Chickenhawks of the Past, and Present

The editors of the New Republic took a position similar to [John] Dewey's, except that they arrived at it even earlier. In his editorial in the magazine's first issue in November, 1914, Herbert Croly cheerily prophesied that the war would stimulate America's spirit of nationalism and therefore bring it closer to democracy. At first hesitant about the collectivist war economies in Europe, the New Republic soon began to cheer and urged the United States to follow the lead of the warring European nations and socialize its economy and expand the powers of the state. ...

As America prepared to enter the war, the New Republic eagerly looked forward to imminent collectivization, sure that it would bring"immense gains in national efficiency and happiness." After war was declared, the magazine urged that the war be used as"an aggressive tool of democracy.""Why should not the war serve," the magazine asked,"as a pretext to be used to foist innovations upon the country?" In that way, progressive intellectuals could lead the way in abolishing"the typical evils of the sprawling half-educated competitive capitalism."

Convinced that the United States would attain socialism through war, Walter Lippmann, in a public address shortly after American entry, trumpeted his apocalyptic vision of the future:

["]We who have gone to war to insure democracy in the world will have raised an aspiration here that will not end with the overthrow of the Prussian autocracy. We shall turn with fresh interests to our own tyrannies--to our Colorado mines, our autocratic steel industries, sweatshops, and our slums. A force is loose in America....Our own reactionaries will not assuage it...We shall know how to deal with them.["]

Walter Lippmann, indeed, had been the foremost hawk among the New Republic intellectuals. He had pushed Croly into backing Wilson and into supporting intervention, and then had collaborated with Colonel House in pushing Wilson into entering the war. Soon Lippmann, an enthusiast for conscription, had to confront the fact that he himself was only 27 years old and in fine health, and therefore was eminently eligible for the draft. Somehow, though, Lippmann failed to unite theory and praxis. Young Felix Frankfurter, progressive Harvard Law Professor and a close associate of the New Republic editorial staff, had just been selected as a special assistant to Secretary of War Baker. Lippmann somehow felt that his own inestimable services could be better used planning the postwar world than battling in the trenches. And so he wrote to Frankfurter asking for a job in Baker's office."What I want to do," Lippmann pleaded,"is to devote all my time to studying and speculating on the approaches to peace and the reaction from the peace. Do you think you can get me an exemption on such high-falutin grounds?" Lippmann then rushed to reassure Frankfurter that there was nothing personal in his request. After all, he explained,"the things that need to be thought out, are so big that there must be no personal element mixed up with this." Frankfurter having paved the way, Lippmann wrote to Secretary Baker. He assured Baker that he was only applying for a job and draft exemption on the pleading of others and in stern submission to the national interest. As Lippmann put it in a remarkable demonstration of cant:

["]I have consulted all the people whose advice I value and they urge me to apply for exemption. You can well understand that this is not a pleasant thing to do, and yet, after searching my soul as candidly as I know how, I am convinced that I can serve my bit much more effectively than as a private in the new armies.["]

No doubt.

As icing on the cake, Lippmann added an important bit of disinformation. For, he piteously wrote to Baker, the fact is"that my father is dying and my mother is absolutely alone in the world. She does not know what his condition is, and I cannot tell anyone for fear it would become known." Apparently, no one else knew his father's condition either, including the medical profession and his father, for the elder Lippmann managed to peg along successfully for the next ten years.

Murray N. Rothbard, World War I as Fulfillment: Power and the Intellectuals, in The Costs of War, edited by John V. Denson.

Isn't it lovely to see that the New Republic's long tradition of advocating for war, for"national greatness," for collectivization, and for leaving that nasty business of actually doing the fighting to others is almost a century old -- and now carried on with the same nobility and purity of spirit by its current Senior Editor?

For the future, I am almost tempted to recommend that, as a matter of genuine national security, every politician, public intellectual and journalist who loudly and insistently votes or advocates for war should be required to serve in the front lines -- if not as a soldier, then as a nurse or in some similar position. Perhaps then, we shall one day be safe from those who proclaim to know what is best for all of us, epecially when that"best" requires death and destruction in wars that have nothing to do with national self-interest or self-defense.

Besides, it would only be just.