The Remarkable Triumvirate

...Forcey has succeeded brilliantly in presenting the anatomy of the "new liberal" thought and in making cogent observations regarding its strengths and weaknesses...

...But by 1916 Wilson had moved from the New Freedom to the New Nationalist position, and had obtained from Congress much of the legislation advocated by Roosevelt in 1912...

...Each was the writer of influential books, and all were widely reputed to have exerted profound influence upon the policies of both Teddy Roosevelt and Wilson...

...Croly, the leader of the three, was the son of an Irish father and an English mother, both successful journalists and devotees of Auguste Comte, the positivist philosopher who made a religion of science...

...Weyl advocated a middle way between the old laissez-faire and Marxian Socialism...

...Forcey devotes a considerable part of his study to the vicissitudes of the New Republic during its formative years...

...Out of this background came Croly's conviction that the problems challenging the Progressive reformers could be resolved through a rational, pragmatic approach...

...Weyl, who soon died, and Croly, re-evaluating their Progressive experience, moved more toward Democratic Socialism on the model of Western Europe...

...In this way, social justice and a greater democratization could be achieved for the great mass of Americans...

...At Harvard, Croly managed to study sporadically for 11 years without receiving a degree, discarding positivism for the philosophy of Josiah Royce and George Santayana, and in the end accepting the pragmatism of William James, amplified through the Progressive years by the writings of John Dewey...

...Under strong leadership, such as Teddy Roosevelt's, a powerful central government could regulate the large corporations and promote labor unions to counterbalance them...

...After being submerged in the late 1920s, it became the dominant strain in New Deal thought...

...In popular terms this meant the use of Hamiltonian means to attain Jeffersonian ends...

...it flavored the outlook of one of the greatest liberals of the era, Louis D. Brandeis...

...Could it be, he pondered, that there were "fatal flaws in liberalism itself...

...What he produced was no more than a working program for Roosevelt...

...In a vague and diffuse fashion, he suggested that the nation should move slowly toward a sort of Democratic Socialism based on the needs and aspirations of consumers...

...At the outset it provided philosophical justifications for the doctrines of Roosevelt, who was delighted...

...and in 1916-17 they doughtily supported him on issues of domestic reform and, above all, favored American entrance into World War I. American participation in the War brought conservatives to the forefront, however, and the New Republic, with its continuing devotion to civil liberties and liberal economics, seemed dangerously radical...

...He put this training to practical use when he gathered statistics and ghosted writings for John Mitchell, leader of the United Mine Workers in the 1902 Coal Strike...

...Out of Forcey's questioning has come this book, which on the whole finds the "new liberalism" tragically insufficient in meeting the demands of the 20th century...

...Gradually the trio moved closer to Wilson...

...in his Preface to Politics (1913) he developed ideas similar to Croly's and Weyl's, but stressed even more the need for strong leadership: Roosevelt was "the working model for a possible American statesman at the beginning of the Twentieth Century...

...Nor would everyone accept the implication that it was because of some intrinsic flaws in the "new liberalism" that the United States became involved in two world wars...

...As Forcey emphasizes, from all this and other similar evidence, it is obvious that Roosevelt and Wilson had much more influence on the editors of the New Republic than vice versa...

...Like Croly's book, it was pragmatic in approach, but it placed more emphasis upon the economic ideas of Thorstein Veblen and others, and it directly refuted the arguments of American Socialists...

...It was too pragmatic, too nationalistic and depended too much on a middle-class base and an elite leadership...

...he was presenting in philosophical terms positions that Roosevelt had already come to accept...

...In 1911, he published his great argument for Progressive reform, The New Democracy...

...No study of the reasons for the failures (or triumphs) of the "new liberalism" can rest solely upon an examination of the writings and careers of its publicists...

...The "new liberalism" thus had triumphed by the end of the Progressive Era...

...All three men sought, at first singly through books and articles, later through the New Republic, to provide the theoretical framework for practical politicians...

...In 1915, Roosevelt referred to him as "on the whole the most brilliant young man of his age in the United States...

...This was the philosophic essence of Woodrow Wilson's campaign for the New Freedom in 1912...

...Croly's Promise of American Life has been frequently hailed as the blueprint for Roosevelt's New Nationalism, and hence almost the master plan for FDR's New Deal...

...Forcey would like to see a new Croly, Weyl and Lippmann come forth: "Just as they demolished the old individualistic liberalism in favor of democratic nationalism, so new writers are needed to bring forth the social-democratic alternatives to the new liberalism...

...But some others might give higher marks to the Progressive reformers and the New Dealers for their domestic achievements...

...Even after such an examination, Forcey might well hold his present conclusions unaltered...

...Rather, the answers to Forcey's questions must be sought also in the economic, social and political structure of America and other great nations during these decades...

...Weyl's approach to Progressive problems was that of the new economists, who engaged in scientific fact-finding as an essential step in the development of rational solutions...

...Forcey, who had always assumed that this sort of liberalism was a positive good, began wondering why it was that the United States became involved in two terrible wars when liberals were in power, one ending with "the bitter frustrations of Versailles, the other in the barbarism of Hiroshima...

...Laissez-faire and states' rights continued to be liberal watchwords long after growing industrialism made them in practice the bulwarks of conservatism...

...Indeed, it is only in the 1960s that Senator Barry Goldwater and the John Birch Society have successfully persuaded many right-wingers to call themselves conservatives rather than liberals...

...Lippmann's bent was philosophic...

...Forcey apparently thinks Croly and Weyl were correct, that the "new liberalism" proved its incompetence to solve the nation's problems during the Progressive Era and the New Deal, and is not likely to do better in the '60s...

...his doctrine was "progress through prosperity...

...The great end of liberalism, then as now, was to bring the largest number of blessings to the most people...

...But the Jeffersonian ends were to be gained through states' rights, small local governments and as little interference as possible in the affairs of the individual...

...Numerous critics have detected overtones of fascism in Croly's heavy, rather imprecise prose, but this was surely not the author's intent...

...In political terms it meant, in 1912, the defeat of Theodore Roosevelt's New Nationalism by Wilson's New Freedom...

...These three, together with Willard Straight, founded the New Republic...

...His occupation was helping edit the Architectural Record...

...Throughout the era that Charles Forcey examines, from 1900-25, many of those who most staunchly and sincerely considered themselves liberals continued to believe in states' rights and small government...

...During the Progressive era, the main current of liberal thought changed direction: toward ever-increasing government intervention intended to protect the rights and opportunities of the individual...

...Walter Lippmann, fresh from Harvard, was the Wunderkind of the group...

...Croly's fellow-worker, Walter Weyl, was of lower-middle-class Philadelphia Jewish background, brilliantly trained in economics at the Wharton School by Simon Patten (one of whose later students was Rexford G. Tugwell...

...When he goes further to pass judgment upon the whole of the "new liberalism" in action, he seems to be making sweeping conclusions beyond the evidence he presents...

...In the disillusioning '20s, Lippmann moved to the right and became largely detached from politics...

...his preoccupation was with outlining a program of political reform, which he presented in The Promise of American Life (1909...

...To Roosevelt's Bull Moose followers, the Wilsonian proposals smacked of "rural toryism...

...and it appeared prominently in the speeches of Franklin D. Roosevelt—until he became President...

...author, "Franklin Roosevelt" Liberalism in the fast-changing 20th century has come to encompass a program of action almost the opposite of that advocated by most 19th century liberals...

...Nationalizing American democracy, he hoped, would revitalize it...

...Of the trio, Weyl was by far the most sympathetic to the needs and aspirations of organized labor...

...Soon Roosevelt shifted to the right, the New Republic did not, and the great leader was disgusted...

...To assess the essence of liberal thought, he examined the careers and writings of a remarkable triumvirate of Progressive publicists: Herbert Croly, Walter Weyl and Walter Lippmann...

...When, after the War, it attacked the Versailles Treaty as a betrayal of liberal promises, it went against the thinking of most of its own leadership...