TO NOWHERE AND BACK WITH WALTER LIPPMANN
LUNDBERG, FERDINAND
To Nowhere and Back With Walter Lippmann New Book by Weingast Finds Pundit Full of Criticism, Devoid of Solutions By HRDINAND LUNDERG THE WRITINGS for forty years of Walter Lippmann,...
...Rasultt American seamen are on the beach...
...Having established this thesis as a fixed and cardinal point of view, Lippmann has nevertheless in the heat of polemics forgotten the otherworldly notion so far as to .thunder that if the government wants-general economic well-being it- must encourage capitalists, large andsmall, to invest for profit...
...but when the chips are down in the public forum he is overcome by nameless dread and becomes as strong a defender of the unreformcd status quo as a Hearst, McCormick, or Brisbane...
...The major count brought against the New Deal in The Good Society is that it was "collectivist" and closely resembled communism and fascism, which Weingasf considers AN EDITORIAL: Hats Off to Ted Poston FOR HIS EXCELLENT REPORTING of the Florida "rape" trial last fall, New York Post reprter Ted Poston has just received the coveted Heywood Broun Award...
...Some Enchanted Pravda The Literary Gazette (November 30...
...The upshot of this method — which was substantially that of the Old Dealis regulation in principle but no regulation in practice, with the morals of the jungle prevailing from coast to coast...
...Thus Weingast describes him as personally engaging, courteous, charming, gentlemanly and serious...
...Swing Is a N.Y...
...extravagant and ill-conceived even if innocent...
...The White House meeting had been all arranged and it was only accidental that it leaked out...
...Heard on the Left STANDARD OIL- has been doing a dirty Job on American mmn which may lead to aa International boycott of lis ships by prodatnocritic seaman...
...NRA, 84 per cent...
...Throughout the years he had predicted that most of the New Deal legislation would fail as unworkable...
...Moe Iushewitz, N. Y. City CIO Council chieftain, lunched recently with Carmine De Sapio, Tammany Hall leader...
...They will not do it to earn a Blue Eagle," Lippmann asserted...
...Democratic gubernatorial candidate...
...He never challenges majority decisions of company directors or stockholders, although it should be evident that they are no more inherently correct than those in a general election...
...Wages and Hours legislation, 94 per cent...
...He favors regulation through invocation of the common law in specific court actions, with the initiative carried by those who felt themselves injured...
...The ads on the film, Stromboli, which have been, causing eyebrows to mount both in and out of the movie industry, were personally prepared by Howard Hughes, whose RKO owns and distributes the product...
...Poston, a superb repJrter at all times, we extend our congratulations...
...In our issue of August 13 last vear we published what was then the only honest, first-hand account availai)le of what had really happened in Lake County, where three yoi-ing Negroes were falsely accused of sape and put on trial for thei Ives...
...In June, 1936, he announced that the New Deal was "dead" and that the Democrats by continuing on their course faced certain disaster at the polls...
...Piling confusion on confusion, Lippmann on several later occasions held that the New Deal was veritably in the American tradition, which commits him to believing (on paper at least) that something resembling communism and fascism is in the American tradition...
...He recently collaborated with Dr...
...John Service (I'atfaire Amerasia) Is no longer Bated In ihjt Congressional Directory...
...Lester Grant, the brilliant science reporter of the Now York . Herald Tribune, at the age of 38 has quit to start a pre-medical coursa In the hope of becoming a doctor and researching in cancer...
...The annual reward for this performance, Weingast indicates, is a minimum of $54,000, with the probability hinted that the "take" may run higher...
...Lef twinger Robert Kenny...
...1949) has been aiming Us arrows it Broadway...
...Stale CIO president and Amalgamated Clothing Workers executive, ken something to do with the Hlllman award...
...Since November, the number of passengers carried oy airlines has fallen off considerably...
...Americana are beginning to realise tho genuine significance of these Broad* way 'performances/ " Every try to buy tickets to South Pacific, comrade...
...having firmly committed himself to this truism he then defends the principle of majority rule when 5 to 4 decisions of the Supreme Court are called into question and it is proposed that something be done about them...
...And a good deal more effective because he has been able to convince so many people that he stands for the Right Things...
...And that anarchic freedom for big wealth is what Lippmann fundamentally stands for he showed by his opposition, flat and outspoken, to all the New Deal reforms bearing on the financial markets of the Old Deal...
...His series on achisophrania has had HT executives biting their finger-nails over whether or not to print...
...now lecturing on politics at Rutgers University, in a quiet little volume titled Walter Lippmann: A Study in Personal Journalism (Rutpers University Press, 155 pp., $3.00...
...Again, having earlier favored something he termed "free collectivism," his thought around 1936 turned against all collectivism...
...As to this one can only say that if continually making demonstrably false judgments is judicious, if flying in the face of elementary logic is reasonable and if applying subjective conclusions to external facts is scholarly, then Lippmann is indeed jur die to us, reasonable and scholarly...
...Lucy Robins Lang's Tomorrow Is Beautiful (MacMillan) has been published in a Japanese-language edition in Tokyo...
...The book contains valuable and laboriously constructed tabulations of Lippmann's observations about Roosevelt, the New Deal as a whole and about the principal New Deal measures...
...the first AAA, 63 per cent and Social Security 30 per cent hostile, 25 per cent friendly...
...It must not be thought that Weingast has written a hostile expose...
...The net result, achieved mainly by letting the subject's own words tell the story, is to cloud perceptibly the lustre of one often hailed as an intellectual ornament to American journalism...
...How account for such inconsistency...
...ALTHOUGH LIPPMANN does not go in for as much predicting as do other columnists when ho does he is usually fantastically wrong, as Weingast shows in a survey of a great number of cases...
...For apart from the specific analysis of the writings he always leans back — sometimes so far as to trip over his own analysis —to pay Lippmann every compliment he can...
...This is shown most salientlyby the conflicting uses he naively makes of the same criteria...
...J. H. Oldenbroek, new general secretary of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, and Omer Becu, acting general secretary of the ITF, will visit the U. S. end of March for a number of highly important conferences...
...Also singled out for attack are Kiss Me, Kate and Where's Charley...
...A Nabokov concert will be heard Sunday, March 12, over WNYC with Soulima Stravinsky playing Mr...
...WEINGAST TIES TOGETHER his collection of hard data with a purely sociological interpretation that by implication at least makes Lippmann out as, in effect, Machiavellian...
...Late in 1939 he flatly predicted that Roosevelt would renounce a third term...
...but when he finally decided against NRA he saw it as presaging collectivism contrary to American tradition...
...Interesting speculation...
...At every crucial point, despite his philosophy, Weingast concludes, Lippmann has been the rationalizer and apologist for big wealth, for the unimaginative industrial plutocracy...
...A man may in sober later-lile alter his views and not be held answerable for the enthusiasms and perhaps indiscretions of youth-and inexperience, as Weingast fairly admits...
...Neither Marx nor Lenin ever made the point with more extravagant hyper-realism...
...Oscar Ewlng...
...This makes the third such prize captured by Reporter Poston for his Florida Series, the other two being the George Polk and the...
...For even if the plaintiff by some miracle suceeds in overcoming several teams of all-star corporation lawyers and an often corporation-minded judge, the issue is narrowly limited and the decision does not apply to other violations by the same Gargantuan defendant nor to the same or other violations by some 200 other corporations responsible for more than 80 per cent of industrial production...
...THE WHIP...
...Again in 1932 he predicted that if the country went off the gold standard disaster would follow...
...But it...
...Now where does this leave FDR Jr...
...Not liking Roosevelt, in 1932 he solemnly predicted he couldn't win as he had no important qualifications for the Presidency and the people were well aware (how did Lippmann know...
...There are ample materials scattered through this book for a psychological interpretation of Lippmann which would show that, far from being a Machiavellian, he is actually an honest man whose troubles are chiefly emotional...
...that he was completely hollow...
...William McFetrldge, building service employee heed who was recently made an AFL vice president, and a registered Republican, bought three tables to the Democrats' Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner...
...South Pacific is attacked as a degenerate bourgeois production In which "a nude lady and gentleman grimace in front of overfed businessmen," and in which the "plantation owner" la...
...in good capitalist fashion, applauded by all critics...
...Thus, not liking the possibility that communism and fascism might become world problems, in 192ft < he predicted they wouldn't for the comforting reason that one can't — or can one...
...Lippmann is so often grossly wrong in making predictions as to imply that he has no insight whatever into political and economic processes and human psychology, writes merely as an omnivorous reader of widely assorted books, and is completely subjective in his judgments, a prisoner of his own jarishfulness...
...Victor Riesel's new offices are at 295 Madison Ave., eighth floor, two doors away from the office of Lee Pressman...
...Is Tiger's Eye going out of business...
...His hostile observations about other key legislation ran as follows: National Labor Relations Act, 100 per cent...
...Whoever was responsible for almost tagging the fight for health insurance with a Communist smear ought to have his political savvy examined...
...operate an intricate industrial economy from a central point...
...Federal Security Administrator, will' get the Hillman sward March 11 for his services to the nation...
...above personal bickering and morally high-principled;and restrained, judicious, reasonable and extremely scholarly in his writing...
...They will do it because they see a chance to make money...
...Standard Oil has been transferring shipping to Panamanian registry—millions of tons...
...Weingast demonstrates convincingly that Lippmann operates according to a mechanical formula, which is perhaps unconscious...
...Objections were raised in particular to this line: "Bergman under the inspired direction.of Rossellini...
...In 1935 he said recovery had been achieved and prosperity was just ahead, and in 1936 he announced that the time had come to begin regulating "the coming boom...
...At intervales since 1913 Lippmann has advanced a favorite thesis that big business men are not really interested in making money but are primarily interested in responsibly discharging industrial trusteeships for the public welfare — or are just about to embark on such a saintly course...
...Louis Hollander...
...Lippmann, however, favors regulation of Big Business, but not by government commissions or agencies on the ground that that way lies centralism, loss of liberties for all, eventual slavery and human disaster...
...then, when in the turn of events specific measures are drawn, some along Lippmann lines, to cope with defects Lippmann has perhaps more eloquently than anyone else described, he analyzes these measures in perfectionist terms and, Hamletwise, finds himself regretfully compelled to oppose them sharply as unwise, inexpedient, poorly drawn, unworkable, unadministrable and fraught with various nameless dangers to the public welfare...
...Although he has spqken out on occasion against the Republican Old Guard and Big Business it has always been twitting...
...N's piano sonata...
...What World-Telegram reporter named Fred Woltman is having trouble understanding the inner workings of the orgone box...
...With Vaffaire Fuchs in the news, somebody ought to tell the HT...
...To put it plainly, he is an extremely confused person, even within the terms of his philosophy and before the question ever arises of implementing that philosophy by, positive action...
...But puzzling to Weingast and to any rational observer, Lipr maim in 1937 published The Goot Society and in it laid out a program offtreforms in few respects different from those of the New Deal he had specifically rejected-.' And several years later when The Good Society was republished Lippmann said it still represented in substance his outlook...
...NRA he predicted was "almost certain to mark a permanent and basic change in industrial control" and it was up to the public to adjust itself to the reality of this "new industrial order...
...On the New Deal as a whole 70 per cent of Lippmann's remarks were hostile, 9 per cent friendly and 20 per cent non-committal...
...but makes little reference to the sheer fantasies Lippmann has composed about Russia, Germany and world affairs in general...
...As history has shown, such procedure is tantamount to no regulation at all and anarchic freedom for corporations...
...The Moscow radio lias begun to attack John L. Lewis as antiNeqro and a "traitor of the U. S miners...
...This is the way it works...
...Irving Geist awards, The New Leader is particularly happy about all this because it was the first publication to drawattention to the real story behind the Lake County riots overeekend of July 16-18, 1949...
...The formula is this: to expound in longer writings the philosophy of an advanced social reformism bordering on Fabianism, flavored latterly with religious overtones, in the course of which exposition many accurate and delicately perceptive judgments are made about social problems and proposals are advanced for dealing with them...
...The result of this theatrical prostitution, the article aims to show, is the fad that "the spectators more and mere frequently boycott the box offices of the theatrical brothels of Broadway...
...His most telling eloquence has been directtd against New Dealers, Fair Dealers and any and all effective reformers...
...but no sooner had the gold standard been abandoned than be foresaw great betterment...
...To troid payment of excess profits taxes and union wages...
...But where now Lippmann's public trustees...
...As to Ferdinand Lundberg Is we author of "Imperial Hearst" and "America's jPlxly Famulea...
...This is the capitalist system...
...The general philosophy attracts the humane, soberly thoughtful and liberal-minded into his readership...
...On Weingast's own sifting of the record I just don't see it...
...isFtlns^usion is supported by the fact, inchc>*4ijbut not emphasized by Weingasr>^hat all of Lippmann's predictionszh^glpng the line of the simplest sorTTSP wishful thinking...
...TVA Lippmann favored most completely, being for it 37.5 per cent, against it 12.5 per cent and on the fence 50 per cent...
...Weingast passes on, too, the report that Lippmann is keenly investment-minded...
...International Transport Federation (ITF) affiliates In London will decide soon if this kind of union-busting Is going to be permitted...
...To Mr...
...y, with light slaps on the wrist, says Weingast...
...But, with this tenet nailed to the mast, he continues to look with favor on tht biggest and most effective collectivistic force in American society: Big Business...
...Bobby Clark, poor fellow, is compelled to fall on the floor a hundred times a night —but the critics don't care, so long as he reads his indecent monologues...
...the perfectionist rejection of each and every specific reform — plus Lippmann's willingness at times to function as an out-and-out propagandist— keeps the short-term realists of Wall Street on his side...
...They will not do it for patriotism's sake or as an act of public service...
...ALL OF WHICH is strange not because Lippmann in earlier writings had himself advocated many of the most liberal (or radical, if you wish) proposals that found their way into New Deal legislation...
...In his library, then, Lippmann is a resolute New Dealer or even a Fabian...
...And in 1948, undaunted, he was out in front predicting the defeat of Truman because he supported the New Deal, although after the election he advanced the profound observation that Truman had won because he had identified himself successfully with the New Deal...
...Marynla Farnham ce*"Mcasea Woasani The Leaf Sex," Roosevelt, Lippmann's remarks were 51 per cent hostile in the New Deal period, 11 per cent friendly and 39 per cent noncommittal...
...California lawyer, will be chief brain In this maneuver...
...But RKO execs were forbidden to change a single word...
...such a series would be exciting reading* * * Nicolas Nabokov, the composer-writer, is working on a new allevening ballet with George Balanchine on the Don Quixote theme...
...And Lippmann's personal associations, Weingast records, all run heavily to Big Business personalities, with practically none among labor or farm leaders or members of rankand-file groups of any description...
...Too many accidents* * * Big coming legal squeeze play of the Chinese Communists will be to get their mitts on Chinese Nationalist funds in this country...
...Only a last-minute phone call jrom on important U. S. Senator stopped President Truman jrom conferring with the highly left-ioing Physicians Forum on health insurance...
...To Nowhere and Back With Walter Lippmann New Book by Weingast Finds Pundit Full of Criticism, Devoid of Solutions By HRDINAND LUNDERG THE WRITINGS for forty years of Walter Lippmann, syndicated columnist, are given sharp, cool and intensive analysis by David E. Weingast, a Columbia Ph.D...
...As an example, he argues against the utility of majority decisions by holding rather obviously that a mere majority does not guarantee correctness...
...was Ted Poston who— at great personal risk—dramatize id this situation most effectively, and who, as a result, prodded the I Apartment of Justice into action...
Vol. 33 • March 1950 • No. 9
