POLITICAL INSIGHTS
Schlesinger, Arthur Jr.
Political Insights Revolt of the Moderates, by Samuel Lubell. Harper. 308 pp. $3.75. Reviewed by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. IN recent years, Sam Lubell has established himself as the preeminent...
...he explores with great sensitivity the political consequences of ethnic tensions and of changes in social status...
...Revolt of the Moderates is an interim report on our national progress...
...And, in cases where Eisenhower's failings are too obvious to be disguised as virtues, Lubell tends to describe them, not as his fault (as they seemed in Truman's case), but as the fault of the American people...
...IN recent years, Sam Lubell has established himself as the preeminent diagnostician of our contemporary politics...
...It is clear that, in Lubell's view, we are not yet out of the woods...
...up to now, at least in our history, moderation has never been an effective means for achieving basic changes in voting habits...
...Throughout his Presidency, Eisenhower has been the understudy for the people themselves...
...Both parties, he feels, are responding to the challenge by dithering and compromise...
...The time to worry is when all is 'moderation.' " These astringent passages, along with Lubell's abhorrence of deadlock and his justified concern for foreign policy, where Eisenhower's failure has been surely most spectacular, make it all the harder to accept the amiability with which he appears to regard President Eisenhower and his philosophy of drift...
...In 1952, Lubell saw Truman as "the man who bought time" through policies of "persistent irresolution...
...now he sees Eisenhower as "ye com-pleat political angler," dedicated to "the mediating task of transition...
...It is one of the few lapses from objectivity in Lubell that, having described the role of the Truman and Eisenhower Administrations in almost identical terms, he leaves the impression that what was a sin in Truman is somehow an act of statesmanship for his successor...
...The problem is still one of a race between the two parties "as to which can free itself first of the dividing distrusts of the Roosevelt period"—a race rendered the more tense and fateful by the fact that the harsh choices posed by the cold war have to be registered through parties still largely committed to prewar feuds and issues...
...The essential quality of his leadership," Lubell writes, "has lain in the skill and faithfulness with which he has followed the public temper...
...The unfortunate title of the book further seems to commit Lubell to a partisan thesis...
...As we diagnose more accurately the sources of apathy and inertia in our political life, we will stand a better chance of breaking the deadlock and moving into the new age of decision for which Lubell's books provide such a valuable preparation...
...But these facts should not distract the reader from the book's basic analysis, which is far more trenchant, dispassionate, and complex than the solicitude for Eisenhower or the simplistic title would suggest...
...This charitable approach to Eisenhower implies, moreover, a very narrow view of the possibilities of Presidential leadership—a much narrower view than Lubell applied to Truman or than I believe he really holds...
...he writes illuminatingly about the political dilemma of American business...
...Far from being an all-out supporter of the "moderation" thesis, Lubell contends that "quiet and conciliation" are not necessarily the best means of moving toward unity...
...The time to worry about this country," he writes, "is not when we are battling among ourselves, for it is then that our democracy functions best...
...The result was a striking new portrait of American politics, in which he saw the nation in a state of political transition, poised between a dying political epoch and a new age struggling to be born...
...In a series of fresh and vigorous chapters, Lubell throws out one valuable insight after another into American political life...
...Combining a reporter's interviews with a political scientist's analysis of ethnic and economic predispositions, all interpreted within "the discipline of the actual election returns," Lubell was able to display underlying political tendencies by isolating crucial electoral shifts in selected precincts and counties...
...On the civil rights question in particular, he takes the tough view that "if further progress is to be gained it will not come of itself but will have to be fought for...
...The primary political problem of the fifties, in his view, was to liquidate the memories of the New Deal era and to define the distinctive combinations and issues of a new stage in our politics...
...and he concludes with a forceful assertion of the importance of positive government and the need for Americans to face up to the hard facts of international conflict...
...But I doubt whether anyone, however knowledgeable, can read this bracing book without understanding much more about American politics than he did before...
...Few people will agree with everything in Revolt of the Moderates...
...He discusses Senator McCarthy brilliantly in terms of "the politics of revenge...
...His book of 1952, The Future of American Politics, broke new paths, both in its method and its conclusions...
...It is hard to see why the politics of stalemate should have been terrible before 1953 and fine, or at least forgivable, now—especially when Truman, with much less political strength, tried so much harder to get the nation off dead center...
Vol. 20 • June 1956 • No. 6
