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Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., and the Discontents of Postwar American liberalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

James A. Nuechterlein
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Extract

American society over the past dozen years has undergone a general and continuing crisis. Almost everyone agrees on that point, but on the deeper meaning and significance of the crisis, on its origins and precise nature, there is massive disagreement. From all points of the political spectrum flow streams of mutually exclusive analyses and prescriptions.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , January 1977 , pp. 3 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1977

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References

1 Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr, The Vital Center (1949; Boston, 1962), p. xxiiiGoogle Scholar. Further citations are all to Schlesinger's writings unless otherwise noted.

2 A Pilgrim's Progress: Orestes A. Brownson (Boston, 1966Google Scholar; originally published as Orestes A. Brownson: A Pilgrim's Progress, 1939); The Age of Jackson (Boston, 1945)Google Scholar.

3 “The Age of Jackson,” New Republic, 114 (25 03, 1946), 410Google Scholar; “The Legacy of Andrew Jackson,” American Mercury, 64 (02, 1947), 170–73Google Scholar.

4 A Pilgrim's Progress, p. 82.

5 On the first point, see Age of Jackson, p. 307, and Vital Center, pp. 172–73; on the latter, “Can Willkie Save His Party?” Nation, 153 (6 12, 1941), 563Google Scholar.

6 “Democracy; What Does It Mean?” Vital Speeches, 14 (15 04, 1948), 401–02. Emphasis addedGoogle Scholar.

7 Age of Jackson, p. 43.

8 Vital Center, p. xxiv.

9 Age of Jackson, pp. 522, 521; see also “The Future of Socialism: The Perspective Now,” Partisan Review, 14 (05–06, 1947)Google Scholar,

10 It must be noted that on one critical point of the history of class conflict in America, Schlesinger's treatment was evasive and even misleading. Eager as always to absolve the New Deal of importing alien ideas into American politics, Schlesinger traced the idea of class conflict back to the origins of the nation. “The Founding Fathers disagreed,” he wrote, “not over the reality of class conflict, but over its origin: whether, as Hamilton and John Adams claimed, it was the inevitable result of natural differences in the talents of man, or, as Jefferson and John Taylor of Caroline claimed, it was the result of unnatural tyrannies, imposed by fraud and maintained by force.” Schlesinger went on to quote Jackson in apparent support of the Jeffersonian “radical democratic” interpretation. His use of the quotation, however, distorted Jackson's meaning. The quotation follows, the words emphasized being those Schlesinger omitted and replaced with ellipses.

It is to be regretted, that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of Government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally justified to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society—the farmers, mechanics, and laborers—who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their Government.

Schlesinger's use of the quote (which is from Jackson's veto of the recharter of the Bank of the United States, July 10, 1832) is in Vital Center, p. 172; the full quotation can be found in Richardson, James D., ed., A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, vol. 3 (New York, 1897), 1153Google Scholar. The point at issue is not simply what Jackson really meant or what the American liberal tradition actually involves. The judgment involved in deciding whether class conflicts and differences stem from natural human distinctions and inequalities or are artificially created by fraudulent and coercive means is fundamental to any political philosophy. It is striking that Schlesinger, aside from his quite inadequate handling of the issue in this case, appears to pay little or no attention to this crucial problem.

11 Vital Center, pp. 9–10, 235–36, 188.

12 Ibid., pp. 244, 6, 38–39, 165.

13 Ibid., pp. 254, 255.

14 “‘The Vital Center’Reconsidered,” Encounter, 35 (09, 1970), 89Google Scholar; “The Causes of the Civil War: A Note on Historical Sentimentalism” (1949), The Politics of Hope (Boston, 1963), p. 47Google Scholar; “Whittaker Chambers and His Witness” (1952), The Politics of Hope, pp. 193, 195. Politics of Hope is a collection of articles originally published in the period 1949–60. All citations to the book will indicate the year in which articles referred to first appeared.

15 Vital Center, p. 255.

16 “Are We Richer Today?” Ladies' Home Journal, 66 (09, 1949)Google Scholar.

17 “Military Force: How Much and Where?” Reporter, 9 (4 08, 1953)Google Scholar.

17 “Two Views on Finletter's ‘Power and Policy,’” Reporter, 11 (2 12, 1954), 32Google Scholar; Kennedy or Nixon: Does It Make Any Difference? (New York, 1960), p. 42Google Scholar; “The Case for Kennedy,” New York Times Magazine, 6 November, 1960, p. 19.

19 “Varieties of Communist Experience” (1960), Politics of Hope.

20 McWilliams, Carey, “The Witch Hunt's New Phase,” New Statesman and Nation, 42 (27 10, 1951), 455Google Scholar.

21 For examples of Schlesinger's views through these years see “The U.S. Communist Party,” Life, 21 (29 07, 1946)Google Scholar; “What is Loyalty? A Difficult Question,” New York Times Magazine, 2 November, 1947; “The Right to Loathsome Ideas,” Saturday Review, 32 (14 05, 1949)Google Scholar; “Espionage or Frame-Up?” Saturday Review, 33 (15 04, 1950)Google Scholar; “Faith, Fear and Freedom,” Saturday Review, 34 (3 02, 1951)Google Scholar; “Our Country and Our Culture,” Partisan Review, 19 (09, 1952)Google Scholar; “Individual Freedom and National Security,” in Schlesinger, and Howe, Quincy, eds., Guide to Politics, 1954 (New York, 1954)Google Scholar. For a typical McCarthyite diatribe against Schlesinger, see de Toledano, Ralph, “Junior's Misses,” American Mercury, 77 (11, 1953)Google Scholar. Schlesinger has ably defended postwar liberal anti-Communism on a number of occasions. For an excellent brief statement, see the relevant portions of his introductory essay in volume one of The Dynamics of World Power: A Documentary History of United States Foreign Policy, 5 vols. (New York, 1973)Google Scholar.

22 “Stevenson and the American Liberal Dilemma,” Twentieth Century, 153 (01, 1953), 27, 28.Google Scholar

23 “‘We Need a Liberal Administration,’” Reporter, 14 (31 05, 1956), 21Google Scholar; “The Future of Liberalism: The Challenge of Abundance,” Reporter, 14 (3 05, 1956), 11Google Scholar.

24 Kennedy or Nixon? p. 47.

25 The Crisis of the Old Order, The Coming of the New Deal, and The Politics of Upheaval comprise the three volumes so far published of The Age of Roosevelt (Boston, 1957–1960). My concern with Schlesinger in this essayis primarily with his political thought and not with his historical works as such, but it requires notice that Age of Roosevelt is not only Schlesinger's greatest achievement but one of the genuine monuments of twentieth-century American historiography. The brilliant biographical sketches, the marvelously felicitous use of quotations, the subtlety and complexity of analysis, and the command, movement, and scope of the entire work combine to make this as outstanding an example as one can point to of the art of the analytical narrativeGoogle Scholar.

28 “Liberalism in America: A Note for Europeans” (1956), Politics of Hope, p. 67.

27 Ibid., p. 70.

28 “Liberalism,” Saturday Review, 40 (8 06, 1957), 37Google Scholar; “The New Mood in Politics” (1960), Politics of Hope, p. 83; “Our New-Found Leisure Won't Bore Us if Some of It Is Employed in Reading,” Saturday Evening Post, 231 (18 04, 1959), 10Google Scholar.

29 Kennedy or Nixon? p. 39; “Where Does the Liberal Go From Here?” New York Times Magazine, 4 August 1957, p. 38; the Stevenson quotation is in Leuchtenburg, William E. et al. , The Unfinished Century: America Since 1900 (Boston, 1973), p. 785.Google Scholar

30 “The Future of Liberalism: The Challenge of Abundance,” p. 8.

31 “On Heroic Leadership and the Dilemma of Strong Men and Weak Peoples” (1960), Politics of Hope, p. 22; “The Decline of Greatness” (1958), Politics of Hope, p. 33.

32 Kennedy or Nixon? pp. 33, 25, 51.

33 “The New Mood in Politics,” p. 93.

34 Kennedy or Nixon? p. 51.

35 Ibid., p. 40.

36 A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (Boston, 1965)Google Scholar.

37 Ibid., p.112.

38 Ibid., p. 352; “A Eulogy: John Fitzgerald Kennedy,” Saturday Evening Post, 236 (14 12, 1963), 32a.Google Scholar

39 A Thousand Days, p. 639.

40 Brandon, Henry, “Schlesinger at the White House: An Historian's Inside View of Kennedy at Work,” Harper's, 229 (07, 1964), 57Google Scholar; “Epilogue: The One Against the Many,” in Schlesinger, and White, Morton, eds., Paths of American Thought (Boston, 1963), pp. 532–37Google Scholar.

41 “The Cold War and the West: A Symposium,” Partisan Review, 29 (1962), 81.Google Scholar

42 See, for example, the discussion in “America and the World Revolution,” Commentary, 36 (10, 1963), 278–96Google Scholar.

43 A Thousand Days, pp. 478–86.

44 Ibid., pp. 204–05, 761–65.

45 Ibid., pp. 609–19; “The Historian and History,” Foreign Affairs, 41 (04, 1963), 496–97Google Scholar.

46 A Thousand Days, p. 298.

47 Ibid., p. 615. Schlesinger was to return to this Kennedy phrase over and over again in the years that followed.

48 Ibid., pp. 536–38.

49 Schlesinger's attitudes toward the war in 1966–67 can be seen in the following: “Vietnam: What Should We Do Now?” Look, 30 (9 08, 1966)Google Scholar; “Speaking Out,” Saturday Evening Post, 239 (13 08, 1966)Google Scholar; “On the Inscrutability of History,” Encounter, 27 (11, 1966)Google Scholar; The Bitter Heritage: Vietnam and American Democracy (1967; Greenwich, Conn., 1968)Google Scholar, “Liberal Anti-Communism Revisited,” Commentary, 44 (09, 1967)Google Scholar; “Two Questions About Viet Nam,” Encounter, 29 (12, 1967)Google Scholar.

50 “The Necessary Amorality of Foreign Affairs,” Harper's, 243 (08, 1971).Google Scholar

51 For Schlesinger's anti-revisionist analysis of the beginning of the cold war, see “The Origins of the Cold War,” Foreign Affairs, 46 (10, 1967)Google Scholar. His attacks on Chomsky and Marcuse can be found in Violence: America in the Sixties (New York, 1968), p. 69 ff.Google Scholar; “The Intellectual and American Society,” The Crisis of Confidence: Ideas, Power and Violence in America (Boston, 1969), p. 66 ff.Google Scholar; and in a series of exchanges with Chomsky in Commentary (December, 1969; June, 1970). His perceptive and very telling critique of Williams is in “America II,” Partisan Review, 37 (11, 1970)Google Scholar. It is interesting that Schlesinger was far more sympathetic to New Leftists' treatment of the Jacksonian era. He thought their analysis supported some of his arguments in Age of Jackson, a book written during Schlesinger's own more radical early years. Garraty, John A., Interpreting American History: Conversations with Historians (New York, 1970), p. 276Google Scholar.

52 See Unger, Irwin, The Movement: A History of the American New Left, 1959–1972 (New York, 1974), especially chaps. 5 and 7Google Scholar.

53 “America 1968: The Politics of Violence,” Harper's, 237 (08, 1968)Google Scholar; “The Dark Heart of American History,” Saturday Review, 51 (19 10, 1968); Violence: America in the Sixties; “Violence as a n American Way of Life,” Crisis of ConfidenceGoogle Scholar.

54 Violence: America in the Sixties, pp. v, 25, 31, 29.

55 “Joe College, R.I.P.,” Crisis of Confidence.

56 “Violence as an American Way of Life,” p. 16; “The Amazing Success Story of ‘Spiro Who?,’” New York Times Magazine, 26 July, 1970, p. 55.

57 “The Velocity of History,” Newsweek, 6 July, 1970, pp. 32–33, 34; “The Prospects for Politics,” Crisis of Confidence, p. 188.

58 “The Prospects for Politics,” p. 189.

59 Ibid., pp. 212, 217, 213, 218.

60 “The Case for George McGovern,” New Republic, 166 (26 02, 1972), 17Google Scholar.

61 “How McGovern Will Win,” New York Times Magazine, 30 July, 1972, p.34.

62 McGovern, George, “‘I Have Earned the Nomination,’” interview in Life, 73 (7 07, 1972), 36Google Scholar.

63 The Imperial Presidency (Boston, 1973)Google Scholar.

64 Imperial Presidency, pp. viii, 287, 207, 255, 417, 402, 234.

65 “What If We Don't Impeach Him?” Harper's, 248 (05, 1974)Google Scholar.

66 “Politics, 1971,” Vogue, 157 (1 02, 1971), 139Google Scholar. For elaboration on this point, see Nuechterlein, James A., “The People vs. the Interests,” Commentary, 59 (03, 1975)Google Scholar.

67 Kennedy or Nixon? p. 49.

68 “The Velocity of History,” p. 33,

69 Ibid., p. 34.

70 “The Intellectual and American Society,” p. 52.

71 Adams, James Truslow, “Emerson Reread,” in Whicher, George F., ed., The Transcendentalist Revolt Against Materialism (Boston, 1949), p. 38Google Scholar.

72 Kennedy or Nixon? p. 51.

73 “J.F.K.: Promise and Reality,” Commonweal, 98 (25 05, 1973), 291Google Scholar. This is a review essay of Fairlie's, HenryThe Kennedy Promise: The Politics of Expectation (New York, 1973)Google Scholar. I have found Fairlie's thoughtful, insightful, and provocative book useful for my own reflections on recent American liberalism, though I think he weakens his case with respect to John F. Kennedy by sometimes considerable overstatement.

74 “Liberalism in America: A Note for Europeans,” p. 70. I would like to thank my colleagues, Professors Paul Christiansen, Klaus Hansen, and Alan Jeeves for their helpful suggestions in the preparation of this article.