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British Social Thought and American Reformers of the Progressive Era

Author(s): Arthur MannReviewed work(s):Source: The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 42, No. 4 (Mar., 1956), pp. 672-692Published by: Organization of American HistoriansStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1889233 .

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BritishociaiThoughtndAmericanReformersf he rogressiveraBy ARTHUR MANN

The riseofthecityduring he ast quarter f thenineteenthen-turydestroyed ormanyAmericans hebelief thatthe New Worldwas destined to escape the sicknesses f the Old. Traditionally,America had regarded tselfas being what Europe was not: therepositoryf values deriving rom epublican overnment,n essen-tially agricultural conomy, nd a fluidsocial structure.By the1890's,however, he New World seemed o bear an ominousresem-blance to the parent t had rejected. It now had theveryproletar-iat, the very plutocracy, he very cities,the very explosive socialtensionsthat Jefferson ad seen and feared in Europe. As thepolarity etween heOld World and theUnited Statesdisappeared,a number f reformersuring he Progressive ra came to believethatthesocial questionwas internationaln scope. And with ittlein theAmericanpast to guide them n handlingthe problemsofthecityand thefactory,hey ooked to an olderEurope as a lab-oratorywhichhad developedmethods o solve suchproblems.Great Britain,which earlierhad influencedAmericanhumani-tarianmovements,lttractedthe greatest nterest.As the oldestindustrialized ountryntheWest, itpioneeredn schemes fsocialreconstructionhatAmericans aw fit to appropriate nd it pro-duced a galaxyofoutspoken umanitarians romCharlesKingsleyto David Lloyd George who served as a model formany like-

1 For the importanceof British social thought for the natural rightsphilosophy,deism,abolitionism, nd JacksonianDemocracy, see, respectively,Benjamin F. Wright,American Interpretations of Natural Law (Cambridge, 1931); Herbert M. Morais,Deism in Eighteenth CenturyAmerica (New York, 1934), 29-54; Gilbert H. Barnes,The Antislavery mpulse, 1830-1844 New York, 1933), 29-37; Arthur M. Schlesinger,Jr., The Age of Jackson (New York, 1945), 314-17,320.I am indebted to Professor Howard Mumford Jones, Professor John M. Blum,Mr. Herbert H. Rosenthal, and Professor Daniel Aaron for suggestions n the prep-aration of thisessay.672

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BRITISH THOUGHT AND AMERICAN REFORMERS 673minded mericans. utBritainwas alsothe ource or contrast-ing ideology.UnitedStates liberalshad also to concentratestrong ttackon the British-importeddeology f laissez faire,which,n thehands f a WilliamGraham umner ndan AndrewCarnegie,ationalizedxistingocial nequities.By the imeHerbert pencermadehis visit o theUnited tatesin 1882,the eaders fAmericanocialthought adcreated con-servative hilosophyutof his sociologynd theeconomichoughtoftheManchesterchool.At theheart f thisphilosophyay theidea that ocietywas a living rganism ith ts ownnaturalawsof development.n economicifethe aw of competition ouldlead to the urvival fthe blest,while he awsof thefreemarketwould djustprices,wages, ndrent.Noteven n thecaseoftem-porary isequilibrium as the stateto tamperwiththe organismor mpedeheoperationfnatural aw. Civilization,f eft ofol-low ts wndialectic, ould nthefuturevolve oa stage fperfectequilibrium. he Social Darwinist, scribing o nature moralpurpose, evived he Social Newtonian xiom thatWhat Is IsRight.2But reformersnew hatmuchwaswrong, nd theProgressiveErabeganwith rebelliongainst hepassive eterminismmposedby Social Darwinism nd Manchesterconomics. o the extentthat t stimulatedontradiction,ritish ocialthoughtfthis har-acter erved,nretrospect,s an exceedinglyalutaryrritant. sthedominantdeologynAmerica,ndpopularizedysuch eputa-ble men as JohnFiske,Andrew arnegie, dwardL. Youmans,WilliamG. Sumner,dwinL. Godkin, imonNewcomb, avid A.Wells,andJ.Laurence aughlin,tdefinedhe ntellectual rob-lemsof a newgenerationf Americanocial thinkers. ritishlaissezfairewas toAmericanrogressivism,n thisrespect, hatBritish mpiricismadbeen o Germandealism.LikeKant in his reactiono British mpiricism,he AmericanprogressiveidnotdiscardBritish houghtutused t as a pointofdeparture.A knowledgef orthodoxoctrine as,as always,thenecessaryirstteptoheresy.HenryGeorgedid notproposethe ingle ax nProgressndPoverty ntilhefirstxploredMal-thusand Ricardoon wages,profits,nd rent.HenryDemarest

2 Cf. RichardHofstadter, ocial Darwinism n American Thought,1860-1915(Philadelphia, 1945), 18-51; Joseph Dorfman,The Economic Mind in AmericanCivilization 3 vols.,New York, 1946-1949),II, 49 ff.

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674 THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY HISTORICAL REVIEWLloyd, broughtup as a freetraderon themodel of JohnStuartMill, soon came to see the limitationsof Mill's individualisticeconomicsn a monopolisticAmerica. LesterF. Ward, aspiring ocreatea teleologicalscienceof evolution, ntroduced is first ookwiththe announcement: Justas Comtecould complainthat thephilosophy f Hobbes, Locke,and Voltairewas negative, o itmaynow be maintained hatthe school of Mill, Spencer, nd Fiske isalso negative." And so it went forthe manyotherswho came tointellectualmaturity n the 1880's and 1890's - for ThorsteinVeblen and TheodoreRoosevelt,forGeorgeD. Herron,FrancisG.Peabody, and WashingtonGladden, for Richard T. Ely, EdwardA. Ross, and JohnBates Clark.4 ThirtyyearsafterLesterWardbegan his dissectionof Herbert Spencer,Walter E. Weyl stillfound t necessary o refuteAdam Smith.5It was a happycoincidence orAmerican eformershat Germanscholarship ad alreadyrefuted ritish aissez faire; and Americansocial scientistswho won doctorates n Germanyn the ast quarterof the centuryreturned o teach a new political economy. Therefutation arried weight,for German scholarship njoyed highprestigen America. SimonN. Patten,who trained generation fpublicfigurest theUniversity f Pennsylvania'sWhartonSchoolofCommerce,pokeforhis contemporariesn expressing hedesire"to help in the transformationf Americancivilization fromanEnglishto a German basis." Patten wished to replacetheMan-chesterschool with German institutional conomics,which hadbeen launched n the 1850's in opposition o Manchesterism.Thenew thought hampioned he nductive gainstthedeductivemeth-od; thehistorical tudyof economic nstitutionsgainsttheformu-8Lester F. Ward, DynamicSociology, r Applied Social Science, s Based uponStaticalSociology nd the Less ComplexSciences 2 vols.,New York, 1883), I, v.HenryGeorge, rogress nd Poverty New York, 1879),Books -III; HenryDema-rest Lloyd, "The Political Economyof Seventy-Three illion Dollars," AtlanticMonthly Boston),L (July,1882),69-81.4 Hofstadter,ocial Darwinism, 6-102;JosephDorfman,ThorsteinVeblenandHis Amerzca New York, 1934),40-55; John M. Blum, The RepublicanRoosevelt(Cambridge, 954),27-29.5Walter E. Weyl, The New Democracy:An Essay on CertainPolitical andEconomicTendenciesn theUnited tates New York,1912),52-53.6 Quoted n RexfordG. Tugwell,"Notes on theLife and Work of SimonNelsonPatten,"Journal of Political Economy Chicago),XXXI (April, 1923), 197. Seealso HenryR. Seager, Tribute o the Memory fDr. SimonPatten,"Annalsof theAmerican cademy fPolitical and SocialScience Philadelphia),CVII (May, 1923),336-38.

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BRITISH THOUGHT AND AMERICAN REFORMERS 675lation of abstract aws; the delineation of man as a creatureofmanymotives gainstthe dogma of the economicman. Above all,Germanpoliticaleconomymaintained hatthe state had notmere-ly to protect ersons nd property ut also toplan forthecollectivegood.7Still anotheraspect of the American refutation f the Smith-Spencer chool was topointto the exampleof a number fprogres-sive nations hatwereevolving n the direction f the socialwelfarestate. Switzerland,Germany, ustralia,New Zealand - these ndother countries Benjamin 0. Flower hailed joyously as "For-eign ExperimentStations" in welfare egislation. HerbertSpen-cer'stheories bout the dangerofgovernmentegulationwereonlytheories;herewas experience hatprovedthesuccessof thepublicownership f naturalmonopolies, he eight-hour ay, public hous-ing, unemploymentnsurance, ld-age pensions, nd state banking.Let Americansfollow suit,or, as globe-trotting enry DemarestLloyd put it, etthem have the wit tomake a salad of all the goodideasofEuropeand Australasia."Americans lso criticizedBritisheconomicorthodoxy y assert-ing that twas withouthonoreven in the land of its birth. In hiswidely read The Past and the Present of Political Economy,pub-lished in the mid-1880's,Richard T. Ely triumphantly ecordedWalter Bagehot'sunhappy dmission hat theold school was losingground, nd singledout T. E. Cliffe eslie and Thorold Rogersasproponents f the newer historicalapproach. ProfessorStanleyJevons,Ely wrote,was ready"to fling side,once and forever, hemazy and preposterous ssumptionsof the Ricardian school."What Ely did forpoliticaleconomists ester Ward was doing forsociologists. "Herbert Spencer thunders,"Ward observed, "butEngland answersby a compulsory ducationact, by Governmentpurchaseof the telegraph, nd by a judicial decision ayingclaimto the telephone."" When Americans n the 1890's read Sidney7See, forexample,RichardT. Ely, Groundunder Our Feet: An Autobiography(New York, 1938),36-46,121-57. Cf. Ralph H. Gabriel,The Courseof AmericanDemocratic hought:An IntellectualHistory ince1815 New York, 1940), 93-307.8 Benjamin 0. Flower,ProgressiveMen, Women, nd Movements f the PastTwenty-Five ears (Boston, 1914), 134-42;Caro Lloyd, Henry DemarestLloyd,1847-.1903: Biography 2 vols.,New York, 1912), I, 181.9RichardT. Ely, The Past and the Presentof Political Economy Baltimore,1884), , 43,63-64.10Quoted n Hofstadter,ocialDarwinism,6.

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676 THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY HISTORICAL REVIEWWebb's penetratingrticle nthe Fabian Essays,on thenineteenth-centuryxtension fgovernmentontrolnGreatBritain, heyhadan arsenalof factsto demonstratehat pure aissez fairehad been,evenforEnglishmen,noperative.'1The English Workmen'sCom-pensationAct of 1897 gave furthervidencethat Parliamentre-jectedSocial Darwinism, nd served s a modelfora similar aw inNew York in 1909.12 When Lloyd George'sbudget completed heBritish ssault on laissez faire,Mayor Tom L. Johnson f Cleve-land said: "We of theUnitedStates are interestedn thatstruggleover there, otas outsiders ut as insiders."A moresubtlepart of theAmericanrebuttal ntendedto showthatthegreatBritish lassicaleconomistswereactuallynotentirelyclassical in theirpointofview. As Karl Marx was not a Marxian,so AdamSmithwas not a Smithian,nor JohnStuartMill a Mill-ian. Smithhad been an inductive hinkerwitha social conscience,wrote neAmerican.'4Another ecalledthatMill had agitatedforequal rights orwomen, heseparation f church nd state,theex-tension f the franchise,he abolitionof the aristocracyfor thegreatreforms,n short, f his day." In fact, t was JohnStuartMill, explainedan American abian Socialist,whoprophesied hatthecentralproblemof political economywould be the reconcilia-tionof "individual libertywithpublic ownership f the meansofproductionnd equal divisionof theproduct." 6For AndrewCarnegie,who was so strongly onvinced f the in-fallibility f laissez faireas to hireHerbertSpencer'ssecretaryohelp him writehis own books, all this musthave seemed irrev-erent.'7But particularlyrreverent as Professor imonPatten in

;11 herewere woAmericanditions f theFabianEssays, newith n introductionby H. G. Wilshire New York, 1891),the otherwith an introductiony EdwardBellamy Boston,1894). See also SidneyWebb,"What SocialismMeans; or a Callto the Unconverted,"awn (Boston), I (March,1890),1.12 HerbertH. Rosenthal, The ProgressiveMovement n New York, 1906-1914"(Ph.D. Dissertation,arvardUniversity,nprogress), hap.III.3 TomL. Johnson, y Story, d. byElizabethJ. Hauser (New York, 1911),302.:' SimonN. Patten,The Development fEnglishThought:A Study n theEco-

nomicnterpretationfHistory New York,1899),228,231-43.'5 Bernhard . Stern ed.), YoungWard'sDiary (New York,1935),274-77.16 FrankParsons,Our Country's eed, or, theDevelopment f a Scientificndus-trialismBoston,1894),154.'7 FritzRedlich,Reviewof RobertG. McCloskey, merican onservatismn theAge of Enterprise:A Studyof WilliamGraham umner, tephenJ. Field, andAn-drew Carnegie,nAmerican istoricalReview New York),LVII (April,1952),708-709.

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BRITISH THOUGHT AND AMERICAN REFORMERS 677his The Development of English Thought. SubtitledA StuzdyntheEconomic nterpretation fHistory,his scholarly ook treatedthegreat figures f Malthus and Smith, Mill and Ricardo, as somanypiecesofcorkriding he waves ofeconomic onditions.Morespecifically, e wrote hat theclassical school was merely humanconstruct hat reflected n economy f scarcity. As against Spen-cer's Yale disciple,William GrahamSumner,who, believingthat"God and Naturehave ordainedthechances nd conditions f lifeon earth once for all," concludedthat "The case cannot be re-opened," 8 Patten explained that the case was already reopened.The English economy fscarcity ad been passing, incethe 1870's,intoan economy f abundance."British classical economicsnot only failed to describe reality,other ritics sserted, ut it was ethically nsensitive.Laissez fairewas moralnihilism. A Chicago admirer fJohnRuskin quotedthelatter'srebuke f economistswhowerewillfully"aiding and abet-tingthe cruellestformof murder n manythousandsof personsyearlyforthe sakesimply fputtingmoney nto the pockets f thelandlords." 0 A Pittsburgh iscipleof CharlesKingsley,ThomasCarlyle, nd FrederickDenisonMaurice snapped thatManchester-ismwas simply thescienceof extortion, he gentleartofgrindingthe facesof thepoor."21 HenryDemarestLloyd summed p a gen-eration's hostility gainst the Britishexponentsof economic n-dividualism n thesewords: "They turnout to be the teachers fwhatis notand whatoughtnottobe." Their "theories f popula-tion, wages, and rentare worse than bloodless. They are mur-derous."2They weremurderous ecause theywould denymen the moralimperative o clearslums, oform radeunions, o control he busi-ness cycle,to equalize thedistribution f thenational income,toco-operateto try o solve,in sum,the social problem.And it isherethatwe touchthe motor owerbehindtherefutationf laissezfaire: thepassionto createnotso much morerational cience s amorehumane ociety.Thus, althoughEdward Bellamy argued the18 WilliamGraham umner,What Social Classes Owe toEach Other New York,1911),14.19Patten, evelopment fEnglishThought, 0-15, 3-56, 42-44,75ff., 79-87.20 HenryDemarest loyd,Lordsof ndustryNew York, 1910), 2.21 GeorgeHodges,FaithandSocial Service New York,1896),159.22 Lloyd,Lordsof ndustry,1,62.

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BRITISH THOUGHT AND AMERICAN REFORMERS 679Norton, Julius A. Wayland, and Elbert Hubbard.26 Englishmenlike Ruskin and Morris contributed o the AmericanProgressiveEra mainly n theirrole as poets who aspiredto a more beautifulcivilization.Englishmen ndictedcapitalism for immorality s well as forugliness, nd here again Americans ook a leaf fromthe Englishnotebook. By the end of the century he notebookwas fat indeed:it includednot onlythe novels of Disraeli,Dickens,Walter Besant,Mrs. HumphreyWard, George Eliot, and Mrs. Elizabeth LynnLintonbutToynbee's ndustrialRevolution,Rogers' Six Centuriesof Work and Wages,Charles Booth's Life and Labour of the Peo-ple in London,and General William Booth's In DarkestEngland,and the Way Out. Soon it would ncludethehistories fthe Webbs,theplays of Shaw and JohnGalsworthy,nd thenovelsofH. G.Wells. Each of thesepersons pointedout, in his different ay,thatthemodernproblemwas theproblemof thepoor, who, in apredatory nd thereforemmoral ociety, rankand whored, toleand starved.27The analysis applied to America; "Disraeli's 'two nations' areamongus," warnedProfessor cudder. Henry Demarest Lloyd, ina reviewof Toynbee'sIndustrialRevolution,wrotethat the prob-lem of Britain was theproblemof America,whether democraticand republicanAmerica hall be feudalized into industrialBaronsby the hundred nd serfsby the million." This tendency o equateAmericawithEngland led JohnR. Commons o consider s inter-changeable uch urid accountsof thelaborproblem s theBritishworks fToynbee,Rogers, nd Boothand theAmerican olumesofJacobRiis and Helen Campbell. "The OtherHalf" lived as mean-

26 Cf. Van Wyck Brooks,New England: Indian Summer, 865-1915 New York,1940),250-54, 40-41;David H. Dickason,TheDaring Young Men: The Story f theAmericanPre-RaphaelitesBloomington,nd., 1953), 188-92; Felix Shay, ElbertHubbardofEast Aurora New York, 1926),30-32, 1ff.27 For therange fEnglish ocialthoughtonsideredmportantyAmericans,nemust onsult he editorials nd book reviews f themagazines nd newspapers. ora birds-eye iew, eeA List ofBooks on SocialReformn thePublic Library f theCity of Boston Boston, 1898),7, 10, 15, 24, 27, 31-41, 0, and passim;William H.Tolman and William I. Hull, Bibliography f Selected SociologicalReferencesPrepared ortheCityVigilance eague,New YorkCity New York, 1893),7, 10, 12,13-15, 8,20,26,30-33, 4-56, 0-65, 14, ndpassim;William H. Tolman andWilliamI. Hull, Bibliography f the Americannstitute f Christianociology New York,1893), passim;John R. Commons, Popular Bibliography f Sociology Oberlin,1892),4, 5, 7, 13, 14, 15; FrankParsons, . E. Crawford,nd H. T. Richardson, heWorld'sBest Books (Boston,1889),passim.

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680 THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY HISTORICAL REVIEWly in New Yorkas in London.As earlyas 1890, theReverendW. D. P. Bliss concludedhatKarlMarx's historyf the ncreas-ingmiseryf theBritish roletariatpplied oAmerica.28Transatlantic uckrakinghichmphasizedheproblemfthepoor n a predatoryociety elpedalso to recast hedoctrinefautomaticrogress. riedrichngels'The Conditionfthe Work-ing Class nEngland n1844should e "very alutary eading orall whobelieve n the elf-adjustmentf ndustry,"rote liberalbut anti-Marxian ew Englandreligiousournal.The same our-nal dismissed homas Macaulay,"withhis complacentantofprogress.. as a Scotch ycophant."9 If itwas true hatworkershad retrogressedincethe adventof industrial apitalism,hensomething ust e donefor hem. n England,Alfred usselWal-laceand ThomasHenryHuxley,whose eputationslmost qualedthose fDarwin andSpencer,ustifiedcientificallyhedoingofthat omething.The justificationas in Darwinian anguage.Wallace arguedthat ltruism,ased nthebiological act f ove,would ransformthe future s naturalselection ad shapedthe past.30Huxleymaintainedhatnurtureatherhannature adgiven spastprog-ress, hat humanevolutionwas differentrom hat of animalspre-cisely to thedegreethatmenhad intelligence o shape theirowngoals. The triumphfa Darwin was a measure fthat ntelligence.Huxley, further,urnedSpencer'sown metaphor f the social or-ganismright ideup. If societywas in factorganic, hen tneededa mind to thinkfor it, namelythe state. This conclusion antic-ipated LesterWard's conceptof teleologicalprogress y nearlyadecade and helped to win forHuxley an important lace in theWho's Who of internationaliberalismW. D. P. Bliss's TheNew EncyclopediaofSocial Reform.3"

28 Scudder, ocial Ideals in EnglishLetters, 07; Lloyd, HenryDemarestLloyd,I, 56; Commons, PopularBibliography fSociology, ; JamesE. ThoroldRogers,Six Centuriesf Work nd Wages: A History f EnglishLabour,ed. byW. D. P.Bliss (New York, 1890),134,160. Cf. Tolman and Hull, Bibliography f SelectedSociologicalReferences,6,32-34.29 Unitarian eview Boston),XXVIII (July,1887),70.30 Benjamin . Flower,Arena Boston), II (January, 891),250, nd VIII (Octo-ber,1893), 47-56.'B1For Huxley'scomplete rgument,ee Thomas Henry Huxley,"AdministrativeNihilism,"n Essays (9 vols.,New York,1896-1903),, 251-89.An American ditionof this ssaywaspublished ytheHumboldtCompanyn 1890. NationalistBoston),III (November, 890), 287. For use by Bliss, see The New Encyclopedia f SocialReformNew York, 1908), 54.

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BRITISH THOUGHT AND AMERICAN REFORMERS 681Many of thenewproponentsf progress,onfidentf man'sability o shapehisends, elieved hat t was the pecial alling f

the ntellectualoformulatehemoral oalsof socialprogress.Wehave herethedoctrine f the nnovatingminority. merican e-formersttributedhegreatmomentsf historyosuch hinkerssPlatoandJesus,avonarola ndMore,Erasmus ndLuther, ugo,Mazzini,Sue, andmany thers.Theycredited hefinemomentfabolitionismo Emersonnd other eaders f hisgeneration,ndthebeginningfa newmomentn the ndustrialra to theEnglishintellectualsf the atenineteenthnd earlytwentiethenturies.A Ruskin, Huxley, GrahamWallas thesemen onfirmedhebelief hat he ntelligentsialonegave tosociety visionwithoutwhich ivilizationmust urely erish.32Britishntellectualslso arouseddmirationor heir xample fa selflessnd almost eroic onductna culture hatvalued he elf-ish nd prosaic ourgeois irtues.A Bostonournalist ejoiced hatRuskinwasso gallant s togivehiswifeherfreedomo that hecouldmarry er over.33Ruskinwas praised, oo,by ProfessorScudder s onewhohadbeenunable o follow cholarlymbitionsso long s there xisted brutalizedaboring lassneeding elp.34In Chicago, loyd describedWilliamMorris s a blondgiant nartist's ape whowas ready o renounceociety ndwork orthepoor."3The "scholar n an age of luxury nd money," NewHampshire-borneformeraraphrasedarlyle,must be carelessfplaceorproperty."

This mage fthe ntellectuals a voluntarylien n an uncon-genialsociety ppealed to educatedAmericans howished elf-32 Literatureon the identification f intellectuals of this countrywith intellectualsof othercountries nd ages is voluminous. Representativeare the following worksbyBenjamin 0. Flower and Edwin D. Mead, editors respectivelyof the Arena and theNew England Magazine (Boston), clearing houses for European and Americanpro-gressive ideas. Benjamin 0. Flower, Centuryof Sir Thomas More (Boston, 1896);Whittier: Prophet, Seer, and Man (Boston, 1896); How England Averted a Revolu-tion of Force: A Survey of the Social Agitation of the First Ten Years of QueenVictoria's Reign (Trenton, 1903); and Gerald Massey: Poet, Prophet and Mystic

(Boston, 1895); Edwin D. Mead, Martin Luther: A Study of Reformation (Boston,1884), and The Philosophy of Carlyle (Boston, 1881). See also Henry DemarestLloyd, Mazzini and Other Essays (New York, 1910); Ella Winter and GranvilleHicks (eds.), The Letters of Lincoln Steffens 2 vols., New York, 1938), I, 224.33Benjamin 0. Flower, "John Ruskin,"Arena, XVII (July, 1897), 77.34Vida D. Scudder, An Introduction o the Writings f JohnRuskin Boston,1890), 11-12.35Lloyd, Mazzini and OtherEssays, 42-70.36 Mead, The Philosophy of Carlyle, 130.

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682 THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY HISTORICAL REVIEWlessly to solve the social problem. Albert Jay Nock, who thoughtthat Brand WhitlockunderstoodMatthew Arnold's injunction omakethestate"the expression f ourbest self,"rejoicedthatWhit-lock, a naturalpoet, gave up poetry o thathe could reform,smayor,Toledo's wretchedsocial conditions. Whitlock was analien, observed Nock, but there was sublimity n his alienation.Vida D. Scudder,whowas the eadingAmerican cholarofBritishsocial thought n the Progressive ra, had similaradmirationforGeorge Eliot's injunction o intellectuals o atone forthe sins ofmodern ociety.37To the idea of thefitness f the intellectualfor eadershipwasadded a contempt orthe businessman. "This experience,"wroteHenryD. Lloyd after he SpringValley lockout, makes me under-stand what Ruskinmeant when he said: 'I am done preaching othe rich'." 8 The conflictetween he ntellectual nd the business-man inAmerica s at least as old as the conflict etweenJeffersonand Hamilton. But something ew was added in the ProgressiveEra. Reformersuestioned hecapacityofthebusinessman omakepolicyfor henation;for t was thebusinessmanwho advocated thenegative policy of laissez faire. The businessman,moreover,wasDickens' Gradgrind,Carlyle's profiteerf the "cash-nexus,"Wil-liam Morris'destroyerfbeauty. He was,Walter Rauschenbuschwrote,what"Ruskinmockinglyalled the economicman' thatdidbusiness as] . . . 'a covetousmachine'."Workersnomore han businessmen ereto sharewith reformingintellectuals n thetaskof creating he moral society. The imageof the laborer haredbybothAmerican nd Britishreformers asthe umpen-proletariatf William Booth's n DarkestEngland andBoston'sCity Wilderness, fDickens'Hard Timesand Riis's HowtheOtherHalf Lives. Workerswereso depressed, o miserable, oinertas to requirehelp outside theirown class. English socialcritics nd reformers,ot evenexcepting heSocialists,wereat bot-tomToryRadicals in the awareness hattheywere the benefactorsofthe owerorder.4087 Brand Whitlock, FortyYears of It, Introduction by Albert Jay Nock (NewYork, 1914), viii, x-xii; Scudder, Social Ideals inEnglishLetters, 91.38 Quoted in Lloyd, HenryDemarest loyd, , 139.89 Walter Rauschenbusch,ChristianizingheSocial Order New York, 1912), 185.4e0 For contemporarywareness of this aristocratic eeling,see Scudder,Social dealsin EnglishLetters, 44-51. Cf. William 0. Aydelotte, "The England of Marx and

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BRITISH THOUGHT AND AMERICAN REFORMERS 683Americans hared this class consciousness. The firstAmericanbookon the English socialmovements f the last part of the nine-

teenthcentury old more about the efforts f reformers o helpworkers han about the activitiesof workers o help themselves."'After studyingthe role of laborers in the English co-operativemovement, enry D. Lloyd concluded that at least at the outsetthe chief eaders had been reformingntellectuals. Frustrated ythe indifferencef his countrymen o the producerco-operative,Lloyd exclaimed to a friend: "I tell you, Curtiss,the Americanworker as got to co-operate."2 Some ten years aterWalterLipp-mann,thenunderthe influence f GrahamWallas, attackedthefailure of the New Freedom to make room for intellectualswhowould plan an organiclife forAmericans.43And Miss Scudderspokeforherkindwhen heremarkedn herusual succinct tyle hatreformationught o come"from bove andnot from elow."Britishplans for social regeneration ppropriated yAmericansfrom he 1890's had theirbasis in the British onception hatedu-cated gentlemen nd ladies must take the lead in social reform.Even earlier, hough,United States humanitarians ad become ac-quaintedwiththisBritish pplicationof noblesse oblige. In 1865the AmericanSocial Science Associationwas founded after anEnglishmodeltocollectvital statistics n socialproblems nd,withall relevantknowledge s itsprovince, o discover nd predict helaws ofhumanbehavior.45 he departmentf social economy theotherdepartments ereeducation,health, nd jurisprudence)pre-mised ts work n thetheory hattherewere"responsibilitiesf thegiftedand educatedclasses toward theweak, the witless and theMill as Reflected n Fiction,"in Robert L. Schuylerand Herman Ausubel (eds.), TheMaking of English History (New York, 1952), 511-21; Henry Pelling, The Origins ofthe Labour Party (London, 1954), 10, 19-34,36, 49; Helen M. Lynd, England in theEighteen-Eighties: Toward a Social Basis for Freedom (New York, 1945), 381.

41 Robert A. Woods, English Social Movements (New York, 1891), passim.42 Quoted in Lloyd, Henry Demarest Lloyd, II, 90. See also Henry DemarestLloyd, Labour Copartnership:Notes of a Visit to Co-operativeWorkshops,Factories,and Farms in Great Britain and Ireland (New York, 1898), 336.43Walter Lippmann, Drift and Mastery: An Attempt to Diagnose the CurrentUnrest (New York, 1914), 141.44Vida D. Scudder, "A Protest," June 16, 1887, MS. draft in Vida D. ScudderPapers (In possession of Miss Scudder at Wellesley, Mass., when used by the author).4 For thehistory nd purpose of theAmerican Social Science Association,see LouisL. and Jessie S. Bernard, Origins of American Sociology: The Social Science Move-ment n the United States (New York, 1943), 512 if.,and Franklin B. Sanborn, "His-tory of the American Social Science Association," Journal of Social Science (NewYork), XLVI (December, 1909), 2-6.

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684 THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY HISTORICAL REVIEWignorant."6 Philanthropicallyriented, he Association evermoved eyond harity,ndby the1880'sa new generationoundother eads n England.Two of theBritisheads which adtrans-atlanticnfluence ere heUniversityettlementnd MunicipalSocialism, oth f whichwere xperimentalolutionso the ocialproblemsroughtboutby urbanife.FormanyyoungAmericanollege raduates,ondon'sToynbeeHall, foundedn themid-1880'snd markinghefruition f theUniversityettlement ovement,ymbolizedheselfless evotionof thewell-to-dond educated lasses to makelife better orworkers. hat settlementad a history f somethirty ears.In1854,wrote heAmericanistoriansf theUniversityettlementmovement,rederickenisonMaurice nda group f Cambridgemen stablishedshort-livedorkers'ollegen London. A decadelaterProfessorohnRuskin roposedhat companyf universitymen ollow he ead ofEdwardDenison, young xonian fsocialpositionndwealthwhowas living mong nd attemptingo up-lift hepoor fEastLondon.Theproject ailed omaterialize,ndyoung enisondied while till this work. n 1873theReverendSamuelA.Barnettook pduties t St. Jude's,Whitechapel, herehewas soon oinedbyArnold oynbee fOxford,whoattemptedtodo whatDenisonhaddone.Toynbee lsodiedyoungnd nthemidst fhiswork. Toynbee'sOxford omrades, ishing o com-memorateis memory,greedwithBarnettomakehis nameper-manent yestablishing Universityettlementn Whitechapel.Abuilding as constructedext o St.Jude's, nd n 1885ToynbeeHall wasopened.47ToynbeeHall appealed oOxonianswhowere,nJaneAddams'words,people fsufficienteisurendability" o revivehe ifeofEast London,where he welfare perationsf theEnglishparishsystemadcollapsed.8 Everythingbout he nstitutionreatheda nobleyetdistinctlass onsciousness.lthoughver heyears heresidentslayed mportantoles n thetradeunions, heco-opera-tivemovement,nd ocalpolitics,he nitial urposewasRuskin's:tobring hecultureftheuniversityo the lum.The permanent

46FranklinB. Sanborn,The Workof Social Science,"Journal f Social Science,VIII (May, 1876),25.47 RobertA.Woods and AlbertJ.Kennedy eds.),Handbookof SettlementsNewYork,1911), x.48 JaneAddams, he ExcellentBecomes hePermanentNew York,1932),126.

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BRITISH THOUGHT AND AMERICAN REFORMERS 685staff onsistedof recent graduates of the university;occasionalparticipants ame from the ranks of interested lergymen,musi-cians, cholars, nd artists.All of themmusthave feltat home,forin the center f the settlement,nd surrounded y the squalid EastEnd, was "a court r quad,' so dear always to the heartof a univer-sityman."After tudyingn England, RobertA. Woods, StantonCoit, VidaD. Scudder, and Jane Addams had established settlements ari-ouslyin Boston, New York, and Chicago by 1892. On theeve ofthe electionof 1912 there xistedmore than fourhundred ettle-ments n American ities. A large numberof the settlements adtherelatively imitedgoal of making available to thedwellersofthe slum a refined, ommunity ome. Others, however, such asSouth End House and Hull House, turnedthe settlementnto aclearinghouse for urban reform.Their leadersstudied theneigh-borhood n the hopeofdiscovering he causesofpoverty, nd theyfought abor's battles at the city and state legislatures.Like theirEnglish cousins, heyweremotivated ya senseof noblesseoblige.50Indeed, theAmericanUniversity ettlementmovementwas evenmore class-conscious han the English one. The Americanslum,unlike hatofLondon,was inhabited lmost ntirely y non-Anglo-Saxon, non-Protestant,non-English-speaking mmigrants; andawareness f ethnicdifferenceseepenedthegulfbetween hewell-bred Anglo-Saxon resident and the poorly educated Europeanpeasant."'

More ambitious han theUniversity ettlementwas MunicipalSocialism,whichgot underway in Great Britainby the 1870's.Thirtyyears atertherewas inAmerica n impressive ibliographyon the subject."2There was also a receptive udience, for it hadbecomeclear,at least to some, hat twas notenoughforgoodmento throwbad menout of office; he bad men always came back.RobertA. Woods, AlbertShaw, Frank Parsons, and FredericC.Howe, thechief tudents ftheBritish ity, xplainedto Americans49Woods, EnglishSocial Movements,6.50 For the activities nd theprolific eports f theAmerican ettlementouses eeWoods and Kennedy eds.),Handbookof Settlements,assim.51 See, forexample, obertA. Woods et al., The Poor in GreatCities New York,1895), 3; RobertA. Woods (ed.), Americansn Process (Boston, 1902),11 f.,andThe CityWildernessBoston,1898),33-57. Cf. OscarHandlin,The Uprooted Bos-ton,1951), 83-84.52 See, forexample, harlesGross, Bibliography f BritishMunicipal History,IncludingGildsandParliamentary epresentationNew York, 1897),38-46.

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686 THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY HISTORICAL REVIEWhow Glasgow, Manchester, nd Birmingham ad thrownout thevenal politicianforgoodand revived he civic spirit.

The key to that success was municipal home rule and publicownership. The firstwas crucial, for unlike the Americancitywhose powers were definedby the state legislature,the Britishmunicipal orporation ad muchgreater utonomy nd freedom faction. It went into the public utilities business and thereby e-movedthe corruptingnfluencef the corporate ranchise. t alsodemolished lumsandputup model tenements,t builtparks, aun-dries,bathhouses, ibraries, nd gymnasiums or thepoor. Aboveall, British ities, fferingmportant ositions, ttractednot grasp-ing politicians but college-trainedxperts n "administrative ci-ence,statistical cience, ngineeringnd technological cience, ani-tary science, and educational, social and moral science."" Thesocial engineer ad replacedthe ward boss.In a variety fwaysthese deaspenetratedmanyAmerican ities.The impactof the British itywas so strong n theAmericanmindthatwhenthe National Civic Federationwas studying he questionofthepublic ownership futilities t sentoneof its experts o Eng-land toreport n themunicipalization f tramways.Ohio's reform-ing mayors, Golden Rule" Jones,Tom Johnson, nd Brand Whit-lock, approved of expandedmunicipal functions, ome rule, andgovernment y expert. So did Mayor Josiah Quincy of Boston,who looked to RobertA. Woods as an adviser. Indeed, therewasscarcely n urban reformer hodid not support hese deas. Rich-ard T. Ely had thesatisfaction f dedicatingThe Coming CitytoAlbertShaw, one of his former raduatestudents t JohnsHop-kins, nd ofknowing hatFredHowe, another fhisstudents, adalso made good in civic work. Eugene Debs, GovernorHazen S.Pingreeof Michigan,JosiahStrong,Washington Gladden, FelixAdler,JohnR. Commons, enryDemarestLloyd,Edward EverettHale -these and manyotherswere enthusiasticn theirpraiseof

63Albert Shaw,Municipal Governmentn GreatBritain New York,1895),3 andpassim.Cf. Frederic . Howe,The BritishCity: The BeginningsfDemocracyNewYork,1907). It mustbe emphasizedhattheproponentsfmunicipal ocialism rewevidence rom ther ountries han Great Britain. As examples ee FrankParsons,The City orthePeople (Philadelphia, 901), nd The Story f New Zealand (Phila-delphia,1904); Henry DemarestLloyd,NewestEngland: Notes of a DemocraticTraveller n New Zealand, withSomeAustralianComparisonsNew York, 1900);FredericC. Howe, The City, he Hope of Democracy New York,1905), and TheModern City nd Its Problems New York, 1915); Albert haw,Municipal Govern-mentn Continental urope (New York, 1895). For the prodigiousmount f peri-odical iteraturen thesubject, ee theguides operiodical iterature.

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BRITISH THOUGHT AND AMERICAN REFORMERS 687FrankParsons'The CityforthePeople,thesumma fmunicipalreformntheProgressivera.64

In addition othe xperimentsf theUniversityettlementndMunicipal ocialism, mericans ere ttractedotheBritish lue-prints fChristianocialism ndFabianSocialism.Again, heselasttworested n a beliefn theobligationfclass. AlthoughheFabiansattemptedoeducateaborerss wellasmembersfotherclasses otheir oint fview, hey elieved,n thewords f G. B.Shaw,that theworkersouldnotgoourpaceorstand ursocialhabits."6 Asfor heChristianocialists,hey houghthatAngli-canclergymenadtheduty, s ecclesiasticalfficersf the tate, oraise he owest ftheir arishionerso economic ell-being.56This idea appealed oW. D. P. Bliss,an EpiscopalclergymaninBoston,nd n 1889 hefoundedheSociety fChristianocial-ists. The namewas takenfrom heEnglish rganization,nd sowasthecriticismhatcompetitiveapitalism estroyedheChris-tianteachingfco-operation. lthoughague n spelling uttheway to the futureociety,heBostonChristianocialistshopedthat omehow roductiveroperty ouldcome ntothehandsofthe ommunity.heir uccesswas imited,lthoughhey idreach,throughewspaper,amphlet,ndlecture, larger udience hanthemore han wodozenorsoministersnd ntellectualshat om-prised heSociety.When, by 1895, it was clearthatChristianSocialismwouldnot captureAmerican rotestantism,liss wasready ochange actics andsocialisms."

After trip oEngland n 1894, where e met heLondonFa-bians,thetirelessnd optimisticpiscopalian eformereturnedhomewith hedesire o found nAmericanabian league. Soci-etieswere reated nBoston,NewYork,Philadelphia, ndMadi-son, ndin 1895Blissbeganpublicationf theAmericanabian.No strong eague evermaterialized, ut a loose confederationexisted,nduntil arly nthetwentiethenturynumberf our-64 ArthurMann,"FrankParsons: The Professors Crusader,"Mississippi alleyHistoricalReview CedarRapids),XXXVII (December, 950),475,488-89;FredericC. Howe, The Confessionsfa ReformerNew York,1925),127-45;Whitlock,ortyYears of It, 162-63,40,347; Eleanor H. Woods,RobertA. Woods,Champion fDemocracyBoston,1929),119-23.56 Quoted n Pelling,Origins f theLabourParty, 6.56W. D. P. Bliss,"Socialism n theChurch f England,"AndoverReview (Bos-ton), X (November, 888), 91-96.67 For a more etailed ccount ftheChristianocialists, eeArthurMann,YankeeReformersn theUrbanAge (Cambridge,954), 9-95, 7, 98-99.

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688 THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY HISTORICAL REVIEWnals (ComingNation, ocial Economist, oming ight,Common-wealth, ocialistReview, ellamyReview)and Fabian tractswereissued. The objective, orrowed romEngland,was "to unitesocial reformersnd lead the way to a conceptionf socialism"throughducation.Apart romWilliamJ.Ghent, n editor ftheAmerican abian,Bliss and others ike himrefused o join theSocialist arty.Theyalso failed n theirmajorplan of convertingthemiddle lass nd permeatingheolderpartieswith heir hilos-ophy.By the irstecade fthe wentiethenturyabian Socialismas a movementn Americawas dead.58The British-inspiredmerican hristiannd Fabian Socialistswere ignificantargely or heir ducativeccomplishments.heyabridged, opularized,araphrased,nd quotednotonly heLon-don Fabiansbut ThomasCarlyle, rnold oynbee,WilliamMor-ris, horoldRogers,ndJohnRuskin.59ndthey adan audience.The Encyclopedia f Social Reform, ublished irstn 1897 andedited yW. D. P. Bliss,went ntofour rintingsy 1910. Outon theprairies, uliusA. Waylandhad some500,000 subscribersfor heComing ation ndtheAppeal oReason. Theywere our-nalswhich resented,nhis words, simply uskin urnednto helanguage fthe ommoneople." 0British ocialthought as one, nd onlyone, tone n the rchi-tecturef Americaneformhought.Other lements,utbeyondthe cope f this ssay,were heMarxismndmunicipalocialismofGermany;hephilosophicalnarchismfFrance; he ommunistanarchismndTolstoyan hristianityfRussia;thedirect emoc-racy fSwitzerland;he ecret allotofAustralia; hesocialwel-fare tateofNew Zealand; and the movementsn manyforeigncountriesor hepublic wnershipfprivatemonopolies.61iberaland pragmaticlementsn America tself,however, rovided

58For an excellent ccount f Fabianismn America, ee Howard H. Quint,TheForging fAmericanocialismColumbia, . C., 1953), 120-24,47-79.59See, for example, he Social ScienceLibrary, ditedby W. D. P. Bliss fortheHumboldt ublishing ompany New York) inthe 1890's.Among heprincipal itleswere The Communismf JohnRuskin 1891); The Socialism nd Unsocialism fThomasCarlyle 2 vols.,1891); The Socialism fJohnStuartMill (1891); The Eco-nomics f HerbertSpencer 1891); Francis W. Lee (ed.), WilliamMorris: Poet,Artist,ocialist 1891); H. G. Wilshire ed.), The Fabian Essays n Socialism 1891);andJ. E. Thorold Rogers, ix Centuriesf Work nd Wages (1890).60Quoted n Daniel Bell, "The Backgroundnd Development f MarxianSocial-ism n the UnitedStates,"n Donald D. Egbert nd Stow Persons eds.), SocialismandAmericanife (2 vols.,Princeton,952), , 259.61 ee,forexample,Mann,YankeeReformers,ndex.

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BRITISH THOUGHT AND AMERICAN REFORMERS 689tremendouslytrongnative force. And what gave shape to thewhole tructure as the ndigenous esire o ridAmerica fitssocialevilsand construct society long the ines of American emocracy.The majorBritish ontribution,tmaynow be seen,was its socialcriticism.Vernon L. Parringtonobserved that the Gilded Agefailed to produceAmerican ritics qual to Ruskin,Carlyle,Kings-ley,andMorris,62ut he overlooked he fact that Americans ppro-priated thesecritics ecauseof thatveryfailure. Vida D. Scudderbelieved thatthe moral and aestheticmuckraking f Englishintel-lectuals was so incisive that her Americancontemporariesmerelyadded toitstatistically.Andso shrewd nd toughminded studentof America as Nicholas Paine Gilman wentso far as to say thatawarenessof the social problemowed its existence argelyto menof letters ike Shelley, Carlyle, Dickens,and Walter Besant. Ed-ward Bellamy agreed. When Bellamy's JulianWest of LookingBackwardwas reintroducedo "his old friends," he greatbooks nliterature, e immediately hoseDickens, who overtopped all thewriters f his age" because "his great heart beat for the poor, be-cause he made the cause of the victims f societyhis own, and de-votedhis pento exposing ts cruelties nd shams." 3 Suchcriticism,added toAmericanmuckraking, elpedto create, n the thirty earsthat ed up to the electionof 1912, a new consensus f opinion tochallenge heolder,British nd British-inspiredonsensus ystema-tizedinSocial Staticsand What Social ClassesOwe to Each Other.What Is, agreedDebs and Rooseveltand Wilson, Is Wrong.

But the influence f an idea eludes mathematicalmeasurement,and thehistorian annotformulate n decimal points the mpactofBritish social criticism n the American ProgressiveEra. It isfrustrating,or example, to attemptto measure the influence fRobert Blatchford'sMerrie England on Eugene Debs's conversionto socialism, when we know that he read other socialisticbookswhile in Woodstock ail, and whenwe recall that he came out ofjail morePopulist thanSocialist.64One can only guess howmuch62 Vernon . Parrington,ain CurrentsnAmerican hought3 vols.,New York,1927-1930),II, 139.68 Scudder, ocial deals inEnglishLetters, 53; NicholasPaineGilman, ocialismand theAmerican pirit Boston,1893),26, 191; EdwardBellamy, ookingBackward(ModernLibrary d., New York), 120.864EugeneV. Debs, "How I Became a Socialist," n ArthurM. Schlesinger, r.(ed.), Writings ndSpeeches f EugeneV. Debs (New York,1948), 6; Ray Ginger,The BendingCross: A Biography f Eugene VictorDebs (New Brunswick,949),187-92.

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690 THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY HISTORICAL REVIEWAnEconomicnterpretationftheConstitutionftheUnited tatesowedto CharlesA. Beard'spost-DePauw ducationn England,where emet nticapitalistntellectualsndtaughttRuskinHallforworkers,ndfrom hich eretumed ithUntoThisLastin hispocket o do graduatework t ColumbiaUniversity."5gain, nhis owndivine omedyf theProgressivera, Vernon . Parring-ton put businessmenn Inferno nd theirBritishdetractorsnParadisio."6Yet Parrington'sntellectualources n sin and re-demption ere o varied s toprecludeheir alibration. he his-torianf deasmust allback nthe tatementhatBritishriticismwasbutone factorn theProgressivequation.AndyetsomeAmericans ereunaffected,t leastdirectly,yBritishocialthought. oynbeeHall served s a modelforDeni-sonHouse,Hull House,SouthEndHouse,andtheNeighborhoodGuild,yetbothGraham aylor ndLillianWald foundedettle-mentswithout isible id from anonBamett. Similarly,ritishMunicipal ocialism xcited generationfAmericanity eform-ers,butLincolnSteffens,MunicipalSocialist, emarkedf histrip oEngland hathebroughtackwithhim, n addition o anAmerican ife, nly"morninguits, vening uits, portingndevenbusiness uits, nd hats high,ow,soft, ndhard, ll Eng-lish, he atest hings."7On theother and,GeorgeHodges, leadingEpiscopalian x-ponent f thesocialgospel,wrote s a youth hat "Carlyle,morethan nyotherman,helpsme to do myduty, nd is slowly urn-ing noeasytask myambition orfame ntoan ambitionorworkand usefulness."Later CharlesKingsleyand FrederickDenisonMauricenspiredim To righthewrongsfthepoor."Anddespite hefact hatherBackBayhomeayclosetoBoston'ssqualidNorth nd,VidaD. Scudder id notknow bout he ocialproblemntil hewent oEngland nd heardJohnRuskinectureon the ubject tOxford."9 gain,whennthe1880'sand 1890's

85Eric Goldman, CharlesA. Beard: An Impression,"n HowardK. Beale (ed.),Charles . Beard: AnAppraisal Lexington, y.,1954),4.66Parrington, ain Currentsn American hought,II, 139.67LincolnSteffens,utobiographyNew York, 1931),166. After teffensecamea muckrakere showed nterestn foreign eform,ut only slightly.He seemstohavereadvery ittle fterhisstudent ays n Germany,bsorbed s he was in track-ing reality s a journalist.See, for example,Winter nd Hicks (eds.), LettersofLincolnSteffens,, 147ff.68JuliaS. Hodges,GeorgeHodges: A BiographyNew York,1926),31,59.69Vida D. Scudder,On Journey New York,1937),78-81.

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BRITISH THOUGHT AND AMERICAN REFORMERS 691American eminaries irst ffered ourses n social economics, heybased the courses argely on Britishbooks. As a result,Americanstudents ame tothink hatthe history f laborbeganwith erfdomand evolvedthrough hartism.70Hereinlies a key to the appeal ofBritish hought orAmericans.Because it had been longer industrializedand urbanized,GreatBritain ppearedtoreformersn this ideoftheAtlantic s a socialclinicwithexperts n social diagnosis and social therapy.More-over,certainAmericans ssumedthat an internationalndustrialrevolutionhad made bothAmericaand England similar so thatdiagnosis nd therapy oronepatientapplied as a matter f courseto the other. Some Englishmen, haring hisview,wereattractedto Americanmodels; Edward Bellamy, but more particularlyHenry George, attracteda significant ritish following.7"AndafterGeorgedied his Americandiscipleslooked to Great Britainfor implementationf his program.JosephFels, the millionaireGeorgite, or xample,wenttoEngland tofight or he and clausesof theLloyd George budget.72 ven whentheformulawas Ameri-can the aboratorywas frequently ritish.British ocialthought ilteredp rather handown ntoAmericansociety. It reachedas high as the Scotch Presbyterianwho waselectedPresident n 1912 and again in 1916. WoodrowWilson'straditionsweresouthern, ut his intellectual ackgroundwas Eng-lish. He believedwith Smith and Cobdenand Bright n thecom-petitivemarket. With Burke,Bagehot,and Brycehe championedgovernment y gentlemen.When the issue of political respon-sibility n an era of monopolyforcedWilson to renounce aissezfaire forstronggovernment, e still clung to the Cobden-Brightideal ofeconomicndividualism. The New Freedomwoulduse thestate to lowerthetariff,reakup thetrusts, nd provide asycredit

70See, forexample,MS. notesbyRalph C. Larrabee, Philosophy , Lectures yF. G. Peabody, 892-1893,art , October oJanuary,"n PeabodyQuinquennial ile(Archives,Widener Library,Harvard); "Social Economics,"AndoverReview, XI(March-June,889), 10-14,24-27, 24-25,36-40;XII (October, 889), 38. See alsoWilliam Jewett ucker,My Generation: nAutobiographicalnterpretationBoston,1919),172-77.71Anna George De Mille, Henry George,Citizenof the World, ed. by Don C.ShoemakerChapelHill, 1950), 3-115.For Bellamy'sfollowingn England, ee theNationalist1890ff.),which eatured regular olumnwrittenya BritishNationaliston themovementn GreatBritain.72 Winter ndHicks eds.),Letters fLincoln teffens,, 242.

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692 THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY HISTORICAL REVIEWin order o restorehe competitiveconomyf Manchesterism.7Seen nthis ight, heClaytonAntitrustct and thebill torepealtheCorn awswere assed n the ame pirit.Young and FabianizedWalterLippmannrejected he NewFreedomor dvocatinghephilosophyftooth nd claw"for helittleprofiteer."You wouldthink," e echoedGrahamWallas,"that ompetitiveommercialismas really generous,hivalrous,high-mindedtage f human ulture." Lippmann ere poke orthechief roup f Americansttractedopost-Manchesterritishthought: hecollege-bredntellectualsfthecity. Theywere on-temptuousf a systemwhosehero was the economicman andwhose hilosophy as drift.Theircontempt as strengthenedythearistocraticrientationf their ritish ellows,whowouldre-place thebusinessman'selfishthoswiththegentleman'seroicvirtues."AsoneAmericanuotedRuskin: Weworshiphe oldiernotbecause e goesforth oslay,buttobe slain.""Thestrengthfthedesire o fightor thers asperhaps meas-ureofthe ense falienationeltby ntellectuals. heyknew hattheywere utofstepwith culturehatvalued trugglingor elf.Theyalso knew hat partfrom he imited ictoriesfmunicipalreform,ntellectualsadfailed, romrogressnd Poverty hroughtheNewRepublic, ograsppolitical ower.They felt hemselvesto be a relativelyew class iving n the ntersticesf Americansociety.Hostile to a business ivilizationnd patronizingo themasses, heyreached crossthe ocean and back through he ages toform larger ommunityf the ike-minded. f intellectuals ailedto sitwiththepolicymakers, heyneverthelessucceeded n estab-lishing heir wn identity.They wouldhave agreedwithMelvillethat"genius, ll overtheworld, tandshand in hand." They con-firmed isview that "one shock frecognitionuns hewholecircleround."

73See WilliamDiamond,The EconomicThought fWoodrowWilson Baltimore,1943),18, 19,23-26, 0-41, 4-45, 1, 52-60, 24.74Lippmann, rift nd Mastery, 35,137.7r Compare his nterpretationf the ntellectual'sttitude oward apitalismwithJosephA. Schumpeter, apitalism, ocialism, nd Democracy New York, 1950),145-55.71Quoted n HenryDemarest loyd,Man, theSocial Creator New York, 1906),209.77Quoted n EdmundWilson (ed.), The Shockof Recognition: he Developmentof Literaturen the UnitedStatesRecordedbythe Men Who Made It (New York,1943),vi.