Liberals may or may not regard such considerations as Utopian, but they are certainly not interested in them...

...Reviewed by CHARLES I. GLICKSBERG THE STORY of William Lloyd damson and Wendell Phillips makes fascinating reading...

...Whereas Garrison was left behind once the Abolitionist cause bad been won...

...He pleaded these unpopular causes, even though it meant sacrificing all his personal ambitions to serve in the Senate...

...That is why she is impatient with the intellectual elites, and why in her excellent chapter, "Democracy and the Conditions of Knowledge...

...He would not support the use of armed force, instead he preferred to appeal to the moral sense of the North and the people throughout the world so that the South would be compelled to yield He yyas opposed to the concept of a class war between the .rich and the poor and was apparently blind to the cruel conditions of labor in New E-iglnnd factories at the time, where a system of peonage prevailed...

...Abolition was not to be achieved by gradual means but iinnie diately and unconditionally Infusing the Abolitionist cause with tremendous vitality, he started a movement thai vas not to bo stopped...

...Phillips outdid the noble Garrison, proving stronger in his stand, more profound in his insight into the causes of social oppression, more determined to get to the root of the problem and fight it out, no matter what the strength of the opposition arrayed against him...

...Miss Stapleton does...

...What is more, he interprets the Mux of historical events and boldly takes issue with those authoritites Ihat are biased in favor of the South Ills point of view is consistently liberal and pro-labor i Daniel Aaron teaches social science at the University of Chicago...

...As Daniel Bell remarked in a brilliant review in Commentary (December 1949), the NewLiberals tend to reduce all motives to power drives...

...It is a kind of primer, logical and reasonable in tone, which seeks lirst to establish the philosophical premises of democracy and then to describe the social context in which these principles can and ought to operate Thus the lirst pari of her book deals with the meaning of equal ity, freedom, and self-government, the second with the practical application of these ideas, politically, economically, and culturally...

...Men might threaten them, violent mobs thirst for their blood...

...The hook is divided into two parts, one pari dealing with Garrison and the other with Phillips, though the two sections are ingeniously interwoven Gai risen was a born firebrand, a crusader, combative by nature, uncompromisingly righteous in the 'pursuit ol an ideal, never yielding an inch, even though he was a convinced non-resistant, lie loved nothing better than the give and take of polemics, and his editorials in The Liberator were violently intemperate...

...Miss Stapleton seems less preoccupied with reflections on natural depravity and does not exhibit that ambivalent attitude toward power which one so frequently detects in the Sons of Niebuhr...

...it moves from a discussion of the citizen vis-a-vis his community to the citizen as a putative meiiibei of an international community • • * LIKE IRWIN ROSS and Arthui Sclilcsinger Jr., Miss Stapleton is one of the New Ljberals of the non-Coin mumst left, an advocate of the mixed economy, chary of panaceas, and dis trustful of unchecked power whether in the hands of the state, the trade union ,or the corporation...

...r 1 Charles I. Glickfibprrj is prolessor of English at Brooklyn College...

...He agitated, he lectured indefatigable, lie gave unstintedly of his- time and energy...

...Fighters in behalf of Abolition at a tune early in the nineteenth century when this was dangerous heresy, they were courageous and outspoken in the face ol public opposition...

...It yvas he who perceived that the struggle for Abolition was but a part of the vastly greater struggle between Capital and Labor...

...HEARD...

...thev would not be moved...

...The only mistake Garrison and Phillips were guilty of and we can understand il if we adopt then point nf view was their insistence on dis union Let the slave states secede and depart in peace Even Phillips wa strongly opposed to making any con cessions to keep the Southern States satisfied...

...while minimizing man's capacity for evil, spends less time than Mr...

...By Ralph Korngold...

...She is unwilling to identify democracy either with socialism or with capitalism, although she is less afraid of socialism than many spokesmen for the Fan Deal, and believes that countries where civil liberties have become strongly traditional may be able to enjoy the benefits of socialism without endangering political freedom...

...The scholar, according to his view, was necessarily an agitator Phillips agitated strenuously in behalf of free speech, women's rights, the cause of labor, as well as Negro emancipation...