|
|
Article: The New Republic Reader: Eighty Years of Opinion and Debate.
- Article from:
- The Nation
- Article date:
- October 10, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1994 The Nation Company L.P. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
"What do the liberals hope for?" Edmund Wilson asked readers of The New Republic in 1932. Writing in the pit of the Depression, Wilson sought to move the foremost organ of Progressive-era politics leftward by taking aim at its pre-Crash program of reformed capitalism. Wilson denounced liberals like Stuart Chase and Walter Lippmann--and, by implication, most of TNR's editorial board--for their failure to break once and for all with the values of a business civilization and embrace socialism. "Though they are better informed and more enlightened than the average American business man, their imagination does not extend much further nor their logic cut much deeper. Their ...