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ABSTRACT

WALTER LIPPHANN AND HIS VIEWS
OF
AHERICAH FOREIGN POLICY, 191h-1935

3?
Roger L. Zuercher

Walter Lippmann became keenly aware of American foreign
affairs in the cancer of 19114. From the beginnings of World
War I to Italy's invasion of Ethopia in October of 1935, the
Lippmann writing career showed his increased interest in
international issues and revealed his varying degrees of
influence on decision-makers. Lippmann's skill as an
analyst and writer gained recognition throughout the country
and his columns attracted the attention of national leaders
such as Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt.

Lippmann's writing in books, newspaper columns, and
magazine articles about foreign policy issues is the subject
of this study. The study seeks to show the philosophical
underpinnings of Lippmann thinking, for it was these that
gave Lippmann views unusual perspective. Finally, his
relationship‘to national leaders received some assessment,
although this part of the work was severely limited because
of restricted access to Lippmann papers.

Lippmann writings on American foreign policy are
plentiful, if not overwhelming in sheer volune. With the

I."

(‘4

(I

Roger L. Zuercher

\ exception of Lippmann's books, all of his printed public

.’
.+ —.

\J
r\

«P material is on microfilm at Yale University and the study

if of Lippmann columns in £113 New Republic, the New York M,
and "Today and Tomorrow" colunns constituted a major source
of his foreign policy analysis. Lippmann Reminiscences in
the Oral History Research Project at Columbia University
provided further insight. In addition to certain newspaper
and magazine articles, Lippmann books offered wider, more
far-ranging views of the international community. The
Colonel Edward M. House papers and the Henry L. Stimson
collection, both at Yale University, furnished some personal
le tters of Lippmann.

Lippmann believed in the liberal tradition of the
Western world. He argued that man should be free in mind
and action in the face of changing circumstances. Lippmann
thought man must be able to balance the liberties of
individual man and the authority of men's governnents. If
men were to be creative and hopeful about their existence,
they had to be politically free and economically independent.
To Lippmann, democratic goverments and capitalistic
economies provided the best opportunities available for
men to continm the traditions of the West.

During the first two years of World War I and
throughout the 1920's, Lippmann favored cautious relations
with Europe. But he also realized that if America's
economic place in the world were to grow the united states

would have to be deeply concerned about European, as well

Q‘

L]

’J

Roger L. Zuercher

as Asian, stability. He was appalled by the Treaty of
Versailles. It served as a victor's peace through war
guilt assigment, war reparations, and boundary line re-
arrangement. The only hope for a world peace, he believed,
was through the League of Nations that would adjust
differences created by the end of the war and the peace
settlement. As many others in the United states, Lippmann
believed that the Washington Conferences treaties and war
outlawry could be affective world peace instruments in the
1920's.

The Great Depression and its massive world consequences
brought forces to surface in the international scene that
revealed the importance of national self-interest around
the world. Lippmann's disillusionment set in slowly--but
certainly. The Western collective security system had
broken down. Japanese actions in Manchuria and the Italian
invasion of Ethopia proved that. Lippmann believed League
enforcement simply did not have the backing of the members'
will to use power. The United States, he argued, should
concentrate on domestic economic recovery; stay out of
Europe's unstable situation; and quietly maneuver Japan's
aggressive intentions toward a power balance in the Far
East. If worse came to worse, Anglo-American unity could
be relied upon to restrict world dictatorships and protect
Western institutions.

Roger L. Zuercher

Idppmann.writinge in the 1930's showed him facing
world economic and political forces that threatened to
over-throw traditions of the Wbst and replace them with
highly nationalistic governments and economies. Lippmann
responded by attempting to stimulate democracies to act
rapidly, but their virtues of independence and liberty
made them react sluggishly and the state of the economy
remained poor. Lippmann recommended the increase of
temporary state govermnent control based on the public
good. It would eliminate democratic excesses in the face
of a potentially devastating crisis.

The scholar in a troubled world clarified issues and
wrote of his findings with such clarity that he, himself,
became a force in helping people understand and leaders
act. But he failed to take his own advice in the 1930's
of keeping distance from daily events. Events over-
whelmed him and his recommended solutions brought dilemma

and despair.

WALTER LIPPMANII AND HIS VIEWS
OF
AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY, 19114-1935

37

Roger Li’FZuercher

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State university
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of History

197k

Copyright by
ROGER L. ZUERCHER

1971+

ACKNOWLENMEHTS

I wish to thank Mr. Walter Lippmann for giving per-
mission to examine portions of his written work collected at
Yale University. He also granted permission for my reading
of his contribution to the Oral History Research Collection
at Colmbia University. In addition, Mr. Lippmann cordially
participated in two telephone interviews.

Hr. Herman Hahn, Mr. David Haslyn, and Miss Judith Schiff
provided substantial help as I began study in the Lippmann
Collection at Yale University. Mr. Robert 0. Anthony, the
Director of the Lippmann Collection, has given freely of his
time to talk and correspond about Lippmann materials. I
thank him for his kind help and encouragement. Mrs. Elizabeth
Mason, an Associate Director of the Oral History Project at
Columbia University, furnished a helpful introduction to use
of the oral history resources. Library personnel at Michigan
State University have been gracious and always helpful.

To my Guidance Comittee, I offer special thanks for
constant encouragement and hours of work. My mentor.
Professor Paul A. Varg, especially gave considerable amounts

of time and valuable direction. I thank Professor Varg for

11

'1

his help. Professors Frederick D. Williams, Leslie B. Rout,
Jr., and David C. Bailey-"who replaced Professor Rout while
he was on leave--furnished invaluable aid.

To my typists, Miss Jean Fickes and Mrs. Vera Ecker,
I offer my appreciation for their work. Generally, with a
smile, they typed under pressure of time and read miles of
my scribble.

My wife, Virginia, and my family have endured. To
them I extend deep gratitude for their understanding and

patience .

Roger L. Zuercher
2 Hay 1971*

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter

I. LIPPHA'N'B EARLY YEARS AND HIS GROWING
AWms OF m NATURE, 1899-191“ e e e e

II. LIPPW'S ATLAWTIC: FROM MOAT TO HIGRWA --

AUGUST, 1911+ TO JUNE, 1917
III. I] THE HEAT OF THE BATTLE .
IV. WALTER LIPPHA" AND A DECADE

TIWGED WITH FURY: THE 1920's

V. WALTER LIPPHAWW AND WAR'S END, THE 1920'8

VI. A m AMONG SHAMWS . . .
VII. A HAD, SAD WORLD . . . . .
VIII. LOOKING BACIWARD . . . . .
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . .

22
50

76
11 3
15h
1 93
2&6
255

.1‘

..\ \.\ .v.

CHAPTER ONE

LIPPMANN'S EARLY YEARS AND HIS GROWING
AWARENESS OF HUMAN NATURE, 1899-191h
In late July of 191a, Walter Lippmann had finished his
brief tour of Belgium and he looked across the border into
Germany. Lippmann felt great anticipation as he envisioned
a quick trip across Germany that would end in Switzerland
where he would happily walk mountain passes. To his sur-
prise and pique, Lippmann found that the German border was
closed. Belgium and Germany were near war.1
Lippmann, twenty-four years old in the summer of 191k,
intended to enjoy the internn‘before taking a new position.
In the early fall the young journalist would join the edi-
torial staff of a new magazine that was designed to start

" 'little insurrections in the minds of readers.’ "2 The

first issue of ghg_§ew Republic was scheduled for November
of 191k.

Lippmann's early life included a loving family which
consisted of a Jewish-German father, Jacob--a book-loving

mother, Daisy--and an affectionate maternal grandmother.

 

1Walter Lippmann, U.S. Forei Polio : Shield of the
Republic (Boston: LittIe Brown ans Company, 15535, p. IX.

2Gregg M. Campbell, "Walter Lippmann: An Intellectual
and Biographical Analysis of.A figeface t9 Politics"
(unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, university of Minnesota,
1967’s p. 960 1

2

An only child, he was given the best of everything: love,
books, private schools, and European travel. Years later
Lippmann admitted that "it was possible for an.American in
those days to be totally unconscious of the world he lived
in."3 The secure cacoon wound about his early years spared
him the mnpact of many forces that less fortunate youngsters
would experience every day. The horror of broken furniture,
frayed coats, and gray faces lined by life's miseries would
not encroach upon Lippmann's experience until his Harvard
years. Prior to July of 191a, he viewed Europe as a vaca-
tionland.h' But when he stood in the lobby of the House of
Commons on August h, 191k and heard Britain declare war on

Germany, his cacoon of earlier, happy years fell away.5 The
world had impinged upon his private life--in a massive way.

One should not infer, however, that Lippmann experienced
a young life devoid of discipline, ideals, and sensitivity.
His world opened slowly but constantly, and he learned early
to use experience. Although his family adored him, he did
not indulge himself in family protection. He was not sloth-
ful about his school work and activities. He starred as a
‘most capable student at Dr. Julius Sach's private school for

 

3Lippmanntghield of the Republic, p. 1x.
“Francine Curro Cary, The Influence of War on Whlter

LigpmannI 121%-1¥gg (Madison, WIsconsIn: Tfie State fiIstori-
ca Soc ety o W sconsin for the Department of History,
university of Wisconsin, 1967), pp. 2-3.

SLippmann, Shield of the Republic, p. 11:.

3

boys (1896-1906) in New York city. He entered Harvard in
1906 and the next four years proved momentous to Lippmann,
the hard-driving, highly disciplined, and brilliant student.

mring his Harvard years, Lippmann came in contact with
such magnificent minds as William James, George Santayana,
and Graham Wallas. In addition, his classmates included
Heywood Broun, Alan Seeger, Stuart Chase, John Reed, and

7

T. 8. Eliot. Amidst this galaxy of thinkers and thinkers-

to-be, he began to discover new designs of thought and types
of action. His attitudes toward humans began taking differ-
ent shapes as he visited with Professor meritus James and

worked for George Santayana. Probably one of the greatest

intellectual influences on Lippman's life was Graham Wallas'
thinking. Lippmann never became a pragmatist, for Santayana
had talked him out of that, but he became most interested in

intellectual attempts to control man's irrationality.
Lippmann, following Wallas' thinking, believed men's lives

would be battered if they became aware of impulse and

attempted to control it.

 

60arl Binger, "A Child of Enlightenment," Marquis Childs
and James Reston, eds., Walter Li mann and His Times
(New York: Harcourt, Brace, a: 00., 1999). PP. 52-511.

7John Mason Brown, Thro h These Men: Some As ects of
Our Passin Histo (New YorE: Harpers a BrotHers, 1§53L
pe e

8Ibid. , p. 210.

'P

I“

I1

‘4

h
Lippmann's acute interest in attempting to use man's

reason to subdue irrationality and the human pain which it
caused is best demonstrated when.he witnessed the tragic
poverty that a Palm Sunday fire in the Boston slums of
Chelsea drove out onto the streets. He observed, first hand,
a type of life that he had never seen before, and he was
appalled. The irrationality of a national government, rooted
in democracy, allowing these conditions to exist drove him

to help establish the first Socialist Club at Harvard in
1909. He became its president.

Moving away from simply contemplating humanistic consid-
erations and aesthetic values, which.James and Santayana
encouraged, Lippmann found a sympathetic spirit in.Graham
Wallas, who taught as a visiting lecturer at Harvard in 1910.
Wallas had published Human Nature in Politics two years be-
fore his American trip and Lippmann read it. He attended
Wallas' lectures and these inspired him to follow a portion
of the Welles characterization of life: 'man should be the
center of politics but, unfortunately, man was perverse,

illogical, and mercurial.9 However, at age twenty, Lippmann

showed no timidity about attempting to reform mankind's

impulsive habits. With the vision of the Chelsea's bedrag-
gled residents, hopelessly trying to save their pitiful be-
longings frmm fire, Lippmann set out, through the Socialist

Club, to organize a reasonable program that would place

 

9Campbell,;ntellectua1 Analysis, pp. 39-h0.

.nl.\. p 1:

5

man at the center of politics and protect him from himself;

that is, to free the finer instincts.1o

Lippmann soon found great difficulty in sorting among
many critical issues and arriving at two or three major con-
cerns around which he could weave a reasonable program. What
was to become one of his major struggles in his professional
life became an inmediate problem for his reform zeal in 1909.
He had to balance intellect and emotion, for these seemed to

be intricate parts of his social reform.“ He quickly dis-

covered that people were not much interested in saving them-
selves from upulse, let alone spare others.

The young reformer finished his course work at Harvard
in 1909, a year ahead of schedule, and worked for George
Santayana in 1910. In that same year, Lincoln Steffens came
to Harvard looking for a recent graduate who would prove the
muckraker's point that a college trained, bright, young man
could be just as an effective reporter as the old "hard knock"
professionals. Lippmann was his man and he left Boston Common,
a new crusading magazine, to become a "cub" and I'leg man" for
Everybody's magazine. Lippmann would not forget Steffens'
help on his writing style and the lessons learned about

2
reportorial analytical methods that would get results.1 He

 

10mm. p. 33.

 
 

 

“nag” p. uh.

12William E. Leuchtenburg, "Introduction and Notes,"
Walter Lippmann, Drift and Masts An Atte t to Die se
the Current Unres ew ersey:

FMEICO‘EIi, III-0., 19 1), De 2e

6
did well, but boredom set in and the "cub" wanted to move on.
He believed that he had found an opportunity to pursue his
Socialistic ideas when he consented to becoming the executive
secretary to a newly elected Socialist mayor in Schenectady,
New York. In order to leave Everybody's Lippmann gladly
joined the Reverend George Lunn, Schenectady's new head of
city government, in early 1912. He hoped that this New York
city would become a model Socialist town. To his deep dis-
appointment, he found that Lunn, like other mayors, had to
"play politics," and that gas and water rates required much
13

time and discussion. Lippmann found also that to move

public Opinion one must be patient and willing to settle for
small goals. If the public acted at all, it did so slowly.
In May of 1912, he resigned his position to seek seclusion.
Lippmann reached a.major turning point of his life in
the summer of 1912. He found it necessary to retreat to the
Maine woods to read and to think. He had been "politically
active," so to speak, since 1909 when he had helped to found
and direct the Socialist Club at Harvard. He had worked for
the ggston Common, and he had been chosen by Lincoln Steffens
to work for Everybodz's magazine, an important honor for one
so young. He participated in what he assumed would be a
model Socialist city when.he agreed to become Mayor George
Lunn's secretary. By the summer of 1912, Lippman had faced

several political instances of frustration and disappointment.

 

13Campbell, Intellectual Analysis, p. 59.

7
People did not seem to be interested in lives regularly

guided by reason and concern for others. Graham Wallas had
written about men's impulsive behavior and Lippmann recog-
nized the importance of the irrational element. He had hoped
that Socialism with its concern for the welfare of all the
people would find wide acceptance, but now he was ready to
conclude that people cared little about social reform. He
was disappointed too to find that the Socialists themselves
were ill-prepared to lead. They bogged down in menial inter-
ests and lost their vision. Thus, a disillusioned Lippmann
needed a rest from the cares of the world, and he sought
privacy.

While at his retreat in Maine, Lippmann wrote A.Preface
to Politics and it was published the next year, 1913.
Lippmann.had learned to expect public indifference to Amer-
ican political affairs, but he was likewise determined to
try to awaken some to major issues and stimulate them to

111

than cater to worn-out creeds or crusty dogma. But he knew

action. He wanted politics to center on'manfls needs rather

that by keeping man's necessities as the pivot for politics
he was touching a shadowy and dangerously loaded area called
impulse or the irrational. To attempt to form programs that
would last any length of time on the constantly shifting

grounds of man's impulse seemed folly at best.

 

1hBrown, Through These Men, p. 21h.

8
Graham Wallas' influence is seen throughout‘é_greface to
Politics as Lippmann constantly struggled with recognizing
man as a willful animal. He searched for ways to control the
animal's power and turn it into a positive force, a moral
equivalent. Man's myths were expressions of will, Lippmann
contended, and most often man used reason to serve irrational

needs.15 One must recognize individual man's irrationality,

Lippmann argued, and he must also deal with many humans col-

1
lected into a group which eventually formed public opinion. 6

By humans congregating and forming groups, the understanding
and anticipated regulation of their impulses were compounded
many times over.

Lippman.perceived the rapidly changing political, moral,
social, and economic conditions that the twentieth century
brought. He was part of a progressive era that included
Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wulson. He felt, as many of
the progressives did, that man could control his destiny-—at
least the present could be made more comfortable. But most
of all, Lippmann explained, "the measure of our self-
consciousness will more or less determine whether we are to

be the victims or the masters of change."17 In A Preface to

 

15Walter Lippmann, A Preface to Politics (1913; rat.
Ann Arbor, Michigan: UnIversIty o? RIcEIgan Press, 19 2),
pp. 173 and 17?.

16Ibid., p. 77.

17Ibid., p. 237

I.

9
Politics, the twenty-three year old writer placed strong
faith in an individual called a statesman. The statesman
accepted human nature as it was, and noted that much of

‘man's behavior was impulsive and irrational.18 The states-

man would be the one who helped to make man self-conscious
and who would guide humans toward a better life.

Seemingly, a human facing the unthinking behavior of
man might feel that his task of overwhelming impulse would
be nearly insurmountable. But Lippmann and his statesman
figure opted for an ordered existence. The statesman would
be an intermediary between the people and the experts. The
latter were to be trained formally as scientists, industrial
organizers, engineers, architects, and educators who pro-

19

vided direction and organization for the people. The

statesman would help the people recognize issues and trigger
their hope for a brighter tomorrow. At the same time, he

kept the experts atune to the people's major needs.20 In

effect, the statesman became a catalyst who mixed the peeple
and the experts, and that mix would be constructive by meet-
ing serious human needs constantly.

Lippmann's ideal, then, was to expose that which seemed
to be the basic energy of mankind: impulse, irrationality.

 

18Ib16e , pe Zane

19Ibid., p. 225.

2°Ib1d., p. 188.

10
By exposing it, man would attempt to clarify its major out-
lines. At best, humans would come to understanding about
their individual or group motives, and set out to make them
more reasonable. In.A_§£eface to Politics, he placed great
responsibility upon the statesman who delineated need, gath-

ered power, and encouraged an ordered existence.21

When‘é_§reface to Politics was published in January of
1913, it caused some stir in intellectual circles. In Au-
gust of 1913, one reviewer expressed great faith in Lippmann's
righteousness: the young author urged incentives for right
conduct.22 The next month an unsigned review in The Nation
scathed Lippmann for "his rather juvenile and cocksure pro-

23

nouncmments on such things as art, morals, and religion."

Graham Wallas was deeply disturbed by his former student's
first attempt at extended political analysis. Wallas devoted
the preface of his next book, The Great Society_(191h) to

 

 

Lippmann:
PREFACE
Dear Walter Lippmann,
This book develops the material of
that discussion-course ("Government 31")
which you joined during my stay at Harvard
in the spring of 1910.
1
2 Ibide, pe 226a
22

Wallace Rice, rev. of Walter Lippmann, A Preface to
Politics (1913), Dial, SS, 16 August 1913, p. 115.

23222.!22E22; 97. 11 September 1913. p. 2A2.

'1?

li’.’

lr'

/,(.'

11

Now that the book is finished, I
can see, more clearly than I could while
I was writing it, what it is about; and in
particular what its relation is to my
Human Nature in Politics (1908). I may,
EEerefore, say brIefly that the earlier
book was an analysis of representative
government, which turned into an argument
against nineteenth-century intellectualism;
and that this book is an analysis of the
general social organization of a large
modern state, which has turned, at times,
into an argument against certain forms of
twentieth-century anti-intellectualimm.

I send it to you in the hope that it
may be of some help when you write that sequel
to your Preface to Politics for which all your
friends are looking.--

Sincerely yours ,

GRAHAM WALLAS.2h
Obviously, Wallas experienced some guilt about leading

Lippmann toward what his former mentor thought was a danger-
ous degree of anti-intellectualism.

Lippmann left the Maine woods and its seclusion.
Especially, after the publication of A Preface tofigplitics,
he had signaled that his retreat was over and successful.

He stood ready, once again, to enter the arena where every-
day life engaged ideals. Through Lincoln Steffens, he joined
a group that met weekly at Mable Dodge's Fifth Avenue resi-
dence in New York. Its clientele included artists, musicians,
and intellectuals. Here he had the pleasure of contact with
other Socialists and likewise with.men who had other intel-
lectual interests. Lippman's zest for close reason and tight

organization bridled at free-flowing discussions that touched

 

2""Graham'Wallas, The Great Societ : A Ps cholo ical
Analysis (191h; rpts New v5.2: r5. MachIIan Co., 15215, p. v.

2"

In!

:1-

‘1

12
upon.many subjects during an evening. He suggested to
Miss Dodge, in February of 1913, that each meeting have a
theme such as magazine evening or psychoanalytic evening.

2
She agreed reluctantly. 5

Idppmann's commitment to public involvement increased
as the winter of 1913 turned toward spring. He continued
to read, however, and Henri Bergson, Frederick Nietsche, and
Georges Sorel received much of his attention. He regularly
attended the Dodge salon, and this kept him in contact with
"Movers and Shakers" (Dodge's phrase for those who attended
her salon), especially Socialists. He took part in labor
demonstrations and wrote for The Masses.26 Although he was
becoming increasingly wary of Socialists, he joined "Big
Bill" Haywood, Lincoln Steffens, and Emma Goldman in speech-
‘making at Rutgers Square. They spoke in behalf of Frank
Tennenbaum, a young radical of the day, who had been arrested
in early 1913 for leading unemployed to churches and demand-
ing housing}7

In that same year, 1913, Herbert Croly--reformer and
author of a recent book‘ghg_§romise of American Life (1909)--

approached Lippmann and asked him to become one of the

 

25Ma‘ble Dodge Luhan, Movers and Shakers: volume Three
of Intimate Memories (New Yer: Harcourt, Brace & 50., 1956),

197—9?

26Lippmann, Drift and Mastegy (Leuchtenburg), p. A.

27Campbell, Intellectual Analysis, p. 95.

13
co-editors of a yet unnamed magazine. Lippmann accepted
and in addition to himself and Croly--Walter Weyl (a fellow
progressive and author), Francis Hackett who would become
literary editor, and Philip Littell (a close friend and
Harvard contemporary of Croly's) made up the first board of
editors. The Willard Straights financed and helped direct
the periodical's future. Straights' strong belief in
America's promise led the young banker-diplomat and his wife
to support generously the new publication.

What was to become The New Republic with its first
'magazine on November 7, 191k also represented to Welter
Lippmann another opportunity to clarify issues and to help
solve human problems. In 1913 and 191k he and the other N23;
Republic editors worked at framing the reform and liberal
philosophy which their magazine would represent. Herbert
Croly and Walter Weyl had been in the vanguard of a political
movement that came to national prominence with the presi-

28
dential election of WOodrow Wilson in 1912. The progres-
sives, disappointed in President William Howard Taft's

seeming lack of executive concern about progressive issues,
looked forward to the leadership of Wbodrow Wilson. Croly's
The Promise of American Life (1909) and Weyl's New Democracy

(1912) gave continued intellectual life to the progressive

 

28Walter Lippmann, "Notes for a Biography," The New
Republic, 63, 16 July 1930, p. 250.

11+
‘movement, and The New Republic would keep the reform banner
high. Lippmann happily joined such a dynamic and hopeful
group.
Beforeighe New Republic's first publication reached its
readers, Lippmann had published his second book. Drift and
Mastegy: An Attempt to Diagnose the Current Unrest (191k).

2
He emphasized the impact of industrialimm on society. 9 But

a second and very important theme of Drift and Mastery,showed
Lippmann.attsmpting to soften A Preface to Politics. The idea
of throwing off secure traditions like laissez faire capi-
talism and nineteenth century liberalism scared some thinkers,
and‘yrift and Mastery proved to be Lippmann's attempt to
alleviate intellectual fears.

In broader terms, Drift and Mastq y revealed Lippmann's
philosophical wrestling with compromise and circumstances.

Lippmann characterized the modern.world, especially the

united States, as one where humans were all immigrants.

Industrial society had uprooted traditional authority.3O

Inherent within.America's modern society were terrors, mostly
subjective, that might paralyze constructive action unless

issues were clarified and programs adopted. He found rebels

 

29Lippmann, Drift and Mastery (Leuchtenburg), p. 13.

30Lippmann,_Drift and Mastery, p. 118.

1S
forgetting their purpose and yelling what they were not.
He saw people struggling daily to be somebody, and concluded

that humans had become victims of their own weaknesses.31
Lippmann severely criticized Woodrow Wilson, for the

new president--as things turned out-~represented the old
liberalism. The President, Lippmann argued, wanted a
"nation of villagers." Wilson wished to destroy trusts and
re-establish business where competition kept all concerned
honest. He contended that Wilson had forgotten the evils

of the past.32 At the same time the Socialists received
Lippmann's sharp criticism. The Socialists, he charged,
were trying to redmake America into the Europe of 1850. By
doing so, they ignored America's contemporary circumstances.
The Socialists, according to Lippmann, failed to deal with
33

American trusts, unions, and foreign policy.

Idppmann cautioned reformers that if they succeeded in
destroying large portions of a society's tradition, they
must be prepared for immediate substitution for that tradi-
tion. All too often, Lippmann contended in yrift and Mastery,
liberals or reformers neglected to think through a philosOphy

and plan of action that would move a nation forward. They

 

311b1de: PP. 137-139.
321bid., p. 8h.

33Ib1d., p. 167.

16
often concentrated too heavily on rejecting what existed.

Thus, when reformers' plans succeeded, they might create

31+

Lippmann reaffirmed that man's affairs could be ordered

drift, and chaos would be near.

to some degree--even in the face of a modern world that per-
petually changed. He continued to recognize man's irration-
ality and the struggle that went on in men and among others,
the most salient and continuous aspect of which.was that of
emotion and intellect vying for dominance. He recognized
these elements as the possible‘major causes for Nmerica's
unrest. But, he argued, Americans were fortunate to live in
a democratic society where wrong was not a matter of life or
death, but a difference between better and worse.35 He re-
turned to the past, which muet have pleased some of his
critics, and found that the present was temporary and that

6
others had made mistakes as well.3

To Lippmann mastery meant that one substituted
3?

"conscious intention for unconscious striving.” He wrote:

"Search the world as we find it, extricate the forces that

seem to move it, and surround them with criticism and

"38

suggestion. The only hope for world unity or America's

 

3""libid., pp. 2k and 126.
35It:id., p. 62.
36Ibid., p. 162.

37Ibid., p. we.

331b1d., p. 18.

17
peace, as he saw it, lay in a method rather than a set of
goals. The method included intellect, reason, criticism,
analysis, and synthesis. He declared that reflection was
the beginning of control and that other attributes would
39

follow as they led one toward mastery.

Yet, he was not prepared to be content with merely a
scientific approach to understanding and directing society.
He contended that man must couple scientific method to a
‘morality that supported acceptable human aotion--rather than
use moral codes which told people what was wrong. Science
alone could not serve as the dynamic; reform relied on

no

Lippmann did not turn away from the statesman figure

emotional appeals.

that he portrayed in A Preface to Politics. He saw the
statesman in‘grift and Mastery_direoting peeple to fine
living: "to live ready, to lighten experience by a knowl-
edge of its alternatives, to let no fact be opaque, but to

make what happens transparent with the choices it offers.”u1

The statesman continued to be a clarifier of issues, an
awakener of men's potential, and a critic who tempered
emotion with intellect and who softened intellect with

emotion.

”01b1d., pp. 152-156.

u‘;bid., p. 17h.

18

Lippmann's early years encompassed the change of
centuries. American life, for those financially secure,
in the 1890's and into the first dozen years of the
twentieth-century provided an exciting and hopeful time.
Industrialism stimulated material abundance beyond dreams.
Inventions tmbled into existence one on top of the other.
Cities grew and frontiers closed. The American spirit seemed
to be caught up in material progress that meant comfort and
no end of confidence for the rich and well-born. American
nationalism became sharply evident when the united States
decided in the spring of 1898 to save Cubans from Spanish
domination. cubs, the Philippines, and other Caribbean and
Pacific islands came under America's mbrella of protection
by 1903, and the thited States officially became an empire.

Lippmann wrote, in retrospect, that in addition to this
era of the fin de siecle being easy years for one to be
unconscious of his times, he suply failed to grasp the con-
sequences of the Spanish-American war. As a child of nine,
he had been excited by Admiral George Dewey's victory in
Manila Bay. He read eagerly of America's win in the Battle
of Santiago, and he had learned from his grandfather that
wherever the American flag was planted, "there tyranny must

disappear."u2 After college and much reading about public
affairs, he "remained quite innocent of any understanding

 

thippmann, Shield of the ggpublic, p. viii.

19
of the Spanish.American her." In fact, he came out of
college in 1910 thinking that Theodore Roosevelt was a
bit eccentric. "He kept harping on the Panama Canal and

the navy." Lippmann felt that the money spent for canals
1L3

Lippmann arrived at a phiIOSOphy early in his career

and navies would be better spent on schoolhouses.

which, in the words of Oliver Hendell Holmes, held that all
of life was an experiment. He learned from experience and
he generally proved unafraid to change his position when
facts dictated rearrangement. His Chelsea fire experience
urged him.toward Socialism, but by the late fall of 191k he
had decided that Socialists would not meet America's needs
and he dropped them completely. William James, George
Santayana, and Graham Wallas reaffirmed his belief that
life could be lived reasonably, but it was Hallas who helped
Lippmann see that man's nature thrived on the irrational.
It was wallas, in Human Nature in Politics, who suggested
that the irrational could be put to constructive use, if
prOperly served and guided. Wallas triggered Lippmann's
thinking about man's condition and how to improve it.

During the Roosevelt and Taft administrations, Lippmann
endeavored to formulate a philosOphy and plan of action
that placed man's nature and his finer instincts side by

side. He was fortunate to live in a reform era where

 

“3mm. , p. viii.

20

thought and action supported, and sometimes stimulated,
his thinking and projected plans. Lippmann's faith in
himself and man, in general, sustained his idealism when
seeming dilemmas meant sure destruction of any program
that would attempt to include reason, emotion, and imagi-
nation in controlled doses. He participated weakly in the
arena from thme to time, but it became obvious that his
real niche would be in the tower where he could observe,
think, and write without the clamor and dust of daily
political demands and frustration. Lippmann needed the
quiet and distance that an observer's post supplied. At
the same time, however, he realized the need to be heard
and considered if he were to have a modicum of influence.

Lippmann's Joining the editorial staff of The New
Republic in 1913 was not unpredictable, but it proved to
be a major change in his intellectual stance. He had Joined
the respectable reformers. The progressives did not intend
to change America's basic governmental or economic insti-
tutions. They wanted a more equitable distribution of the
wealth that seemed to stick at the top and failed to trickle
down. The respectable Willard Straights provided sub-
stantial funds to get the new publication started, and
its editorial staff was hardly filled with "wild-eyed
radicals." The New Republic provided Lippmann with the
beginnings of an effective attachment to national, and

eventually international, power.

21

The beginning of the Great war forced New Republic
editors to consider new priorities. To move the under-
standing and attempted control of man's nature from an
American setting to a world surrounding presented giant
challenges to progressives and especially to Lippmann's
statesman figure who extolled scientific method. Graham
wallas had warned Lippmann in 1910 that a "great war might
soon break out and that if it did, it would probably
smoulder on for thirty years." Lippman remembered that
prediction and he doubted then that the war ”would ever

touch me or Jeopardize the interests of the country."uu

Lippmann discovered to his dismay that the war came, and

that it did, indeed, touch him and America's interests.

 

11314., p. IXe

CHAPTER TWO

LIPPMANN'S ATLANTIC: FROM HOAT TO HIGHWAY;-
ADGUST, 191k TO JUNE, 1917

With the war's beginning in August of 191k, The New
Republic's staff "had to improvise a new philosophy on very
short notice." In.the first issue, which appeared on.No-
vember 7, Herbert Croly, its senior editor, declared that
American isolation was over and that American.neutrality
"was played out." He suggested further "that under certain
circumstances, such as the threat of German.victory, it
would be necessary for Naerica to enter the war.” Halter
Lippmann agreed.1

Lippmann.had written previously in‘ppgreface to_§glitics
and Drift and Hastepz of a statesman figure who clarified
issues, gathered power, and urged intellect's control of
irrationality. At age twenty-five in the fall of 191k, it
may have come to Lippmann‘s attention that he might have to
assume the statesman's role. For the war created a need for
one who could identify and help resolve the numerous and comp
plex.issues it had produced. The New Republic served as one
of his major instruments for defining issues and for awakening

 

251L1ppmann’ "Notes for a Biography," The New Republic,
pe e

22

23
man's potential to control irrational behavior. Prom
lovember of 1911.. to June of 1917, Lippmann struggled with
collective emotionalism that war visited, and the young
Journalist began a life's career of influencing national
leaders who could curb destructive impulses of interna-
tional scope.

The New Republic's editors, especially Lippmann, seemed
confused in the fall and early winter of 1911;. Their edi-
torial convictions espoused a ”policy of nonpartisan activity,
a policy of refusing to state problems in terms of black and
white, a policy of starting 'little insurrections in the
minds of readers' ....They believed in rational planning and
control of the future. "2 But war overwhelmed their thinking.

Has not violence, especially violence among nations, a mas-
sive breakdown in reason? Lippmann showed despair in the
charter issue of The New Republic. He found the war in
Europe engulfing the ”reality of a nation," and he asserted
dismally that "to live finely (was) a derelect hope.”
Lippmann declared, however, true to 19]! Republic philosophy,
that "the best argument against cannon is ideas." He re-
mained aloof from the war, and urged America to avoid the
horror of blindly stumbling into unnecessary violence.3

2David w. Noble, The Paradox of Pro ssive The t
(ninneapolis: University of 11:35.05. Press, W555, pp. 5

and 37.

 

3Ualter Lippmann, "Force and Ideas," The New Rfiublic,
7 November 19114 in Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., e ., I

er
Li ann: Earl Writi s (New York: Liverright Pu shing
Corporation, ”$57, pp. t—S.

2h
Preoccupied with logic and reason, Lippmann shunned the

realities of war and asked philosophical questions: Hhat does
it mean to be aggressive? what is a war for freedom? What

does it mean to be a chosen race?h Aumonth later he continued
to concern himself with matters other than the critical, prac-

tical problems of the day. He worried about the future and
how peace could be made secure. Lippmann contended that
Germany, Russia, and Japan should be democratised. Of cen-
tral importance to understanding their aggression was the
failure of these nations to respect the worth and dignity of
human life. Democracies did not have correct answers to all
problems, but they had high regard for the individual and
invested.more in each life than did non-democratic nations.

If lives were valued more highly by all people, wrote Lippmann,
war would seem senseless and national economies would support

5

social reformumore than war. Unlike his co-editors who had
written the previous week that "a nation does not commit the
great sin.when it fights. It commits the great sin when it

fights for a bad cause," Lippmann had decided for the moment

to stay above the flurry of war's arena.6

 

hLipmann, "Defining Terms,” The New Republic, 21
November 91h.in Schlesinger, p. 7.

5Lippmann, "Life is Cheap," The New Re ublic, 19
December 191k in Schlesinger, pp. 17-1§.

6Noble, Paradox of Progressive Thopgp , p. 38.

25

A Lippmann "acquaintance,” John Reed--also a traveling
revolutionarynhad returned to the mited States in the fall
of 19114.. He and Lippmann had been classmates at Harvard and
they extended their sometime friendship after graduation.
Reed, who had Just visited Europe and experienced the begin-
nings of Norld War I, looked forward to the first issue of
The New Republic. He had his doubts about a collective be-
lief that its editors shared, for Reed unlike Croly, Lippmann,
or Neyel-u-"had a strong sense of the fallibility of human

”7 He read the first few issues and concluded that

reason.

The New Repuplic's editors were confused about the war. They

seemed to stay above the human condition and wrote logically.8
But there was a time in those confusing and critical

months of late 1911; when Lippmann aimed specifically at

President Woodrow Wilson's actions toward the belligerents.

In the November 21 issue of Mw Republic, he found

Wilson's neutrality to be timid. He felt that since Germany

, had overrun neutral Belgium on August 3, that the United

States should live up to its Hague Convention comitments

and back its words with force. By force, Lippmann meant

that the united States should use diplomatic leverage and

world opinion to stop Germany's aggression. The young

 

7Granville Hicks with the assistance of John Stuart,
John Reed- The Haki of a Revolutions (1936; rpt:
New York: Einflamin Siam, 19585, p. 171.

8:916” p. 172.

26
Journalist feared that America's good intentions would be
doubted internally unless the nation was willing to risk

enforcement procedures. 9

Lippmann attacked Wilson on similar grounds of good
intentions when the President broke diplomatic precedent
by refusing to recognise as 9; Mg president Nexico's
new dictator, General Victorians Huerta. Wilson declared
that Huerta did not have the Mexican people's support.
America became deeply involved in Mexico's domestic situ-
ation and Lippmann wrote in November of 19111- that Wilson
was well intentioned--but intentions were not enough for
a sound policy. The young Journalist declared that "Hr.
Wilson has no Mexican policy, yet Nr. Wilson had inter-

fered in Mexico.“0 Thus, Lippmann indicted Wilson: he

was too timid toward Europe's affairs and he interfered too
much in Nexico.

In those dreary late months of 1911+. one sees Lippmann
struggling with himself to compose a consistent and effec-
tive view of the war's belligerents. To be a man of peace
who must advocate violence to maintain a nation's security
must have been an awful situation. As John Reed suggested,
to adhere to ideas while facing the mouths of smoking cannon

 

9Lippmann, "Timid Neutrality,” The New B ublic,
21 November 1911..., in Schlesinger, pp. 15-13.

1°Lippmann, ”Vera Cruz,” The New Re ublic, 21 November
1911;, in Schlesinger, p. 10.

27
seemed unreal. But as Lippmann saw it--to use out-and-out
violence, a breakdown in reason, to achieve peace seemed
equally unreal. Lippmann.and most of EggNew'Republic's
editors were not pacifists, but neither were they mili-
tarists. They felt there was such a thing as "Just force"
but they also advocated "activism, internationalism, cone

scious control and cooperation."11 Lippmann.wanted neutral-
ity in the first months of the war, but he obviously felt

Germany was wrong when it invaded Belgium. He urged diplo-
‘matic corrective measures. Perhaps there existed a moderate,
civil use of force that would not destroy the delicate fabric
of thought that it had taken nations years to sew.

As long as the war in Europe remained a land war,
Americans could safely stay above the conflict and be gen-
erally protected by the Atlantic moat.12 But as belligerents

vied for America's business and trade, control of the sea
lanes became crucial. Initially, England's sea power appeared
to be the most capable of the belligerents to transport and
protect needed supplies to Great Britain from the united
States. American neutrality became increasingly difficult

as the months sped by and 191h.turned to 1915. The British

 

11The New Re ublic, 12 December 1911;, p. 7 in Noble,
Paradox of Progregiifie'Thopgpt, p. 38.

12

Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson- A Brief Bio re
(1936: rpt: Chicago: QuadIangIe Books, 19721, pp. 51-55.

28
wanted trade to the Central Powers restricted and the
Central Powers wanted the Allies cut off from the Atlantic
life-line. The British mined the North Sea in late 191k
and early 1915, and the Germans announced submarine warfare
on February h, 1915. The Atlantic moat had become a high-
way that could fatten America's economic coffers and likewise
bring the united States closer to the cataclysm.

Lippmann wrote frequently for The New Republic in 1915.
Most of his articles, however, concerned domestic affairs.
SubJects such as Freud, Rockefeller, and John.Reed received
note. His foreign policy comments were the basis of a book
that he published in the fall.

During the writing of The Stakes of Diplomacz, there
was much grist for Lippmann's mill. Germany's submarine
warfare had proved to be effective. Allied ships went down
with regularity and aboard some of those doomed vessels,~
American.passengers died. The Allies announced a total
blockade of the Central Powers on.Narch 1, and the united
States found neutrality even.more precarious. When a German
UHboat sank the Lusitania on Ray 7, American public opinion
became more united--against Germany. over one thousand
people died in the Irish Sea as the msitania slipped to the
bottom, and of these one thousand--one hundred and twenty-
four were Americans. The Lusitania's sinking made total war,
that which affected women and children, sharply visible to

1
Americans for the first time. 3

 

13mm. , p. 91..

29

By the fall of 1915 when The Stakes of Diplomacz first
appeared, Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan had
resigned and Robert Lansing, a former counsel to the State
Department, had become the new Secretary. Wilson's position
toward German underwater warfare had stiffened, and the
Arabic pledge gladdened American hearts. Germany's declara-
tion of September 1 promised to warn and evacuate passenger

1
liners before they were torpedoed. 1+
Huch of Lippmann's fall publication which was the result

of nearly a year's analysis of American foreign policy
looked to the future. The young analyst contended that the
maJor weakness of world diplomacy lay in its weak states.
If only nations such as Africa, Turkey, China, portions of
Latin Imerica and the Balkans could be strengthened. Should
they gain enough power to fend for themselves, then their
cheap labor, raw materials, and political inexperience would
not lure maJor powers to their borders.

Lippmann recognized in Mtakes of Diplomacl that
the core of nations seeking overseas expansion rested on a
nation's flag following its merchants' trade. The usual
pattern of imperialism, according to Lippmann, was that
financial groups entered a weak state, set up "national
interests," and expected protection for their endeavors.

The weak state proved incapable of defending international

 

u'lbid. , p. 96.

30
concerns within its borders, and the businessmen then turned
to their home government. Patriotic demands with profit
bases prodded the home government to help its merchants and

political control of the weak state followed.1s Somehow,
Lippmann argued, world diplomacy must seek to organise
virgin territory and backward people. They must be made

16
strong enough to avoid being exploited.
Unfortunately for Lippmann, his analysis of problems

in world diplomacy faced serious difficulties. The grave
questions of who should intervene, how should intervention
be accomplished and for what reasons, appeared to be un-
answerable. He had cited previously in The Stakes of
Diplomacy and other writings the importance of emotion in
hmsan relations. To allow an open door solution for equal
intervention in virgin territory, Lippmann suggested, seemed
to ignore various self-interests that intervening nations
would bring to a weak state. Lippmann realized, as well,
that organizations such as The Hague and diplomatic proce-
dures such as arbitration would have little constructive
influence on strengthening weak states, and they surely

1
had not worked in the past. 7

 

15Lippmann, The Stakes of m lomac (New York:
Henry Holt and Company, , pp. and 159.

1615111., ppe 87-88 and 166e

ӣ2159," pp- 1311-135.

31

Lippmann recommended, finally, that in order for world
diplomacy to solve the task of obtaining permanent peace,
that nations would have to be less nationalistic. They
should use international forces like finance, comerce,
labor, science, and human sympathy to diminish sovereignty
and to weaken separatism. He urged that people be educated
away from national loyalties and be encouraged to embrace
federal citizenship. He saw democracies leading other world
governments to a more ecuuencial and sympathetic view of the

18
human condition. In effect, Lippmann sought a balance of

needs and wants among the world's powers.

True to himself and to New Republic editorial beliefs,
Lippmann's The Stakes of Diplomagy had looked ahead, beyond
war, and proJected a planned future based on the maJor
serious problem of world diplomacy. By sorting among issues
that flooded American leaders in 1911;. and 1915, he served as
a shadow to the statesman that he found important in Preface
to Politics and mift and Naste_r;. His idea of a supreme
cause of the world's unsettled condition and plan to soothe
the uneasiness helped to preserve his and his co-editors'
ideas that human reason might organize the world into a less
abrasive situation. Thus, The §takes of Diplomacz gave
Lippmann the opportunity to stay above the fray, once again,
and look off into the distanceu-hoping for a world free of

war .

 

1erid., pp. 189 and 228.

32
The Stakes of Diplomacz scrutinized the plight that war

had brought to America's diplomacy, and characterized the
tremendous power that an American president possessed as
director of the nation's foreign affairs. Lippmann described
the Chief Executive's control over the country's collective
emotion. The President could stimulate American public
opinion to flow into traditional foreign policy molds by
using phrases such as ”The Nonroe Doctrine," "The Open Door,"
or “No Entangling Alliances." Wilson chose not to excite

the press toward patriotism. A year prior to publication,
Lippmann had chastised Wilson for not backing treaty com-
mitments, but in his latest book he showed admiration for

the President's restraint in not triggering public emotion
over the guitania's sinking.19 He had kept the united
States out of war.

Lippmann's New Republic articles on foreign policy
appeared again in December of 1915. He faced squarely prob-
lems that confronted America's efforts to remain neutral.

At home, he recognised political power that German-Americans
wielded. Germany, he wrote, knew that Americans could not
speak as one voice, and they had counted on this happening.
Lippmann deplored America's internal tolerance of varying
opinions in time of war. He asserted in an unusually harsh

 

191.1 "Timid Neutrality,” The New Re ublic,
21 November 1911. in Schlesinger, 1). TM . L ppmann,
itakes of Diploma cl, pp. 20 and 2K.

33
dictm that a policy of "coercive Americanisaticn” should
be used. Lippmann continued his Realpolitik mood by de-
claring that the United States had "no consistent foreign
policy and no consistent nationalism." Foreign policy had
varied as situations arose and American nationalism was

Just raw material ready to be used.20

The New Republic editor blanched, however, when
Ralph Barton Perry--a philosopher at Harvard and close
friend of William James--had accused The New Republic of
being pro-German and that the new Journal had failed to
deal with war guilt. Lippmann dismissed the charges as
”nonsense," pointing out that the immediate cmcern of
The New Republic was the world' s postwar structure. Lippmann
argued that hatred was a luxury, ”a refuge of those who are

too angry to think. ”21 By contemplating the future and the
conditions of peace after the war, one might avoid unpre-

ductive debates over relatively uninsportant issues.

Lippmann repeated his earlier condemnation of what
he called President wilson's "timid neutrality," but he
offered nothing in the way of constructive alternatives.
He noted that the closing days of 1915 found Americans un-
easy and uncertain about the nation's policies. The country,
he said, moved in fits and starts-~"rattle the saber-”turn

 

2"Lip "Hyphens and Frontiers, " The New Republic,
1; December 1915, 5, pp. 116-117.

21Lippmann,"Are He Pro-German,“ The New Re ublic, 18
December 1915 in Schlesinger, pp. 23-25.

311
the cheek.“ In pursuing neutrality the President has ex-

pected us ”to feel and feel and feel and never to use that
feeling is to grow distracted and worrisome, and to no
end.” President Hilson was not providing leadership,
Lippmann declared, and it was high time that he rally the

nation and do something.22
During Lippmann's first year of examining America's

foreign relations, he exemplified a young thinker struggling
with what was and what ought to be. war, of course, in-
creased the pressures that crises create, and Lippmann-«mot
unpredictably, attempted to stay above the storm. He sought
to apply reason to problems that stimulated hulans to destroy
one another in an organized and massive way. then consider-
ing daily difficulties which faced national leaders, he
became realistic. America ought to back its international
commitments with pressure diplomacy. She should not make
agreements if she intended no enforcement risks. America
ought to squelch its own dissenters during wartime, and the
nation's leaders should take advantage of an unused nation-
alism. Above all, the President should lead the country to-
ward somethingo-the people needed an emotional rallying point.
Lippmann's brand of statesmanship became pronounced in
19114 and 1915 when he considered what ought to be. His cool
light of reason shone brightly as he sorted among international

 

ZZLippmann, "Messy America," The New Republic, 25
December 1915, 5, pp. 195-196.

35
issues, found what he considered to be the key problem,
and then proposed a solution. His idealism for the future
contrasted darkly with his Realpolitik methods for daily
conflicts. To be overwhelmed by war and its tearing of a
nation's delicate fabric of thought, and then to advocate a
"coercive Americanisation" and manipulation of unused
patriotism seems to come from a man who did not tolerate
obstacles to his dream of a frictionless world. His tol-
erance ended when.he turned his eyes from the future and
looked at the gory present.

Hith.the ideal of liberal elements providing a brave
new world, The New Rgpublic began 1916 with.h0pe. Its
editors, along with thinkers from England and France, sup-
ported international cooperation and began seeing countries
bordering the Atlantic as a center for the new world order.
Hflth the ocean.providing transportation and communication to
‘most of the world's liberal governments, a new international

23

organization did not seem out of reach.

War events and diplomatic maneuvering occupied Ubodrow
Wilson. He persisted in mediating attempts through 1915
and 1916. For his efforts, he received a sharp reaction
from the Allies: Wilson's mediation and their war aims did
not match. The momentary victory signaled by the Sussex
pledge heartened the President and Americans in general, but

23Noble, Paradox of Progressive Thopgpt, p. no.

36
this May h, 1916 declaration soon gave way to war's neces-
sities. In a speech of may 27, 1916, to The League to
Enforce Peace, the President made the momentous pronounce-
ment that the united States was ready "to abandon its
historic isolation.and Join in.postwar League of Nations
to prevent aggression and war." Be especially asked in the
same speech that the British lead the belligerents to media-

tion in.order that the new League get under way.2h

Lippmann extolled the President's announcement of
America's willingness to Join a League of Nations. The
Journalist had been asking for a rallying point and consid-
erations for the future, and Wilson's declaration provided
both. An unusual circumstance preceded the President's
speech. Lippmann, in an unsigned New Republic article, had
made ”An.Appeal to the President" on.April 22. He had argued
that neutrality had never been genuine. He asked how the
Allies would make Germany keep its promises after the
Teutons had been beaten into the ground, and he wondered
prophetically if the united States would be willing to tie
itself to the Allies and their peace.25

‘ Soon after Wilson had announced that America would
abandon its "historic isolation" Lippmann.wrote happily

 

2I'l'Idnk, Wilson: Brief Biogpaphy, p. 103.

25Lippmann, "An Appeal to the President," The New
Rgpublic, 22 April 1916 in Schlesinger, pp. 31-33.

37
that the President's "offer to Join in a guaranty of the
world's peace opens up the possibility of a quick and
moderate peace.” He saw Wilsonls offer as a first move

26

toward war's end. Lippmann's April appeal had been

answered.

But all was not well. France and England had been
Joined by Italy and Japan. The NewPRepublic expressed
frustration toward the latter two nations Joining the
liberals' cause to create a new world. Neither Italy nor
Japan were liberal and they would not help world develop-

ment.27 Wilson faced an election in 1916 and he knew that
he would have to avoid war and yet be ready if it came.

The President decided that the way to avoid neutrality's

pitfalls and war's increased "no-holds barred" approach was

to end the conflict.28 unfortunately, the British turned

down Wilson's mediation.proposal that he had made in the
spring. The Allies were more confident of a victory, and
Germany occupied too much of Europe to begin a settlement.

2
Wilson.was gravely disappointed. 9

 

26Lippmann, “Mr. Wilson's Great Utterance," The New

Republic, 3 June 1916 in Schlesinger, pp. hO-h1.
27

 

Noble, giradox.cf Progressive Thepgpt, p. h1.

28Link, Wilson: ggrief Biograppy, pp. 105-109.

29Ibid., p. 103.

38

Lippmann remained mindful of the various currents of
hope and despair that crisscrossed the Atlantic in 1916.

His appreciation of Wilson's abandonment of strict neue
trality did not raise false hopes that belligerents would
crowd around the peace table. Lippmann believed each side
would wait for the best possible military, economic, and
political conditions before asking for war's end.

In the summer of 1916, Lippmann spoke before the
Twentieth Annual Conference of The American Academy of
Political and Social Science. He was one of several par-
ticipants and they were to address themselves to the rela-
tionship between preparedness and foreign policy. For the
most part, he summarized The Stakes of Diplomggl, but Lippmann
emphasized a different idea about the path to the new liberal
world order. He noted that "a world of stable, autonomous,
interdependent democracies acting as the guardian of less
developed peoples" would depend upon "the cOOperation.of
the United States and Great Britain.” He explained further
that America's future was wrapped up in sea power and that
Germany's present threat to that power was intolerable.30

Lippmann continued toward more realistic methods that
would accomplish what he hoped would be a war-free world.31

 

30Walter Lippmann, "What Program Shall the Uhited States
Stand for in International Relations?" The tAnnals of the

American.Academy of Political and Socialt Science, LXVI
y 9 pp. 3- e

31

 

ide, ppe 66-67.

39
He did not deal with neutrality as an abstract legal term;
rather, he preferred to see it as a practical instrument
of America's staying out of war. He now decried emphasis
on neutral rights as a way of maintaining neutrality, and
favored asserting neutral rights in such a way as to aid
the Allies and help them win. He had recognized, as had the
President, that Germany could win the war in 1916 and that
such a victory would seriously endanger American interests
and security. Lippmann felt, as Wilson.obviously did, that
an open Atlantic and control of its sea lanes were two
essentials that Americans could not ignore. Thus, by the
summer of 1916, a central feature of Lippmann's diplomatic
proposals was an.Anglo-American entente based upon the
mutual interests of the two countries.32

Six months later, Lippmann and The New Republic became
displeased with and a little suspicious of the Allies,
England in particular. Lippmann declared in August that
British and Americans had been together, but since then.
they had grown apart. "More and more war has ceased to
look like a clean-cut fight between right and wrong, between
democracy and absolutism, between.public faith and inter-
national lawlessness." He accused the Allies of not stating
their war aims. He wrote that the united States and England
were historically entangled and that both countries had

 

32Ibid., pp. 68-70.

52

-Cl

-1'

[a

a

ho
experienced a love-hate relationship. They were both.bound
up in common destinies, and they needed more than ever, a
basis for understanding.33 Lippmann's colleagues were even
more severe, charging that in.prosecuting the war the Allies
aimed more at influencing the balance of power than defeat-

ing the Germans.3h
Lippmann's obvious attempt to clarify and solidify

Anglo-American relations in December of 1916 underlined the
importance that he gave to America's future lying in sea
power. Without British friendship and naval force, control
of the Atlantic would be nearly hopossible. The young
Journalist kept the vision of a friction-free world in front
of him and in 1916 he thought the most appropriate route to
hds ideal was through control of the Atlantic Ocean. His
New Republic colleagues were not as kind to Great Britain
or her allies, whom they believed were attempting to redress
the balance of power in their favor, and so re-establish
pro-World War I conditions that had culminated in the Great
Her.

To make things worse for Lippmann followers, the German
government announced on December 12, 1916 that it was ready

to negotiate an end to the war. Germany recognised the rift

 

33Lippmann, "BritishrAmerican Irritation," The New
Republic, 9 December 1916 in Schlesinger, pp. 50-53.

The New Republic, 30 December 1916, p. 230 in Noble,
Laradox 03' Progressive Thought, p. 14.6.

u1
between Britain and the united States, and it made the best
of it.35 The British government had shifted from Herbert
Asquith's direction to that of Lloyd George's in the winter
if 1916-17, and Germany's Chancellor Bethmann Rollweg had
lost power at the same time. Germany's leadership had

6
moved to the political right and the military took command.3

President Wilson faced a difficult situation. He had
wanted to mediate, but not at the initiation of the German
government. If he accepted the German invitation, then he
appeared to favor German's position. If he ignored the
announcement, the President would be seen as one avoiding a
potential opportunity for peace. ‘Wilson took a precarious
'measure on December 18 when be appealed to all belligerents
to state their war aims. The Allies responded on January 12,
1917. Germany refused to answer, for on January 9, 1917--
German leaders had decided secretly to use unlimited sub-
3?

'marine warfare.
Germany offering to negotiate the end of the war was a

ruse that met several German needs. It hoped to accentuate
the Anglo-American rift and to take advantage of English
government changes. The Kaiser and his cabinet, now under

 

35Ernest R. May, The World War and.American Isolation
(Cambridge: Harvard vers y Press, , p. .

361mm, pp. 32b, and 301.

37L1nk, Wilson: Brief Biography, p. 110.

12
the military sway of Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and
General Erich Ludendorff, stalled for time. They needed
more submarines to effect the unlimited underwater warfare
they proposed to carry out. Finally, the Germans gambled
that their unexpected January 1917 move would catch America
off-guard. Before the United states could prepare for war
and send tr00ps to mops, the war would be over--with
victorious Germany balancing the powers.38
Germany's "peace" offer, Wilson's response to all
belligerents, and the Allied answer to the President left
Lippmann in a daze. The Germans had refused to answer
Wilson's war aims request and had not published their unre-
stricted submarine warfare intent. In a January 13 article
for The New R_epublic, Lippmann‘s uncertainty shows dramat-
ically. He wrote:
Every man who looks candidly into his

own mind knows that it is a haphazard

collection of rumors and flashes, of sharp

experiences, of Jostling memories and hopes,

odds and ends of fact, pale little schemes

of history. Many peOple, to be sure, resent

any such confession, and insist on walking
about in patent leather certainties.39

He thought, at first, that the war had been fought for
righteousness, but later it had turned to a war to the finish.
The young writer asked agonizingly, what is the nature of this

 

381mm, p. 110.

39Lippmann, "The Will to Believe," The New Republic,
13 January, 1917 in Schlesinger, p. 58.

113
beast, world war? Lippmann argued again that America and

England must Join if the world were to see peace.“o Lippmann
had been.visibly shaken, and he groped for reassurance. His

own.'patent leather certainties” about war and peace had
been scuffed and torn.

Lippmann's frustrations over the war were not eased by
developments in January and February, 1917. Woodrow Wilson,
in an address to the Senate on January 22, explained America's
views regarding the nature of the war. A stable Europe, he
said, was of great importance to world security, but that
stability should be based on a community of power, not a

“1 The President urged a "peace without
victory," however unpleasant that might be. But to humil-

balance of power.

iate, as total victory by one side or the other would do,
was to leave stinging memories. ”Only a peace between equals
can last. "“2

Lippmann.took heart and praised the President‘s efforts
toward organizing collective security rather than seeking
armed isolation. Be warned, however, that making peace
would.not be easy. Lippmann noted that there were nine Allies,

 

l"ogbidu pp. 58-59.

MSelected Liter and Political P ers and Addresses

     

lgza'zi ’9 If, ppe 220-221 e

“2mm" p. 222.

uh.

four enemies, and a score of vitally interested neutrals.
Numbers alone added up to complexity and difficulty. But
Lippmann's idealism had not died, and he emphasized his
world vision by writing that America was ready to Join the

world in "peaceful partnership."h3
On January 31. Germany declared that after February 1

it would begin unrestricted submarine warfare in European
waters and the eastern Mediterranean. The German response
to the President's request for war shes disappointed the
Chief Executive, and his diplomatic options left h m with
only one choice. He severed diplomatic relations with
Germany on February 3, but he vowed that he would continue

to do everything possible to avoid open.hostilities.hh'-
Lippmann recovered quickly from.his momentary disillu-

sionment. ‘He explained boldly in.February that America's
real intentions had been.masked behind legality: "We have
wanted to assist the Allies and.hamper Germany, but we
wanted also to keep out of the war.” He contended that the
United States had used an unneutral policy that could not
be abandoned when things got dangerous. ‘The New Republic
editor emphasized that the Uhited States had great interest
in keeping the Atlantic highway open. America, he asserted,

 

uaLippmann, "America speaks," The New Re ublic, 29
January 1917 in Schlesinger, pp. 63- .

huLink, Wilson: Brief Biogroppy, p. 111.

us
was going to protect its interests, and union with England
in order to protect the Atlantic from German take-over was

Justifiable. The Western community must stay intact if it
£6

The month of March brought increased war problems to

were to lead Germany back to civilization.

the President. Goods piled up on American wharves since
Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare scared merchants
out of European waters. The Zimmerman telegram enraged
American public opinion: Germany offered to Mexico portions
of America's Southwest if it would Join Germany in the
fighting when the Uhited States declared war. Wilson sup-
ported armed neutrality in his March 5 inaugural address,
and four days later he armed American merchantmen. Step by

step the United States Joined the Allied drumbeat.""6
By March 19, President Wilson had decided that American

belligerency was inevitable and close at hand. He knew that
armed neutrality would lead to war. German submarines were
succeeding in blocking ocean traffic, and Wilson feared
German victory. In addition, the Chief Executive thought
that America's entry would shorten the war. Most importantly
for the future, the President recognized that American bel-

ligerency would give the united States a seat at the peace
table.

 

“SLippmann, "The Defense of the Atlantic World," The
New Republic, 17 February 1917 in Schlesinger, pp. 71-75.

ubLink, Wilson: _§rief Biography, p. 111.

#6
The President called for a special session of Congress
on April 2, 1917. The stormy evening added even more seri-
ousness to the President's 8:30 appearance. Wilson asked

7
h By
April 6 the Congress had consented to Wilson's request.

Congress for a war declaration against Germany.

Lippmann had watched events accumulate as America moved
toward belligerency in March and April. He praised the
President's war request. Germany had had its opportunities
for peace, but had reJected them. "The cause of the Allies
is now unmistakably the cause of liberalism and the hope of
an enduring peace." Lippmann declared that America, and

indeed the entire world, owed a great debt to woodrow Wilson.“8
By the late winter and early spring of 1917, Lippmann

had assumed views of America's role in the Great War that

few could have predicted from his earlier thinking. Lippmann
learned quickly from experience. Events that carried America
from neutrality in thought as well as deed to a war to make
the world safe for democracy also sharpened his appraisal

of world realities. Lippmann believed in the late fall of
191A that the best argument against cannon was ideas. In
April of 1917, he applauded the President's war declaration
and asserted that the cause of the Allies was the cause of

liberalism..

 

h?

uBLippmann, "The Great Decision," The New Republic,
7 April 1917 in Schlesinger, pp. 80-82.

Wilson's selected Papers and Addresses, II, p. 238.

117
Lippmann's views on foreign policy shifted gradually

in the years from 191u-1917. He was above all a thinker.

He sought constantly to keep mania potential use of intelli-
gence and corresponding ability to control his environment,
both human and physical, as maJor concerns for a successful
civilization. When.he experienced, for the first time,

a nation's delicate fabric of thought being ripped to
pieces by war, the young Journalist responded with horror
and confusion. As months sped by and events swirled about,
Lippmann's dream of a friction-free world was Joined by in-
creasingly realistic appraisals of frequent war-sthmulated
crises that seemed to make hopeless his vision of the future.

By the summer of 1916, Lippmann had reached a point in
his assessment of foreign policy that showed him to be more
than a "nay sayer." He had reached the conclusion that
America's future included the unobstructed use of the
Atlantic. Lippmann also argued that if the world had a
chance of avoiding another Great War that liberal, domocratic
governments would have to lead others toward a new world
order. The United states needed England's sea power to pro-
tect the Atlantic, and it needed support of other liberal
governments having access to the Atlantic to help create
a friction-free world.

The young writer, new to thinking about diplomatic
affairs, suffered periodic disillusionment. As in the fall
of 191h.when foreign concerns appeared to engulf the reality
of a nation, the winter of 1916-17 found Lippmann overwhelmed

118
by international reality. The belligerents' special needs
ignored.America's interests, at least as Lippmann analyzed
them. The Allies and the Central Powers meant to win crush-
ing victories, and it seemed that the united States, if not
ignored, was being used. He wavered and wrote critically
of ”patent-leather certainties."

Lippmann recovered quickly from his disillusionment.
President Wilson acted decisively in.the early months of
1917. The President, discarding sadly the cherished neu-
trality and mediation, had declared.America's war aims, sev-
ered diplomatic relations with Germany, armed merchantmen,
and declared war. After each of these events, Lippmann--
in a point-counterpoint relationship--applauded the Chief
Executive's action. In one article, almost as if in bold
relief, he wrote "The Defense of the Atlantic World.” This
February 17 writing declared, as Lippmann saw it, America's
intentions and methods toward resolving the Great War and
planning for the future.

Considering Wilson's respect for the intellect and his
university background, it would not be unreasonable to assume
that he would make use of what some saw Lippmann as--an
academic Journalist. His issue-clarifying articles and books
revealed a talented young man who gave much time to thinking
and writing. Wilson's self-admitted newness to interest in
foreign relations complemented Lippmann's youth and previous
unconcern about America's diplomacy. The President and the

young Journalist sought a similar goal of world peace.

119
However, a basic difference in their methods (collective
security or Anglo-American alliance) would soon come to the
surface.
Lippmann contended years later that The New Republic
and he, himself, had not more than the usual Journalist-
President relationship. He wrote:

Our relations with Wilson were
never personal. I don't think Croly
ever saw Wilson when he was President;
in the winter of 1916 I had two or
three interviews, such as any Journalist
has with the President. Croly and I did
begin to see something of Colonel House....
It was a curious relationship. Wilson was
preparing to run for his second term; his
main problem was the management of American
neutrality. We discussed the problem
perhaps once a fortnight with Colonel
House. He never told us what the President
was going to do. We never knew anything
that hadn't appeared in.the newspapers....
The paper was never the organ of the
Wilson administration....0ccasionally
the President and Colonel House took
an idea from The New Repyblic as they
took it from many other eources.h9

Whatever the relationship, rather than working against one
another, the President's and Lippmann's ideas had begun to
correspond with each other by the spring of 1916. And, the
Journalist--by accident or intent-~had begun.his long career
of making his thinking felt at top national levels. What
better way to make visions turn into reality.

 

9
5 Lippmann, "Notes for a Biography," The New Republic,
pe 21e

CHAPTER THREE
II THE HEAT OF THE BATTLE

Two weeks after America declared war on Germany,
Lippmann spoke at another of those ever-present meetings
sponsored by The Academy of Political and Social Science.
The April 21st edition of the New York Times reported:
"Walter Lippmann--Declares Germany Must Be Beaten--0thers

Advocate Altruism. "1 Along with several others, The New
Republic editor had been asked to speak about "America's

Relation to the World Conflict and to the Coming Peace."
The Limp; portrayed Lippmann as a militarist. It had,
however, recounted only his last few remarks of an exten-
sive address.

To be sure Lippmann zealously supported the Allied
war effort. He wanted world peace cushioned by lib-
eralism, and he felt that President Wilson had taken the
only appropriate action available to the united states
in April of 1917: war. Lippmann's April 20th talk
before the Academy audience traced America' s tortuous

path between the belligerents. The Chief Executive had

 

1New York Times, 21 April 1917, p. 5.

50

51
searched constantly for mediation and peace, but to no

avail.

The Tipppbfailed to report Lippmann's account of the
origins of the war. Germany, he explained, saw the Entente
powers cutting off its national growth. German leaders
looked to Asia Minor as their "place in the sun," but the
road to the Turkish.Empire went through the Balkans.

Russia backed Serbia, a small country that was part of
Germany's highway to Asia Minor, and England showed concern
about Austria-Hungary. When Archduke Francis Ferdinand

was assassinated in late June of 191A, several explosive

3

forces came together simultaneously.

Germany felt that England should not intrude in her
maneuvering in the Austro-Serbian dispute. But England
remained concerned about Continental powers solving their
differences. Germans contended that the rest of Europe
should stay out of the Balkan conflict: thus, Lippmann
wrote, Germany became an enemy of international order. To

further Germany's outlaw image, the country's military,

 

 

 

2
Walter oLippmann, The Political scene: An Essay on
the Victo 18 (New York: Henry Holt and Company,

pp. - The complete text of Lippmann's April 21,
1917 speech before the Academy of Political and Social Science
appears in the appendix of The Political Scene. It also
was reprinted as U. S. Senate Document No. 85, 65th Congress,
First Session.

3Lippmann, The Political Scene, pp. 88-89.

52
already mobilized, marched through neutral Belgium to

attach.France.h
Lippmann argued in the Philadelphia address that

Germany's disregard--even denial--of an existing society
of nations showed the need for international coOperation.
"Out of the necessities of defense against itllGermany's
excessive nationalism] men have gradually formulated the

"5

ideals of a coOperative nationalism. He declared hope-

fully that a world federation was possible, and that men's

common interests would prove greater than special interests.

He asserted further that the war had loosed a revolution.

The stakes of diplomacy involved all nations.7
At the end of May, 1917 the New Yerk Times announced

that Whlter Lippmann had "been offered a place in the War
Dopartment as an aid to Secretary Baker." Lippmann Joined
others serving at a nominal salary or with those who volun-

teered their services.8 The New Rgpublic had to do without
the thinking and writing of one of its original mainstays.

He had entered the arena of international conflict.

 

uni-do, ppe 90-91e

snide, ppe 95-96e

6Ibid., p. 98.

7Ibid., p. 99.

8New‘York Times, 30 May 1917, p. 2.

53'

Lippmann.became quickly inuolved in the War Depart-
ment's efforts to coordinate civilian and military war
efforts. Organized labor feared that management would
take advantage of workers during the war. Food and raw
material shortages had sent prices soaring. The labor
force, depleted by men in the armed services, also created
pressure for increased wages.

Secretary of War Newton D. Baker sought to alleviate
the impending problem by appointing three men to a "Canton-
ment AdJustment Commission of the war Department to deter-
mine prOper wages and working conditions for military
proJects." One appointee represented the army and another
labor. Walter Lippmann "would represent the public interest
in all negotiations between contractors and the building

trade."9 In effect, Lippmann had become a negotiator.
His assignment in government-labor disputes offered a unique
Opportunity for public service.10

Being a government employee was not easy, Lippmann
found. Newton Baker had not organized the War Department
well, and communication continually broke down. Lippmann,

along with Felix Frankfurter and others, had been crowded

 

9U. 8. War Department, Annual Reports, 121%E I, pp.
33-3h in Daniel R. Beaver, Newton D.IB or an 9 American
War Effort 1 1 -1 1 (Lincoln, Nebraska: University of
Nebraska Press, 1926;, pp. 66-67.

10New York Times, 11 August 1917, pp. 1-2.

5h

into "tiny cubicles that made it difficult for them to

work efficiently."11

Events brewing at the White House and the Department
of State in the late summer of 1917 would deeply affect
Lippmann. Wilson and Lansing had been thinking, independ-
ently of one another, that the united States should prepare
thoroughly for the peace. Wilson, however, placed Colonel
House in charge of peace plans and kept the State Depart-
ment's legalists out of the proceedings. Colonel Reuse had
been charged with seeing that America's case for peace was
prepared with "full knowledge of the position of all

litigants."12

During September House sought advice from several
sources about personnel who ought to be included in the
secret peace planning group. Two advisers, A. Lawrence
Lowell (Harvard university's president) and Herbert Croly
(The New Republic's editor-inechief) made suggestions.
Sidney Mezes, House's brother-in-law and president of the
City College of New York, became director of the organiza-
tion. President wilson specifically asked that Dippmann
be part of the group.13 Hblcott H. Pitkin (American

 

11Ralph Ha es (Secretary to Baker) to N. D. Baker,
20 geptember 19 7, Hayes Papers in Beaver, Newton D. Baker,
p. O.

12

Lawrence E. Gelfand, The I ui : American Pre ara-
tions for ragga, 1911-1212 (New Haven: YhIe university
”088, , pp. - o

131bid., p. 38.

SS

adviser to the Siamese government), Archibald Cary Coolidge
(Harvard professor of Eastern European history), and James
T. Shotwell (Columbia university historian) composed the
early nucleus of The Inquiry (Shotwell's title).1h

Men such as George Louis Beer, [avid Hunter Miller,
and Stanley K. Kornbeck became part of The Inquiry. All
areas of study were to be considered: politics, geography,

15

economics, and societies. During the seventeen month
existence of The Inquiry (September, 1917 to January, 1919),
one hundred and fifty scholars wrote and collected nearly
2,000 separate studies and documents, and they made and

used at least 1,200 maps.16
Members of The Inquiry faced complex organisational

problems. Finding a practical method that kept personnel
working together toward innumerable common goals proved
difficult. Lippmann submitted an organization plan on
November 13 to The Inquiry Director, Sidney Hezes. It
contained eleven separate divisions and it underwent modi-

1?

fication. During December, Lippmann, secretary to The

 

1thid., p. 14.1.

1SIbid., pp. h2 and #7.

16Ibid., p. I.

”Did" p. 85.

56
Inquiry, wrote priority lists for Colonel House and szes,

and they received due note.18

As Lippmann.worked for the peace planning group, he
maintained a cordial correspondence with his former chief,
Secretary Baker. Searching for ways to maintain a perma-
nent peace after the war ended, he wrote to Baker on
October 27, 1917, asking him to consider inaugurating a
study of disarmament. He realized the potential for cheat-
ing in any program of disarmament, so he recommended that
the study group be composed of men thoroughly grounded in

«19

"modern military science. Baker replied within the

week and warmly approved Lippmann's suggestion. Generals
Tasker Bliss and Enoch H. Crowder had been assigned to

the disarmament issue.20
In a note to Lippmann, Newton Baker thanked him.for a

copy of a letter Lippmann had sent to President Wilson on
November 21. Baker agreed with his former associate that
Germany must be made livable after the war-~"to her own
people as well as to the rest of the world.” Secretary
Baker added that after defeat German domestic conditions

 

18Ibid., pp. 87-88. See also 19 December and 28

Ibcember 1917, Pa ers Relat to the Foreign.Relations of
the united States: Paris Cofifierence,_T§T§(Was Lngaon,

9 9 PP- an e

 

 

 

19(27 October 1917),4§breign Relations Papers: Paris,
3.9.1.2. I. pp- 12-13-

20(1 November 1917), Ibid., pp. 13-1h.

57
should not be made intolerable. Baker warned, however, that

"access to the resources of civilization can be tolerated
only upon assurances that can be relied upon that such re-
sources will be used in the interest of civilisation when
they are supplied."21

Inquiry considerations kept Lippmann busy and by late
December of 1917 he, Hezes, and Miller presented to Colonel
House a draft of suggested peace terms. The December 22nd
document was revised, enlarged, and re-dated January 2,
1918. Colonel House then took "A Suggested Statement of
Peace Terms” to President Wilson on January h. Wilson and
the Colonel worked over the statement and it became a large
portion of the President's January 8th address to the senate.
The Fourteen Points had been born, with the Inquiry memoran-
dum supplying information for points VI through.x1V. The
Chief Executive added points I through V, general principles

upon which Wilson based his views of the postwar world.22
During the late winter and early spring of 1918, The

Inquiry smoothed out some of its organizational problems.
Amidst maps, studies, and personnel shifts, Lippmann found
time on.May 16 to write to Baker again. He explained his
dismay at not being able to find first-rate men who could

 

21(23 Nevember 1917), Ibid., pp. 25-26.

22Gelfand, The Igguigz, pp. 136-137. See (22 December

1917), Forei Re a one Papers: Paris, 1919, I, pp. hJ-Su
for The Iifiuiry report.

 

58
help with problems in ”Russia, the Balkans, Turkey and
Africa.” Lippmann explained that "what we are on the lookout
for is genius-~sheer, startling genius and nothing else will
do because the real application of the President's idea to
those countries requires inventiveness and resourcefulness
which is scarcer than anything." He indicated that he had
been reading about how ignorance "on the part of peace
commissioners in the past has lost causes which have been
won on the battlefield. It isn't difficult to win a war
and lose the peace."23
The Inquiry experienced a severe internal shake-up

during the summer of 1918. It came after Isaiah Bowman,
the Chief Territorial specialist and Director of the Ameri-
can Geographical Society, wrote a letter to Sidney Hezes

complaining that The Inquiry's organization was too loose.
‘ "The time has come," Bowman declared, "when there should be
a stricter division of functions among the officers of The
Inquiry and an exact definition of status and appointments.
It is a source of growing embarrassment to remain as we are."2h
Within the month, The Inquiry had been reorganized and many

of Mezes' duties had been given to an Executive Committee

headed by Bowman.25

~

23(16 Hay 1918), Foreign Relations_gapers:g:§aris,1919,
I, pp. 97-980

2“(13 July 1918), Ibid., pp. 102-103.

25(3 August 1918), Ibid., pp. 103-10h.

59
As a result of the reorganization, Lippmann left The

Inquiry and became a captain in the army's Military Intel-
ligence. Lippmann, unhappy with.mezes, told Bowman in

several conversations prior to the July-August shake-up

that Hezes was lazy, stupid, and disorganized.26

Bowman also consulted with David Hunter'uiller, tech-
nical adviser on international law, who complained bitterly
of Lippmann, as well as of Hezes. "He said that he never
knew of anyone who worked with Lippmann who did not 'hate'
htm." In late August Bowman told Colonel House "that
Lippmann was a bad influence on The Inquiry chiefly through

his tendency to disorganize whatever work was started by any-

one else, taking men off work for his own special purposes."27

In confidence, House explained to Bowman why Lippmann
had been chosen for The Inquiry:

He said the administration had
to c00perate with the extreme liberals
of the country and that he could think
of none who had so much influence and
was at the time so easy to get along
with as Lippmann, and he had therefore
selected him to represent the Liberals
....He then stated that should Lippmann
return he would plan with me Just what
work he should do and that probably

 

26Attributed to Isaiah Bowman, "Notes on The Inquiry,"

30 November 1918 in Gelfand, The Inquiry, appendix VI,
pp. 351-352.

27Ibid., pp. 351-352.

60

The best plan was to have Lippmann

do some specific th s directly for

his (Colonel House).2
Despite these criticisms of Lippmann's working relations
with his colleagues, others pointed out the value of his
intellectual contributions. James Shotwell, Chief of the
History Division and Librarian for The Inquiry, wrote
years later, that Lippmann's "unique gift for clarifying
the issues of politics...explains the importance of the

role he played in interpreting and phrasing policy."29
Sir William Wiselan, Chief of British Intelligence in the
United States during the war, wrote that it was his im-
pression that Lippmann furnished “the abstract ideas
which found their way into a good many of the memoranda
of the herican Delegation and ultimately into some of

President Wilson's public speeches.'"30

Whatever Lippmann's strengths and weaknesses, he
"helped from the frying pan to the fire" when he left The
Inquiry and Joined Military Intelligence. Prior to The
Inquiry's public reorganisation, Colonel House had asked
Lippmann to go abroad and help with political propaganda
work. He was to establish liaison with British propagandists

251nm. , p. 352.

29Ju|es T. Shotwell, At the Paris Peace Conference
(New York: The Macmillan empaw, , p. .

30"Wiseman Memorandua on The Inquiry.“ 5 June 1928 in

Charles Seymour, ed. , The Intimate Pa ers of lonel ouse
(h vols., Boston: Heufi‘t'on HITTIE Company. 5323,: III:

p. 171.

61
and together they were to consider the possibilityof

"P191118 propaganda into enemy ccuntries."31

Lippmann' s tenure as an official propagandist was brief.
He sharply criticized George Creel's Committee on Public In-

32

foraation and the army, calling for “'a new expert organ-

isation independent of the Creel Committee, “'33 House
reached the end of his patience with Lippmann' a constant

critical suggestions. He asked the new captain “' to dis-
continue sending them. ' "3h House's rebuke surprised Lippmann
and the captain concluded his October 2nd response by noting:
“You know, of course, that I am a thousand times more in-
terested in The Inquiry than in propaganda, and that I only
went 1130 11”: Propaganda] because I was told I was needed.cn3S
Lippmann's propaganda work in EurOpe received notice in
the United States, but not until after he had quit that
effort and had become part of Colonel House' a staff overseas

(September 26, 1918). The New zork Times reported on

 

31Colonel]. Edward 14. House to Lippmann, 7 July 1918 and

Lip 5 to House, 9 August 1918 in Cary, Influence of gar,
p. e

32Lippmann to House, 9 August 1918 in Cary, Influence
£125 no its.

33Lippmann to House, 15 August 1918 in Cary, Influence
of War, p. 11.6.

of wu3hflouz6to Lippmann, 6 September 1918 in Cary, Influence
-——_.J p. .

3Snipplaann to House, 2 October 1918 in Cary, Influence
of "up Do I{>7e

62

November 9 that the Germans were "impressed by our propa-
ganda." Americanpdirected propaganda efforts, published in
a Paris printing house, had loosed a "bombardment of printers'
ink on (the) foe." Captain Halter Lippmann served as editor
of the American propaganda effort. Airplanes and balloons
dropped leaflets on the enemy, and the information carried
Wilson messages to Germans. German.prisoners had been found
with Allied propaganda leaflets tucked up their sleeves and
in secret pockets. Loyal Germans, however, had returned
many of the leaflets with "'Why continue the fightf'"
printed anthem.36

Lippmannfls assertive criticimm diminished after his
appointment to Colonel House's European staff. House visited
Paris in late October, his major purpose being to acquaint
Allied leaders with Wilson's Fourteen Points. Germany had
sued for peace early in October and President Wilson.had
corresponded diplomatically with German leaders since then.
They had accepted Wilson's negotiationprogram.37

Lippmann. and Frank Cobb, editor from the New York
World, prepared clarifying statements of the Fourteen Points
but it was Lippmann who did most of the work. He explained

3(New York Times, 9 November 1918, p. 5.

37Richard H. Watt, The Kin s De art: The Tra e of
German : Versailles and the German Revolution (New York:

3 mon an Sc uster, 968), pp. 53-51;.

la.

n"

‘a

[{r'

63
the first thirteen declarations, and Cobb elaborated on the
fourteenth. Wilson approved their efforts.38
The War ended officially on November 11. The bellig-
erents had accepted Wilson's Fourteen Points as a basic
for peace. House and Lippmann expressed Joy prior to the

armistice because they both felt that gaining Allied approval
of the Fourteen Points was a great diplomatic victory.39

Idppmann wrote to House on November 7:

Frankly, I did not believe it was

humanly feasible, under conditions

as they seemed to be in Europe, to

win so glorious a victory. This is

the climax of a course that has

been as wise as it was brilliant,

and as shrewd as it was prophetic.u0

Wbodrow Wilson wrote in penciled longhand his announce-

ment to America that the war was over: "'The armistice was
signed this morning. Everything for which.America has
fought has been accomplished. It will now be our fortunate
duty to assist by example, by sober friendly counsel and by
material aid in the establishment of Just democracy through-

out the world.”in

383eymour, The Intimate Papers of Colonel House, IV,
pp. 152-153.

39House to Wilson, 5 November 1918 in Seymour, The
Intimate gapers of gglonel House, IV, p. 188.

hoLippmann to House, 7 November 1918 in Cary, Influence
of‘War, p. #9.

 

uflRay Stannard Baker,

Wbodrow Wilson Life and Letters
(8 vols., New Yerk: Doubleday, 1939). VIII, p. 585.

6h

The President's happy and hopeful message would be the
beginning of the end for his dreams. Wilson went to war to
secure peace. He would, as the winter days sped by, find
that American leaders and European statesmen did not agree
with all of his dream of a permanent peace based on inter-
national c00peration. Even his idea that he spoke for the
common peeple would drift into unreality.

Wilson feared a victor's peace for he felt that it
would "leave hatreds as the breeding ground of future wars."u2
He declared to a church-going, rain-soaked group wrapped in
overcoats at Carlisle, England that "it is the conscience
of the world that we are trying new to place on the throne
that others tried to usurp."""3

The Paris Peace Conference lasted six months and during
that time Wilson experienced the cruel pressures of power
politics. Among the twenty-seven countries present, England,
France, Italy, and Japan--each a great power--were particu-
larly interested in protecting their national interests.
Collectively, they clashed with America's desires. In addi-
tion a giant spectre pervaded Conference thinking: revolu-
tionary Russia.

In Russia the Bolsheviks had overthrown the Tsar and

 

uZRobert J. Bender, W. W.: Scattered Im ressions of a
He orter Who for E1 t Years "Covered" the AcEIvItIes of
Wbodrow W’ son New Ybrk: Un te Press Assoc at on, ),

P. e

h3Ibid. , p. Ln.

65
established a Communist government. The awful physical
conditions inside the convulsed nation lent special appeal
to European masses decimated by war. Both the Europeans
and the Russians had something in common--devastation and
needs for food, clothing, and housing. Both sought govern-
ments which would satisfy these immediate needs.

Russian communism terrified the Allies and confounded
solution. President Wilson had sent William C. Bullitt on
a special mission to Russia in early 1919, and Bullitt
returned writing of approval for aid to the new Russia.

He believed the Allies should help the Bolsheviks. As
long as foreign intervention threatened the revolutionary
government, Bullitt said, the Bolsheviks and their Russian
opposition would be terrified.uh' But the director of

America's food relief overseas, Herbert Hoover, lambasted

the Bolsheviks for terrorist tactics. Hoover saw communism
as a "withering blast" that could destroy the "frail plants
of democracy." Beover used food relief to nurture democratic

growth.h5
Japan.had already sent tr00ps into Siberia, ostensibly

to protect Czecho-Slovakian war prisoners who wished to

 

. “William 0. Bullitt, The Bullitt Mission to Russia:
Testimo Before the Committee on Fore! n.RelatIons--
fifiited Siates Senate (New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1919),

p. 5E.

hsfierbert Hoover, America's Firest Crusade (New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1912), pp. 1-2.

66
h6

return home. But Wilson had reason to believe otherwise,
for diplomatic sources had conveyed to him the very gen-
eral warning that the Japanese intended to promote their

paramount interest in the Far East.“7
After countless conferences, both public and private,

the Treaty of versailles was completed. It contained pro-
visions designed to serve a variety of national interests,

as well as a serious compromise of Wilson's ideal of a

new international order. In a brief ceremony held on
Saturday, June 28, 1919 in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles,
the treaty's vellum pages were signed. In a packed hall,
filled with whispering reporters, whirring cameras, and
cries of ”Down in frontl,” the victors assigned a crushing
h8 Wilson sailed on the Qggggg,
Washington.the next day, returning home with a treaty which

defeat to the losers.

included his beloved League.
Having been an intimate part of the peace planning
for nearly a year, Lippmann found himself with nothing to

thrank L. Polk (Counselor, Department of State) to
gheiPresident, 2h July 1918, 25 July 1918, 2 August 1918 in
aker,

Woodrow Wilson Life and Letters, VIII, pp. 292,
297-298, SIZ'SI 5e

h7Roland S. Morris (American ambassador to Japan) to
the Secretary of State (Robert Lansing), 13 November 1918,
27 November 1918, 7 January 1918 Foreign Relations Papers:

Paris, 1212, I, pp. h89-h92 and 9h.

. heHarold Nicolson, Peacemaki 1 1 (New'YOrk:
Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1939;, pp. g66-369.

 

.F‘I

elI

67
do in the Paris Conference, itself. He returned to the
united States in January of 1919.“’9 Apparently, while the
Conference was in session (and prior to its beginning in
January of 1919), Lippmann had been composing articles.
They were published under the title The Political Scene,
and demonstrated once more his talent to sort among contem-
porary issues, identify crucial problems, and offer poten-
tially successful alternatives.

The Political Scene is a remarkable little book.
Lippmann saw, as did few contemporaries, that the Great
War's and had ushered in a world revolution. The Allied
victory meant that the old strictures of monarchial power
were gone forever. The Hohenzollerns, Hapsburgs, and the
Sultan and Tsar no longer held sway. A new power balance
would have to be created. He recognized, as well, that
Russia's new government presented challenges to the pro-

50

posed new world.

Lippmann asserted in The Political Scene that Wilson's

 

Fourteen Points reflected the old order too much to be effec-
tive in a new world. They argued for rights of neutrals,
sought boycotts, and recognized war as a normal institution,

but they did not deal with the economic realities in Europe,

ugCary, Influence of War, p. 50.

Solgppmann, The Political Scene, pp. h-9.

68
or the shortage of ships, food, and materials that many

1
European nations faced in 1919.5

Wilson's concept of a League changed after the great
military battles of 1918. Before the spring of that year
he had depicted it "as a useful annex to the structure of
peace; thereafter he called it the central framework of
the structure." Lippmann saw "a world-wide re-grouping in
progress. It cannot be controlled by agreement alone. It
requires a continuing series of decisions, and machinery
for exerting them, and that is the essence of the League

of Nations."52

The League's Covenant recognized world realities,
Lippmann believed. A new Europe must arise from the rubble
of the old, and the League would help the new order emerge.
He declared in The Political Scene that the League Covenant
"provides procedures which slow down impending tragedy's
rhythm." He argued forcefully: "The faith is that no
quarrel can grow big enough to Justify war when the peoples

who must do the fighting know about it soon enough."53
Lippmann accentuated his previously expounded idea that

an Anglo-American Entente would provide a "pool of force,"

rather than a balance of power. The pool's basis included

 

S1Ib1de 3 ppe 16-1 70

52Ibid., pp. 16 and 32.

531b1d-. pp. 35. hZ-hh-

69
the combined sea power of the two nations. It could be all
powerful and not destroy the freedom of the country that
used it. He argued that ”protection of democracy... is built
upon the Joint administration of sea power by the British

Empire and America. Our own.Monroe Doctrine is built upon
"Sh

Lippmann also sounded warnings that President Wilson

it from its inception to the present day.

had raised false hopes. Perhaps his dreams could not be
realized since he acted as singly as he did "in committing
the nation."55 The treaty turned out to be a patchwork of
compromises, and the Covenant would prove to be difficult
to amend. Lippmann explained that Article x of the Covenant
encased the League in a formula, and it did not protect a

56

Bolshevism, Lippmann wrote, grew only where a nation's

nation's independence from economic penetration.

government was disgracefully incompetent. He argued that
Bolshevism gained strong support when a country's loyal
opposition had been stifled. He contended, as well, that
it was "extraordinarily easy to combat (Bolshevimm) in a
well-fed country."S7

 

5hIbid., pp. A2 and u9.
SSIbid., p. 53.
56Ibid., pp. 53-56.

571bid., p. 65.

70

Germany and the Austro-Hungarian.Empire seemed ripe for
political and economic take-over by Russia's new government--
if one followed Lippmann's criteria as to what lay countries
open to communion. He felt that the League would help
crushed nations adjust to a new democratic world, but he
also fretted that leaders at the Paris Peace Conference had
not taken Bolshevism's threat seriously. The Allies showed
fear, but not enough real concern existed to give it number

58

one priority.
In'ghg_§olitical Scene, Lippmann.presented a solution
to the threat that Bolshevism posed to the concept of a new
world order that Western liberals cherished. Anticipating
America's Cold War policies by nearly thirty years, he argued
for a "sanitary cordon" in eastern EurOpe that would circle
Russia's communism. The cordon would also give Germany,
Poland, Rumania, and Hungary time to organize democratic
governments. He knew that eastern.European countries were
hardly capable of withstanding severe pressure from either

Russia or Germany, but Lippmann.thought the effort was worth

a try.59

Bolshevism was primitive and formless: it had no vital

center, Lippmann wrote. Thus, one cannot fight conventional

 

salbid., pp. 66 and 69.

59Ib1de, ppe 70-72e

71
wars against its spread. In the late 19u0's, the Truman
Doctrine and the Marshall Plan were based on a similar
pattern of thought. In 1918-19 Lippmann sought to re-
establish "bonds of economic interdependence between her
[Russia's] fragments and the organized society of the
west.”60 8

Finally, the young editor contended that if liberal
governments were to predominate in the post-World War I
era, they would have to present "a solid area of...govern-
ment under the aegis of the League." To conclude a peace
based on bayonets would only play into the hands of Russian
communism: it "feeds on discontent, poverty, and maladmin-
istration."61

By early spring of 1919, Lippmann was again an active
member of The New Republic's staff. A September 3rd writing
shows Lippmann complaining about President Wilson's vague
idealism: to speak of peace and Justice was not specific
enough to influence effectively the seriousness of life at
the Paris Peace Conference. Wilson had not understood
thoroughly European circumstances, and Lippmann indicted

the President for separating aims and‘methods.62 Two

weeks later he ridiculed the Department of State. Personnel

 

60Ibid., pp. 76-77.

61Ibid., pp. 75 and 81.

62"Assuming we Join," The New Republic. 3 Septombor 1919
in Schlesinger, pp. 86-89.

72
were incompetent: their overseas dispatches were "embalmed
in the State Department archives;" and it remained an organi-

zation of formality.63
In a brief and highly critical article of President

Wilson, Lippmann declared that it was one year after the
armistice and no constructive legislation had been passed
in that time. He wrote that "the government of the United
States resides in the mind of Mr. Wilson....If he is away
the thinking apparatus is away." The Journalist felt there

had been an "abdication of leadership."6h
Lippmann's writing about foreign affairs appeared in

the summer of 1919 in gpg_gale Review and in November and
December issues of TLhe Atlantic Montg. The earlier
article concerned the Peace Conference itself. He outlined
Wilson's problems, hopes, and errors. Clearly, Lippmann
believed that the President's hopes were his problems and
errors. Wilson felt that man "had an innate desire for
righteousness." The war ended, however, and people's patri-
otism turned to self-interest. The President remained
idealistic,“ Lbe Atlantic Monthg writings dealt with the
question of liberty and the press. He contended that a

 

63:11.101. 3 DO n
partment of state The New Republic, 17

bananregt," 2gp New Republic, 20 November 1919. p- 315-

65"The Peace Conference," The Yale Review. VIII: July, 1919:
pp. 717 and 720.

73
democracy's basis for effective operation depended upon
the peoples' free access to information, and he asserted
that many problems of the Paris Peace Conference arose
from its secret sessions. The public could only speak

after decisions had been‘made.66

In the last days of December, 1919, Lippmann wrote a
book review of Harold Stearns' Liberalism in America
(New Yerk, 1919). The review turned out to be Lippmann's
thoughts on liberalism. He found American liberals to be
disorganized and without doctrine. Primarily, he asserted,
they represented a "phase of transition away from the old
party system." In a more positive light, Lippmann saw
liberals as people aware "that the temper of tolerant in-
quiry must be maintained." In contrast to Stearns, the
reviewer declared that as long as liberals stayed above

battles, they would never have force in actual affairs.67

In the review Lippmann also accused liberals of
shrinking from any great intellectual efforts. As an
example, he found Wilson to be:

an incurable improviser, and no idea
is deeply rooted in him because no
idea is thoroughly mastered. At
Paris the Conservatives had a better
grip on their case than did the

 

66"The Basic Problem in Democracy," The Atlantic
JMbnthly, November 1919, 12k, pp. 625 and 627.

6
7Lippmann, rev. of Liberalism in America by

IHarold Stearns, The New Re ublic, 21,
31 December 1919, p. 151.

 

7h

liberals. They had worked harder....
They knew how to go past the fragile
reason of men to their passions.
He felt that liberals could have consumated peace if they

had only "grasped the mechanics of peace."68

Lippmann's views of American foreign policy from June
of 1917 to recomber of 1919 reveal a thoughtful man,
anguished by war, who was determined that western democracies
would not die. In April of 1917 Lippmann charged Germany
with being an international outlaw, and he argued that its
international credibility should be crushed. After his
actual participation in the war effort, he realized quickly
that crushing the enemy was less important than arranging
a desirable peace.

By January of 1919, Lippmann experienced disillusion—
ment. The war had ended and that was good, but its ramifi-
cations for the future were ominous. Wilson's idealism
stood alone as self-seeking nations sought victory treasures.
The Treaty of Versailles imposed harsh terms on broken
Germany. Revolutionary Russia set out to spread its bound-
arise and beliefs into war-torn Europe. Japan had already
served notice that its paramount interests included parts
of mainland China and perhaps portions of Siberia.

Lipomann's pleas for an Anglo-American entente which would
serve as a pool of power that enforced the League of Nation's

actions went unheeded. America's senate and its President

 

68Ibid., p. 151.

75

came to loggerheads over the treaty and the League's
Covenant.

Lippmann could see the new world order dying before it
had reached its youth. He needed a scapegoat and he found
one: WOodrow Wilson. He criticized the President for
being vague and unmethodical. The Chief Executive had
allowed closed sessions at Paris and Wilson's steady faith
in man's righteousness had led him blindly toward a vicious
treaty. Wilson had been duped into compromising to save his
League. The President had improvised once too often.

It must have been difficult for Lippmann to find him-
self participating but not influencing as much as he thought
he should. His facile mind allowed him to sort among com-
plexities that confounded others. He envisioned a new world
structure wherein liberal democracies, backed by Anglo-
American sea power, could secure permanent peace, and promote
prosperity and happiness. Lippmann had pleaded for his
cause, but it had been rejected, he thought, when the Treaty
of Versailles came back to America in July of 1919 as an
instrument of suppression and domination. To make things
worse, the League and its Covenant came under fire because
it linked the United States to evil, smouldering EurOpe.
Thus, even the opportunity to right treaty wrongs (through
the League) had been canceled. It was time for Lippmann

to leave the heat of battle, and return to the tower.

CHAPTER FOUR

WALTER LIPPMANN AND A DECADE TINGED WITH
FURY: THE 1920's

For Walter Lippmann the 1920's presented a cluster of
years that pressed him to construct and test a developing
interpretation about man and man's relations with others.
More importantly for this particular study, the decade of
the 1920's shows Lippmann's reason and voice attempting to
understand, correct, and re—direct complications arising.
from groups of men living in areas surrounded by national
boundary lines. Their political, economic, and spiritual
differences created tangles of human difficulties that
threatened to rip apart civilizations domestically as well
as internationally.

America's democracy was in bad need of repair in those
years following the Great War. It seemed as if the united
States was bent on limiting both freedom of thought and
press. In a decade spotted with anger and hate, Americans
witnessed the re-birth of a bigoted Ku Klux Klan. State
suppression of ideas from newspapers and classrooms occurred.
”Heep Europe out!" became the cry of those who were frenzied
by nonppaying Continental debtors and who feared radical
political doctrines. Tariff walls rose and immigration

quotas turned starkly restrictive. A spiritual drift had

76

77
set in and frantic searchings for certainty tinged the
decade with fury and irrationality.

Lippmann professed to be a man leading two lives:
one including books--the other encompassing newspapers.
His books, he said, represented a world where he devel-
oped a philosophy and the columns served him as a "labor-
atory or clinic in whichfhe testedlthe philosophy and

1
kept it from becoming too abstract." Lippmann sought to
interpret events "in the light of some underlying pattern

of forces, circumstances, and design." He believed that
events Characterized forces at work and that the forces
had deep historical underpinnings. "Those forces,"
Lippmann claimed, "can best be discerned by a historical
knowledge of the more or less enduring patterns of forces.
They don't change nearly so much as the readers of the

2
newspaper could imagine they did."
As a young man of twenty-three, Lippmann believed that

life was a never-ending process that constantly developed.
"Society," he wrote, "was living and breathing and needed

constant influxes of energy that only man's efforts at

 

1James Reston, "The Mockingbird and the Taxicab,"
Sketches in the Sand (New York: Random House, 1967), p. 209.

ZIdppmann, Reminiscences (2 vols., Oral History Research
Collection, New Yerk: Columbia University, 1956, 196k), II,
pp. 232-233.

78

"3 Nearly forty years later, Lippmann

renewal could provide.
continued to view life as a continuously developing process
filled with dimly perceived forces. By humans' very action
and thoughts, they added to the forces themselves. One
might use historical analogies to help man understand forces
at work, but the analogies ought to be "held lightly--not

held literally and held grimly."u

During the 1920's Lippmann's opportunities for devel-
Oping his understanding of politics, for writing books and
editing a major national newspaper, became reality. He

left Herbert Croly's New Republic and Joined Frank Cobb's

 

editorial staff at the New York‘ypplg in January of 1922.

He had enjoyed The New Republic's intellectual atmosphere

where people gathered, exchanged ideas, wrote, and planned

for the future. The weekly publication in those days offered

time for reflection and presented its writers with a rela-

tively easy life compared to newspaper editors who met daily
5

column deadlines. When Lippmann became part of Cobb's

Werld, he began writing three and four columns a week. The
World's editorial demands obliged him to face daily national

and world events with little time for reflection.

 

3Lippmann, "The Most Dangerous Man in the
World," Eyegybody's, 27 July 1912, pp. 100-101.

“Lippmann, Reminiscences, II, pp. 232-233.

5Ibid., 1, p. 66.

79

Observing a new decade from a different observation
post led Lippmann to re-shape his thinking. He wrote of
the 1920's with alternate feelings of hope and despair
for democracy's future and the world's peace. Lippmann
witnessed several domestic events in America during the
twenties that gave him considerable reason for deJection.
American nationalism became a shrill cry and sought to
keep ideas and people away from America's shores. Seg-
ments of the public began to search futilly for values and
ways of life in a past that was no more.

Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer ferreted out rad-
icals in 1919-1920 whom he believed threatened America's
existence. The famed Palmer Raids netted supposed anar-
chists, socialists, communists, and innocent by-standers.
The New Republic denounced Palmer's illegal round-ups and
Lippmann reported his pride in the magazine's fight against
Red hysteria. Looking back, he found it difficult to
remember "the idiotic intolerance which descended upon the
country in those days," but he felt "it was the most
disgraceful exhibition of general cowardice and panic
which any of us is likely to experience."6

In an attempt to preserve Protestant and Nordic dom-
inance, the Congress determined that thousands of immigrants
seeking new homes in the United States should be turned

6

252 Lippmann, "Notes for a Biography," The New Republic,
p. .

80
away from American shores. Racial superiority became a
major issue and President warren Harding and Vice-President
Calvin Coolidge felt America's racial superiority would be
damaged if further race mixing continued.7 In 1921 and

192k Congress enacted immigration restriction laws that
severely cut the annual flow of people coming to America
to live. The 192k National Origins Act banned East Asians
entirely and reduced European immigration to two per cent
of the 1890 census.

Lippmann explained in a New York Egglg_editorial that
a need to restrict further immigration to the united States
existed. Free land was gone; a standard of living ought to
be maintained; and the Mmerican school system was already
overburdened. Lippmann favored further immigration of
Western EurOpeans because they adjusted more readily to
American.habits, but he felt the question of inferior or

8
superior should be left to history. Lippmann complained
about the 192k immigration quota legislation because it

especially offended the Japanese and, in effect, it ex-

cluded only two hundred and forty Japanese per year. "The

 

7Seymour yartin Lipset and Earl Raab, The Politics of
unreason: Ri t-Hi Extremism in.mnerica, 1755-1575 {New
York: flarper and Row, 1§7UTT'§;T'TEI:TE2;

8Lippmann, ”Rather Vague Ancestors," New York ¥grld
9 April 192k. Unless otherwise indicated, anmmmmn s
writings in the uprlg appear on the editorial page. Article
titles identify his unsigned work. Lippmann added by-lines
to Ubrld editorials in the Yale University Lippmann Collection
that date from an March 192k through 27 February 1931.

 

81
measure," he wrote, "in short, seeks to attain an insig-
nificant result in a most offensive manner." Lippmann
declared further that "the measure is unnecessary. It is
brutal. It is dangerous. It does not cater to any real
necessity of the Pacific Coast and it does not represent

the real will of the American people."9
The Ku Klux Klan became a nationally significant

political group in the 1920's and reached its zenith in
1925. Although the Klan's ideology included keeping blacks
in their place and excluding Catholics and Jews from
American society, it also represented a "traditional
Protestant moralimm" that saw itself threatened by chang-
ing values. Knights of the Invisible Empire were determined
to fight secularism of the big cities: it was destroying
their small town, rural, Protestant-dominated existence.
Detroit, Indianapolis, Chicago, Kansas City, and Denver
contained powerful Klan organizations. States such as
Indiana, Ohio, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, California,
Oregon, and Maine experienced varying degrees of Klan con-

trol during the 1920's.10

 

9Lippmann, "Offensive and Fbolish," The Wbrld, 11 April
192k. He wrote further editorials concerning the same topic;
see ”The Senate, A.Hob," 16 April 192k; "where Character Will
Count,” 17 April 192k; "The President's Ordeal," 19 April 192k.

10Lipset and Raab, The Politics of Unreason. PP. 116-
122 and 111.

82

Portions of Lippmann's editorial reaction to the Ku
Klux Klan appeared during the 192k Presidential election.
The Democratic nominee, John w. Davis, spoke against the
Klan in Texas--a brave action. Lippmann urged President
Coolidge and Vice-President Charles Dawes to assert their
opinions against the Klan. "There is no place in American
life for a secret political order built on religious and
racial prejudice,” Lippmann declared, "and an American
President has no higher duty than to make that clear."11
In another article Lippmann scathed Coolidge for his silence
and Dawes for his volubility. They had praised the Klan
with faint damns, and Lippmann charged they were looking
for votes. as stated that the Klan must be repudiated
nationally and that Coolidge-Dawes actions would not do.
Such political tactics "were not good morals" and they
"should not be good politics."12

In July of 1925 John Scopes, a young high school biol-
ogy teacher, went on trial in.Dayton, Tennesee for violating
the state's law prohibiting the teaching evolution in public
schools. Scopes was nearly forgotten as two nationally

prdminent figures fought over the issue of creation.

 

“Lippmann, "which Side Hr. Coolidge 7" The World,
23 August 192k.

12
Lippmann, "The Only way With the Klan," The Wbrld,

26 August 192k.

83
Clarence Darrow, a famous Chicago lawyer and agnostic,
defended Scopes. William Jennings Bryan, a three-time
Presidential candidate and Fundamentalist, represented the
prosecution. After the eleven day trial, Scepes was found
guilty and a newspaper paid his fine.

During the "monkey trial"--as it came to be called--
Lippmann.wrote several articles. He thought Bryan.was
making a concerted effort to become important in American
politics again, and that the great orator was using the
religious issue to raise public interest. Bryan's campaign
this time, Lippmann thought, was "the most menacing poten-
tially that he has ever undertaken." Bryan sought to stim-
ulate people to fight for their gods and this was always an
13

awful spectacle. Bryan.had "started a religious crusade
among the ignorant and illiterate which shes to arm Funda-
mentalism with the police power of the state." And in
organizing this crusade "Mr. Bryan has committed spiritual
treason against the people of the united states." Lippmann
wrote, "Absurd? Of course the Dayton trial is absurd. But
so was the trial of Galileo, and so was the inquisition in
Spain. 80 is the Ku Klux Klan today. They are all absurd;

but their absurdity is close to madness. They are a

 

1
3Lippmann, "The Rise of Sectarian Politics," The
world, 10 July 1925.

8h
grotesque business tinged with fury, a tomfoolery with

loaded weapons."1h
unlike John Scopes, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo
Vansetti were charged in the spring of 1920 with murdering
a paymaster in a Massachusetts factory. Sacco and Vanzetti
were tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. Fbr the next
seven years their lives hung in balance as various groups
challenged the fairness of their trial. Many believed that
testimony concerning their anarchial political activities
prior to the alleged murder and robbery had.prejudiced both
the presiding Judge and jury. The two men were executed he
August of 1927.15
Lippmann and Heywood Broun, a popular Egglg_columnist,
both agreed that the trial for the two Italian-born anarchists
had not been free of prejudice. They saw trial evidence
that was contradictory, confused, and inconclusive.
Lippmann and Broun questioned these men's guilt. Broun
approached the case emotionally, however, and Lippmann
characteristically engaged in careful analysis of the
proceedings. The Egglg_finally refused to print Broun's

emotionally-laden charges against the trial's conduct and

 

1hLippmann, "The Spiritual Treason of Bryan," The
world, 15 July 1925. Other Lippmann editorials of special
Interest include: "The Foundations of Faith,” 17 July 1925;
"A wandering Defense," 22 July 1925; ”Shall There be a
Specially Privileged Religion?" 2h July 1925.

15Frank Freidel, America in the Twentieth Century (New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965}, pp. 226-227.

85
its findings. Broun left the paper.16

Lippmann explained since reasonable doubt existed that
these men were guilty and that a trial filled with prejudice
had taken place, Governor Alvin T. Fuller (Massachusetts)
should stay the execution and erase all remaining doubt.

The Governor would have to rise above existing political
pressures to delay the state's punishment, but he must look

17

to the future. Lippmann urged that Sacco's and Vanzetti's

sentences be commuted to life imprisonment. In this way,

1
Lippmann felt, Governor Fuller could not possibly err.

Some Americans looked overseas and found what they
thought would be an ideal government. The.!2£$§ received
many letters extolling the virtues of Italy's Fascism under
the direction of Benito Mussolini. The letters explained
how Mussolini and Fascism had made Italy prosper--how they
had restored order and put people to work. They wrote how
strong the government was and how much better it was than
the weak, log-rolling, parliamentary system that had pre-
ceded it.

Lippmann responded to the letters approving of Italy's

new leader and government by showing distrust for Mussolini

 

”Brown, Through These Men, pp. 222-22u.

17Lipp'mann, "Doubt That “111 Not Down," The world,
19 August 1927.

18Lippmann, "No New Light Hhatscever," The World,
20 August 1927.

86
and his motives. Italy would have to expand to meet demands
of a growing population, and this expansion threat would be
a definite danger to European peace. Lippmann also noted
that if Mussolini's Fascism were such a success then it
should be unnecessary to pursue a policy of repression.
He found Mussolini and the Fascists to be "men.of violent
and neurotic temper who would feel they were not red-
blooded men if they approached this most delicate and dif-
ficult question [of maintaining power and gaining more
territory to meet a growing population's needs] with patience

1
and coolness."

Lippmann.experienced a troubled democracy attempting to
thread its way between varying degrees of liberty and author-
ity. It was when America lost its way and either extremes
of liberty or authority dominated national life that serious
troubles began. Democracy needed the essentials of the two
elements that liberty and authority represented: the former
allowed and encouraged renewal and the latter gave order and
direction. Their equilibrium meant life to America's politi-
cal economic well being. Anarchy or tyranny meant death.

The books Lippmann published in the 1920's sought more
permanent answers to the problem of maintaining a successful

balance between the best aspects of liberty and authority.

 

19Lippmann, "The Danger of Fascism," The world, 23
December 1925.

87

America's domestic and international issues of the 1920's
quickened Lippmann's search. In seeking solutions to
problems before society, Lippmann.was much more interested
in finding answers which conflicting groups could accept
than he was in presenting wholly intellectually viable
solutions. Accomodation among conflicting interest groups
was more important than the nature of the solution offered.
He could see no other way-~for goals that hardened into
doctrine became brittle and fell away under life's constant
thrashing about in continual change. Lippmann aimed at
keeping problems clearly defined and options available
that met the difficulties. A disinterested observer using
reason as a basis for his scrutiny could keep citizens
informed. They, in return, could see issues and choose
solutions. Lippmann, however, was under no illusion that
all people eagerly studied public problems and anxiously
figured alternative answers. But if America's democracy
were to function successfully its participants would have
to share responsibility for maintaining a balance between
liberty and authority.

Liberty and the News (1920) and Americanglnquisitors:
A Commentary on Dayton and Chicago (1928) show Lippmann's
concern about authority dominating liberty. During werld

Her I, he witnessed and participated in news manipulation,

88

and he was uneasy about it.20 ‘Liberty and the Newgymakes

clear the link between citizens and their right to know.

If the news were distorted, for whatever reason, the public
had unclear and even false bases upon.which to act.
Lippmann saw the newspaper as democracy's bible and he felt
Journalism to be a high profession charged with a noble and
essential task: to keep the truth before the people and

21
their leaders. He argued that "with a common intellectual
method and common area of valid fact, differences may become
a form of c00peration and cease to be irreconcilable

antagonism“:2

In 1928 his book American Inquisitors came off the
press. He observed gloomily that papers had to be enter-
taining if they were to sell. Americans found news stories
that treated serious events responsibly dull. Only the
spectacles such as John Scepes' trial in Dayton, Tennessee
and Hilliam McAndrew's trial in Chicago were of interest.
Both involved state restriction of a teacher's intellectual

 

20Lippmann, Libert and the News (New Yerk: Harcourt,
Brace and Howe, 1525), p. §. Lippmann's Men of Desti
(New York: The Macmillan.Company, 1927) contains repr ts
of magazine articles he wrote in the 1920's. one chapter
concerned censorship and it followed Liberty and the News
to a point. It was not hopeful that emocrats were‘Iikely
to accumulate facts, weigh evidence, and arrive at reason-
able conclusion--pp. 100-106.

1
2 Lippmann, Liberty and the News, p. h7.

221bid., p. 67.

89

obligations and rights. They were clearly two cases marking
a new phase in the ancient conflict between freedom and
authority.23

By returning to the classics in American Inquisitors
and staging a Socratic dialogue between Thomas Jefferson
and Socrates (with William Jennings Bryan interjecting at
times), reason and revelation underwest exacting discus-

2h

sion. where revelation extended beyond human experience,
reason derived from human experience and continued to

develop and change according to the dictates of human exper-
ience. Reason could correct itself where revelation could
not.25 Modernuman increasingly rejected the customs and
traditions associated with the church. However, in rejection
the old men often laid themselves open to false prophets
[propagandistsl and in the process of modernists exercising
their liberty, they had turned it into intellectual and

emotional anarchy. Their disbelief had become a destructive

26
authority.
Lippmann's book entitled Public Qpinion (1922) is with-

out doubt one of the most important treatises, perhaps the

 

23Lippmann, American Inquisitorso A Comments on
Da ton and Chica 0 (New York: T e Macm an Company, 928),

PP- ' -
3E;g;g., p. 38, ft.
.25Ibid., pp. 6h and.hO.

261bid., pp. 1ou, 118-120.

90
most important Lippmann ever wrote. He set as his task the
analysis of gg!_public opinion developed and the nature of
public opinion. Along with Public Qpinion's sequel, The
Phantom Public (1927), he explored the public's perception
of the line between liberty and authority that formed the
power base from which its leaders operated. To keep the
public vision clear and to interpret its will as a basis for
effective action remained the major duties of news gatherers
and national leaders.

Lippmann wrote in Public Opinion that the American
democracy, as conceived by its Founding Fathers, possessed a
structural weakness which developed into a critical debili-
tation as the nation grow. The success of Jeffersonian
democracy depended upon a small, rural geographical area,
about the size of a township, being led by a selected class.27
Although America's politics developed a two party system
and patronage which helped create peaceful change, it oper-
ated also in fear of an unseen environment. Thus, citizens
in a democracy insisted upon self-determination and self-
government where the environment remained familiar, but
American views beyond the familiar were imprisoned by the
parochial nature of their government. In addition, as man's

civilized environments expanded and intertwined, it became

 

27Lippmann, Public inion (1922: rpt; New Ybrk:
The Macmillan Company, 9 , pp. 169-170.

91
obvious that omnicompetent citizens constantly interested

2
in political affairs were difficult to find. 8

Public Opinion acknowledged that Men of Reason who
helped to build the American experiment in the seventeenth
and eighteenth century could not have foreseen inventions
that tied together the nations of the world. But in order
to avoid constant friction whidh was likely to occur among
communities becoming aware of others, Lippmann noted that
societies of the past had developed a central idea that
each person had his special function to perform. Their
duty would keep them out of conflict. Thinkers such as
Plato, Aristotle, and Dante wrote of such a device, and
such contemporary economic systems as socialism.and capi-
talism.pursued a similar goal.2

Idppmann described another major problem confronting
democracy. Since the world had been tied more closely
together by steam vessels, railroads, telegraphs, telephones,
and radio, the foreign environment obviously impinged upon
democracy's circumstances. It was increasingly important
that the world outside became intelligible to the average
citizen who helped form American public opinion.

The environment itself proved difficult to describe,

Lippmann wrote in.§ublic_gpinion, for it was mostly unseen,

 

282.929... pp. 181. 171, 173.

29Ib1de , pp. 165-167e

92
3O
often puzzling, and usually fleeting. To make matters

worse, some observers of foreign environments, notably
prOpagandists, had a stake in reporting only certain sets

31

of circumstances, and so distorted truth. Difficulties

also arose because the average citizen spent little time
each day examining the newspaper, and he read most often
stories unconcerned with political issues. Moreover, human
language was inadequate to report environment accurately
and foreign language translations presented serious obstacles
to understanding.32

One of Public Qpinion's greatest contributions to com-
prehending man in groups was its discussion of stereotypes.
Lippmann felt these proved to be habits of one's eyes, an
understanding of which was essential to the perception of
how public opinion was formed. He declared that people had
been taught to see certain things or to imagine specific
types of circumstances.33 These patterns of stereotypes
linked people to their environment--seen and unseen.
Lippmann noted great danger in attacking the habits of eyes,

for stereotypes gave people their sense of value about

 

3oIbid., p. 17.
31Ibid., pp. 27-28.
SZIbide, Pp. [ID-1+3.

331bid-. pp. Sh-S7.

93

themselves. He argued that a perfect stereotype preceded
the use of reason since it imposed characteristics on data
before it reached intelligence.31+

Lippmann saw serious danger in relying totally on
stereotypes when dealing with national or international
issues. Americans had seen through stereotypes of progress
and development for generations. The focus upon ever-
increasing production and material progress prior to werld
Her I had resulted in a failure on the part of Americans to
give adequate thought to the problem of achieving peace in
a world of sovereign states. It would no longer suffice
for man to devote almost exclusive attention to domestic
problems, Lippmann explained. Satisfactory advances in the
solution of those problems did not remove the conflicts among
rival national economies. The time had come when Americans
must recognize that their Own fate and the fate of the nation
depended upon international developments.35

Pgblic Qpinion showed that a person's view of the world
was largely, if not wholly, a subjective matter related
directly to one's experiences, interests, and prejudices, or
as Lippmann.put it, to one's angle of perception. Capital-
ists saw one thing and socialists another. Their point of

view had been determined by stereotypes which, in turn, had

 

BthIdo, pp. 63-6Se

3511316... pp. 69-7Se

91+
been accepted and arranged by man's nature. Lippmann
described man's mind, his instinct, and the various selves
in one personality as extremely complex and in some cases
beyond man's present understanding. The perceptions upon
which man acted depended upon fleeting, constantly changing
images which the mind had created.36 Man's action depended
upon which self at that particular instant saw the issue,
and instinct had little understanding at the time except to

know there was such a thing.37

Men would pursue their
interests, but how was not fatally determined. ”Man can
set no term upon the creative energies of men."38

At the center of man's morals, Lippmann wrote, rested
a core of stereotypes that determined which set of facts
one would see and in what light they would be seen. He
argued that America's ideal view of human nature prompted
its progress. At the same time a society that looked for
such ideals also helped itself find them.39 Moral codes
involved "a picture of human nature, a map of the universe,

and a version of history," and--Lippmann warned--myth had

never contained the critical power to separate its truths

 

361bid., p. 103.

37Ib1d., p. 112.

381bid., p. 121.

39Ibid., p. 76.

95

0 The codes become more complicated as Lippmann

from errors.h
saw several different types within one man: those for per-
sonal, economic, professional, fmmily, and religious activi-
ties. Again, the real difference of how one acted and
believed arose from his angle of perception.“'1
Lippmann turned away from discussing democracy and its
individual citizens in Public Qpinion when he began consid-
ering common will and democracy's leaders. Lippmann asked,
"How does a simple and constant idea emerge from this com-
plex of variables‘1?"""2 He answered by describing the power
of an emotional stimulus that could effectively coalesce
public opinion. He used President Wilson's Fourteen Points
as an example of an emotional stimulus which satisfied sev-
eral different types of needs that the Allied and Central
113

Powers had. The Fourteen Points "were a daring attempt

to raise a standard to which almost everyone might repair."hh
A mmall group of leaders tended to control world

affairs, Lippmann argued. By virtue of their position and

authority, these men who had wide and frequent contact with

the world at large had some realistic picture of that larger

 

“amide, pe 80s
h1Ibid., pp. 81-82.
ulbide, pe 125e

h3Ibid., pp. 132-135.

MIbide , p. 136'

96
world. The masses could only have a vague and generalized
view of the larger world. However vague and generalized
the view, uncanplicated by realities, it would direct their

behavior.h5 But the leaders also recognized that only when
an.emotional symbol activated the people could they exercise
effectively their powers. These symbols, substitute for
realities, Lippmann observed, elicited emotions. They
blotted out details and replaced reality and in so doing
substituted a conception that led to action. The symbol

A6

affairs few people were privileged to see reality. The con-

allowed masses to escape their own inertia. In foreign

ception of far away places had little relationship to real-

ities. Therefore, leaders could shape these conceptions

of the people so as to suit their own purposes.“7
After describing the great difficulties in Operating

a democracy, Lippmann's portrayal of contrived consent

smacked of authoritarianism. He wanted to balance the idea

of a foreign policy elite running foreign.policy by con-

structing a group of information specialists which intel-

ligently reported the environment to public administrators;

however, the infermation gatherers would not be tied to

 

uSIbid., p. 136.
ubIbid., pp. 1hS-1h6.
h?

Ibide, ppe 15h'158e

97

newspapers which were generally linked to advertising
interests.”8 Public Opinion proposed to avoid the noble
role of standardized newspaper reporting that his earlier
Liberty_and the News supported. Lippmann explained that
demoeracy's problems went deeper than the press could go.h9
Thereby, the public at large was excluded from determining
foreign policy. This marked a radical departure from
traditional democratic thought.

Lippmann argued that knowledge came from the environment
and that men built wisdom from their search for truth in.the
outside world. If they turned inside themselves to find

truth and wisdom, he wrote in Public Opinion, they accumu-
50

 

lated only prejudices. The public would have to be re-

educated about how to think, but that would take years, and
51

that self-knowledge led to desire for a friendlier world.

crises occurred in minutes. Lippmann suggested, finally,

In a great leap of faith from democracy's problems to solu-
tions offered, Lippmann stated that man.must live as if
good will would work--that man must use intelligence, cour-

52

age, and effort to pursue the good life for all men.

 

uBIhid., pp. 203 and 250-251.
“91bid., p. 228.
5c’Ibid. , p. 2149.
51Ibid., pp. 255-256 and 260.

521b1d., p. 262.

98

Public Opinion by-passed the public and lay the problem
of operating democratic America at the feet of public admini-
strators and information specialists. In sharp contrast to
the tenets of the democratic faith, Lippmann placed his faith
in the leaders who know best. The people were relegated to
mere followers because they had yet to be taught how to
think. Lippmann attempted to balance the authority with
some liberty when he asked the average democrat to believe
in mania good will and look forward to a promising future.

Ianhppghantom Public: A Sequel to "Public Qpinion"
(1927), Lippmann reaffirmed that democracy's leaders should
continue to act on basic public issues as they had in the
past. However, he now spelled out an.important role for the
public. Its role was to intervene in public affairs when
leaders became arbitrary and did not behave as the public
believed they should.53 The public, Lippmann asserted,
aligned itself with individuals who actually governed and
showed its will only as a check of "the use of force in a
crisis, so that men, driven to make terms, may live and let

live."5h Actually, Lippmann clarified democracy's past

workings by urging leaders who were acquainted with wider

environments to continue their direction and by seeing the

 

53Lippmann, The Phantom Public: A Squpl to "Public
inion“ (New York: Macmillan Company,—1927), pp. 103 and
1 - e

 

51mum” p. 62 and 7a.

99
public as a watchdog of leaders' behavior. With democracy's
leaders acting on issues and with the public curbing national
leader's unusual behavior, Lippmann attempted to keep clear
the thin line between liberty and authority.

The Phantpm Public sharply challenged the democratic
theorists who had viewed the public as sovereign. America
had been founded on the idea that reason was useful, Lippmann
contended, and the public could be helpful in creating an
atmosphere wherein reason could be exercised. He declared
that the public did not need to act on all public affairs,
and that in1many cases it would be best in the public would

not act.55 Lippmann felt that few instances existed where
the public (outsiders) had as much information and knowledge

of options as its leaders (insiders). The public's role in
democracy should be defined: its powers and limits. It
needed direction, but it also should be put in its place.
Lippmann feared "the trampling and the roar of a bewildered
herd" as much as he loathed arbitrary dictatorial behavior
56

from national leaders.

The Phantom Public showed a difficult, complex relation-
ship among the people, their leaders, and the outside world.

Hefonmers had made the mistake of seeing American society as

 

55Ibid., pp. 1&7, 13h-1h1.

561bit , p. 155.

100
an organic whole and they ignored the innumerable variety of
relations which occurred naturally from democrats pursuing
their individual desires and of the individuals mixing with
others.57 To add more variety, the world outside most
peeple's experience imposed further concerns which often
were understood only through imagination.

If democracy's leaders were to govern effectively,
power had to be centralized--and this centralization created
further distance between.the governors and the governed.
Where the governors saw a type of whole and tended to
generalize through abstraction and bureaucracy, the governed
experienced daily varieties of the whole and tended "to mis-

58 With

take a local prejudice for a universal truth."
increasing distance occurring between the people and their
leaders and with an imagined environment creating more

serious issues which demanded quick action, Lippmann thought
the people would have to accept the organic whole view of
society and suppress their individual desires. Or they

could revolt.59 Order must precede law before the latter's
authority was free to allow liberty. Lippmann asserted, as
well, that domestic tranquility meant more effective relations

0V6 P808. e 60

 

S7Ibid., pp. 156-157 and 172.

SBIbide, pp. 180-181e

59Ibid., p. 186.
60

Ibid., pp. 19h and 196.

101
In late January of 1929 William Allen White, the promi-
nent Republican editor of the Enporia (Kansas) Gazette,
wrote to Henry S. Canby, an editor for Book-of-the-Month
Club. White asked that Lippmann's soon-to-be-published
Preface to Morals be selected as the next month's chief
offering. He wrote:
I think it is Lippmann's high tide.
It is a serious book but beautifully
written and simply written. There
isn't a paragraph in it that the
average intelligent American cannot
understand and to me that is everything
about a book.61
White also sent a note to Lippmann. The January 21st
letter related to Lippmann that the Emporia Gazette editor

had read greface to Morals in proof for the Book-of—the-

 

Month Club. He felt that it was Lippmann's highwater mark
and White wrote he was happy that Lippmann's latest book

was his best. White observed that after reading the book

he had an urge to write to Lippmann and ask him to leave the
newspaper business and become a literary light. But now
that Lippmann had been advanced to Editor-in-Chief of the
‘Egglg, he supposed that it was probably better that Lippmann
stay where he was. Lippmann could move the masses through
his editorial rather than be a philosopher "and appeal to

 

61
William Allen White to Henry S. Canby, 21 January
1929 in.Walter Johnson, ed., Selected Letters of William

Allen White! 1899-12g3 (New York: Henry Holt and Company,
9 PP. " 0

102

the leadership of the country and the world.”62

In the same note, however, the Kansas editor declared
that Lippmann's Preface to Morals would move the masses and
appeal to their leadership. The book was easy reading.
"Your sentences and paragraphs are as crystalline as
Emerson. Yen have a great talent and your life is well
before you....I envy you the happiness of the coming years
which I have seen myself in passing them."63

Idppmann's tenth book, Preface to Morals, was published
in May of 1929. It became a Book-of-the-Month Club selec-

tion and ran through six editions before the year had
6h

Edmund Wilson praised Preface to Morals as ”beautifully
6S
11

passed. Among the many favorable reviews, even acerbic

organized, beautifully clear.

The book showed a dissolving ancestral order. Man,
Lippmann asserted, had a great need to believe and truths of

organized religion had for generations satisfied man's desire to

 

62WilliamAllenWhite to Walter Lippmann, 21 January
1929 in Ibid., p. 291.

63Ib1de , ppe 291-292e

6nRoderick Nash, The Nervous Generation: American
Thought, 1911:193Q_(Chicago: Rand McNally & Company,'1970),
p. 112,

65The New Republic, 59, 10 July 1929, p. 210.

103

find certainty.66 But Americans had lost their security

because the "acids of modernity" had destroyed it. People
seemed unsure of their relationship to God, to governnent,
and of their own individual relationship to the world.67
Industrial progress had wiped out America's continuity with
its rural past. The city's growth increased alienation

from one another, and people had started crossing what was
once considered almost sacred lines between various economic
and social classes. A horror of the loss of association

68

set in.

Lippmann argued in Preface to Morals that man needed

 

surroundings or dispositions which did not change--for their
order assured man of eternal order. A loss of piety or
patriotism threw believers into a maelstrom where the world's
meaning drowned in emotional and intellectual chaos.69 It
was religion's purpose to give man a picture of the world
with which he could relate successfully--where he could find
value.70 The school, the church, the family, and the state

had become specialized and separate under the impact of

 

66Lippmann, A Preface to Morals (New York: The
Macmillan Company, 1929), pp. 36 andhO.

67Ib1de, pe Sbe

68Ibid., pp. 61 and 66.
691bid., p. 63.

7°Ib1d., p. 131.

10h
modernity. Where various institutions and their absolutes

71

once worked together, dissolution had begun. Peeple had
a blur of choices, Lippmann wrote, and they were somewhat
dithered by them.72 He argued that the modern intellect

tended to deny what ought to be true was necessarily true.73

The apparent loss of American society's usual vestiges
of authority, Lippmann observed, in turn led to the belief
that passions should flow and selves should be fulfilled.
Liberal reformers had sought to change man's external envi-
ronment in order that man's innate goodness could shower
forth. They had ignored the ages' wisdom that the human con-
dition could be bettered only if man's internal being and his
external conditions were changed and harmonized. Modernity's
answer of "liberty" of the passions and "liberty" to fulfill
self flew in the face of the past's authority.7h

Preface to Morals argued that the goals men set for
themselves were a product of their beliefs about the nature
of the world and human nature. These beliefs were now dis-
integrating and when these old beliefs changed men must

75

also change their goals. The humanism which Lippmann

 

721bid., p. 110.
73Ibid., pp. 136-137.

7uIbid., pp. 152-158.

751b1d., p. 1&3.

105
supported rested on man's knowledge of human psychology and
science, and it aimed "to come to terms with the needs
which created those fictions (faiths).” Lippmann declared,
"In this book I take the humanistic view because, in the

6
kind of world I happen to live in, I can do no other.”7
Lippmann believed that man should revise his desires

in the light of his understanding of reality provided by
science and psychology. Lippmann carefully noted Sigmund
Freud's and Sandor Ferenczi's[:a Hungarian colleague of
Freud's] revealing analysis of the nature of man. But, he
argued that their studies dealt only with the pathological

77

states of man's maturation. Lippmann was concerned with

the last stage of human development where it recovered har-
mony between itself and the environment. Harmony had been
lost when the human left infant stage and began.the long
process of adjusting its desires to realities of the world.
Lippmann argued that unhappily some men in high places, in
charge of the mechanics of civilization, had remained
attached to old habits where their wishes were law "and they

knew neither necessity nor change."78

Lippmann conceived of humanism as a higher form of

 

76Ibid., p. 1th.

77Ibidep PP. 173-180.

78Ibid., p. 18h.

gm

:4:

an
t.

106
religion devoted to the art and theory of the internal
life.79 Humanism.asked‘man.to formulate a way of life that
grew from his own resources and did not depend upon "super-
natural rules, comands, punishments, and compensation."
Modern man, Lippmann declared, faced awful dilemmas: he
wanted to believe but could not; he needed commands but
there was no commander; Lippmann's proposed religion of
spirit would suit modern man's needs, but it was beyond
him.80 Modern man's desires had to be re-educated because
the old certainties guaranteed by ancient authority were
dissolving.

Lippmann's main contention was that the old problem of
disbelief had spread to so great an extent that it demanded
immediate serious concern. 01d religion met aberrations as
they occurred and, in effect, governed from day to day.

The high religion, which.Lippmann.proposed as useful, aimed
at re-education of desires that caused the profound unrest
which kept America in turmoil. High religion was no longer
a spiritual luxury that could be enjoyed by the few; its
mass application became an imperative.

Lippmann observed that the industrial revolution and

 

79Ibid., p. 195.

801bid., p. 198-203.

81Ibid., p. 208.

107
urban growth had sped the United States toward a spiritual
crisis. However, Lippmann had faith that the society's
developing strengths allowed solution. Lippmann's high
religion relied on a disinterested mind that gave credence
to science's detached inquiry.82 Modern America's spir-
itual troubles forced its leaders to be more tolerant of
others' beliefs and also set them to searching for harmony
that would accommodate seemingly conflicting goals.83
Humanism's core, high religion, encouraged tolerance and
search.

Modern society's very diversity and separation of
functions and aims had.made it interdependent and sensitive
to potential crises. Severe problems, Lippmann wrote,
immediately disoriented a complex civilization which depended
upon all of its separate but critical parts working together.
Power, Lippmann asserted, had become distributed and quali-
fied so that it was exerted by interactions-not by command.8u

In contrast to a politician who sought to satisfy con-
stituents' immediate desires, Idppmann called for a states-

man to help peOple recognize their hidden and long term

interests. The statesman made people more aware of their

environment--their relation to it--and options available

 

82Ibid., pp. 221 and 238.

83Ib1d., p. 271.

8111131121., pp. 272 and 275.

:-

. Q

108
when.the two interacted. By facing his fellowers with
reality, the statesman re-educated their desires. The
statesmanfis detached position of disinterestedness allowed
hie to rise above agitations of the moment and gain insight

from collected knowledge and objective analysis.85 Lippmann

failed.to explain why and how statemmen were to be disinter-
ested.‘ His faith that they would become so certainly could
not be Justified by history nor by the behavior of states-
men Lippmann.knew from 01p6r10n00.

Lippmann addressed himself to the powers-that-be. He
called them moralists and observed in.§reface to Morals
that their roles in society had changed. They could no
longer stand on their rock of truth and survey the chaos
of modern.America. The development of science and the
growth of the industrial revolution had caused man's inner
springs of being to change and his conduct had been altered.
Youthful brashness and the cult of intellectual disbelievers
were signs of an.Anerica in transition. The moralists had
to face the often frustrating and sometimes convulsive

shifts.86

The moralist, Lippmann declared, had to begin.inter-
preting man!s needs. He could no longer teach the revealed--

he would have to reveal what could be taught. Lippmann

 

8‘SIbid., pp. 280-283.

6
Ibid., pp. 315-317.

109
wrote that the moralist should seek and explain insight
rather than preach. Most importantly, the moralist could
no longer assert "the good" and expect people to abandon
"the wrong." He would have to prove the goodness of moral
assertions. The moralist would have to help man reform his

needs in.a world unconcerned with man's happiness.87

As Lippmannfis book title displayed, its author ins
tended no more than to provide a preface to further inquiry.
If a civilization were to exist in a world filled with con-
flicting goals, the civilization itself should create a
clear idea of what is represented. In order to fulfill
the promise of its representation, its ideals had to be
clearly defined. It must have an imaginative concept of
good. The type of clarity and definition that Lippmann
asked for could only be rooted in knowledge, and knowledge,
Lippmann affirmed, was a principle of order and certainty.
It helped define intellectual stability and it also provided
spiritual and emotional security. Knowledge added dignity
88

to manfis existence.

By recognizing the need for change, Lippmann sounded
an alert in‘greface to Morals that the old was dissolving;

people sought the new; and they needed a place or idea from

 

87Ibid., PP. 318-320.

88Ib1dos PP. 322-323.

110
which to begin. He argued that man should carefully examine
the past's wisdom for usable portions that would help the
present. He asked that man.recognize the importance of
the relatively new science of psychology because it offered
potential insight into man's complex inner being. Lippmann
supported the use of reason and detachment which would help
hmm sort the important and the unimportant, the permanent
and the temporary. America was in crisis, and if one could
not find answers in its environment, he would have to look

to himself.89

America attempted to return to normalcy, to ideas and
values long outdated, which revealed the country's spiritual
crisis. President Harding's phrase echoed what citizens
wanted. But when they set out to re-establish the certainty
that world war had disrupted, their sureness turned into a
rummaging which eventually developed into a frantic search.
Four years of war had changed the world.

Lippmann's role in.American life became clearer in the
1920's; he had become a careful critic without portifolio.
As in his first book, Preface to Politics (1913), his tenth
one, Preface to Morals (1929), placed man at the center of
human affairs. During those sixteen years that his first
ten books were written.and published, Lippmann developed a
philosophy which urged man toward reason and asked him to

 

89Ibid., pp. 323-327.

111
see life as a developing process.

The 1920's presented a decade that needed a voice which
showed Americans hovering near extremes of authority and
liberty. Lippmann's reason and detachment asked man to
strike a balance between them. He wanted men of good will
to be able to live happily together. To take authority with-
out liberty meant dictatorship, and to use liberty without
authority meant anarchy. Freeing oneself of blind obedience
to old institutions and encrusted dogma which no longer
served man's humane needs was a task Lippmann assigned to
knowledgeable and reasonable men. Likewise, adherance to
the new and faddish that served no end except to signal
need for significant change amused Lippmann's ire.

Sharp contradictions in Lippmann's writings are readily
apparent. In Public Opinion he forcefully challenged the
belief that few others besides scientific experts could
achieve an understanding of the larger world. The stereo-
types of the majority bore little resemblance to reality.

In greface to Morals Lippmann takes quite a different view
of man's capacity to understand both himself and the society
in which he lives. How Lippmann emerges as a man of faith.
Hen could understand. Lippmann's new faith rests on the
miracle of scientific study. Let man put the scientific
method to use and man could achieve a correct picture of
both himself and the world about him.

Only one of Lippmann's first ten books reached a wide
popular audience during its initial publication. But

112

Lippmann's impact upon the people and their leaders hardly
depended upon his monographic efforts. His newspaper and
magazine writings touched the larger streams of conscious
running through national life. Although greface to Morals
sold thousands of copies in 1929, his writings for’The New
Republic and Vanity Fair, for instance, helped to widen.his
influence. From 1922 through early 1931 he wrote for the
New York.!g£lg, and his twelve hundred editorials allowed
his philosophy to be tested in American intellectual and
political life. A critic who cherished common sense and
reason and who asked people to live in harmony and good

will had much to write about in the 1920's.

CHAPTER FIVE
WALTER LIPPHANN AND HAR'S END, THE 1920's

The world of diplomacy revealed intense nationalism
in.the 1920's. world war I reordered power arrangements,
and nations anxiously sought security. war bled England
white. France scurried from one ministry to the next in
search of security from what appeared to be an inevitable
German reconstruction. Russia stumbled in its effort to
stabilize a communist government at home and spread Marxism
abroad. Japan's sun rose over recently acquired territory
in the Far East. Latin Americans began severe pressuring
for their independence from unwanted paternalism of the
united States. And the United States--an economic giant
with its newly won creditor-nation status--refused to Join
the League of Nations, insisted upon repayment of war debts,
and raised tariff barriers.

President Woodrow Wilson returned to the united states
early in July of 1919 with the Treaty of Versailles. Halter
Idppmann, having returned from.the Paris Peace Conference
six.months earlier, was again editing and writing for The New
Republic. He and the magazine's Editor-ianhief, Herbert
Croly, did not agree upon what positions The New Republic
should take regarding the Versailles Treaty. Croly found
it vindictive and wholly inconsistent with the Fourteen

113

11h
Points. Lippmann did not like the treaty but he was will-
ing to accept an.emended version of it in order to inaugurate
the League of Nations. Croly maintained his argument and

Idppmann eventually agreed, much to his later regret.1

The New Republic denounced the Treaty of Paris.

Lippmann saw the public images of Allied leaders
change as war ended and peace was sought. Postponed self-
interests had begun to stir in the warring nations as peace
came closer in 1918. ”Britain the Defender of Public Law,
France watching at the Frontier of Freedom, America the
Crusader" felt their war images fray out. "Wilson,
Clemenceau, Lloyd George ceased to be the incarnation of
human hope, and became merely the negotiators and adminis-
trators for a disillusioned world."2

Wilson's wartime administration created public opinion
which supported American war efforts. But there was no

such endeavor in.preparing the united States for peace.3

The Allies won a total victory over the Central Powers,
and the peace that followed demanded a new pattern of
international relations. Leaders who understood change
and people who developed habits of tolerance would be

 

1Lippmann, Reminiscences, I, pp. 18 and 12.

2Lippmann,£gblic Qpinion, p. 8.

31nd. , p. 30.

11S

necessary, for only they could refocus energy and rearrange

h.

Lippmann wrote that the Paris Peace Conference did

accomodating goals.

not contain the substance of peace. Solely territorial

and materialistic issues were pursued and they triggered
emotion. Germany's treaty with.Russia, signed at Brest-
Litovsk on March 3, 1918, had broken the hypnotic effect of
war: peace was possible and people's minds began to wander.
The Fburteen Points meant to counter the negative effects
of Russia's revelation of the secret treaties in December
of 1917, and they also were to ameliorate the effects of

the Brest-Litovsk conference in early 1918. But the ideals
of the Fourteen Points crumbled as victorious Allies began

dividing the spoils in January of 1919.5 The end of war,
not the beginning of peace, set the diplomatic tone for

the next generation.

As the 1920's passed, Lippmann adhered faithfully to
the belief that the American democracy could survive postwar
buffetings, and perhaps help lead other’nations away from
potential international collisions. He aimed to keep his
readers informed about foreign affairs, and he wanted to
direct American leaders away from applying American answers

for world problems. In America, as elsewhere in the world,

 

r:

Ibid., p. 73.

511316. , pp. 13“.“135.

116

self-interest increased after World war I, and the unfor-
tunate excesses of nationalism prompted domestic irratione
ality and unilateral alternatives for international issues.

Even the best of American statesmen.would have had a
difficult time conducting successfully America's foreign
relations during the 1920's. Dmnocracy's limitations upon
its leaders and the intricate diplomatic problems of the
decade drove Lippmann.toward gloom. He wrote that Americans
were witnessing "stupendous happenings" by which they would
be deeply affected. They had a choice: to live inns world
filled with.creativity and invention or to live in one para-
lyzed by hate and despair. After France and Belgium occupied
the Ruhr in January of 1923, he noted sadly that "we are

conscious and we are helpless."6 Americans, he thought, were
likely to continue their bad habit of personifying nations
and applying moral qualities. A.nation, he declared, was

a complex organization that defied easy or permanent

7

characteristics. Rather than assess guilt or assign blame,

Lippmann asked his readers to think clearly. He asserted
that historic wrongs were never righted--that they remained
endless and should be forgotten. He noted as well that guilt

was personal and could not be passed from one generation to

 

6Lippmann, ”States of Mind About the Ruhr,” Vanity
Fair, 32, April 1923, p. on.

7Ibid. , p. 61;.

117

the next. Lippmann asked readers to see the world as a
process and suggested that the peace-makers at Paris in
1919 did not or could not recognize this.8

France and Belgium ostensibly invaded the Ruhr because
Germany had defaulted on her reparations payments, and
Lippmann was greatly concerned about the debts-reparations
issue. Its influence on European economic and political
stability was crucial. Americans wanted to be repaid the
money they had loaned to the Allies to prosecute the war.
But the indebted nations felt that the United States should
negotiate the debt, which amounted to twelve billion dollars.
After all, while Americans profited, Europeans died.9

Lippmann reported that debt-collecting depended on
ability and willingness to pay.10 He argued that the debts
were interlocked and would require an international solution

since several nations were involvednllI Lippmann contended

that French payments to the United States and Great Britain
12

were tied to Germany's reparations payments to France.

 

32111., p. bu.

9L. Ethan Ellis,
(New Brunswick, New Jersey: gers vers y ress,

1968) s P0 19,-I».

  

1°Lippmann "Equality in Debt Collecting," The World
10 December 1921;. "'“"

1"Lippmann, “Debts and Navies,” The world,
16 December 19214.

12Lippmann, "A Decent Respect for the opinions of
Mankind,” The world, 2 January 1925.

118
He reported on January 17, 1925 that England.had asked that
all Allied debts be canceled. Uinston Churchill, the
British chancellor of the exchequer, knew Continental debts
were worthless, with probably only fractions of them col-
lectable. Rather than demand the impossible Churchill
gracefully surrendered them and "purchased Continental good-
will with the sacrifice." President Coolidge, Lippmann
thought, would have to move fast and gracefully: either

1
make debts payable or erase them. 3

Idppmann's proposal of an international solution to the
problem of intergovernmental indebtedness, and his declara-
tion that Germany's reparations payments deeply influenced
Allied debt payments received sharp reinforcement as he
analyzed the Dawes Report through the spring and summer of
192M.

The Dawes Committee was an.international body composed
of Americans, French, Italians, British, and Belgians.
American economic experts included Charles G. Dawes, Owen D.
'Young, and Henry Morton Robinson. They met with other com-
mittee members from January through the early part of April,
192k. The maJor point of the Dawes Report consisted of
making Germany once again an economically viable country
capable of paying its reparations. Germany would receive
Allied help in reconstructing its devastated country, and

 

1
3Lippmann, “Churchill's Drumpfire,” The World,
1 7 January 1925.

119
she would then make reasonable reparations payments spread
over a definite period of time. The Germans needed a two-
hundreddmillion-dollar loan.to get started and, at the
behest of President Coolidge, the private banking firm of
J. P. Morgan and Company loaned one hundred and ten million
1h

Lippmann favored the Dawes plan, but he perceived many

dollars.

problems. His major criticism.must have lanced the French
heart, for Lippmann declared that if Germany were to pay

the huge Allied-imposed reparations it would have to recover
its former strength. Do the Allies, especially France, want
a strong Germany?15 He understood French fear of a recon-
structed Germany, but he felt that America and England were
better suited to control Germany's growth than was France.16
Lippmann believed that the Dawes repayment plan was too high
and that Germany would most certainly default in two or three
years.17 He noted, also, that Germany must be willing to pay

the reparations if she wished to stay out of trouble with

 

1
“Ellis, Republican Foreign Policy, pp. 200-201.

15Lippmann, "Fundamentally Just and Acceptable," The
"brld: 18 April 192k. See also "French Counter Claims,"
The World, 27 April 1924.

16Lippmann, ”Poincare Defected," The werld,
13 July 192k. ““"

17Lippmann, "The Issues at London,” The World,
19 Judy 192k.

120
other countries. France, Lippmann advised, should consider
negotiating with rather than dictating to Germany on the

question of reparations.18

Halter Lippmann also examined carefully international
maneuvers aimed at establishing future world peace. If the
world were to stay peaceful, he asserted, a structure pro-
viding collective security was needed. In an editorial of
October, 1925, he wrote:

Everybody in Europe knew the pledges

of peace in the [League of Nations]

Covenant were meaningless because no

human.power could preserve an order in

Europe based on the domination of France,

the permanent prostration of Germany and

the outlawry of Russia. 80 the pledges

in the Covenant faded and.were almost

forgotten.19
Much of Lippmannfis thinking about American foreign policy
and its relationship to the world's rapidly changing
alliances centered on the efforts of Continental powers
to organize and regain.some semblance of power in the west.
The signatories of the League of Hations attempted to
Operate their international organization while the united
States offered alternatives to the League structure. A
naval disarmament conference, proposed by the United States,

met in.Hashington late in 1921 and early in 1922. Nine

 

18Lippmann, "The Consent of Germany," The werld,
29 July 192k.

19Lippmann, "Locarno," The world, 21 October 1925.

121
countries attended the washington Conference, which was an
obvious attempt by the united states to substitute disarma-

2° The participants concluded

ment for League membership.
a number of treaties dealing with naval disarmament and

territorial guarantees in the Far East. Lippmann felt that

land armaments must also be controlled, but he acknowledged

that curbing armies was a sensitive topic, for it affected l
the internal security of nations. Lippmann thought that

the major problem of peace-keeping was assuring weaker

 

nations that they would not have to face alone armies of
stronger countries. He argued that at any serious hint
of international aggression, consultation should begin

while the world's public was alerted.21

European-inspired agreements, intended ultimately to
strengthen League operations, predictably encountered
American opposition. In 1923 Europeans proposed a Draft
Treaty of Mutual Assistance which gave greater power to the
League Council than.was authorized by the League's Constitu-
tion. Opponents managed to defeat key provisions on defini-
tions of violations and enforcement procedures. The following
year'the Geneva Protocol for the Pacific Settlement of Inter-
:national Disputes was drawn up. The Geneva Protocol used

.League machinery more effectively than would have been.the

 

aoEllis, Republican Foreigp Policy, p. 79.

21Lippmann, ”The Problem of Peace," The world,
5; September 192k.

122
case under the defeated Eraft Treaty, contained better
definitions of violations, and bound signatories to apply
effective sanctions. The Geneva Protocol also provided
”that aid should be given by each state 'in the degree
which its geographical position and particular situation as
regards armaments allows.'" The United States rejected
the Protocol, but the League of Nations, in Fifth Assembly

(October, 192k) approved it.22

Lippmann wrote approvingly of the Geneva Protocol.

 

He believed that European powers would join for their own
protection, that the League was reviving Wilsonian idealism,
and that America's security was deeply affected by the
Protocol.23

In November, 192k, Great Britain's government passed
into the hands of the Conservatives, whose leaders opposed
the Protocol, and Calvin Coolidge was elected President of
the United States. It was possible that Coolidge and his
Secretary of State, Charles Evans Hughes, believed that
.American.public opinion favored their position on foreign
policy.

During 1925, Lippmann urged Americans to forgive their

 

22Dexter Perkins, "On the Sidelines: The Department
of State and American Public Opinion" in Gordon A. Craig
and.Felix Gilbert, eds., The Di lomats (Seventh Printing,
.2 vols., New York: Atheneum, , I, pp. 288-290.

23Lippmann, "Touching American National Security,"
The World, 13 September 1921;.

123

European debtors and continue to practice forgiveness. He
did not think that Europeans were defrauding the united States,
but he believed that Americans should take the initiative and
move to rebuild and restore the economic system of the world.25
As squabbling over debts and reparations continued, Lippmann
demanded that we stop the arguments, sidestep the old irrec-
oncilables who meant to keep us out of world organizations, L
and get on with world affairs.26

1 Europe persisted in composing itself and set out to guar- r

 

antes national boundaries through a series of agreements which
became the treaties of Locarno. By these agreements, cons
cluded in 1925, France, Belgium, Italy, Britain, and Germany
strengthened the principles of collective security by binding
themselves not to go to war against one another, to arbitrate
all disputes, and to help one another in case one of the mem-

bers was attacked while censuring a treaty violation.27

Lippmann reported that the Locarno treaties were more
indicators [than controllers] of a stabilizing balance of
power in Europe. The French President, Raymond Poincare,
had. fallen and liberals were unifying the country.

 

2“Lippmann, "Making Trouble in Europe," The World,
8 June 1925.

25Lippmann, "The Poor Lamb," The World, 18 December 1925.

26Lippmann, "The Last Stand of the Battalion of Death, "
The World, 19 December 1925.

27Perkins, "0n the Sidelines" in Craig and Gilbert,
eds., The Diplomats, I, p. 293.

12h
The German mark had stabilized, and the increasing collabora-
tion between French and German businessmen helped Europe

toward economic stability.28 The Locarno treaties, Lippmann

observed, did "not defy the law of gravity of international
affairs;" they simply recognized that German influence in
Europe must be at least equal to that of the French. He

believed that the Locarno treaties, by reconciling the !
aspirations of the negotiators at Versailles with existing

realities, were the products of great statesmanship.29

 

Lippmann wrote that the League had managed to step a
Balkan war; for tie first time in seven years, it had found
strength to do so. Why? The Locarno treaties had provided
a powerful base for European action. Rather than tin great
powers (England, France, and Germany) taking sides, they
unified.3o

As early as August of 1923, one finds Lippmann writing
about war outlawry, which he regarded as an undesirable
substitute for tin collective security of the League.
Lippmann explained that Republicans such as Senator William
Borah sought to outlaw war as a subterfuge to avoid the

 

28Lippmann, "Locarno," The World, 21 October 1925.

29Lippmann, "Peace in Sight," The World,
22 October 1925.

30Lippmann, "The League's First Great Victory," The
World, 28 October 1925.

125
League and the World Court. They ignored existing diplo-
matic devices used to accommodate opposing views. He
urged that America support the League and the World Court
31

to which at least fifty nations then belonged. Over a

year later he reported that the Fifth Assembly of the
League of Nations had decided to make war a crime and turn

the whole world against an aggressor. Lippmann regarded I
this move as "the most ambitious, the most courageous, and

the most nobly inspired specific plan of peace ever laid I

 

before mankind."32 He heped and may have believed, that
the united States by agreeing to outlaw war, was taking a
‘major step to avoid international cooperation.

In their search for international security outside
the League of Nations, American leaders began to feel
uneasy about the disarmament agreements of the Washington
Conference in 1921. Cruiser competition increased dra-
'metically, as did the power and influence of Japan in the
Far East. In late 1923 the English stepped up their build-
ing of cruisers and began fortifying Singapore. In 1925
President Coolidge and his new Secretary of State, Frank
B. Kellogg, found themselves facing a growing demand, in

 

31Lippmann, "The Outlawry of Wer," Atlantic Monthl ,
132, August 1923, pp. 2115-2146; 251 and 255.

32Lippmann, "War is Crime," The Werld, 2 October 192k.

126
Congress and among the people, to build more cruisers. But
the President and Kellogg waited and sought disarmament at
Geneva in the summer of 1927.33 They failed because the
British would not agree to further disarmament.

An important consequence of the failure at Geneva was
a turning of attention to an international agreement to
outlaw war. The Kellogg-Briand Pact, signed on August 28,
1928, raised some hope that a new era of world diplomacy
had arrived. Skepticism existed, however, that this simple
and vague declaration would eliminate war as an instrument
of national policy, or that it could force disputants to
settle arguments peacefully.

A month before the signing of the Kellogg-Briand Pact
[also called the Pact of Paris], Lippmann published a long
article in the Atlantic Monthly that showed him searching
for a political equivalent to armed conflict. War, he
lamented, settled great human questions and thus far man
had not found an instrument of peace that produced similar

significant answers.3h For different nations, Lippmann said,

‘war had produced solutions to a variety of problems--social,

economic, and political.35 It continued to be viewed as a

 

33Ellis, Republican Foreign Policy. pp. 13k, 139,

3“Lippmann, "The Political uivalent of War," The
.Atlantic Monthly, CXLII, July 192 , p. 181.

351b1d., p. 182.

""‘l-"Pq

127
means to provide security.36 Any attempt to outlaw war,
Idppmann contended, required the recognition of certain
truths about international relations. The status quo
changed constantly and to date no one had found a peaceful
way to change international relations, or to determine
what was good and what was bad. Lippmann argued that the
most stable society was one where change remained easiest. }
Peaceful change occurred, he believed, through arbitration

and Judicial settlement which rested on extant rights.37

 

If peace were to be workable and permanent, Lippmann
observed, existing powers would also have to be convinced
that peace was in their interest,38 that change was in-
evitable, and that they might help guide 1t.39

On the day that the Kellogg-Briand Pact was signed,
Lippmann wrote that peace would not be found in the mecha-
nism.of international machinery; it would be found only in
the habit of consultation and cooperation. He felt, however,
that the treaty had some potential for keeping the peace.
Nations involved in international disputes could now shun

‘war and go to the conference table without losing face.""o

 

36Ibid., p. 183.
37Ibid., p. 185.

38Ibid., p. 186.

391bid., p. 187.

hoLippmann, "The Signing of the Treaty," The world,
28 August 1928.

128

In late December of 1928, Lippmann, with the thought
in mind that Hbodrow Wilson would have been seventy-two,
had he lived, observed that Wilson‘s faith that peace
was the concern of all nations had lived beyond the man
himself. It had risen above Wilson's weaknesses and his
enemies since those who opposed the Treaty of Versailles
and the League of Nations now led support Senate approval
for the Kellogg-Briand Pact. Wilson's new world order where
universal public conscience would be mobilized against
aggression seemed to be close at hand. Lippmann argued
forcefully that it was "because the Pact of Paris is
fortified by the covenants and practices at Geneva that
the world at large has any faith in its promises."m

The Senate approved the Kellogg-Briand Pact in January
of 1929. Defensive war, however, was not outlawed- Idppmann
wrote that in effect "nations renounce war as an instrument

of national policy only where no national interest is at

stake.”2
Lippmann contended that opposition to the Kellogg-Briand

Pact originated with those who felt America should do as it
pleased in foreign affairs. They advocated unlimited
national sovereignty. He doubted if the Senate realized it

 

h1Lippmann, ”Hbodrow Wilson," The world,
28 December 1928.

uzLippmann, "The Treaty Ratified," The world,
1 January 1929.

 

129
but the Kellogg-Briand Pact had whittled away the various
corollaries to the Monroe Doctrine. Within a year, he said,
it would reduce the Monroe Doctrine to its original intent:
that of keeping Europe out of the western hemisphere and

1&3

securing America' s self-defense .

The First World War gave Latin Americans an opportun-
ity to enhance their position in the eyes of Western leaders.

 

Thirteen Latin countries broke diplomatic relations with
Germany. Eight declared war, and two [Brazil and Cuba]
a(”Fatally participated. But ten Latin American nations signed
the Treaty of Versailles, and Joined the League, action which

caused leaders in the United states to pause and contemplate.

The failure of the United States to ratify the Treaty of
VSI‘aailles stirred Latin American suspicions of "Yankee" in-
t”ant toward them. Latins suspected that "Uncle Sam" planned
to I‘eaume his imperialistic ways. They had hoped that League
maul"bet-ship would help protect them from future intervention

‘03 the united states, but Latin hopes died quickly as they
83" the Leagm of Nations "adopt a 'hands-off' attitude in

most western hemisphere disputes." The international

 

v—i

h3Lippmann, "Back to Monroe,” The World,
1 7 January 1929.

“Fred wellborn, Di lomatic Histo of the United
states (Totowa, New Jersey: LIE’EIeerEE, Adams 8: Company,
T575)-

, p. 301.1,. See also J. Fred Rippy, Latin America:

A Modern Histo (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,
“668’: PP- BIB-£20:

 

 

 

130

organisation feared the power of the United States,
especially in the western hemisphere.h5

Attempting to work through the Pan American Union,
Latins proposed at the Fifth Conference in Santiago, Chile
in 1923 "an agreement for the settlement of conflicts be-
‘tween American states that provided for a commission of
inquiry to investigate controversies with the purpose of
avoiding and preventing hostilities." The proposed agree-

ment, in treaty form, was not ratified!” Five years later
at the Sixth Pan American Conference, held in Havana, the

 

Latin Americans proposed that "'no state may intervene in
the internal affairs of another.'" it the time the united
States was deeply committed to interventionism in Nicaragua,
Haiti, and Mexico. Charles Evans Hughes, United States
representative to the Conference, declared that his govern-
ment had the right to protect its nationals when Latin
America failed to fulfill its duties. Consideration of the
Latin American proposal was postponed, and "uncle San” main-
tained domination of the ran.mmerican union.u7

Latin.Americans felt more than the political dominace
of the united States. The war years had decimated their

 

usFederico G. Gil, Latin American-United tates
Relations (New York: Harcourt, Brace,7ovanov§35, fnc”
1971). pp. 150-151.

h6;b1d., p. 151.

117m,” pp. 152-153. see also wellborn, Diplomatic
Histo , p. 305-

131

European money markets, and their trade went to the United
States. As a creditor nation the United States could afford
'to make loans to her Latin neighbors, some of whom could
provide her with needed materials. Accordingly, American
private investment in Latin America, which in 1900 amounted
‘to $35 million, reached $1,960 million by 1929. From 1913 l
to 1927, the value of United States trade with Latin Ameri-

can nations increased over eighty per cent. Since Latins

.- «1.1!. n: ‘ " a"

depended upon trade as their breath of life, their increased 1‘

 

reliance on trade with the United States allowed further
control of Latin destinies.LLB

America's concern for its economic and political well-
being after the Spanish-American War had heightened its
leaders' sensitivity about Latin American affairs. One
cannot deny the importance of Latin America's economic draw
to private investors in the United States, and many of their
profit-directed economic maneuvers required the political
and military protection of the American goverment.

However, even when attempting to correct past mistakes,
the United States government found itself entangled in a web
of diplomatic difficulties. Secretary of State, Charles
Evans Hughes, sought to moderate American control in Haiti

 

1+8Wilfrid Hardy Callcott, The Western Hemisghere:

ts Influence on United States PoIiciesTo the
Her War II Aus exas: University of Texas Press,
l;68,, ppe '8 -1870,

 

132
and ended its influence in the Dominican Republic. But
lTughes Operated slowly and kept American.national interest
uppermost}+9 To withdraw from Nicaragua and leave it per-

manently meant an unstable country close to the Panama
Canal. To allow the Mexican government to nationalize
tnillions of dollars of American oil investment meant
severe domestic pressure placed upon a President given to ‘-
let things ride. Calvin Coolidge and Secretary of State
Frank B. Kellogg exhibited uncommon wisdom, however, when

 

they chose Dwight Morrow as American Ambassador to Mexico

in 1927. Morrow's significantly soothing relationship with
Mexican officials marked the beginning of a new era in Uhited
State s-Latin American rela ti one .

Lippmann writings of the 1920's show considerable
interest in United States-Latin American relations. Al-
though most of his work centered on American-European
problems, he was quick to anger when he felt the President
and his Secretary of State had deliberately misled the public
about Nicaragua and Mexico.

Nicaragua had been in constant turmoil since 1909 when
its flamboyant dictator Jose Santos Zelaya had been
overthrownP-with American.help. From this point in time

 

ugIhid., p. 195. See also Hubert Herring,

A Histo
of Latin America: From the Be inni s to the Present
{T5133 Edition, fiew York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953}, p. 813.

133
Imntil Lippmann exploded in several 1926-1927 articles, the
limited States supported various conservative Nicaraguan
Jleaders who did not enjoy the majority of their people's
support, but who experienced substantial American aid.
fro secure access to the Panama Canal and to ward off other
1countries who might want to build a second canal through
‘Nicaragua, the United States prOpped up Nicaraguan leader-
ship which remained sensitive to American needs.

After the war, the United States continued its inter- r

 

vention in Nicaragua by supervising the 1920 presidential
election. The newly-elected president, Imago M. Chamorro,
enjoyed office for three years and died, and a new man had
to be chosen as Nicaragua's president in 192k. In a fraud-
filled election a Conservative, Carlos Solorzano, was
chosen and a Liberal, Dr. Juan B. Sacasa, became his vice
president.50

Since Sol6rzano won the election with only a twenty
thousand vote majority, one could be sure that the presi-
dential loser would not exemplify an attitude of losing
gracefully. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes was
exasperated by Nicaraguan constant troubles. He recog-
nized the new Nicaraguan president and arranged for
American marines there to come home. within weeks of

the one hundred man marine force leaving Nicaragua in

 

5oGil,_I_.l.:atin American-United States Relations, p. 105.

13h
1925, Solorzano had been persuaded to resign and his vice

president [Sacasa] left the country.“
As Sacasa sought foreign help to institute his leader-

ship in Nicaragua, the 192k election loser--Emiliano
Chamorro (Conservative)--became Nicaragua's new president.
The United States supported Chamorro and exile Sacasa

found Mexican help for his bid to take over Nicaragua. L.
Eventually, Adolfo Dias [a Chamorro Conservative] was

chosen president of Nicaragua and his request for the

 

return of American.marines to help fight Sacasa's revolt [
was granted in 1927.52
President Coolidge sent Henry L. Stimson as a personal
agent to Nicaragua to "'straighten the matter out.'” By
April of 1927, stimson--a former Secretary of Her and a
governor general of the Philippines at the time of his
mission-~had established a coalition government in Nicaragua
under American supervision. Rebel bands disarmed; a local
constabulary was formed: and Nicaragua planned a united
States supervised 1928 election. In spite of a high
rebel's (Augusto Cesar Sandino) refusal to support the
coalition government, the November A, 1928 presidential
election came off without a hitch and General Joni Maria
53

Honcada became the new president.

 

:;Callcott, The WesternLHemiqphere, pp. 200-201.

id., pp. 200-201 and Gil, Latin American-United
Statesam ations, pp. 105- -106.

53Callcott, The Hestern Hemisphere, pp. 201-202.

135

Lippmann recognized American interests in the Caribbean,
taut the united States had lectured Europeans about their
(overseas imperialism, and he thought it was time that
Americans, too, recognized their empire. Americans could
:10 longer see their country as a "great, peaceable Switzer-
Jland." No one, he declared, in Europe or South America
'believed.America was neutral in Nicaraguan affairs. They .
all knew that Nicaragua's government was a creature of the

State Department of the United States, and that Nicaragua

 

had been part of the American empire for fifteen years.

The White House announced that American marines and
blueJackets had landed in Nicaragua, but that they were
not taking sides. Lippmann reacted to the White House
announcement by writing that if President Coolidge believed
this he was badly misled. The United States had taken sides
by occupying the rebel capital and by blockading the rebel
port. He suspected that the Administration report really
meant that Coolidge and Kellogg had blundered into something
they did not know how to finish.55

Lippmann.accused the President and Secretary of State
of trying to mislead the public when they proclaimed

 

51""I..ippmann, "An unconscious Empire," The world,
29'December 1926.

55Lippmann, "The Official Spokesman on Nicaragua,"
The werld, 30 December 1926.

136
neutrality in Nicaragua. The marines were there now and
‘the pretense was over. The decision to send marines had
‘been made in secret and no explanation was offered--except
'that they were a legation guard. He felt a "shocking lack
10f candor” had taken place. America's action in Nicaragua
Ihad.unified Latin American Opinion against the United States, I

and Coolidge had sowed seeds of hate for years to come.
In May of 1927, Lippmann continued his drumfire
against the administration's masked motives in Nicaragua.

 

He stated that the United States would not have involved
itself in Nicaragua if Mexico had not supported rebel
forces there. Lippmann complained that the President and
Secretary of State had never explained what we were doing
in Nicaragua, and that they had frankly misled peeple
about what had been done and what was intended.57

As American problems mounted in Nicaragua during the
1920's, they also increased sharply in Mexico. Mexican
Chiefs of State had not proved to be nearly as friendly
as Nicaragua's cooperative dictators. In May of 1917
Mexico had adopted a new constitution. Its adoption meant

law to the Mexicans at home and several elements of reform

 

56Lippmann, "The Official Spokesman on Nicaragua,"
The world, 30 December 1926.

57Lippmann, "Responsibilities in Nicaragua," The

World, 18 May 1927.

137
that concerned businesses from abroad. "It featured
nationalism, the concept of property as a social function,

land reform, and labor legislation."58
Mexico's newly-elected president in 1920 was General

Alvaro Obregén. His September election left his official

recognition to the recently elected American President, I
Barren Harding. Obreg6n would not guarantee economic pro- *
1

tection for foreign land'and mineral investment and the 1
united states postponed its diplomatic recognition of the ,

 

new leadership of Mexico. In August of 1923. Obregcn
consented to a gentlemen's accord [Bucareli Agreement]

that article twenty-seven of Mexico's 1917 Constitution
would not be applied retroactively. Thus, American business
investment would be protected. The United States then
offered gg.Ju£g.diplomatic recognition to Mexico's three

year-old government.59

In August of 1923, President Harding died and Calvin
Coolidge finished the President's term. Secretary of State
Charles Evans Hughes remained until March of 1925. Coolidge
became President in his own right in 192u.and.he chose
Frank B. lellogg to be his new Secretary of state. It was

 

58Gil, Latin.American-United States Relations,
pp. 112-113.

59pm. , p. 111,.

138
their combined lack of understanding (and perhaps interest)
about Mexico coupled to the American Ambassador's to Mexico
(James R. Sheffield) tenure that helped create an increased
stiff-necked attitude of the Mexicans in 1925. Sheffield
did not like the Mexicans and his feelings quickened to
hostility toward the United States from the new Mexican
president, Plutarco Elias Calles. Soon after Calles' 192k
election, the Mexican government began regulating "the

"60 In

addition, a new land law required foreign investors in Mexico

Constitutional provisions of the petroleum laws.

to divest themselves of majority land holdings. The Bucareli
Agreement of 1923 seemed to be no longer binding and American
investors wanted federal government help.

As Secretary Kellogg began acting on American business
complaints over Mexico and its tough new President, Plutarco
Elias Calles, he chose a tactic which caused Lippmann "to
roast" the Secretary. Kellogg reported that communists were
active in Mexico and their Bolshevism had caused Mexican
turmoil. Lippmann defined Kellogg Bolshevism as anything
that American business interests did not like. Oil and only
oil alone was the source of outcry against Bolshevism. ”If

Calles surrendered tomorrow and gave the oil coupanies

 

6oCallcott, The Eastern Hemisphere, p. 197.
61

Gil,‘Latin.American-United States Relations, p. 11h.

139
everything they want," Lippmann jibed, "the officials of
the State Department would put on their best spate and sing
Christmas carols about peace on earth and good-will to men."
The United States should make it clear that it would not
support doubtful American land or oil claims in Mexico and
that in return the American government would not expect

Mexican court harassment of legal American investment.62

During the remainder of January [1927] Lippmann con-
tinued to indict Kellogg for using Bolshevism as a cause
of American-Mexican unrest. He also urged that the President
and Secretary explain to Americans what the country's policy
was toward Mexico as well as Nicaragua. Lippmann thought
President Coolidge should be personally more in touch with
the Mexican situation where he might find adequate justifi-
cation for Mexicans resuming control of their land and re-
sources. He argued that Americans could not conquer Latins,

but they might try winning them. 63
In an April issue of Foreign Affairs, Lippmann wrote

that Mexico was one nation of several that had been caught

 

62Lippmann, "Toward Peace with Mexico," The world,

63Lippmann, "If You want Peace--" The World,
1 January 1927. See also: "A Crime Against Peace,"
1 January 1927; "The Ultimate Question," 15 January 1927;
"The Monroe Doctrine," 19 January 1927.

114.0

up in the rising tide of nationalismfd‘ He argued that
Anerica's old methods of controlling Latins through the
Monroe Doctrine and dollar diplomacy were no longer useful.65
He found the Mexican revolution had arisen from Mexican con-
ditions and had attempted to cure Mexican evils. The problem
was, Lippmann explained, that a new Mexican goverment based
on social and economic reform began running crossways to

foreign investments."6 In addition, Kellogg and Coolidge

insisted upon the legal rights of foreign investors in

Mexico, and this said to Mexican reformers that foreign
investors had frozen Mexico's internal status quo."7 Lippmann
believed business to be flexible because it wanted to make

profit overseas, but, he argued, the invested nation also

sought to be free of foreign control.68 Indirectly, Lippmann

suggested American business-Mexican government accommodation.
Directly, he asked trm American government to avoid hurting
Mexican pride and to stop enunciating large principles.69

 

6“Lippmann, "Vested Rights and Nationalism in Latin
America," Foreig Affairs, V, April 1927, p. 353.

65mg... mp. 3511-356.
651222.. p- 357.
67%., pp. 359-360.
63;p;g., p. 362.

69;pid., p. 363.

1141
Lippmann argued that American foreign policy should
be clearly re-defined and justified. He asked Americans
to believe that they represented an empire and that they
were members of a world power-~and not citizens any longer

of a "virginal republic in a wicked world."7° Lippmann had
argued previously that one of the major reasons for America's
unsuccessful diplomatic relations with Latin America was

that the United States had rank amateurs in the Latin

American Division of the state Department.71 He continued

this theme in a late April (1927) REE-2 editorial when he
compared American representatives to China and to Latin
America. Since representatives to China had more experience
working in China, he found the China Desk far superior,
Lippmann wrote, though American intent in China was different
from what it was in Mexico. The United States wanted to

sell in China, but it went to Mexico to take. He saw a
strong missionary interest in China, where there was hardly

2

any of this in Mexico.7 One might surmise that America's

gentler attitude toward China occurred because she

 

70Lippmann, ”America as an Empire,” Vanity Fair, 32,
April 1927, p. 128.

71Lippmann, "Our Amateur State Department, " The
19.123: 9 March 1927.

72Lippmann, "Our TwO Diplomacies," The world,
29 March 1927.

1112
wished to accommodate Chinese traders and would-be Chris-
tians. In Mexico, foreign investors sought only profit.
Coolidge speeches increased Latin fears when the
President praised American economic power and thought the

Latins ought to be proud of it too.73 Latins also drew
back when Coolidge's April, 1927 announcement that poten-
tial American political involvement was a reality when.an
American citizen went overseas. The citizen was an exten-
sion of national sovereignty.7h Amid these jarring notes,
the President made a grand ambassadorial appointment.
Dwight Morrow had been designated Ambassador to Mexico.
Lippmann knew Morrow personally, and he felt the assign!

ment was most fortunate. Morrow liked challenges.75

Morrow traveled to Mexico in the fall of 1927, and he
went with gggfig,blanche negotiation powers. The new ambas-
sador mixed with the people and met directly with top
government officials. Morrow's great personal charm won
President Calles over, and before the next spring had
arrived the Mexican courts had favored.Amerioan oil inves-

tors with several positive decisions. Morrow, however,

73Lippmann, "Babbitry," The world, A May 1927.
7uEllis, Republican Foreign Policy, p. 2M6.

75Lippmann, "A New Ambassador to Mexico," Vanity
Fair, 32, December 1927, p. 814..

1113

supported the Mexicans more than.he backed American oil
investors.76 His quick and successful settlement of the
Mexicanzmmerican oil dispute brought him congratulatory
note from Lippmann in April of 1928:

Public feeling is tremendously

enthusiastic about this settlement.

There is a disposition in some quarters

to ascribe it to some private magic

which you have at your disposal and

not to realize the enormous amount of

brain-work and careful negotiation which

it has involved.77

Sixteen months before Morrow arrived in.Mexico, the

Catholic churches had closed their doors to public services
(July 31, 1926). The age-old dispute between church and
state had once again flared. By the time Morrow had made
his Ambassadorial presentation to President Calles,
fighting and bloodshed had occurred between government forces
and Catholic rebels. Morrow's previous study of church-state
relations drew him into a vertex of what seemingly was none
of his business. In a little over a year's time, Morrow had
helped negotiate the opening of the churches (June 30, 1929)
and getting the Mexican government to admit that it did not
intend to destroy the Catholic church. Morrow knew this was

not a permanent settlement, but he had smoothed the way

 

76Ellis, Republican Foreigg Policy, pp. 2u6-2h9.

77131131333311 to might Morrow, ? April 1928 in HarOld

Nicholson, Dwight Morrow (New York: Harcourt, Brace and
Company, 19 e P0 3 o

um
toward cooperation and possibly successful negotiation

between church and state.78

Lippmann called Morrow's work with the Mexican governr

ment and the Catholic church ”a masterpiece of diplomacy,"79

He observed that Merrow realized the Mexican problem would
never be solved unless Mexico's government and the Catholic
church came to an agreement. It was a strange affair where
Morrow, with Lippmann's help, "conducted the correspondence
between the hierarchy and the Mexican government, in.which

he wrote the letters for both sides."80 Lippmann rated

Morrow "as high as any American.public man.I've ever known."81

As Dwight Morrow completed his successful church-state
negotiations in Mexico, the first serious test of the Kellogg
treaty began. In the summer of 1929, China and Russia broke
diplomatic relations over control of the Chinese Eastern
Railway in.Manchuria. This situation had been brewing since
1927 when Chian Kai-shek, Chinese Nationalist leader, threw

out communists and Soviet agents. Determined to become the

 

78Nicholson, Dwight Morrow, pp. 3h1-3h6.

79Lippmann, "The Force of Sincerity," The werld,
25 June 1929.

0Lippmann, Reminiscences, I, pp. 125-126.

1
8 Ibid., p. 127.

1'1

Raymumh

“LS
ruler of all of China, Chiang decided that his former
Russian friends and mentors had to go. In 1928 Chiang and
Chang Hsuehpliang, the Manchurian leader, Joined and they
forced the Russians out of Hanchuria by July of 1929.
Russia presented an ultimatum and China rejected it, and
by July 20, both nations had severed diplomatic relations.

Both had signed the Kellogg pact.82
America's new Secretary of State, Henry L. Stimson,

believed that it was in the national interest of the united
States to activate the newly-signed Kellogg Pact. Stflmson
received assurances from China and Russia that they would
not attack one another except in the case of self-defense.
He also received approval for his action of invoking the
Kellogg-Briand Pact from.England, France, Italy, Germany,
and Japan (July 26, 1929).83

By late July, 1929 negotiations had stopped between
Russia and China. The latter meant to retrieve its old
treaty rights, and the former was determined to enforce its
legal rights based on the Peking Treaty of 192k. The Soviets
'made several raids into Hanchuria, and on.November 17, 1929,

a well organized Russian army invaded.Manchuria.

 

82A. Hhitney Griswold, The Far Eastern Polio of the
‘United States (New Haven: Harcourt, Brace and Company,

' pp. 9-391.

83.1115. . pp. 393-395.

1146
Chang Hsueh-liang surrendered and the Soviets regained
the status quo prior to the July Chinese-stimulated

upheaval.
Lippmann's commentary about the Chinese-Russian dispute

does not carry the authority which he normally asserted when
regarding European or Latin American affairs. He described
the Far Eastern argument as a ”baptism of fire" for the
Kellogg Pact, and he argued that the burden of leadership in
this particular case which involved the Paris Agreement be-
longed to the United States. After all, America had per-
suaded others to sign the Pact. 85 He hoped the whole thing

would blow over, but other nations must be wary, for the
small conflict could deveIOp into a major war. He urged
the President to mobilize world Opinion and to pressure

both disputants for a peaceful settlement.86

Stimson's diplomacy received Lippmann plaudits. It
had "gained time for the much slower impulses of reason
and accommodation to gather and assert themselves." Lippmann
noted that Russian legal rights in Manchuria should predom-
inate, but China's rising nationalism was involved. Somehow

 

mflos PP. 395’396-

85Lippmann, ”Baptism of Fire," The World,
17 July 1929.

86

Lippmann, "The Threat of War and the Duty of the
Goverment," The World, 19 July 1929.

1&7
accommodation must be found without resort to violence.
Russia would have to recognize Chinese nationalism, scrap
its legal rights, and seek commercial and political cooper-
ation. The Soviets, Lippmann argued, would be unable to

8?

stop the rise of nationalism. Lippmann wrote to Secretary

Stimson.and complimented him for "preserving the peace in
Manchuria" and for giving "a vitality to the Pact of Paris
which it could not otherwise have had."88 As Lippmann

wrote to Stimson, Chinese-Russian negotiations broke down.
Eleven days after the Russian army had taken over
Manchuria Lippmann wrote that the Manchurian question was
a most perplexing one. Both the League of Nations and
the Pact of Paris signatories had assumed that peace
violators would be highly organized sovereignties and
would belong to the community of nations. China did not
possess a highly organized government and Russia had not
been recognized as part of community of nations by all con-
cerned. Neither seemed particularly sensitive to world
opinion, and it was not certain that their troops were
under full control. Lippmann stated, however that "Fortu-
nately Japan, which is the great power nearest the scene,

can be counted upon without question to do her’part in

 

87Lippmann, "Peacemaking," The world, an July 1929.

88
Lippmann to Stimson, 29 July 1929 in stimson

Collection, Yale university Library.

111.8
89
keeping the trouble within bounds."
Lippmann views of American foreign policy in the

1920's attempted to create clear outlines of issues in
Europe, Latin America, and the Far East. One cannot

doubt where his major interest lay. Europe's picture for
American viewers remained the sharpest and stimulated much
Lippmann advice. His suggestions about forgiving and for-
getting debts and reparations seemed idealistic when one
considers American public opinion and the federal govern-
ment's aim to enforce repayment. European wonderment at
America's remaining outside the League of Nations led
Lippmann to describe the Continent as proceeding on its.
own to secure collectively its welfare. The newly-earned
economic power of the United States was not supported by
its political or military commitments overseas. Instead,
the United states sought disarmament, at first, to circus-
vent membership in "that world organization," and world
powers reluctantly Joined American-proposed disarmament.
war outlawry became another American act to avoid the League,
but in effect, as Lippmann noted, the Pact of Paris could

not have been promising without the previous work of the
League.

 

89Lippmann, "The Manchurian Question, " The World,

28 lovember 1929.

1149

Lippmann's interests in Latin.America and the Far East
run a second and distant third for his attention. What
strikes one as most important about Lippmann views of
Nicaragua and Mexico is his explosive reaction to what he
considered deliberate misleading of public opinion by high
government officials. The attempt of Secretary of state
Kellogg to link MexicaneAmerican friction to Bolshevism
caused Lippmann to counter Kellogg allegations by writing
several articles refuting Bolshevism as an absurdity. when
President Coolidge and Kellogg attempted to portray American
involvement in Nicaragua as neutral, Lippmann.reported
Nicaragua had been part of the American empire for the past
fifteen years. His concern about Mexico was accentuated
when his good friend Dwight Morrow became American ambas-
sador to that country in August of 1927. Lippmann.writings
about Mexico represented an accurate portrayal of reality,
and his options of asking for fewer enunciations of large
principles and for fewer barbs against Latin.pride helped
create a climate where Dwight 140er could work "his magic.”

Lippmann's cloudier picture occurred when he wrote
about the Far East. He saw rising nationalism in both
Mexico and China, but where he knew the particulars in
Mexico, they escaped him.in the Chinese-Russian fracas of
1929. Hhere he saw a Mexican.problem.arising out of
Mexican.oonditions, he saw only Russian legal rights and

Chinese nationalimm clashing over a railroad that ran

150
through some distant land. And Japan stood by waiting--
as a friend of peace. Lippmann's answer for the Far
Eastern problem was to use a world-imposed solution that
supposedly would stop war and pressure disputants to
negotiate.

Lippmann is truly a man of European roots, and his
writings of the 1920's convey his respect for Continental
intellectual traditions. His major concern in the 1920's
was to help the West rebuild physically, economically, and
politically in order that it direct the world toward peace-
ful cooperation. He saw American involvement in European
reconstruction as essential. For there were those who
feared the cultural breakdown of Western civilization. The
educated suffered most in a war-torn land. Because they
did not represent the wealthy or the powerful, and when
their nations' economies disintegrated, the educated's
suffering was critical. It took generations, Lippmann wrote,
to build traditions of learning and "acquired sensitiveness."
Leisure time would be lost as naticns tried to free them-
selves of war's effects, and in the process many of the
educated and their culture would be destroyed. Lippmam
asserted that EurOpe and America were vitally linked, and

the Continent needed help.90

Lippmann has viewed his work as interpreting events

 

90Lippmann, "Secretive Idealists," Vanity Fair,

32. June 1923. pp. 39 and 106-

151
"in the light of some underlying pattern of forces, cir-
cumstances, and design.” He has seen.himself as:

trying to find forces which the events
were making visible. Those forces can
best be discerned by a historical
knowledge of the more or less enduring
patterns of forces. They don't change
nearly so much as the reader of the news-
paper could imagine they did.

We're in the grip of great forces
that we dimly apprehend, but whose nature
can't be defined absolutely until a long
time has passed. We'll always be in.that
position in.a sense. Nobody will ever
catch up with it, but what you do and
think about things now contributes to the
forces themselves.

That aspect of course involves
reading a great deal of history as well
as having a good deal of experience and
using for hypotheses historical analogies
held lightly--not held literally and held
grimly. 91

Nationalism, power balances, alliance rearranging, anger,
fear, and greed were present in one degree or another through-
out international relations in the twenties. France feared
German reconstruction. England took special exception.to the
Kellogg Past. The united states kept itself secure by main-
taining a friendly Nicaraguan government. China and Russia
fought while Japan waited. The Ieague, the washington Con-
ference treaties, and the Pact of Paris all contained
loopholes in order that signatories may follow their national
interest and protect themselves.

 

1 .
9 Lippmann,Ԥgminiscences, II. pp. 232-233.

152

Lippmann asked his readers to see the world as a
process, with a next day's future. He counseled that
nations should constantly examine and clarify their goals.
He urged that nations learn to accommodate one another's
policy definitions and national desires by encouraging the
habit of consultation and cooperation. It would be his and
his fellow journalists' role to keep peOple informed, to
set facts in relation to one another, and to signal change.
Forces existed, but they were illusive and they formed
patterns which needed constant scrutiny and interpretation.
By keeping sight of events and trying to read their design,
the journalist and reader may be able to detect change and
prepare for tanorrow's headlines.

But one wonders for whom Lippmann wrote in the 1920's--
to whom did he direct the results of his investigations?
From reading his monographs published then, a reader learned
that a small group of people conducted the world affairs and
that it was probably best that the masses were called into
play only when crises arose. Nass decisions seemed always
slow and generally based on ignorance. His former circle
of national political figures such as Newton D. Baker,
Colonel Edward H. House, and President Woodrow Wilson had
been out of office for sometime. Lippmann rarely mentioned
President Harding and though he knew President Coolidge
personally, Lippmann had little respect for his intellectual
energy. He respected Charles Evans Hughes, but there is no

153
available evidence to support the idea that Lippmann
thinking had impact on Hughes. Lippmann loathed Frank B.
Kellogg. Perhaps it was the challenge of his work that
kept Lippmann writing when there was no obvious power
toward which he directed thinking and expected sale posi-
tive result. Or, perhaps, he was building relationships
which carried the potential of developing into effective
political action.

CHAPTER SIX
A IIIEAH AMONG SHADOWS

At Columbia university in the spring of 1932, Walter
Lippmann delivered a Phi Beta Kappa address entitled
"The Scholar in a Troubled Nbrld," and it marked Lippmann's
frustration with the times. He argued that men with ability
to clarify issues and offer potential solutions were badly
needed in the Mmerican democracy, but Lippmann lamented that
if learned.men.left their towers of quiet and detachment,
they would become hopelessly enmeshed in the world's "coup
stunt moments of emergency."1 He said the scholar could do
little anyway. Crises came and went, and the troubled world
had more need of long views.2 '

At the time Lippmann spoke at Colubia, the Seripps-
Reward chain.had owned the New Yorkiggglg for over a year,
and Lippmann had joined Ogden.Reid's New York Herald Tribune
where the "Today and Tomorrow" columns began in the fall of
1931. Jeseph.Pulitser's EEElS went down.hard in February of
1931. The depression was deepening and the paper's twenty-
five hundred ampleyees, many loyal to the independent‘ggglg,

 

1Lippmann, "The Scholar in a Troubled world," Atlantic
Nonthl , CL, August 1932, pp. 151-152. "'"""""

2Ibid., p. 152.

15h

155
attempted to buy the dying publication.3 They were too
late and pledges of money from across the United States for

their purchase sadly supported a failing cause.
Lippmann had talked to the World's owner, Herbert
Pulitzer, in the summer of 1930 about relinquishing his

editor-in-chief position.“ Lippmann observed years later
that the M tried to be too many things to too many
people, and its economic position suffered considerably since
it went into the depression with no reserve.5

Even though Lippmann moved from a paper known for its
independence to one markedly conservative, Ogden Reid
guaranteed his continued independence of thought.6 The
column would appear four times a week and Lippmann insisted
that it have the same type-form and page position. He signed
the column and its syndication brought it to a national

audience.7 Lincoln Steffens happily noted that Lippmann had
begun writing for the Herald Tribune. Wall Street, Steffens

 

38cc James W. Barrett, ed., The End of the World: A

Post-Morteum B Its Int ible Assets (New York: Harper
and Erothers Publishers, 1931).

“New York Times, 27 February 1931, p. h.
5

 

 

Lippmann, Reminiscences, I, p. 12)... and II, p. 139.

6David Elliot Weingast, Walter Li mann: A Study in
Personal Journalism (New Brunsw c , New ersey: Ru gers
Hiversity Press, 19149), pp. 21-22.

7Lippmann, Reminiscences, II, p. 11m.

156
wrote, needed "a voice and a mind."8 It now had both.
Colonel Edward 14. House congratulated Lippmann for becoming
part of the New York Herald Tribune. The Colonel felt the
Herald Tribune was a great newspaper and that Lippmann's

presence would increase its stature.9

The Lippmann role as an observer of men's affairs
became increasingly important as the Great Depression
strengthened its hold on the world economy. Since American
entry into World War I, he had been an ardent supporter of
an Atlantic community led by the United states and England.
It was this dream of an Anglo-American alliance directing
world affairs toward political peace and economic coopera-
tion which under-girded much of Lippmann thinking about
foreign affairs in the 1930's.

Unfortunately, the dream experienced problems repeatedly
from historic forces that blew it into harmless puffs of
romantic vision. In an article written to celebrate the
tenth anniversary of the publication Foreign Affairs,
Lippmann reviewed the past ten years. He explained Presi-
dent Woodrcw Wilson's analysis of the new world order after

the end of the Great War. In the Fourteen Points, Lippmann

 

8Lincoln Steffens to Ella Winter, 27 September 1931 in
Ella Winter and Granville Hicks, eds., The Letters of Lincoln
Steffens (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1938}, II,

p. .

9House to Lippmann, 7 September 1931 in House Papers,
Yale University Library.

1S7

argued, Wilson charted the forces with which postwar world
would concern itself.10

The President, Lippmann wrote, recognized nationalism
as an important historic force that governed international
behavior. Lippmann contended, however, that Wilson was
never a pure nationalist. By including a life-long ideal
of the United States in the Fourteen Points, the President
believed that free trade and laissez £93.33 economic rela-
tions among states would weaken nationalism's influence.
The President intended that the league should serve as an
international communications and consultative center. It
also would serve as a committee of nations called together
in event of crisis.11

Unfortunately, politically independent nations in an
economically interdependent world resulted in tremendous
friction. In attempting to deal with the problems, Lippmann
argued, League weaknesses became accentuated.12 The British
reverted to protectionism and democracies in general sought
to protect their home markets. Diplomats confronted ques-
tions of markets and private trading. The chief preoccupation
of diplomacy, Lippmann noted, would be "with the attempt to

manage politically the division of labor in the world eccnany."

 

1°Lippmann, "Ten Years: Retrospect and Prospect,"
Forem Affairs, XI, October 1932, p. 51.

“Ibid. , pp. 51-52.

121bid. , p. 52.

158
He concluded that men no longer.had the choice of living
privately or living together.13 Fierce economic nationp

alism had become a fact of international life.
More specifically, Lippmann laid great responsibility

for the international situation of 1932 upon the shoulders
of America's past three Republican administrations. The
previous twelve years included a composite of half a dozen
major foreign.policies that had resulted in disaster. These
policies encompassed "non-intercourse with foreign nations,
the uncompromising protection of mmerican rights abroad, the
collection of the last red cent of all foreign debts, pro-

hibition.of imports, and prohibition of loans to foreigners."1u

A later article showed some change in the policies Lippmann

believed at fault. He wrote of aggressive expansion of

American.manufacturers abroad and "the decision to finance

this expanded export trade by large-scale foreign lending"

at a time when the united States pursued a high tariff

policy.15
The American Congress, Lippmann wrote, felt these

guiding principles were what the American people desired.

Admittedly, each policy could not be pursued to its ultimate.

 

1311114. , p. 53.

1LLippmann, "Five Points of Illusion," Vanity Fair, 32,
My 1932. p- 115.

15Lippmann, 'A Reckoning: Twelve Years of Republican
Rule," Yale Review, XXI, June 1932, pp. 651-652.

159
There would always be some intercourse with other nations
and all imports were not stopped.16 Lippmann argued that the
several policies named provided "a composite of folly." One
might argue for one separately or for two or three together,
but to support all of them collectively meant contradiction
1
and crisis. 7 ”What kind of statesmanship," he asked, "is
it which encourages a people to become the banker of an un-
stabilized world? If it were wise to let Europe stew in its
own juice, it was folly to invest enormously in Europe. If
it was wise to invest, then common.prudence required that
the diplomatic-power of the United States be used to provide
some security for those investments."18
Lippmann argued:
unless the country reverses the policies
of the last twelve years, unless it embarks
upon policies which will enable goods to be
exchanged in international trade, unless it
uses its influence to help stabilise Europe
and to provide a basis of economic security,
we face, it seems to me, a long and protracted
period on which we must write off much capital

investment and find new occupations for those
who as a result will be permanently unemployed.19

Lippmann declared that after nearly two centuries of
capitalism men remained "unconvinced that trade is exchange."

If men continued to ignore that relations involved exchange,

 

16Lippmann, "Five Points," Vanity Fair, p. AS.

17Lippmann, "A Reckoning,".gale Review, p. 653.
181bid., p. 65h.

19111111., pp. 658-659.

160
they would remain helpless. After World War I America's
newly-found creditor nation status did not deter the country
from trying to sell overseas more than it bought. Adjust-
ment was at hand and marked "a change in the relationship
of two continents," he wrote, and ”the great transitions of

history are never smooth."20 The Republican administration
had begun a definite strategic retreat in June of 1931,
Lippmann noted, but its major problem was what to keep of
the old policies and what to throw away. Economics stimu-
lated Hoover toward reassessments, but he kept tariffs and

aggressive export policies.21 In an effort to float the ship

off the rocks, the President maintained two of the heaviest
parts of the cargo.

Americans wanted a politically stable world in.which
they could trade and transact business securely. Republican
leaders faced American public opinion.in the 1920's that

demanded political disentanglement from European affairs.

 

20Lippmann, 'Five Points,” Vanigy Fair, p. 72.

21Lippmann, "Introduction: Panoramic View," The united
States in World Affairs! 1933 (New York: Harper and Brothers,

, pp. XI -X I . L ppmann, William O. Scroggs and others
wrote volumes for the Council on.Fereign.Relations in 1930,
1931, and 1932. These volumes were meant to bridge a gap
between later studies of scholars and events' contemporaries.
The writers had the advantage of a few months' time and space
after the happenings in which to write their ideas of the
past year. See The united States in World Affairs: An
Account of American Forei Re a one New or :
Harper and Bro ers, : a so see c United States in

World Affairs: An Account of American Fore! Relations,
1§§g (New York: Harper and Brothers, 19335.

 

161
But.mmerica's role as the chief economic leader in world
trade held the reluctant country close to Continental
political concerns. In an effort to accommodate the American
public, its Republican leaders of the twenties joined the
Atlantic community in various efforts to meet domestic needs
and increase overseas profits.

The League of Nations, the thhington Conference trea-
ties of 1921-1922, and the Kellogg-Briand Pact were all
products of Western powers attempting to maintain.world
leadership. under the banners of collective security and
armament limitation, they wanted to lead the world toward
the Atlantic community's views of international peace.

Economic nationalism deemed the Atlantic community to
years of stress in the 1920's. Disarmament, world govern-
ing bodies, and war outlawry tended to mask.real intent.
Rivalry and an obsession with short term economic interests
characterized the decade. Naval races continued. The
League provided only meager hope foremmicable settlements
of an eventual crisis.

The Great Depression began in the late 1920's and its
effect throughout the 1930's increased nations' desires to
shore up their own affairs at home. Domestic plights of
unenployment, inflation, and stock market collapse demanded
attention. But the Depression, Lippmann asserted, was only
part of the world crisis. At an.Economic Club dinner held
in.New‘York City in the late winter of 1930, The World's

editor argued that the international situation could never

162
stabilize as long as the United States declined to say how

it would use its power.22 "The outstanding fact about the
position of the Uhited States as a world power at this
moment," Lippmann said, "is that public opinion is not yet
thoroughly aware that America is a world power."23
At the end of March 1930, Lippmann1participated in
a conference at Yale university on the subject of Anglo-
American relations. The lead paragraph of the New‘Ybrk
2153; article reporting conference happenings began:
The forging ahead of the united States

to a position of international leadership while

the rest of the world looks on with both admir-

ation and anxiety was portrayed here today by

British and American authorities.2h
Lippmann characterised both America and England "as hesitant
and bewildered as to how to adjust themselves to the modern
world."25

Lippmann declared at New Haven that both.American.and

British.opinion on great issues in foreign policy stood
divided. No one at the Yale conference, the editor argued,
could foresee if Great Britain was "moving toward a policy

of international reorganization or toward a policy of

 

zzNew York Times, 7 March 1930, p. u8.

231mm , p. 1.8.

21‘New‘York Times, 30 March 1930, p. 6

2
5Ibid., p. 6.

163
withdrawal and increasing isolation."26 During the past two
years the British had been moving away from involvement in

Continental affairs.

The London Naval Conference, as Lippmann saw it, repre-
sented a chance for an Anglo-American led Atlantic alliance
to pursue international peace. Conference planning had begun
in the summer and fall of 1929. Prime Minister Ramsay
MacDonald, newly-elected Labor party leader, met in early
October with President Herbert Hoover at the Presidential
simmer retreat, Rapidan. Their neeting resulted in a
relaxation of increasingly tense relations between England
and the United States. Debts and reparations issues, as
well as a spirited naval arms race had caused friction.
Both nacDonald and Hoover sought friendly relations between
their countries, and at Rapidan they began serious progress

toward that end.27

Hoover believed that one of the cornerstones of American
foreign policy was the elimination of friction with Great
Britain.28 War had been legally outlawed by the Kellogg-
Briand Pact as an instrment of international policy, and

 

261bid., p. 6.

 

2"Robert H. Ferrell, American Diolonac in the Great
De-ression: Hoover-Stimson "ore :u Po 0 HEP” ew
or : . ‘. Nor on an 00., ' , pp. ~‘, -3- .

28Herbert Hoover, The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: The
abinet and the Presidenc ew or
Hacm lan Company, , II, p.

16!...
a much sought-after naval arms limitation seemed to be a
logical next step toward a secure world peace. At Rapidan,
President Hoover and Prime Minister MacDonald agreed that
Anglo-American naval parity coupled to their pressure for
naval armament reduction in France, Italy, and Japan would
well serve the cause of peace.

Before Ramsay MacDonald left America in October of
1929, the British government had issued invitations to the
United States, France, Italy, and Japan asking them to
attend an international conference which would consider
naval armaments. They were to begin meeting on January
21, 1930. All accepted.

Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson headed the American
delegation to London. Other delegates included Charles
Francis Adams, Secretary of the Navy-“two senators: Joseph
T. Robinson (Domocrat) and David A. Reed (Republican)--
three ambassadors: Charles Dawes, Hugh Gibson, and Dwight
Morrow. They were, indeed, a very distinguished group.

As the delegations assembled, the London Conference
must have seemed a great opportunity for England and America
to reaffirm their friendship and lead a newly revitalized
Atlantic alliance toward peace and security. After all,
Stimson and MacDonald already knew that naval parity would

be no problem for their respective governmentaa9 France,

 

8 29hrre11. American Diplomacy in the Great Depression,
10. S-

165

Italy, and Japan.might be somewhat reluctant to tie their
stars to English and American dreams, but they would agree.

lational self-interest crossed the dream of a peaceful
and united Atlantic cammunity. In December of 1929 France
made known its wants for the up-ceming London naval Confer-
ence. The French related to Hashington officials that they
would need a large naval building program.in lieu of English
and American unwillingness to guarantee security on the
Continent. France, in.an effort to gain British and.American
commitments, demanded a higher naval ratio and made any low-
ering of this demand contingent upon a consultative pact.

Anglo-American parity was threatened.30

Japan also sought increased naval ratios in order to
secure its rightful position in the Far East. Japanese
pride had been wounded at the Hashington.Conference in 1922
when Japan's assigned naval parities classified it as a
second-rate power.31

Anglo-American differences over'parity between large and
small cruisers, and the Japanese search for increased parity
slipped into the background as the conference proceeded.
legotiations deadlocked. The chief difficulty was France's

insistence on a consultative pact. The united States refused

 

30(23 February 1930),
Relations of the united ta es
united States Government Pr t

  
 

 

31Henry L. Stimson and George Bundy, On Active Service
in Peace and r, (New York: Harper and Bret rs, -

3 Pp. - 7°e

166

to accept the French proposal. A consultative pact entered
into in return for France lowering her demands for a strong
navy would obligate the United States morally to come to
the defense of France in the event of attack.32

Stimson reported to Joseph Cotton, Acting Secretary of
State, that the real issue was the French search for a
”security pact of mutual military assistance." The press,
said Stimson, in the reporting of such American newspapers
as the Baltimore §_\_i_n_, the 31953.3, and the New York Times was
wrong for attacking the President's lack of support for a
purely consultative pact. Stimson declared that France
would not be happy with Just that type of agreement. The
pact would involve more than simple consultation.33

Although pressure groups such as the Foreign Policy
Association and peace advocates in general urged President
Hoover to consider discussion of the French-proposed

consultative pact, the President remained staunchly opposed)“

Stimson, personally, felt a consultative pact might be dis-
cussed, but it would have to be separate from the London
Naval Treaty. The French, Stimson wrote, at least wanted

 

32(3 March 1930), Forgijn £10th1an Earl. 1930! I!
91» 1104.0-

322,10 March 1930), Foreign RelationsP Papers; 1930
I, p.

3“William Starr Myers, The Forei Policies of Herbert
Hoover 1 2 -1 , (New York: CEarIes Scribner's Sons,
p. See also Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service,
I. 17082.nd €25 Narch 1930), Foreign Relations Pafiers; 1239,
9 P0 0

167

Britain's role in the League of Nations clarified. The
consultative pact could provide a forum where English views
of their relationship to the Continental security system
would be defined.35

In order to break the conference deadlock, Stimson
told the British on March an that the united States would
show friendly interest in seeking a solution to the French-
British problem. If England agreed to French demands for
guaranteed security, then the United States-~Sthmson
asserted-dmight find a consultative pact acceptable. But
America could not accept responsibility for action.36

The Secretary received Presidential criticism for
Opening the American door to discussion of a consultative
pact, but Stimson's offer to the British.helped the cone

37

ference toward conclusions Within two weeks the conferees

had made compromise proposals and the London Naval Treaty
became partial reality on April 22. The treaty that

delegations returned to their governments asked that capital

 

35(23 March 1930), Foreign Relations P:pers, 1930, I,
ppe 78-79e

36Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, pp. 170-171.
See also (26 March 1930), Foreign RSIaEIOns Papers, 1930,
Is P0 3

37(26 and 28 March 1930), Foreign Relations Pa era,
12} , I, pp. 86 and 89-90. See also (31 March 1935§F Mo ign
Relations Papers, 123_, I, pp. 96- -97 for a message from
President Hoover to Briand and Tardieu expressing sympathy
for the French Continental position. The President believed
also that the American public was not ready for an all-out
security agreement which the French wanted.

168
shipbuilding of all five major powers stop until December
of 1936, and that some capital ships be scrapped. Sub-
marines were to adhere to rules of international law which
also governed the activities of surface vessels. Great
Britain, the Uhited states, and Japan agreed to control of
auxiliary ship construction through tonnage ratios. Japan
gained a more favorable ratio than 5-5-3 in cruisers and

38 After

some difficulty, the united States Senate approved the

destroyers, and achieved equality in submarines.

treaty on July 21, 1930.

Halter Lippmann wrote nearly forty newspaper editorials
for the New York mg about the London Naval Conference.
He greeted its opening with pleasure and felt that conference
success would mean ”that the respective destinies of nations

shall be adjusted through conference and consent."39
Lippmann also declared that the vision of 1919 had not been

lost. The old rhetoric had been stripped away, and ”in
place of a world of separate national states each accountable
only to itself, there is in actual being a world in.which.no
government any longer dares to deny its responsibility to

the community of states."ho

 

28(10 April 1930). F0___sgr°i RelationBW: I.
p. 10 e

39Lippmann, "At the Outset," The world, 22 January 1930.

uoLippmann, "Vision of 1919,” The world, 23 January 1930.

169
By late February, Lippmann wrote of gloom settling
over the London Conference. Nationalistic demands and a
French domestic political crisis had slowed progress, but
it was not time to write off the negotiations. There re-

mained room for concessional” Lippmann urged President
Hoover to take the American public into his confidence

and explain parity problems and the issue of the French-
proferred consultative pact. The President needed the
American public on his side if the Senate were to con-
sider a possible political agreement. Hoover, himself,
must change his thinking about the consultative pact, for
he had helped condition Senators against its acceptancefiz
Lippmann continued to see the conference as a “stupendous
event in the perspective of history, and that it provided
a firm foundation for the Anglo-American future. "“3
Lippmann's Logic; editorials gave regular attention to
American reluctance to discuss a consultative pact. Under-
standably, he wrote, the French sought political and military
international agreements that would help guarantee French
security. Likewise, the American Senate rejected any agree-
ment that would mortgage the national future. But the

 

mLippmann, "The Gloom at London,” The ngld,
26 February 1930.

uLippmann, "Speaking Out on the Conference," The World,
27 February 1930.

uBLippmann, ”Parity Reduction, " The world, 5 March 1930.

170
consultative pact, Lippmann argued, would ask no more than
what the Anerican government would do in case of war emer-

gency. It would consult with others.“ Lippmann declared
that a consultative agreement would also strengthen the

Kellogg-Briand Pact.“5
The date of Mr. Hoover's first anniversary in the

White House prompted Lippmann to assess the Hoover admini-
stration. Hoover revered large-mindedness in office, and
he gathered disciplined and intelligent men in the Depart-
ment of State. But, for some reason, the President--who
moved so easily among intellectuals and businessmenubecame
timid when confronting politicians. His loss of control of
Congressional Republicans revealed this, Lippmann wrote,
and therefore endangered the London Naval Conference pro-
ceedings and possibly the "tranquillity of international
relations for years to come.”6

The London Conference remained stalemated through most
of March and Lippmann pressured the President. Hoover.
appeared to be gambling, Lippmann asserted, that England,
France, and Italy would soon tire and compromise. But their

leaders could not return home as failures-n-anymore than

 

l"'h'Ligpmann, ”An American Contribution to the Sense of
Security, The World, 28 January 1930.

ll‘5Lippmann, "The French and Japanese Statements,”
The World, 15 February 1930.

l"’(’Lipps1ann, "Hr. Hoover' s First Anniversary,” The World,
1: March 1930.

171

Stimson could bring back a political agreement that guaran-
teed French security. The President should act soon and
clearly by offering "a bold public invitation...to discuss
ways and means of strengthening the Kellogg Pact."m

In the middle of March, Lippmann revealed a telling
argument in support of the United States considering a
consultative pact. As a result of World War I, the French
became the spokesman for continental Europe. Throughout
the 1920's America had not accepted any guarantee that
obligated the United States to protect European security.
But, Lippmann wrote, experience had shown that the United
States could not ignore the European system. Through the
League of Nations, led by England and France, the European
security system could be effectively destroyed if America's
traditional call of neutral rights in event of war were
used. England would not risk a war with America if the
United States chose to break a naval blockade, which was a
major sanction of the European system. A consultative pact
allowed nations to voice their interests and give League
members some direction.“8

Lippmann was delighted with Secretary Stimson's offer
to the British on March 21;. The French stood willing to

 

h7Lippmann, "The Word is with Mr. Hoover," The World,
22 March 1930.

uaLippmann, ”Can We Concede This Nuch," The World,
13 March 1930. See also "The Great Decision,” 27 Narch
1930 and "The London Naval Conference: An American View,"

Foreign Affairs, VIII, July 1930, pp. 515-516.

172
work through the League, but League success depended greatly
upon English power and its will to use that power. Great
Britain was hesitant as long as it did notknow the intent
of American foreign policy. Stimson's courageous offer
immediately changed the stalemated atmosphere at the con-

ference, and it finished its business within a month.h9
Lippmann viewed the conference and the resulting treaty
as a success. It involved intricate relations where few men
understood many of the problems. But the conference advanced
"the understanding of the problem by clarifying some of the
issues and indicating tentatively some of the solutions."
MacDonald and Hoover had not contemplated difficulties with
the French and they raised false hopes for armament reduction.
The President failed to inform Americans about major issues
at the conference. The delegation, itself, Lippmann praised.
It remained patient, gathered insights, and proved itself
courageous by the eleventh hour offer to Great Britain about
the consultative pact.so
Lippmann's many editorials during the course of nego-

tiations brought a letter of praise from Secretary Stimson.

 

“9Lippmann, “The Great Decision," The World, 27 March
1930 and "The London Naval Conference,” W,
Jul! 1930, pp- 515-516.

50Lippmann, "The London Naval Conference," Forei
Affairs, July 1930, p. 517. See "Senator Wagner Ed Es
Treaty,” The World, 23 July 1930 for further assessment.

173
The Secretary wrote:

Ever since my return from London
I have been meaning to write you again
of my appreciation for your constant,
strong and intelligent support during
the long negotiations. The State
Department cabled me daily extracts of
the editorial opinion of the prominent
newspapers, and I regularly found in
yours the most accurate and careful
analysis of the situation and the most
thoughtful views as to policy....I can
only say that it makes the position of
Foreign Secretary very much more easy to
have behind one such discriminating
journalistic work. Thank you very
much.51

The smaller of 1931 witnessed disaster for America's
beleaguered President. Japan created an incident in South
Manchuria which eventually became a fully developed crisis
for American leaders and especially for the Nest's self-
assumed role of keeping world peace. In addition to the
Manchurian Crisis, President Hoover faced an increasingly
serious economic situation at home. Bank closings numbered
three hundred and five in September and the next month their

number shot up to five hundred and twenty-“0.52 unemploy-
ment included over four million Americans in 1930 and in

 

51Stimson to Lippmann, 23 May 1930 in Stimson Collection,
Yale University Library.

52Gorton Carruth and Associates, ed., The Ens clo edia
of American Facts and Dates (New York: Thomas T. groweII
“PM: 3-3 s PP- 8941900

17‘:

1931 four million more had lost their jobs.53

In an effort

to alleviate a portion of the depression's effect overseas,
Hoover invoked a one year moratoritml on debts and repara-
tions payments due the United States. The Japanese-Chinese
dispute that began on a Friday evening, September 18, added
greater anxiety to an already heavily burdened President.

The incident at Mukden in South Manchuria seemingly
arose, at first report, over Chinese soldiers who had alleg-
edly blown up a part of the South Manchurian Railway track.
Japanese troops who controlled the railroad through treaty
rights of 1905 shot and killed Chinese soldiers and brought
in more troops. The affair appeared to be of little conse-
quence initially, but Japanese aggression increased, and on
October 8 they bombed Chinchow.

The Mukden Incident represented the culmination of long
standing antagonism between china and Japan in Manchuria.
The rise of Chinese nationalism in the 1920's led to Chinese
efforts to extend effective control over Manchuria. 1n the
late 1920's the momintang nationalists set out to destroy
Japanese influence in Manchuria. They attempted to establish
a system of railroads that paralleled Japan's South Man-
churian Railway. The Chinese intended to destroy Japanese

rail business. As recently at the summer of 1931, a

53m Statistical Histo of the United States from
Colonia es 0 t Presen 8 Como cu :
Wfiblishers, HIE—fie” 9:5),0 p. 73.

 

 

175

Japanese army captain, in civilian clothes, had been shot
by the Chinese. The so-called ”Nakmnura butchery case"
greatly intensified an already tense situation between Japan
and.China. In addition, Chinese immigration.into Manchuria
had been encouraged and a Chinese boycott of Japanese goods
in that fateful summer of 1931 had been most effective.

Some Japanese believed they needed South Manchuria as
a part of their defensive perimeter, as well as space for
an expanding population and a source of rameaterials for
Japanese industry. They recognized the attention of the newly
formed Russian Communist government to North Manchuria, but
they saw South.Manchuria as the first points of interest.

Japan's moderate civil government of the 1920's suffered
insistent pressure from Japanese military representatives.
Both had equal access to the Emperor, but each saw Japan
acquiring its "place in the sun" through different strategies.
The civil representatives wished to join.the West and seek
Asian leadership with Western cooperation. The military
faction.wanted Japan to assert its strength in the new real-
ities of Asian circumstances, take Manchuria, make the Chinese
good customers, and create strong defenses against Russian

thrusts. They would then ask the West to cooperate.5u

 

S“For background concerning the Far Eastern Crisis, see
Robert H. Ferrell, American Diplomas in the Great De ression,
Chapters 8-11. Akira Iriye's Across the Facifi . IKE

c0 An er
Histo of American-East Asian.Relations (New York: Harcourt,
Brace E33 fibrId, Inc., 1957), Chapter 7 is an excellent essay.

 

176

Secretary Stimson expressed displeasure with the
Japanese-Chinese fighting in a September 214., 1931 diplo-
matic note to both governments. He asked that they refrain
from further hostilities and that they adhere to international
agreements binding both nations to settle disputes peace-
fully.SS

By the middle of October, an American representative,
Prentiss Gilbert, sat at the council table of the League of
Nations as it met in Geneva to consider the Manchurian
problem. Some speculation existed that the presence of
Gilbert at league meetings meant the United States had
joined the international body. Secretary Stimson made it
clear that Gilbert was to involve himself in League dis-
cussions only when the Hellogg-Briand Pact became an issue.
But uneasiness about the League's including the United States
in the whole scale of Manchurian disucssion caused stimson
to order Gilbert on October 19 to stop attending executive

sessions and to sit away from the council table.56
The League met again in November, after its October

request to the warring Asians to stop fighting and asking

55(2h Septmmber 1931), Pa ers Relati to the Forei
Relations of the United States: The Far Est; Pg, III,
Wa WERE 15.8.: United States Government Pr :1 ng Office,

19h6), p. 058. For a detailed analysis of Stimson's views of
the Far Eastern Crisis, see the Secretary's The Far Eastern
Crisis: Recollections and Observations (New York: Harper
and Brothers, 1936.

56Ferrell, American Diplomac cy in the Great Depression,

pp. 114.1- 114.2.

 

 

177
Japan to withdraw troops from occupied areas by November 16.
Sttmson sent General Charles G. Dawes, Ambassador to the

Court of St. James', to the Paris conference.57

The General stayed in a Paris hotel and did not attend
League sessions. He met a continuous string of diplomatic
callers who sought advice. Days sped by, callers to the
Dawes' suite at the Ritz continued, and little was accom-

58 Chinese and Japanese posi-

plished in League sessions.
tions had hardened. Finally, on December 10, the League
Council decided to accept a Japanese proposal to organize

an investigative commission that was to be sent to Manchuria.
The commission would be a fact-finding body.

In a Paris note dictated on December 11, Ambassador
Dawes looked back to midsNovember when.he arrived in Paris
and thought that a Lippmann article in the New York Herald
of December 6 was a good summary of the Manchurian situation.
Lippmann had noted Japanese expansion in South Manchuria,
and he emphasized Japanese insistence upon spreading its
control. Lippmann.cited League declarations asking Japan
to stop furtherwmilitary occupation in South Manchuria,

but Japan refused.S9

 

57mm" pp. 1173-11.11.

Eelbid” pp. 1146-1179. See also Charles G. Dawes,
Journal as Ambassador to Great Britain (New York: The
Macmillan Company, 1939). PP. IMO-EEO for the General's

account of his stay in Paris.

59Charles G. Dawes, Journal as Ambassador to Great

178

Lippmann faced a caplex situation in the Far East
and his previous intellectual and political propensities
little prepared him for understanding Japanese aggression
in Manchuria. He saw through European eyes, so to speak,
and felt that the Far Eastern problem could seriously affect
the peace-keeping machinery of the West. Rather than deal
with the issues between China and Japan, Lippmann wrote
about animosities between two countries and their effect
on the that. His initial editorial response to the Man-
churian problem found him happily pointing out that America
would consult with other world powers when an international
incident arose.‘>0

In a letter exchange with Lippmann, Secretary Stimson
expressed pleasure with the journalist's public support of
American policy toward the League and the Manchurian inci-
dent. Stimscn explained to Lippmann that United States
representatives had been sent to Mukden and the Secretary
had insisted upon the full cooperation of Baron Shidehara,
the Japanese foreign minister. Shidehara agreed. Stimson
also noted that President Hoover "was so desperately busy

with the critical domestic situation just at present that

 

“Lippmann, "Today and Tomorrow, The Manchurian Problem:
A Test and Demonstration of American Policy," 29 September
1931. Hereafter Lippmann's "Today and Tomorrow" columns will
be cited only by his name, column title, and date. Yale
University has allowed use of microfilm which contains
"Today and Tomorrow“ articles. The New York Herald Tribune
and the Washington Post regularly printed Lippmann coImans.

179

the initiative in all foreign affairs is falling much
more heavily than usual upon me." The Secretary welcomed
Lippmann's advice. Lippmann expressed appreciation of
Stimson's approval of his support, and the editor believed
that difficulties in the Far East were by no means at an
end.61

In the middle of October, Lippmann observed that both
Japan and China had legitimate needs. He wrote, though,
that the Orientals should realize the West wanted to help
them satisfy their clashing demands; however, the world
would not countenance flouting of its moral authority.
Lippmann declared united diplomatic efforts would avoid
further fighting."2

The presence of Prentiss Gilbert at the League council
table received little notice frm Lippmann, but he felt that
the appointment of General mwes to the League's Paris
meeting on November 16 showed the world that America was
serious about the Manchurian problem. Never fully explaining
why Dawes' presence in Paris was an important sign, Lippmann
continued that unchecked Japanese aggression in the Far
East meant international disaster for the Western peace

machinery, treaty rights, and written agreements. Lippmann

 

61L1ppme.nn to Stimson, 29 September 1931; Stimson to
Lippmann, 30 September 1931; Lippmann to Stimson, 1 October
1931 in Stimson Collection, Yale wiversity Library.

62Lippmann, ”A Great Precedent Established,” 13 October
1931 and “The Far Eastern Crisis," 1h October 1931.

180

argued that the old diplomacy where the word of each.nation
depended upon its individual strength paralleled the new
diplomacy where nations drew from a collective pool of power
that supposedly gave more importance to all pool members'
agreements.63 Ultimately, both the old and the new depended
upon enforcement.

Wflth.the old order crumbling before his eyes, Lippmann
continued to ask the West to be patient and keep public

opinion informed.6u In spite of the West's treaty system
and League of Nations, Japan steadily advanced in south

Manchuria. Neither the Kellogg-Briand.Pact nor the Nine
Power Treaty stopped Japan. Neither League proclamations
nor American remonstrance checked the Japanese Kwantung army
in Manchuria. The West faced events beyond its control, but
Lippmann's dream of an Anglo-American led Western civiliza-
tion pointing the way toward a peaceful world died slowly.

. President Hoover and Secretary Stimson initially sought
cooperation.with Great Britain, as well as giving continued

support to the League in.the fall and early winter of 1931.65
The British preferred to work through the League, of which

they were a member, and America had to be satisfied with a
representative on what was soon to be known as the Lytton

Commission.

 

1 1 63L1PPflflnn. "General Dawes Goes to Paris," 13 November
93 .

buLippmann, "Japan's Offendin8u" 2° 3°V°“b°r 1931'

635300,”, gamirs: The Cabinet and the Presidenc , II,
p. 3 e

181

Gloomy at the prospect of League success, Lippmann
wrote on December 1 that the West should have used force
to stop Japanese aggression. Since the great powers of
the West had little interest in Manchuria, they preferred
distance rather than action. But in the process of satis-
fying individual national needs, the West's peace-keeping
system had been shown to be faulty. He concluded, rather
fitfully, that the best the west could do was to support
international law and order."6

President Hoover and secretary Stimson had discussed
development of a non-recomition doctrine that former
Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan had applied to
Japan's twenty-one demands in 1915. In those days, the
Wilson administration indicated it would not recomize
diplomatically the fruits of aggression. Hoover and

Stimson set out on the same course. It was a moral weapon.
Lippmann wrote a “get tough“ letter to stimson shortly

before Christmas of 1931: publish American-Japanese
diplomatic correspondence; encourage Kellogg Past and
Nine Power Treaty signatories to protest Japanese treaty
violations; declare that Japan's proceedings in Manchuria

 

66Lippmann, "Western Objectives in the Far East."
1 December 1931-

67Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service pp. 231 and
231;; see also Hoover, Memoirs: The Cabinet and the
PNSidOncz, II, ppe 372-323e

182
after September 18 would not bring world diplomatic recog-
nition. Since ferce was barred by the great powers of the
West, Lippmann concluded, the West should then sit back and

wait. Japan would be on the defensive.68

One might assume that Lippmann had anticipated the
January 7, 1932 publication of the non-recognition doctrine,
but a Stimson response to the Lippmann "get tough” note
revealed that the Secretary and journalist had discussed

69

previously the potential policy. An identic note went to

China and Japan on January 7. The nonprecognition doctrine
became official American.policy.

Five days prior to the disclosure of non-recognition
doctrine, Japan took over Chinchow. January 28 found Japan
attacking Shanghai, China's largest international settlement.
Lippmann wrote in early February that the West's weaknesses
had been laid bare. Its peace-keeping authority had broken
down. He lamented that the West stood divided and dis-
tracted and its collective power was therefore inoperative.7o

The continued Japanese aggression in.Manchuria seri-

ously shook Lippmann's ideal of a Western alliance based on

free trade, respect for treaty covenants, and belief in the

 

68Lippmann to stimson, 22 December 1931 in Stimson

Collection, Yale university Library.

69Stimson to Lippmann, 29 December 1931 in Strmson
Collection, Yale University Library.

7°Lippmann, “At Shanghai: American Policy,"
2 February 1932.

183
potential effectiveness of the League of Nations. Rather
than righteous force used to meet Japan's determined
aggression, the West huddled and mumbled about moral sanc-
tions.

Lippmann lashed out at the "stupid internal quarrels"
that had paralyzed the West. He wrote petulantly that the
United States did not want war with Japan because of the
Shanghai incident. It only wanted to protect its nationals
in the international settlement. America did not wish to

invoke the Nine Power Treaty or the Kellogg Pact.71

Lippmann could not rid himself of interpreting Asian
problems by measuring their influence on the West. The
Orientals seemed bent on pursuing goals appropriate for
their part of the world, and they had little concern with
Western reaction. Fer Lippmann, peace of the world meant
a peace as seen through Western eyes. Japan's new order
in Asia ignored American and European efforts to order Asia,
and Lippmann wrote that the Orientals had taught the West a
lesson: the peace of the world depended upon "overcoming
the anarchy of unlimited national states." They also showed
the West how its own internal rivalries and suspicions

crippled unified effort.72

 

71Ibid.

72Lippmann, "unity at Shanghai; the Conference at
Geneva," 3 February 1932.

18b.
Lippmann left the united states on the evening of
February 3. On assignment for the Herald Tribune, he visited
Paris, London, Berlin, Rome, and Geneva. For at least the

next month, he cabled his articles frmm the Continent.73
By the middle of February, Manchuria had supposedly

revolted from China's control, and within a month Japanese
diplomatic recognition of Manchuko took place. Secretary
Stimson believed a strong public statement concerning the
American.position toward Japan's continued aggression was
needed. His contemplated forthright views about the Far
Eastern Crisis emerged in a public letter to Senator William
E. Borah, chairman of the Senate Foreign.Relations Committee.7u
With the Presidential consent and Borah's foreknowledge,
Stimson's "Borah letter" became public on February 2h, 1932.
The letter meant to encourage China, enlighten the American
public, exhort the League, stir up the British, and warn
Japan.7S Sthmson traced the traditional policy of America
toward the Far East from John Bay's Open Door through
Charles Evans Hughes' Weshington Conference Treaties to
Frank B. Kellogg's Pact of Paris. He noted that Japanese
aggression in.Manchuria and Shanghai had broken its obliga-
tions to the world's peace-keeping system. The Secretary

 

731nsert 1n Lippmann, "Shanghai: The Joint Proposal,"
u February 1932-

7""Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, pp. 2h6-2h9.

75Ibid., p. 219.

185
reaffirmed the non-recognition doctrine and asked other
nations to assume the same stance. China, after all, had

the right to develop its independence.76

Secretary Stimson's public letter to Senator Borah
sthnulated Lippmann's writing of several columns over the
next year. When the letter became public, Lippmann.was in
Rome and had a difficult time obtaining the full text.
After he finally received it, Lippmann indicated that the
letter might cause serious misgivings in European capitals.
Its major principle, that of binding Europeans (as they saw
it] to not revising illegally the existing constitution of

Europe, would cause alarm.77

Lippmann argued that asking all countries to subscribe
to the non-recognition doctrine was fine for those terri-
torially satisfied. Great Britain, France, the United
States, and perhaps Russia would be happy. But all other
nations might find the obligation hard to accept and
awkward to refuse.78

Lippmann asserted that Stimson's proposals in.the
Borah letter would freeze existing frontiers that normally

 

76For the complete text of the letter, see
(23 February 1932), Peace and War: united States Forei
Folio 1 1-1 1 (Washington: United States Governmené
r n ng 0 co, 19MB), pp. 168-173.

 

77Lippmann, "The Stimson Letter in Europe," 2 March
1932.

781bid.

186

underwent change through force when a government objected
to shifting frontiers. The Journalist noted that presently
there was no pacific way of changing boundaries if a country
refused to give up territory.79

It was not the nature of things to be fixed rigidly,
Lippmann declared, and international society would have to
provide means for peaceful change. Peace mechanisms had
not solved the problem of creating peaceful change, and that
was why the machinery itself was so fragile and so little
trusted. Many countries in international society were
unhappy with their places and they would have a difficult
time accepting Stimson proposals.80

On March 11, Lippmann was back in Geneva and reported
that the League of Nations had adopted the nonpreoognition
doctrine. It had suspended the League covenant, in effect,
and reconstituted itself under the Kellogg-Briand Pact. If
League members had remained under their own covenant, he
wrote, they would have had to oppose forcefully Japan's
aggression in the Far East. But none of the great powers
accepted boycotts or war. League peace-keeping apparatus

had broken down. America's January 7 non-recognition

proposal had become world-wide (as the Borah letter of

 

80

187

February 23-2h asked), and saved face for the West and
possibly saved the situation.81

Lippmann wrote that the League's adopting the non-
recognition doctrine kept alive all of Japan's obligations
not to resort to aggression and allowed League members to
suspend their duty to protect China against Japanese aggres-
sion. "Yet this is the best possible outcome given all the
82

circumstances."

Idppmann's response to the "Borah letter” showed auman
of the West witnessing a Western-oriented foreign policy
that would potentially harm Western countries. The non-
recognition doctrine froze the status quo and created
potential upheaval emanating from territorially dissatisfied
nations. Lippmann did not know what to do. Japan's aggres-
sion continued and the West stood helpless. Seemingly, he
'might have realized that the limits of foreign policy had
been reached. Instead, he wrote looking through western
eyes, asking Orientals to knuckle under to moral suasion.

Several months later, after a Lippmann.January 12,

1933 article critical of the Hoover administration's handling
of the publication of the non-recognition doctrine, Stbmson
wrote to Lippmann and--in.part--explained that the January

7 publication of the American-initiated non-recognition

 

81Lippmann, "A World Policy in.the Orient," 11 March

1932.

821bit].

188

doctrine avoided asking other countries to support the
policy before it became reality and suffering the real
possibility of several refusals. Likewise, the Borah
letter became necessary because the Secretary felt that to
have invited other Nine Power Treaty signatories to agree
Jointly to his proposals would have meant further protest.
Stimson concluded: "There are times in this world when
boldness constitutes the safest policy, and this was pre-
eminently one."83

The Lytton Commission finished its investigation of
the grievances of Japan and China over the September 18,
1931 Mukden Incident. The Commission completed its five
‘month study in October of the same year. Lippmann wrote
that the reception accorded the report had been deeply
impressive.8u '

The Lytton Report asked China and Jopan to Join in a
peace conference for settlement of all their differences.
It recommended that China's sovereignty be restored and
that Manchuria be accorded a measure of autonomy. Thus,

Chinese territorial integrity received protection, the

journalist declared, and Japanese concern about Manchuria's

 

83Stimson to Lippmann, 12 January 1933 in Stimson
Collection, Yale university Library.

ahLippmann, ”The Lytton Roport and American Policy,"

5 October 1932.

189
strategic position gained recognition.85

Lippmann recommended that Secretary Stimson accept the
Lytton Report and that the Secretary revise his belief
about force not being acceptable as a method of international
change. Since the United States would not Join the League
of lations, which was meant to head off aggression before
it became serious, American policy should accept Lytton
recounendations. Lippmann noted a Stimson speech at
Philadelphia where the secretary said that America's chief
interest in the Far East was to maintain “the authority
of the great peace treaties.” Lippmann agreed with
Stimson sentiment and felt that the Lytton Report supported
it.86

In a February 22, 1933 column, Lippmann explained that
if the report of the Committee of nineteen was accepted by
the Loague of Nations, then Japan's actions on and after
September 18, 1931 would be condemned by world opinion.
"The moral isolation of Japan," he wrote, "is unparalleled
in the history of the modern world." World opinion was not
likely to stop Japanese advances, but the world could wait.

The League, Lippmann thought, had regained lost prestige.87

 

85113111.

86%“.3 See also "Manchuria: The American Interest,"
22 '07” Or 1932e

1 87Lippmamn, "The Verdict of the League," 22 February
933-

190
Two days later Lippmann's confidence in the League was re-
warded: the world organization adopted the Lytton Report.
Japan stood indicted.

Lippmann appreciated deeply the roles that President
Hoover and Secretary Stimson played in attempting to main-
tain the integrity of the West. Determined Japanese aggres-
sion during the course of the Far Eastern Crisis presented a
severe challenge to “stern civilization's attempted main-
tenance of treaty obligations and world peace. In the same
column that stimulated Secretary Stimson's cautiously
critical letter of January 12, 1933, Lippmann wrote:

From what I learned at Geneva and in the
chief capitals of Western Europe last winter,
I am satisfied that but for President Hoover
and Secretary Stimson the whole post-war
machinery of peace would have collapsed in
an ignominious surrender before the Japan-
ese aggression....They kept alive at a
moment when a gale threatened to blow it

out, the small flame of international

solidarity in behalf of the law and order
of the world.88

Unfortunately for Lippmann views and Western desires
that Japan bow before the bar of world opinion, the Japa-
nese gave little credence to moral condemnation. The same
day that the league accepted and approved the Lytton Report,
Japan served notice that it would leave the League. On

March h, 1933 Jehol became part of Hanchuko and Japan's

 

8
8 Lippmann, "The Stimson Doctrine," 12 January 1933.

191
occupied territory extended to the Great Wall.89 Japanese
appetite knew no bounds and the affective limits of Western
foreign policy had been reached.

Lippmann.neglected to take his own advice and he exper-
ienced partially what he predicted would happen to . scholar
who left his quiet tower and Joined a troubled world. Even
the world that he thought existed exploded as he watched.
Lippmann lost perspective as he enmeshed himself in the
"constant moments of emergency." The world of 1931-1932
befuddled a scholar-Journalist who was known for his per-
ceptive analysis of men's affairs. More journalist than
scholar, Lippmann found himself overwhehmed by massive
forces that he desperately tried to understand.

The Lippmann dream of Western civilization being led
by England and America toward world cooperation and peace
died.partially under the shadow of Asian.nationalism.that
held little regard for Western goals. Lippmannls deep roots
in Western culture left him totally unprepared to confront
blatant aggression in defiance of signed international
agreoments. To worsen.matters, Japanese behavior in
Manchuria and China after September 18, 1931, showed the
collective power of the West unable to act successfully.

The London Naval Conference revealed a divided West.

The conference showed the age-old and continuously massive

 

   

89Christopher Thorne, The Limits of Forei;- Polic- The

West the Leaueand the Far as ern rs so
(few Teri: E. P. Putnam's Sons, ‘

 

192
force of nationalism. Self-interest, power gathering and
balances of great powers off-set any international cone
corn for peace. Lippmann recognized the forces at work,
but he continued to plump for reason and understanding
where intellect predominantly directed men's affairs.
Twenty months after the successful conclusion of the London
Naval Treaty, and during the Manchurian crisis, Lippmann
wrote world peace did not depend upon disarmament and ton-
nage ratios; rather it depended upon "overcoming the anarchy
of unlimited national states."

But to write of reason and understanding in foreign
affairs during an era of the Great Depression.must have
seemed at best distant romanticism to many Lippmann
readers. Millions of Americans suffered in those years of
the 1930's, and American leadership had to concern.itself
with alleviating that suffering. With a world depression
dominating countries' domestic concerns, it was little
wonder that increased nationalism dominated the world scene.

Lippmann's usually clear vision clouded over as the
Great Depression took hold of national economies. His
European orientation weakened his understanding of Asian
probloms--for he saw the world through a Western telescope.
He became a prisoner of crushing events that urgently
needed a long view. The scholar in a troubled world had

become a Journalist without a dream.

CHAPTER SEVEN
A HAD, SAD WORLD

The tumble of increasingly complex events revealed
forces of nationalism operating in the early 1930's. The
minimal success of the London Naval Conference stood under
the shadow of the obvious European.political insecurity stim-
ulated by French fear of Germany's search for power and sta-
bility. Japanese aggression in Nanchuria showed a determined
nation.bent on pursuing its own.Asian interests. But, more
so, Japan's success on the China Mainland accentuated the
West's serious weakness in placing its lukewarm faith in
collective security as a primary control of world order.

The League of Nations, along with the united States, had
failed miserably in stopping a direct challenge to its aup
thority.

Despite President Hoover's efforts to relieve American
economic ills, the Great Depression continued. Unemploy-
ment of the nation's labor force shot up from h,3h0,000 in

1
1930 to 12,830,000 in 1933. The price index of the gross
national product (in 1929 dollars) dropped from 96 in 1930

 

1The §tatistical History of the united States,
I). 73-

193

191+

to 75 in 1933.2 In 1930 the Uhited States imported
$3,SO0,000,000 worth of gold, silver, and merchandise. By
1933 import value skidded to $1,703,000,000.3 In those four
years from 1930 to 1933, American exports exceeded imports
by a yearly average of nearly $uh8,000,000. Looking through
America's economic window to the political and economic tur-
bulence in Europe and Asia, the world, indeed,.looked dark.

Lippmann views of American foreign policy in the 1930's
began a quickened and emphatic philosophical drumbeat. In
June of 1930, he told the Radcliffe graduating class that he
believed the united States to be the recipient of the torch
of power passed from the old world to the new. Lippmann
warned that the new graduates faced a difficult period of
adjustment. The oldsters were confused and could not bestow

the traditional lines of authority surrounded by certitude.“

Western civilization, as contemporaries knew it, had
been formed in Europe's cradle, Lippmann continued. It de-
veloped there, was transplanted to the new world, and took
root. The moral and cultural center of the West grew espe-

cially under the protection and stimulation of what became

 

2Ibid., p. 139.

31b1d., p. 537.

“Lippmann, "Address Delivered at Commencement, 1930,"
Radcliffe Quarterly, July 1930, pp. 9h-95.

195
the most powerful nation in the world. Lippmann declared
to the Radcliffe graduates that America's one hundred and
twenty million people generated great energy, and the
question confronting them was not whether to approve the
London Naval treaty or whether to join the League of Nations.
Rather, the American obligation was to "take part in the
great task of establishing once more some central and con-

trolling ideals of human living."5
In late March, a year later at a dinner in his honor,

Idppmann emphasized that the United States had become a
world power-~almost suddenly and most possibly without seek-
ing the status. The members of the American Academy of
Political Science heard their honored guest explain that
after Whrld War I America rejected the treaty of Versailles
and the League of Nations. Tariff walls went up. Immigra-
tion quotas furthered international restriction, and
strangely enough the united States sought and expected more
export trade. The nation was befuddled, for it had become

a world power almost in spite of itself.6

Lippmann described a fog of detail that constantly
tumbling events created, and he noted that interpreters of

the American experience in world politics no longer could

 

51b1des pp. 914-95 and 97e

6Lippmann, "The Press and Public Opinion," Political
Science Quarterly, XLVI, June 1931, p. 162.

196
penetrate the fog with ideas such as "the Monroe Doctrine,"
"the Open Door," "No Entangling Alliances," "Renunciation of
war," or "America First." These phrases were simply

inadequate.7

The united States, Lippmann said, had changed--as had
the world. The mechanical and industrial revolution had
uprooted traditional values and institutions, and Americans
should recreate new standards by which they judge themselves
and others. The national economy, he argued, ought to be
resilent enough to protect and expand national interests.
Likewise, the American mind carried cultural inheritance
from the Renaissance and Enlightenment. It included dis-
senters and pioneers, and developed democracy and nation-
alism--forces that encouraged the fight against dogmatic

rules of life.8

To be concerned with how things were done, as much as
what was done, Lippmann said, remained central to Western
thought. One taught tolerance, for instance, by being tol-
erant. One sought justice through Just methods. He said
the search for truth and the spirit in which it was con-
ducted was more important than the results. Lippmann warned
of a hidden future with only surprise to be expected, and he

described Americans as explorers in an unknown land. To

 

7%. , pp. 162-163.

§;2;3., pp. 163-166.

197
survive and progress meant following the heart of Western
liberalism: "remaining free in mind and action before chang-
ing circumstances." Lippmann recognized that the capacity
to act resolutely while maintaining a skeptical mind was a
supremely difficult and delicate attainment. He concluded
that the world needed the gifts of the liberal spirit if

world conditions were to be brought under control.9

In the spring of 1932, Lippmann's attempts to keep
focus on large issues surrounded by the Great repression and
a forthcoming Presidential election led him to write: "It
may be that it is beyond the power of the human mind to com-
prehend so intricate a drama played on so vast a stage."10
By mid-summer Lippmann had recovered some of his optimism.
He countered views that Western civilization approached its
end. Traditional things seemed to be crumbling--that was
true--but Idppmann believed future historians may view the
age as one of renewal. He saw rigid accumulations of hard-
ened consequences of mdsjudgements scaling off. The depres-
sion.was not one of collapse, but rather it revealed a
"furious purge." The journalist felt deep and permanent

change in human life or national existence rarely occurred;

 

9Ibid., pp. 167-169.

1OLippmann, "A Whole View of the Crisis," 7 April 1932.
This column was a book review and recommended Sir Arthur
Salter's‘ggcovery: The Second Effort (1932) as an able
effort to diagnose thEIVlarge picture."

198
nothing human.was eternal, but significant change in the
human condition proved difficult. "Thus no one spring-
time lasts very long, and no winter; and though nothing

endures, the sap rises again to renew'mortality."11

By late spring of 1933, a dejected Herbert Hoover had
left the White House and an ebullient New Yerker, Franklin
Roosevelt, neared the end of his first one hundred days as
President. The opening day of the London Economic Confer-
ence found Lippmann speaking to graduating seniors at Union
College. The June 12th gathering at the union chapel over-
flowed available pews, and undergraduates crowded around
open windows and near the side door to hear Lippmann.12

The journalist's measured phrases sketched reasons for
great world changes that began in the postwar era. He
described the London Economic Conference and the world dis-
armament meeting as continuations of the peace conference
ending World War I. Lippmann believed President Roosevelt
faced a needed attempt to conclude successfully Woodrow
Wilson's work. The world badly needed secure and preper
order. Embodied in the Fourteen Points, Wilson's ideal of
political nationalimm combined with economic internationalism
found people unwilling to accept these proposals. Leaders

of democracies discovered their constitutencies exerting

 

11Lippmann, "Crisis and Renewal," 22 July 1932.

S;2Lippmann, Union Alumni Monthly, July-August 1933,
p.2 e

199
increased pressure for security, prosperity, and order.
Accordingly, Lippmann told the audience, the united States
rejected economic internationalism and sought self-

sufficiency.13
In order to escape the impact of unknowables such as

business cycles, price fluctuations, and the violence of
destructive competition, people believed they should
regulate their societies much more than before. Lippmann
declared, “that we are witnessing today is the fusion

of nationalism with oollectivism, of the philosophy of pro-
tection and the ideal of a planned economy.” He doubted
that countries were heading for total economic nationalism--
since no nation was self-contained, but he felt nations
would protect what they best produced or manufactured and
would export surpluses. They would import only what they
needed. Liberal inter-nationalism of the nineteenth century,
whose last great apostle was Woodrow Wilson, no longer pre-

1
vailed in human affairs in the 1920's. 11-

Acoordingly, Lippmann contended that a chief difficulty
which faced great powers attending the opening of the London
Economic Conference was that their leaders had had little
time "'to think out clearly the international meaning of

 

13lbid., pp. 252-255.

1h1bid., pp. 255-257.

200

the domestic policies which [the Conference] is
pursuing.”15

In an appeal for sympathy from the young, Lippmann
asked Union graduates to recognize that oldsters who were
presently leaders had been ill-prepared for a devastating
war, a bad peace, and economic catastrophe. He ended his
address by hoping the graduates would be able to secure
peace. It was likely, Lippmann thought, that in the ages
of great change the young were pushed to the front rapidly,
and they must hurry and get ready.16

The London.Economic Conference began on June 12 and
continued through July 27, 1933. Prior to his appearance
on the union campus, Lippmann.had "blown hot and cold" on
success for the London.meeting. In.April he favored the
preposed sessions for they would stimulate people to think-
ing positively. He warned world leaders, however, that if
people were not put back to work, they would go to war.
Lippmann also believed foreign leaders should recognize
that a new deal of Presidential government prevailed in
Washington. Congress no longer dominated America's national
politics as it had in the 1920's. Finally, the may meeting

of world leaders in Washington should work out some agreements

 

1SIbid., pp. 257-258.

16Ibid., pp. 258.

201
that would ensure success of the Conference. England, the
united States, and France held the world's economic cards and
their joining on stabilization of currency, for instance,
would go a long way toward relieving economic as well as
political tension.17 The United States left the gold stand-
ard on April 19 and Lippmann changed position by advocating
economic retreat. He argued that the United States should
separate itself from artificial export surplus and avoid
trade rivalry. Lippmann believed American leaders must
shore-up the domestic economy before attempting to solve
international problems. Buying power at home, he believed,

meant better business abroad.

As Secretary of State Cordell Hull crossed the Atlantic
for the opening of the Conference, Lippmann admitted that
probloms created by the Great Depression would only yield
to international solution. He thought, however, that a con-
ference where sixty-seven.nations and three thousand delegates
not could only consider simple questions. Lippmann doubted
that a conference "at this stage of the world depression.twas]
wise." Chances of success seemed small and costs of failure
great. He preferred individual agreements among countries

most concerned about specific issues.19

 

17Lippmann, "The Washington Conservatives." 1“ April 1933-

18Lippmann, "American Economic Nationalism," 16 May 1933-

19Lippmann, "Concerning a World Economic Conference,"
3 June 1933.

202

A June 1h Lippmann column struck President Roosevelt
as especially important. When he sent Raymond Holey,
Assistant Secretary of State, off to the London Conference
on.a special mission in late June, the President left Moley
with some vaguely remembered Lippmann advice: seek inter-
national cooperation that was positive--not just cooperation
that produced negative stability.20

As the Economic Conference went into its second week,
Lippmann traveled to London. The journalist's days were
filled with activities that produced nearly a daily column
as June turned to July. When he arrived Lippmann found the

21

American delegation divided and demoralized. And his

interpretation.was not unexpected since the old internation-
alist, Secretary Hull, had been shorn practically of every
economic bargaining device that the Secretary saw as neces-
sary to keep world economies going. President Roosevelt,

with pressing American.needs arising from Great Depression

 

20Raymond Moley, After Seven Years: A Political
Anal sis of the New Deal (rpt: , W:
n vers y o e ras a Press, 1971), pp. 236-237. The
Lippmann column was "What Kind of Cooperation," 1h June
1933. FDR's daily Presidential routine included skimming
five newspapers: The New York Times and Herald Tribune,
The Washington Post and Herald, and the Baltimore Sun.
Two columnists He paid particular attention to were
Kent and Walter Lippmann. (Frank Freidel, Franklin D.
Roosevelt: Launch the New Deal (h vols., Boston:
EittIe, own and Company, , Ix, pp. 27h-275.)

21Lippmann, "The Issues at London," 27 June 1933.

 

 

203

troubles, had stripped Hull of any disarmament talk.22

Sessions at Geneva had been in progress since February of
1932. Roosevelt would not consider tariff reductions for
the moment because a balky Congress had just experienced
a hundred days of approving Presidentially-instituted
legislation.23 Lippmann described the Conference as he
predicted--too large and too public for necessary hard
negotiating?“ He recommended that the United states and
England join in devaluing their currency, accompanied by
provisional stabilisation.25

Lippmann met John Maynard Keynes at the London Confer-
ence. Keynes, an economic expert and a member of the
British delegation, had proposed a "simultaneous devaluation
of national currencies within a range of 20 to-33 per cent."
Lippmann admired Keynes' daring and characterized him as

"the leading economic thinker of our generation. "26

ZZRoosevelt to Cordell Hull, 30 May 1933 in Edgar a.
Nixon, ed., Franklin D._3Roosevelt and Forei Affairs (3 vols.,
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Be p Press 0 Harva ver-
sity Press, 1969). I. pp. 187-188.

23Cordell Hull, Memoirs (2 vols., New York: Macmillan
Company, 19k8), I, pp. 2175 and 250. Nixon, Fm, I, pp. 219-220.

21"Lippmann, "Notes on the Conference," 28 June 1933.
25Lippmann, "Statesmanship and Speculation," 30 June 1933.

2"Lippmann, "The Keynes Plan," 29 June 1933. Lippmann
noted in Reminiscences, II, pp. 153 and 155 that Keynes was
"like a man of 55 renaissance," and he declared, "I regard
my friendship with Keynes as one of the most happy friend-
ships of my life."

20h
Secretary Hull and his delegation had been involved
with British representatives concerning currency stabili-
zation. Negotiations had not moved rapidly and Moley's
special mission intensified pressures. Moley, whom Hull
disliked, met with British delegates himself and sent a
July 1 joint proposal for currency stabilization to

Roosevelt.27

The idea of gold bloc countries and silver
advocates joining and restoring the gold standard as an
international exchange value prompted Roosevelt to send
what came to be known as his July 2nd "bombshell note."
The President rejected any attempt to peg temporarily
international currency, and he lectured the delegates
about their far wider purposes of being in London.28
Lippmann supported the President's rejection of the

joint declaration. Americans might have felt that Roosevelt
had not accepted price raising, which--of course--he did

accept.29

Lippmann did not approve of the "high and mighty"
language that FDR used to reject the July 1 proposal. If
the President believed the Conference should or could look

for larger issues to consider, he was sadly out of touch

 

27WilliamPhillips, Acting Secretary of state, to

Roosevelt, 1 July 1933 in.Nixon, FDR, I, pp. 266-267.

28Roosevelt to William Phillips, Acting Secretary of
State, 2 July 1933 in Ibid., pp. 268-269.

29Lippmann, I"The Rejected Declaration," 3 July 1933-

205

with the situation. Roosevelt's temperamental behavior had
totally demoralized America' s London delegation, Lippmann
wrote, and the delegation should be replaced.30

The Conference ought to adjourn, Lippmann recoamlended,
and avoid further clashes. For the time being, present
views were just different. American domestic economic
recovery was Roosevelt's primary concern, as it should be,
and its recovery was the key to world recovery.” He
thought the Conference should adjourn in a "decent spirit"
that would provide for continuing discussion. In the mean-
time, the recess would give managed economies an opportunity

32

to work. The Conference, in effect, had been reduced to
considering what it could consider.33 The United States was
wise in ruling out the money question and it seemed logical
to adjourn the London meetings. No real, hard decisions
could be made at the dying sessions.”

As Lippmann sailed home on July 19, he reflected on

Conference happenings. The journalist found much more

 

3°Lippmann, High and Mighty Language," 5 July 1933.

31Lippmann, "The Conference Should Adjourn," 1;. July 1933.

3aLippmann, "Toward a Decent Adjournment," 6 July 1933.
33Lippmann, "The Conference Continues," 8 July 1933.

3“Lippmann, "The Logic of Adjourment," 12 July 1933.

206
truth and constructive options being bantered about in
London corridors than in meeting rooms. Since the United
States operated on such an.immense economic system, he
believed Europeans, rightly or wrongly, looked to America
for solutions. The American experiment of Roosevelt cross-
ing an economic chasm on a tight rope fascinated world
viewers, but as observers watched the united States, the
Conference stalled. Lippmann concluded it would take
administrative genius to make American economic recovery

a reality.35

Lippmann took note of arguments about economic nation!
alism ruining the London Conference, but he thought that
was too easy an answer. It must be assumed, he believed,
that nations made international agreements when those agree-
ments were in their self-interest. Lippmann argued that
the pooling of national advantages was really internationalism.
When the major powers of the world gathered--England,
France, and the united states--they had few advantages to
share. Their domestic economic programs must be allowed to
develop before international agreements could be entered
into. Nations had to take care of themselves first, he
argued, but he also noted that buying and selling across

6
frontiers was hardly out of date.3

 

35Lippmann, "Post-Impressions," 19 July 1933.

36Lippmann, "Economic Nationalism," 20 JUIF 1933-

207

By July 23 the Conference "was twitching toward its
end. Hull could not keep it going any longer." It ended
on July 27.37

The lack of positive results arising from the London
Economic Conference and the flood of negative conclusions
flowing from its dramatized frictions symbolized American
involvement in foreign relations during the first three
years of the 1930's. International cooperation among the
democracies appeared feeble at best and dead at worst.
Lippmann knew international cooperation was needed to help
cure depression ills, but his writings of the spring and
simmer of 1933 show him mostly advocating American economic
nationalism. "Physician, heal thyself" appeared as his
'most prominent advice.

Lippmann's attitude did not run counter to the liberal
philosophy he had described earlier in.the 1930's To remain
free in mind and action in the face of changing circumstances
supported his approval of Roosevelt's rejection of the
July 1 note from Moley. The President meant to be free of
international agreements that might restrict his potential
moves to alleviate depression-ridden Americans. And since
the united States was the major creditor nation in the

world, its improved economic health meant better economic

 

37Herbert Feis, 193:: Characters In Crisis (Boston:
Little, Brown and Company, , p. .

208

health overseas. The best the united States could do at
the time was to model hopefulness for the rest of the
world.

Events surrounding the London.Economic Conference had
not been encouraging. Peace and prosperity faded as the
new Reichs Chancellor, Adolf Hitler, withdrew German repre-
sentation from the Wbrld Disarmament Conference and the
League of Nations in the fall of 1933. Hitler's action
was not unexpected. As soon as the Nazi leader had replaced
the old and worn out Paul von Hindenburg, Lippmann saw need
for the moderating force of an experienced dictator, Musso-
lini, to curb the romantic and cruel excesses of Hitler's
Nazis.38

Lippmann recognized immediately the danger of Nazi-led
Germany with its setting in the midst of a scared and in-
secure Europe. The easier parts of reconciliation between
Germany and European victors occurred in the 1920's, but
frontier concerns were never easy and only those remained
in 1933.39 Lippmann saw the German.National Socialists as
reactionaries whose mentality endangered civilization. The
Nazis, he thought, were repeating past mistakes through the
use of terror, and yet they sought equality with other

world powers. They would receive the latter only when

 

38L1ppmann, "Hitler and Mussolini." 9 February 1933-

39Lippmann, "Forebodings of War," 16 March 1933.

209

they stopped their cruelties and obtained world respect.“0
The journalist believed peace lay in defense of the status
quo, for gradual revisionism was no longer possible with
only boundaries at stake. To cure European political
tension omanating from shifting power balances, the depres-
sion would have to end. Germans, as others, had been bar-
barized in their struggle for employment and a higher

1
standard of living.“

Throughout the late winter and spring of 1933, Lippmann
complemented his views of critical foreign issues in.Eur0pe
by discussing democracy's virtues. He argued that democra-
cies represented a mature form of government and that
democrats needed information and courage to make their
governments run effectively. Lippmann asserted, as well,
that democracies tended toward dictatorship when crises

appeared and spotlighted democratic weaknesses.h2 He denied

that dictatorships were sweeping the world--that view was
an optical illusion. Dictators took over popular govern-
ment when the latter showed weakness. Lemocratic forms of

government were not easy to establish, Lippmann observed.

 

uoLippmann, "Ghosts from the Past," 31 March 1933.

1 u1Lippmann. "The Present Basis for Peace," 28 April
933.

“euppmann, "Democracy and Dictatorship," 211. February
1933. .

210
but when established they assumed characteristics of tough-

ness and durability.“3

One of Lippmann's most perceptive news articles and
one which best illustrated his philosophical stance in
1933 appeared on May 11. He warned that in troubled times
issues which normally remained undisturbed came to the sur-
face and were discussed. Lippmann feared the level of
civilized discussions would fall to the point of separating
theory and experience. He contended that the complexity
of operating successful human governments demanded a mix
of both. Indeed, the world confronting humans presented
old and new--past and future. Both elements of tradition
and freshness were needed. Lippmann.believed that no man
should rule other men unless he had been steeped in the
human tradition. History taught humility and man learning
day-to-day from experience needed to test his insights
against tradition. He urged his readers to stay alert, be
collected, and ready to change.uu

Generally, throughout the remaining summer months,
Lippmann reported an aggressive Germany, readying itself for
war. He thought Hitler and the Nazis unprepared for war,
but the danger was that they thought they were ready. The

 

“BLippmann, "The strength of Democracy," 30 March 1933.

uhLippmann, "States of Mind," 11 May 1933.

211
Nazis might strike at a nation fully prepared to strike

backeuS In an answer to Roosevelt's May 16 note asking for
international cooperation and disarmament, Hitler had re-

sponded two days later in a speech to the Reichstag. He
would adhere to treaty arrangements, the League Covenant,
and the MacDonald plan for supervision of German armament.
Lippmann wanted to believe, but Nazi book burning, Jew-
baiting, and general terror made him skeptical.“6 He hoped
the Four Power Pact of May signed by Germany, France, Italy,
and England would meet Europe's need for security by col-
h?

lective guarantee of German boundaries. By mid-October

Lippmann hopes for peace in Europe began flickering away.
Germany's highly nationalistic foreign policy became clear

as she quit the disarmament conference and left the League.h8

Lippmann visited President Roosevelt during the first
week in November and wryly observed how "8 per cent of the
population of the entire world, i.e., Germany and Japan,
twasl able, because of imperialistic attitude, to prevent
peaceful guarantees and armament reductions on the part

of the other 92 per cent of the world." Roosevelt wrote of

 

hsLippmann, "The Burning of the Books," 12 May 1933.
l"'é’Lippmann, "Hitler's Speech," 19 May 1933.
1”Lippmann, "The Four-Power Pact," 18 July 1933.

haLippmfinn, "The Ldsarmament Crisis," 17 October 1933.

212
his conversation with Lippmann to the American Ambassador
to Germany, William.E. Dodd, and gloomily observed that
he sometimes felt world conditions were getting worse.“9
One bright light appeared in American foreign rela-
tions when the Uhited States gave diplomatic recognition
to the Soviet union on November 16, 1933. Lippmann had
urged the President-elect in February to consider such
a‘move.So An October "Today and Tomorrow" column continued
its support of diplomatic recognition of Russia for that
great land mass lay between the two major trouble spots in
the modern world--East Asia and Central Europe. Lippmann
believed the Soviets wanted peace and that it would be to
the world's advantage to have a recognized world power
supporting peace between Japan and Germany as they rattled
sabers.51 '
But few such lights existed in American foreign rela-
tions in 1933. Lippmann's concern about dictatorships

sweeping the world became more prevalent in his writing as

 

thoosevelt to William E. Dodd, Ambassador to Ge ,
13 November 1933 in Nixon, FDR, I, p. 1+85. On December 2 ,
1933, the President made a speech in Washington that employed
Lippmann's observation. [The United States prartment of
State, Peace and War United States Foreign Polio 19 1-
19 1 (Washington: Uh ted States Government Pr n ng 0 ce,
)9 p0 20703

50Lippmann, "The Recognition of Russia," 3 February 1933.

51Lippmann. "Relations With.Russia," 25 October 1933'

213
the end of the year Approached. He wrote that the major
crisis in American life was one of spirit. "Moral unity
among free men" needed revival. Peace hung in the balance,
Lippmann declared, almost as to himself for he too needed
to believe, that "the forces of order in the world [were]
still more powerful than the forces of chaos"--but the
former must be united. Americans might save themselves by

52

exertion and the world by example.

Lippmann knew resolving the crisis of American spirit
would be as difficult to alleviate as it would be to sort
complexities of the European scene. War seemed a real pos-
sibility unless a new peace conference were called. German
ambitions linked to the rise of Hitler marked the transition
from postwar to prewar, he thought, and peace potential was
less and less as powers maneuvered for advantages.53

For the first time Lippmann recommended that the
United States take no part in negotiations or conclude an
alliance of any kind which involved America in European
power balances. The united States must stay neutral in
event of war. Lippmann admitted he knew few answers to the
many world problems, but he argued the problems must be de-

fined more concretely. He observed that historically when

 

52"Walter Lippmann on 'World Trends,‘ " Cornell Alumni
News, 30 November 1933, pp. 97-98.

53
1933.

Lippmann, "America and the Possible War," 26 December

21h

England became involved in war, the united States also
became involved. A.problem of neutrality was that America
and Great Britain shared common interests. Lippmann noted
that the combined power of the two countries was far
stronger than any one European nation's power to defy.Sh

Reviving the Western confidence in its political and
economic institutions would be no easy task--especially as
European dictatorships were in their ascendancy during
Roosevelt's first administration. Throughout the years of
193k and 1935, Lippmann views of European diplomacy described
a timid West attempting to restrain the expansion programs
of Hitler and Mussolini, but it never went to the point of
going beyond words to action in order to enforce covenants
or treaties. Lippmann wrote of a new era in diplomacy where
force, power, and self-help came into vogue with the rise

of Adolf Hitler. It was a mad, sad world.55 Lippmann com-

plained of being unable to pierce the fog of censorship

over Europe, and disliked being forced to guess. But one

thing he remained sure of was that tension and instability

characterized the European crisis with Nazi Germany at the
56

center.

 

5“Ibid.

55

Lippmann, "The Balance of European.Forces," 23
February 193k.

6
5 Lippmann, "Fog Over Europe," 21 June 19314..

215

In the spring of 193k, America's Appointed Minister
to Austria, George Messersmith, had transmitted to the
Department of State a report by Douglas Miller, Acting
Commercial Attache in the united States Ehbassy [Austria].
Miller's assessments of Germany and the Nazis noted that
Germans wanted a greater share of the world's wealth. He
thought Germany wished to be the largest and most powerful
nation in the world--perhaps with the intention.of dominat-

ing the entire globe.57 The Nazis"main goal, Miller

observed, was to retain absolute control of the German
people, and in order to do this they made extravagant
promises, bombarded Germans with propaganda through the
media, parades, flags, and uniforms, and used force.58
Miller described the Nazis as belligerent and aggressive,
and he believed they wanted to be feared and envied. Their
‘main weapon against enemies, he declared, was humiliation.59
Concerning foreign relations of the National Socialists,
Miller wrote, they wanted more power and more territory in
Europe. If these elements were not relinquished peace-

fully, they would use force.60

 

57Appointed Minister to Austria Messersmith to the
Under Secretary of State Phillips , 21 April 193k enclosed
"Memorandum to the Embassy: Main Purposes the Nazis," 17
April 193k in Dopt. of State, Peace and War, pp. 211-212.

58Ibid., p. 213.
59Ib1d. , pp. 213-21u.

60
Ibide, 1). 211‘0

216

Lippmann believed Germany had gone beyond the pale of
law and order when Hitlerwmurdered some of his own follow-
ers in late June of 193h.EErnst Rohm and Storm Trooper
followers). Hitler's will and use of arbitrary violence
had become the governmental authority in Germany. Lippmann
described Germans as hard working, efficient, competent
people, but they were unable to maintain a normal standard
of living in the face of the Great Depression and the Nazis
took over. Nazi foreign policy, Lippmann wrote, had cons
vinced Europe that another war was possible. Sadly miscalc-
ulating, he argued that Germany depended so heavily on
imports in order to live that its dependence upon interna-
tional good will would drive Germany back toward internal
constitutional order.61

The European alignment of power shifted to meet the
Nazi expansion threat. France and Russia made an agreement
in June of 193k to help one another in case of attack.
England and France finally joined in hope that their united
and overwhelming power would stop Germany. The English
saw the development of the Nazi airplane as a real threat
and the June 30 Nazi purge convinced British Conservatives
that facing armed German rulers would bring horror. Italy
tended toward the British-French.alliance because Mussolini
feared a Nazi take-over in Austria. Lippmann believed

 

61Lippmann, "Germany," 3 July 193k.

217
Nazi ambitions forced this type of European system, but he
also thought it to be a crisis system and only temporary.
Once Germany re-established a constitutional government, it

would find economic and political partners.(’2

To compon complexities in the international scene,
in the spring of 1931+, it was rumored that Japan and Gemany
were unusually close. Both had couson characteristics of
leaving the League of Nations, preparing militarily, and
seeking national expansionf’3 Speculation ran that they
might even have concluded a secret alliance. Japan appar-
ently had "taken the more active part in establishing. these
relations but she met with a ready response from Germany,
especially from the Nazi government." The friendly rela-

tions between the two countries were based entirely on

614.

Lippmann began writing about Japan's renewed vigor

self-intere st.

in the Far East as early as January of 1931;. Japanese

propaganda which plumped for naval parity with the United
States and Great Britain meant to cosmit Japanese opinion
and public men to an impossible task. Japan wanted a free

hand in Asia and wished to set the tone for the upcoming

 

62Lippmann, "The European Aligment," 25 July 193)....
63Dept. of State, Peace and War, text, p. 16.

6"Memorandum by the United States Military Attache,
(H W. Rowan and Jacob W. S. Wuest), Berlin, 17 March
19 in Dept. of State, Peace and War, p. 222.

218
naval almaments meeting in 1935. Lippmann agreed that the
Washington Conference treaties of 1921 -22 needed review,
but he rejected Japanese naval parity with England and
America--especially after the Manchurian incident. He
argued that it would not be wise to call the naval confer-
ence if Japan insisted upon its present position. Lippmann
believed Japan was isolating itself from the rest of the
65

world--a dangerous sign.

Former Secretary of State Henry Stimson wrote to
Lippmann about the above mentioned January 23 article on
the naval conference, and Stimson said he was glad to read
the article and that "it is very timely." Lippmann
replied directly:

I am glad that you thought my article
was timely. I am not sure but we ought to
go further and serve notice on the Japan-
ese Goverment privately that there is no
chance whatever of parity, and that we
don' t want a Naval Conference if they are
going to ask for it.67

Lippmann saw both Nazi Germany and Japan stimulating
a world armament race in their respective hemispheres.

After the winter of 1931-32, Japan had decided her best

 

bsLippmann, "The Japanese Propaganda," 23 January 1931..

663timson to Lippmann, 23 January 1931+ in Stimson
Papers, Yale University Library.

67Lippmann to Stimson, 25 January 19314. in Stimson
Papers, Yale university Library.

219

interests would be accomplished through force. Likewise,
the Nazis had already begun preparing Germans for war.

And the British and Americans, Lippmann believed, would be
better off if they recognized that because issues were
serious countries would not disarm. The best thing for the
United States to do in Europe was to do nothing, Lippmann
declared, but in the Far East America ought to be capable

of constructive action through quiet diplomatic procedures."8
In the middle of April, 1931; a spokesman for the

Japanese foreign office, Eiji Amau, clarified his country's
views of foreign aid to China. Amau asserted that Japan
had special responsibility for keeping peace in Asia and
that Japan would reserve the right to decide what kind of
aid other powers might extend to China. The Japanese

wanted to see China preserve its national integrity,

restore order, and achieve unification: history, Amau asserted,
showed that China could do this through its own independent
efforts. He declared, therefore, that Japan opposed foreign
powers' technical or financial assistance to China. Japan
believed, as well, that China was attempting to frustrate

Japanese destiny by using foreign influence in Asia."9

 

68Lippmann, "The Race of Armament," 15 March 19311--

69Dorothy Borg; Theo United States and the Far Eastern
Crisis of 1 e Mano ur an Inc on o
Wale]: stage of the oUndeclared S no- a anese War

Wage, Massachusetts: Harvard UniversEty Press, 1961;).

p. 76.

 

 

 

220

Lippmann reacted calmly to the Amau Doctrine, as it
came to be called. Japan.meant to isolate China by showing
the latter that she had no friends in the West. Japan had
challenged the principles of the Nine Power Treaty.7o He
recognized that Japan would submit only to its own evalua-
tion of the Japanese role in Asia and that it would also
judge Chinese rights. Japanese power, Lippmann pointed out,
was unlimited in the Far East, but before the united states,
who had no special economic interest in China, could agree
to armament limitation it must know exactly Japan's methods
and goals.71 Lippmann believed the treaty structure of 1922
in need of change, but he also thought the united States would
not stand irrevocably upon treaty commitments that no longer
expressed facts. However, America had the right to ask Japan
to consult others before acting overseas, and that Japan
would be expected to act in good faith.72

Secretary of State Hull Spoke of dangers of the inter-
national situation in an address at Washington on May 5, 193k.

 

7oLippmann, "The Japanese Declarations and American
Policy," 25 April 193k.

71Lippmann, "The Japanese Policy," 1 May 193k.
72Lippmann, "Towards Peace in the Orient," h May 193k.

73Address delivered by the Secretary of State at
Washington, 5 May 193k in Dept. of state, Peace and War,
ppe 217-218e

221
The Secretary said that dictators were replacing democra-
cies.73 Hull believed nations had narrowed their vision

and sought self-sufficiency.7u

Citizens experienced con-
stant emergencies and were being taxed beyond their limits.
And worst of all, Hull feared the development of a military
spirit that might lead to war.75 He repeated similar warn-
ings a month.later in Williamsburg, Virginia, but added
another reason for grave apprehension abroad: the armaments
76

P860 e

Between the time of Secretary Hull's two addresses,
Lippmann wrote of how American Presidents from.Wbodrow
Wilson to Franklin Roosevelt had sought to protect world
peace through disarmament. Lamentably, though, after three
naval armament limitation conferences and one world disarm-
ament conference, the only armament race stopped was between
England and the united States.77

Lippmann separated his views of armaments and ltmita-
tions into two camps: the Atlantic and the Pacific. Each
required different policies. The United States had nothing

 

7“Ib1d., p. 218.
751b1de, ppe 218-219e

76Address delivered by the Secretary of State at
Williamsburg, Virginia, 11 June 193k in Dept. of State,
Peace and War, pp. 231-232.

77Lippmann, "While the World is Arming," 17 May 1931;.

222
to contribute directly to Europe's critical situation,
but he argued that by keeping the American navy stronger
than Japan's, the Japanese might be more inclined to limit
their political hand in Asia. Should this happen, Lippmann
surmised, the United States could then refine its position
and naval agreements might be possible. He pointed out
that the Washington Conference of 1921-22 did in fact favor
Japanese military concerns since its agreements limited
England's and America's naval building to far below their
potential. Lippmann believed the Washington treaties needed
revision because world conditions had changed since then,
but he wanted Japan to understand that her unrestrained
hand in Asia would never be allowed. Her navy must be

restricted.78

Since the United States could do nothing about Europe's
armament race and possible war, Lippmann argued, America
should prepare for neutrality. To stay out of war was one
thing, he declared, but trading with belligerents and friends
was another. Lippmann believed it was probably impossible

to stay out of an important war. 79

Throughout much of the remainder of 19314., Lippmann's
writings about American foreign affairs centered on the
defense of democracy and capitalism. He believed many had

 

781b1d.

791bid.

223

begun serious questioning of the value of democracy, but
the Nazi regime of arbitrary power supported by terror
and violence must have shown people an undesirable alterna-
tive to democracy. Hitler's one-man rule which suppressed
free speech and demanded a national "oneness" of thought
obviously clashed with democracy's endless political debates
and acceptance of a variety of views. Democracy, Lippmann
believed, better expressed the marvelous variety of human
experience; accordingly, Nazis philosophy and tactics flew
in the face of majority rule that allowed and encouraged
minority expression. Hitler's regime did not tolerate
opposition and drove opposition underground.80

In May of 1931+, Lippmann delivered the Godkin lectures
at Harvard. The lectures were published in August as a
small volume entitled The Method of Freedom. Lippmann set
out to discover what guided men's political behavior in 1
the midst of public disturbance and when great pressure for

1
private security prevailed.8 He sought measures that had

the best chance of "restoring and maintaining order in the

regime of liberty. "82

Donestic and international disorder which received

 

8“Lippmann, "The Vindication of Democracy," 5 July 1931;.

8‘lLippmann, The Method of Freedom (New York: Macmillan
00313137. 19314): P0 21;.

azigide 9 p e Xe

2211
large impetus from the Great Depression had brought state
control to the political front as an answer to disorder.
Laissez faire capitalimm appeared to be dead and the
conscious and planned operation of government on national
economies and private lives of citizens grew to considerable

33

proportions. It had been discovered that government may

influence the business cycle and also affect people's
standard of living.8h

ldppmann described what he called a "directed economy"
and absolute collectivism. They resembled a military
regimen which operated in wartime and.peacetime alike with
an aura of constant emergency created through manipulated
public opinion. Freedom of choice no longer existed.in a
directed economy for it allowed economic excess.85

Lippmann criticism of the directed economy aligned
him with the critics of the New Deal who focused their
attacks on big government at a time When the New Dealers
made big business their target. His early admirers of the
New Republic days had parted company with their early here.
They saw in Roosevelt's welfare state a government that
listened to pleas of the unemployed and disadvantaged labor

as a return to democratic ideals.

 

83Ibid., pp. 25 and 28.

8“Ibid., p. 35.

8SIbid., pp. 39, h1-h3.

225

Ldppmann's answer to a directed economy was his idea
of a "compensated economy" which.maintained a balance
between individual enterprise and choice. Yet Lippmann was
no exponent of a laissez-faire economy prizing private enter-
prise no matter what the cost to public welfare. He sought
to correct the abuses and overcome the disorder of capital-
ism by asking peOple to recognize that initiative may be
evil as well as good. Lippmann proposed that the state
"encourage initiative when it is socially beneficent and

to discourage it when it is not."86

He feared that the
social order was too intricate for a multitude of individual
decisions not sufficiently enlightened to keep the economy
as a whole in working order. Any serious breakdown in

the economy would unleash forces that might destroy it.87

The compensated economy ran counter to the workings of
a capitalist democracy, but--Lippmann.argued--an absolute
democracy may be an unworkable way to organize political
power.88 He believed a government of democracy did not lend
itself to foresight and independence, because it failed to
take long views. In critical times, democracy's weaknesses

of being unable to operate simply and swiftly paralyzed its

 

861b1d., p. us.

87Ibid., p. h8.

8
Ibid., p. 78.

226
people.89 The compensated economy would function as private
pressure groups did in prosperity--the state in critical
times would balance the economy as the general interest
dictated. However, later critics of Lippmann's position
saw in.him a man isolated from the masses of unemployed and
the economic realities of the moment. They feared likewise
his advocacy of central control believing that the issue
was who was to exercise this control.

In Lippmann's compensated economy, the middle class
dominated because it avoided the extremes of the rich and
the poor. The middle class believed in private property,
which.was the source of liberty, and in.private transaction.
It was most likely to be independent of the state because
its livelihood depended upon.personal security rooted in
private preperty and vested rights--not upon acts of

officials.90

The Method of Freedom shows a man steeped inflWestern
tradition facing a crisis. His main object, in these
critical times, was to restore and preserve the delicate
balance between liberty and authority. For Lippmann a
democratic government and a capitalistic economy normally
allowed man to remain free in mind and action in the face

of changing circumstances, but this type of liberalism was

 

89Ibid., p. 8h.

9oIb1de, ppe 99-100e

227

threatened as democracy and capitalism failed to react
effectively to depression difficulties. In order to restore
the world he best knew and respected, Lippmann recommended
a strong central control, guided by the public good and
meant to regenerate the virtues of democracy and capitalism.

Lippmann's "Today and Tomorrow" columns stopped in July
and began in November of 193k. Presumably he went on vaca-
tion during part of that time. September and October found
him in Europe. When.he returned, Lippmann reaffinmed what
he had believed to be Europe's economic case earlier in the
summer. The European situation was critical, he had said,

91 Five

‘months later and after a trip to Europe, Lippmann.noted that

and few signs of economic recovery were visible.

deflation had paralyzed private initiative and reduced the
European standard of living. A struggle for existence had
been provoked among classes, regions, and nations. He
indicated that the United States continued with its economic
problems, but they were of a less tragic kind. Americans
were not threatened by war. They enjoyed a margin of safety
because of their material resources, and they participated

in an unusually sound government.92

 

91Lippmann, "The European.Crisis and American Policy,"
13 July 193k.

92"Lippmann Returns Gloomy over Europe," New York
Times, 22 November 1931-I». P. 19.

228

Although democracy and capitalism were under severe
criticism, Lippmann believed a "patched up" democracy during
crisis times was infinitely better than Nazi dictatorship.
Economic and political conditions in EurOpe had not improved
and the programs of the dictators were not supplying neces-
sary solutions. American recovery programs appeared to be
working feebly. Unemployment roles in the United States
listed over a million fewer workers in 193k than the pre-
vious year's listing.93 The price index of America's gross
national product [in 1929 dollars] rose five points in

193h.9h But an excess of imports $7h2,000,000 occurred

during the past twelve months.95
Lippmann believed that the last few months of 193h.had
witnessed a subtle and underlying change in the Western world.
The early years of the 1930's found peeple predicting the
doom of Western social order. They believed its basic tenets
of personal liberty and independent property and governments
accountable to free men must give way to the machine age and
highly deified politicians. Even democrats had begun to
doubt democracy and capitalism; however, the spell of doubt

had been broken.96

 

93299 Statistical History of the United States, p. 73.
9“Ibid., p. 139.
95Ibid., p. 537.

96Lippmann, "A Spell is Broken," a December 193k.

229

From his recent trip abroad, Lippmann.heard men.in
private conversation say that certain.Eur0pean countries
had some very strong governments backed by military force
and psychological support, but they lacked substantial
economic resources, markets, advanced technical organiza-
tion, and "the indestructible free energies of the outer
capitalistic-democratic world." They could not make good
their promises to the people. The dictators would do well
to wait on capitalistic recovery then in progress. But they
would have to be satisfied with the fact that great decisions

would be made in Washington, London, and Paris.97

The glamour of the collectivist autocracies was gone,
Lippmann wrote. Capitalism had survived and lived as an
order in human affairs constantly changing. The real
question was how much, at what points, in what ways "the
existing system of predominantly free enterprise could be
helped to make its readjustment, [could] be stimulated and
restrained, its errors--and deficiencies compensated, and
thus brought into working balance."98

Lippmann concluded his writing about the world scene of
193a with assessments of Japan and Europe. He believed that

 

97Ibid.

98Ibid. For similar sentiments in regard to democracy
and the West, see "Watchman, What of the Night?" 1 January
1935 and "In Defense of Liberalism," Vanity Fair, November
193k. 32. pp- 211 and 80- -

230
Japan meant business in the Far East--far more so than
England or America. Japan must expand--he declared--because
of a growing population, the need to industrialize, and the
need for materials and markets. She had been prepared to
fight in Asia since 1931 and no one else was. The Japanese
relied on the assumption that while others doubted Japan
would fight, but the danger existed that they would over--

play their hand and provoke resistance.99

The American Ambassador to Japan, Joseph Grew, sent a
comprehensive appraisal of the situation in Japan to Secre-
tary Hull on December 27, 193k. Ambassador Grew's note
supported the Lippmann December 8 assessment, but Grew por-
trayed the predominant attitude in Japan as "swashbuckling."

Japan meant to rule the world.100 He saw liberal thought in

Japanv-so often described as lying just below the nation's
surface ready to rise at any moment--as largely "inarticu-
late" and "impotent and probably would remain so for some .
time to come."101 Grew warned that unless America was will-
ing to subscribe to "Fax Japonica" in the Far East the united
States should build its navy to treaty strength and keep up

with Japan regardless of cost.102 He declared it was

 

99Lippmann, "Security in the Far East," 8 December 193k.

100Grew to Hull, 27 December 19311. in Dept. or state,
Peace and W32, PP. 239-2h0.

1011bid., p. 2u1.

1021bid., p. 2u2.

231

"criminally short-sighted” to discard from calculation the
possibility of eventual war with Japan. The best way to
avoid war was to prepare for it.103 '

Idppmann's end-of-the-year analysisII193h] of the
European situation did not envision Hitler declaring war.
The Nazi dictator ruled an unstable Germany and he would
have to put weapons in the hands of his political enemies
if he went to war. Lippmann.placed great faith in.Mussolini's
supposed desire and ability to maintain status quo on the
Continent. Lippmann reasoned that it would be in the self-
interest of Italy, France, and England to maintain the
independence and territorial integrity of Yugoslavia, for

instance. war danger could be postponed or removed.1oh

Developments would demonstrate the error of Lippmann calc-
ulations.

Lippmann believed that England and France should recog-
nize to some degree Italy's status as a great power. They
could do this by conceding an increase of an African colon-

ial empire to Italy. It was folly to refuse, Lippmann

 

1°31bid., p. 21m. A January 22, 1935 "Today and
Tomorrow" column, "A New Deal in Japanese-American Relations,"
continued Lippmann's hopeful tone that Japan would recognize
the potential naval power of the united States and England.
He noted also that England and Russia had far greater
economic interests in Asia than.America had. United States
interests in the Far East did not require that she be the
sole protector of the‘West's interests there.

1thippmann, "War or Peace in EurOpe," 13 December 193k.

232
105

argued, because European peace was much more important.
The other half of the equation for recognition of
Italy as a great power asked if Italy were prepared to act
as a great power, or would Mussolini play a lone hand in
the Balkans finding only small advantages? Lippmann thought
Mussolini to be "sufficiently a good European to rise to
the occasion."106
Policy of this sort, Lippmann wrote, rested on the idea
that the only way to keep peace was to unite nations in de-
fense of existing frontiers; otherwise, war would be provoked.
"Whoever wished peace must, therefore, accept the present

political constitution cf.Europe,' Lippmann declared.107

The year 1935 proved to be a bad one for Lippmann
analysis. Two series of important events, one in the spring
and one in early fall defied Lippmann.predictions. On.March
10 Marshall Hermann Goering made public that Germany had
established a substantial air force [in violation of the
Versailles treaty]. March 16 found Hitler openly denouncing
disarmament clauses of the Versailles treaty. He also began

universal conscription.108 Contrary to Lippmann expectations

 

 

108Robert A. Divine, The Reluctant Belli erent:
American.Ent into World War II (New York: fiohfi Wiley
and Sons, 19%;}, p. TE.

233

that Mussolini would act as a world leader and that he
would see that Italy had more to gain from peace than war,
Italian troops, true to year-long rumors, invaded Ethopia
on October 3. It was a mad, sad world.

ldppmann's initial reaction to Nazi Germany's military
expansion announcements was an attempt to create understand-
ing by showing that Germany had been the victim of a bad
peace. Since the Paris Peace Conference other moves against
Germany fostered further ill will. France had built a
series of alliances aimed at preventing Germany from.expand-
ing. An "iron ring" of armament surrounded Germany which
it saw as restrictive while others saw it as defensive.109

Germany defied the allies by rearming, and Hitler took
what the allies offered at a high price. The allies faced
dilemmas, for if they did not react to Germany rearming, they
would appear impotent and the Germans would look stronger.
If armaments were increased, enormous war risks would be
involved. If the allies accepted the facts and negotiated,
they would postpone the crisis without softening it.110

The EurOpean crisis, Lippmann argued in a later column,
deeply affected the united States. In December, 193k world

price and wage deflation continued and world trade reached

its lowest ebb since the beginning of the depression.

 

109Lippmann, "The European Crisis," 19 March 1935.

11onus.

231+

Intensified competition heightened, and nations turned in-
ward to develop home markets; however, Lippmann wrote,
expenditures on public works and armaments were wholly
inadequate to promote recovery. Thus domestic economic
pressure helped to produce the Manchurian crisis, the
Abyssinian adventure, and Nazi rearmament with guns toward
EurOpe.111

The united States had gone off the gold standard and
faced deflation abroad, but militarism.had come to the
political front in EurOpe and Asia and the United States
confronted the difficult issue of defining neutrality toward
potential violence in EurOpe. England and France directed
their energies toward the European economic and political
crisis and the united States opposed Japan alone in the

Far East.112

Lippmann argued that America, Great Britain, and France
should settle deflation and war debts. The united States
ought to lift its embargo on American capital going over-
seas. Effective neutrality needed sufficient force to back
it up, Lippmann believed, but neutrality was not simply a
'matter of doing nothing. American citizens and commerce
would roam the world and interests would inevitably be dame
aged. In the Far East Lippmann declared that the united
States must be frank and firm with Japan. Since there was

 

111Lippmann, "The American Interest in the European

Crisis," 23 March 1935.

1121bid.

235
no possibility of collective action in Asia, America must
keep its navy superior to that of Japan's. Finally,
Lippmann proposed that American economic recovery at home
was very important, as was American security, but--he warned--
Americans should not be buried in their own "chicken feed."113
A month after Germany's military announcements about
rearming, Lippmann published a lengthy article in Foreign
Affairs about Anglo-American relations. Ostensibly,
Lippmann meant to dispel the illusion that the united States
supported an isolationist foreign policy while England
appeared to be internationalist.11h
Lippmann believed that the ideal of Anglo-American co-
Operation was to preserve the peace of the world. Both the
United States and England had no disputed common frontiers.
Commercial rivalry existed in some parts of the world, but
with no serious political consequences. Neither government
sought extension of its empire, and both were in the process
of restricting overseas holdings. Thus Great Britain and
America had fundamentally the same views about foreign
policy based on an underlying community of interest and

1 .
speech and tradition.1 5

 

1‘3Ib1d.

11uLippmann, "Britain and America: The Prospects of
Political COOperation in the Light of Their Paramount

Interests," Foreign Affairs, April 1935, 13, p. 363.
‘15Ib1d., pp. 363-365.

236

But, yet, England and the united States stood apart
because they possessed different vital interests. America
protected itself on a two-ocean.front with its center in
Panama. The United States could not, therefore, accept
equal partnership with England in maintaining Western
Europe's status quo. Britain had deep interest in.protec-
tion of its homeland and defense of its line of communications
with India and the Dominions of Australia and New Zealand.
She also had large economic holdings in China.116

The Manchurian affair of 1931-32 put the west's col-
lective security system to the test, and it showed that
Great Britain and France were not willing to uphold the
system when their vital interests were not involved. As the
British and French did in.Manchuria, the United States must
do in EurOpe--hold back. Therefore, Lippmann wrote, it made
no sense to discuss Anglo-American relations in such stereo-
typed phrases as "American isolation" and British interna-
tionalism." For American policy was governed by vital
interests-~just as British policy was.117

Lippmann.meant, he said, to show the difficulty in
promoting cooperation between the united States and England,
but he sought understanding in order to remove misunder-

standings. What policy the united States should adopt, for

 

116Ibid.. pp. 365-367.
117Ibid., p. 368.

237
instance, in Asia was no more clear than what policy

Britain should adopt toward the Continent.118

The type of international cooperation that Lippmann
thought would be effective involved as it always did in
diplomacy the risk of war, "and not merely consultation,
observation, and negotiation undertaken.with the reserva-
tion that if words fail, nothing further be done." Most
likely, neither England nor the united states would under-
take that type of c00peration until Britain felt secure in
Europe and America felt secure in Asia. Defense of each
country's vital interests "compels them to concentrate
their energies." But if they could not cooperate politi-
cally, they might consider economic c00peration where
currency could be stabilized, trade barriers removed, and
trade promoted. “Good will finds good work to do,” Lippmann
asserted. The habits of cooperation might be confined to
economic considerations until political conditions were
ready for the policy of promoting peace.119

Stanley Baldwin returned to power in June of 1935,
and the British.Prime Minister represented to Lippmann.a.man
deeply devoted to democracy and liberalism. Baldwin wanted
peace and he guided a powerful nation which carried large

 

118Ibid., p. 370.

1191b1de , pe 371 e

238
sway over various dangerous world trouble spots: Central

120
EurOpe, Eastern Asia, and Africa.

Foreign policy observers, Lippmann continued, believed
that European peace depended upon Anglo-French cooperation.
And their cOOperation would attract others. Nazi Germany
would respect a united Continent, he believed, since Hitler
only respected force.121

Anglo-American relations were not bad, Lippmann continued,
but they could be better. The two countries ought to under-
stand one another more clearly and seek parallel action.
Lippmann wanted English opinion to know that responsible
American opinion understood their point of view. It might

also help if British opinion understood America.122

England concluded a naval agreement with Germany in
June of 1935. The German fleet tonnage was not to exceed
thirty-five percent of the British fleet tonnage. A bewild-
ering development at first thought, wrote Lippmann, but he
saw it as a brilliant ggup_on Britain's part. German naval
armaments had been attached to England's navy. Great Britain
had tied German hands, and allowed Nazi propaganda to treat

the agreement as a German triumph. Other powers could deal

 

1 5 120Lippmann, "The Return of Stanley Baldwin," 11 June
93 .

239
with England, after the treaty, and know what Germany was
doing. In a similar fashion, Lippmann implied, America

'might try opening relations with Japan.123

For much of the remainder of the year, Lippmann focus
on foreign policy issues settled on Italy and Ethopia and
American neutrality legislation. As early as September of
193A the State Department received word from America's
Ambassador to Italy, Breckinridge Long, that Italy appeared
to be making war preparations, possibly toward Ethopia.
Long believed, however, that Italy would not begin an un-
provoked attack against Abyssinia.12h The Ambassador reported
again in mid-February 1935 that Italy was definitely making
war preparation for an extensive campaign in Ethopia. Sup-
plies and military forces moved clandestinely.125

Lippmann‘wrote of a shattered dream in July 1935. The
impending EthOpian war marked the end of the international
system.established by the victors of Wbrld War I. The
system failed to stop Japan in Manchuria. It did not en-
force military clauses in the Versailles treaty against
Germany, and it was unable to stop Italy in Ethopia. The
Western victors showed no will to defend the peace settle-

ment with force and they lacked wisdom to save it by

 

123L1ppmann, "Naval Policies,” 25 JU1Y 1935:

1214’Long to Hull, 28 September 1931:, in Dept. of State,
gpace and war, pp. 23u-235.

125Long to Hull, 1h February 1935 in Ibid., Po 2&7-

ZhO
concessions. ”They have believed in their wishes,” he
wrote, and they sought to combine the advantages of imperi-

12
alism with conveniences of pacifism. 6

Lippmann struggled with feelings that Italy ought to
be at least morally condemned. He reported that some felt
the united States should exert moral authority in defense
of elementary human rights and of the sanctity of treaties.
But how would America condemn Italy's potential aggression?
Through the League? The United States was not a member.
Through the Kellogg Pact? No judicial machinery existed
for assessing guilt. The united States, if it acted, would
have to do so unilaterally.127

The defense of civilized ideals, Lippmann believed,
depended upon far-sighted policy--not upon protest where
violence threatened. He argued that diplomatic combina-
tions backed by force and the willingness when deeply
challenged to use that force was the only way to stop
tyranny. Only whenbpeople felt secure and prosperous would
freedom and reason flourish.128

In early August Lippmann predicted Italy would invade
Ethopia within a month. The forces for making war were

 

126Lippmann, "The Shattered Dream," 11 July 1935.

127Lippmann, ”American Ideals in the Outer world."
23 July 1935-

128Ibid.

2H1
ascendant over those for making peace. He feared the spread
of war to Central EurOpe where maintenance of the balance of

1
power had depended so heavily on Mussolini. 29

The United States would remain neutral and its polioy
should be made very clear to Europe. No specific danger
threatened the United states, Lippmann wrote, but precedents
would be set by American action that would have great weight
on potential European moves. The United States wanted its é

honor and trade intact and it wished to remain neutral and ;

 

impartial, but neutrality was nearly impossible when naval
powers faced one another. Therefore, the United States
should adhere to tradition and make no special pronouncoment
for this specific war.130
Lippmann urged, however, that America prohibit shipping
in American bottoms of munitions to either belligerent and/or
prohibit shipment in American vessels of munitions outside
of the western hemisphere. American citizens traveling out-
side the western hemisphere on ships carrying munitions
ought to be prohibited, too. Lippmann advocated, as well,
that the State Department and Congress form an informal
committee in continuous existence that would make tentative

drafts of legislation for serious situations.131

 

129Lippmann, ”The Approaching War and American Policy,"
8 August 1935.

13°Ib1d.

13‘Ib1d.

2&2

Words flowed from the White House. Roosevelt instructed
Hull to cable Long in Rome. The Ambassador was to seek an
interview with Mussolini at the earliest possible moment.
Long would indicate to Mussolini that the President hoped
the differences between Italy and Ethopia could be settled
"without resort to armed conflict." An outbreak of hostili-
ties in the present world could stimulate a calamity which
could "adversely affect the interests of all nations."132

Congressional and Presidential concern over appropriate
neutrality legislation became intense in July and August of
1935. With Italy poised to strike and with an already
powerful isolationist sentiment in the country, the August
31 Neutrality Act seemed appropriate and none too soon for
some. The act prohibited the shipment of arms, munitions,
and implements of war to belligerent countries. It barred
American bottoms from carrying arms, munitions, and war
implements for use in warring nations. The act required
licensing of persons engaged in.nanufacturing, exporting, or
importing arms, ammunition, or implements of war. Lastly,
it restricted travel by American citizens on ships of bel-

1
ligerents during war. 33

 

1 2
3 Hull to Lo , 18 August 1935 in Dept. of state,
‘geace and War, p. 2 6.

1
33Neutrality Act of August 31, 1935 in Ibid., pp. 266-

271.

2113

Lippmann's "Today and Tomorrow” columns stopped in late
August of 1935, and his first reaction to the August 31
Neutrality Act appeared in early December. By that time
Mussolini had invaded Ethopia [October 3] and the new
legislation had an Opportunity for testing. In a two part
series, Lippmann assessed American.neutrality.

Statements by Roosevelt and Hull in October and Novem-
ber required scrutiny, Lippmann wrote. The President and
Secretary used moral pressure to replace legal stricture

1
denied by Congress in August. 3“ Lippmann believed the

rules of American neutrality had been changed radically
after Italy went to war--and to Italy's disadvantage. He
thought this was a dangerous precedent. Lippmann argued
that neutrality policy had been framed to fit a specific
problem, and that it would not be suitable for a large war.

It would be economically disastrous to the united States.135

Lippmann labeled the Italian invasion of Ethopia a
"peculiar war." England and France withheld affective sanc-

tions against an obviously aggressive Italy. Why? Both

 

13”Lippmann, "Developments in.Neutrality," 5 December
1935. Roosevelt and Hull had called upon American business-
men to avoid trade in war materials with belligerents. The
President and Hull asked American business to avoid excessive
trade with Italy and Ethopia, and there was some hint that
if American business--which especially supplied oil, copper,
and scrap to Italy--did not comply with the government's
request, violators' names might be published. (Divine,

The Reluctant Belligerent, pp. 2h-25).

1 5 135L1ppmann, "Bad Law from a Hard Case,” 7 December
93 .

Zhh

French and British vital self-interests guided their poli-
cies. They needed Italian.help against potential German
expansion. England and France followed realistic lines,
Lippmann observed, but they failed to see far enough ahead.
He feared irreparable harm to European peace had taken
place.136

The League of Nations failed to apply sanctions on
oil--the most important commodity necessary for'Mussolini's
quick victory over Ethopia. But Lippmann cautioned readers
against peremptory judgement of League action. He noted
that it was well known that Mussolini had planned to attack
Ethopia for a year, and nothing was done to stop him.
Mussolini also had indicated that if oil were cut off from
his country, he would consider that an act of war. League
‘members did not want war, and Mussolini knew it. When the
League had an immensely superior force which it was willing
to use against aggressors, it would then come of age,
Lippmann wrote. Peaceful sanctions were part of its ado-
lescence.137

For the first time in many centuries, Lippmann de-
clared, a challenge to the essential traditions of civilized
society had occurred. Arbitrary will vied with the rule of
law. The appetites of men struggled mightily with desires of

 

‘36L1ppmann, "The peculiar War, " 17 December 1935.

1 5 137Lippmann, “The League's Coming of Age," 21;. December
93 .

2115
consideration for others. What was surprising was that so
‘many men favored the challengers. And many of these men
represented the learning and wisdom of civilization itself.
Men of authority, steeped in the human tradition, must rise
to protect selves from willful selves. Lippmann felt little
reason for despair--for once men understood the issue they

138

would rally and gather forces.

 

 

138Lippmann, "The Paramount Issue," 26 December 1935.
Lippmann's book, The New Imperative (New York: Macmillan
Company, 1935) contains essays written in the spring of
1935. It expresses the need to balance liberty and author-
ity in the modern.world. The book re-enforces Lippmann's
Method of Freedom (193h) which argues that liberty and
authority might 5e balanced when the economy adjusted to
new circumstances.

CHAPTER EIGHT
LOOKING BACKNARD

To understand the importance of Walter Lippmann's views
of American foreign policy from the beginning of World War I
to the middle of the Great Depression, one should take into
account the magnitude of his audience and his possible impact
on national leaders. During the twenty-one years under study,
Lippmann wrote twelve books, published dozens of magazine
articles, and wrote hundreds of newspaper columns.

Lippmann's New Republic years, interrupted by service
in the federal government, and his editorship of the New'Ybrk
lggrlg‘brought his thinking to a limited number of readers.
But with the inauguration in 1931 of his "Today and Tomorrow"
columns in the New Ybrk Herald Tribune, Lippmann thought he-
came available through a syndicated press that reached one
hundred and twenty-six.American dailies with a total circu-
lation of eight million readers in 1933.

One suspects that it was Lippmann's self-assumed role
of reporting daily issues and surrounding them with.perspec-
tive, insight, and potential solution which made him attrac-
tive to national leaders and gave him an unusually influential
attachment to power. His positions as journalist and author
provided the time he needed to write books which helped him

clarify an on-going philosOphy and offered the opportunity

2h6

2h?
for him to test his thinking in news writing. Presidents

Wbodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt made use of Lippmann's
analytical powers, and Colonel House, as well as Secretary
Stimson appreciated his intellectual talents.

Lippmann's intent as a writer and thinker went beyond
the usual journalistic pale. He may well have assumed the
role of the statesman figure he described in many of his
books. A_§reface to Politics (1913), Drift and Mastery (191k),
Public Opinion (1922), and Preface to Morals (1929) pictured

 

men in society who searched the world as they found it--
extricated forces that seemed to move it--and surrounded
those forces with criticism and suggestion. The ideal states-
men, according to Lippmann, sought to clarify issues and
awaken men's potential to handle them. Lippmann had great
faith that man could know himself well enough that he would
be able to meet, understand, and somewhat control problems
involved in relations with other men and other nations.
The statesman figure would be capable of rising above man's
daily frays, and could thereby furnish perspective and
insight.

Lippmann attached himself to realities, but he did so
on his own terms. Throughout the 1920's and 1930's, he earned
an annual income of six figures, and this substantial earn-
ing allowed him a life of discipline which he chose for him-
self. He traveled across the United States at least once a

year and his frequent addresses at colleges and to other

 

2&8

groups gave him access to regional thinking. An annual
trip to Europe kept him informed about European politics
particularly and Western international issues generally.
Although he was born and reared in New York City, it was
not just family attachment that kept him there until 1938.
He believed the financial center of the United States to
be on Wall Street, and economics dominated the decades of

1

*‘1
the 1920 and 1930's. 1

Lippmann's highly developed ability to write clearly ;.

 

and focus readers' attention on international issues of
the day supported his desire to have impact on the thinking
of national leaders, but he also developed a "trick of
the trade," as he called it. He set out to find individuals
and groups who could be depended upon as faithful mirrors
of what everyone was thinking.
There are some marvellous mirrors,

men and women who reflect, virtually

without any distortion due to thought

or information of their own, the state

of mind of the impressive people in

their trade or social group. They are

indispensable to public men and journ-
alists.2

Thus Lippmann maintained prolific correspondence with intel-
lectual and political leaders of the day. He entertained and

was entertained at luncheons and dinners where he gathered

information and insight.

 

1Lippmann, Reminiscences, II, p. 145.

2Lippmann, "Today and Tomorrow: A Trade Secret,"
2 May 1935.

2A9

ldppmann's foreign policy views were governed first
and foremost by his beliefs in democracy and capitalism
as the best ways to regulate human relations within a
nation and with other countries. When it became clear,
for instance, in early 1917 that Germany meant to control
major Atlantic sea lanes, Lippmann stopped writing about
neutral rights and began discourse on defense of the +1
Atlantic Alliance. ;

Nations that bordered the Atlantic between the united

 

States and Great Britain served, Lippmann believed, as the
main sources of Western tradition. He thought that if
traditions of the West, such as individual liberty, con-
cern for others, open commercial competition, and governs
ments responsible to free men, were to be preserved, Britain
and the United States would have to control the Atlantic
and provide a pool of naval power upon which other Atlantic
nations could draw when they needed it. In his sense of
major powers enforcing Atlantic needs, he contradicted
Weedrow Wilson's hopes of collective security, where all
member nations pooled their naval power, helping the world
toward peace.

Lippmann traced the reasons for the economically and
politically tumultuous decade of the 1930's to a ”bad peace"
which began in 1919. Democracy and capitalism represented

to Lippmann opportunities for free political and economic

250
exchange among humans. They allowed choice and inventive-
ness, but the Versailles treaty imposed only policies of
indictment and repression. He hoped that the League of
Nations would help countries adjust to a new democratic
world. The League, Lippmann believed, would provide
‘machinery for continuous efforts to meet changing economies
and political structures. But the leading democracies,
subject to fears of insecurity and future potential war
entanglements, attempted to protect themselves by limiting
international contact. The free flow of goods, money, and
ideas was constricted by high tariffs, immigration restric-
tion, and unstable currencies in the 1920's.

Never fully delineated, the line between authority and
liberty blurred evenumore after World War I as political
extromists started to dominate world governments, especially
in the What. Ldppmann tried constant defining and bolster-
ing of democratic and capitalistic forms in the 1920's and
1930's, but forces of fear, revenge, and greed had been
released. France wanted security against a restoration of
German power. The American Senate chose not to sign the
peace treaty or join Wilson's League. A Great Depression
visited economic ruin upon the world and its tragic impact
supplied dictators with excuses to create or increase their
powers. Treaties, war outlawry, or armament limitation
conferences meant little to Hitler or Mussolini.

ldppmann.argued in 1928 that the world faced a

251

constantly changing status quo and no peaceful way had been
found to change international relations. He saw no moral-
ity in foreign affairs and if‘gggg or 25g ”won," it was
because force was on its side. If peace were to exist,
powers would have to see peace as to their advantage.

Lippmann's assessment of American foreign affairs in
the 1930's included the idea that a division of labor had
occurred in the world economy and global political struc-

tures had to adjust. Since Lippmann believed that the L4

 

 

most stable society was one where change was the easiest,
he supported democratic nations and capitalistic econo-
mies. The West contained the nucleus of democratic and
capitalistic nations, but the Great Depression had forced
many toward more centrally controlled societies in an
effort to offer quick remedies for depression ills.

If democracies continued their highly nationalistic
foreign policies, Lippmann argued, they would encourage
Germany, Italy, or Japan to seek their self-interests
through overseas expansion. Japan invaded Manchuria.
Germany flaunted its violations of the Versailles treaty,
and Italy marched on Ethopia. The West retaliated with
words or weak sanctions. As Lippmann feared, domestic
self-interest overruled international cooperation, and
world economic recovery was stymied.

The London Naval Conference and the London Economic

Conference demonstrated America's need to soothe the fears

252
and insecurity of Americans. As England and France, the
United States set out to cure its own economic illness
first. Lippmann, in something of a turn-about, believed
this to be a correct course since America was the leading
creditor nation in the world. Its good health would
spread to other nations, he thought. Domestically, the
New Deal symbolized the increased centralization of t:
American government, but Lippmann feared Roosevelt's '

growing personal power.

 

Democracy and capitalism appeared incapable of solving
Great Depression probloms or stopping dictators. But
Lippmann continually praised democracy and capitalism in
the 1930's--for they seemed to be the only institutions
that had come close to preserving man's individual liberty
and, at the same time, allowed enjoyment of the benefits
of society. If the Great Depression were to end, he thought
societies would have to loosen central government control,
lower tariffs, stabilize currencies, and encourage trade.

He favored temporary state help to individuals in economic
distress. But moreso, he wanted restoration of democratic
government and a capitalistic economy where nations and
their people ideally remained free in mind and action in
the face of changing circumstances.

Lippmann believed that only by maintaining an affective
balance between liberty and authority could the inherent

civility of man continue growth. It was, however, his

253

preposed cures for world ills that brought Lippmann severe
criticism. His schome of a compensated economy to redress
democracy's ills was abstruse and did not deal with the
real issue: getting people back to work. He simply did
not know what to do when democracy and capitalism failed
to function properly when facing crises.

Lippmann came to distrust capitalistic democracies
when they confronted emergencies. His thinking of the

 

1930's was much clearer when he addressed himself to politi-
cal issues, but when Lippmann offered economic analyses,

his study directed him toward an elitism. He wished to
preserve the middle class virtues of property and economic
independence in a land with over ten million unemployed.
Excesses of democracy where too many unenlightened voices
argued for dozens of solutions, Lippmann believed, had
paralyzed the United States.

Lippmann.was caught in a dilemma. He had proposed that
the benefits of democracy and capitalism rested on their
abilities to allow change and to free creative energies--
the very elements needed, he argued, that were necessary for
world governments to adjust successfully to changing economic
conditions. But democracies and capitalistic economies did
not keep the commonweal upperdmost. In their race for
trade, they too reverted to satisfying clamoring consti-
tuencies. ldppmann responded by advocating a "regimen of

liberty." The compensated economy and its middle class

2511

leaders would restore democrats' vision by insisting upon
the public good as the touchstone for economic operations.
In his desperation Lippmann advocated a vaguely defined
increased central power to restore economic liberty.

Lippmann's duo-role as a journalist and philosopher
brought him fame and infamy. As an editor he admirably
isolated and reflected on.major foreign policy issues of
the day. His discussions of Americaanuropean issues

occupied most of his attention since he believed that the

 

greatest dangers, and at the same time the greatest poten-
tial solutions, for world problems lay in the Atlantic
Community. But the philosophical aspect of Lippmann's
thinking which attracted so many to his work was a two-
edged sword. His columns and books gave perspective and
insight, but they also presented some questionable solutions
to issues that he raised. The scholar in a troubled world
was able to clarify issues and tender hope for improvoment,

but he had to be content with few effective answers.

 

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9

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