Old Home Week

Since the third volume of Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.’s The Age of Roosevelt, separately titled The Politics of Upheaval (Houghton Mifflin, $6.95), is written from a point of view which I adhered to myself in the late thirties, the vision of a Max Beerbohm cartoon of the Old and the Young Self kept dancing through my mind as I read it. Judged strictly as reading matter, the Old and Young Self might agree that the volume is very good. The portraits, whether of demagogues like Father Coughlin and Huey Long or of intellectuals like Reinhold Niebuhr, are cleanly etched; the narrative flow is skillfully managed. But when it comes to dealing with Professor Schlesinger’s own current opinions, the Old Self of the reviewer is confronted with the painful duty of reflecting on the shortcomings of his Young Self of former days.

As of 1939 or 1940, the reviewer’s Young Self was what Schlesinger classifies as a neo-Brandeisean. The Politics of Upheaval, which carries the Age of Roosevelt through 1935 to the tremendous Democratic election sweep of 1936, catches the New Deal in the precise moment of its own neo-Brandeisean transformation. The centralizing policy embodied in the NRA was foundering on the reefs of America’s individualistic reality, and old Justice Brandeis, with his mien of Hebraic prophet, was busy urging his disciples in Washington to push the New Deal back toward the enforcement of competition. Tugwell, the “organic” Planner, was on his way out; Corcoran and Cohen, who believed that private industry could be trusted to function on its own once it had been purged of certain dubious financial practices, were in the ascendancy. Everything seemed ripe for a return to a tradition that was acceptable as Old Democratic Party gospel in particular, and Old American gospel in general.

JC

About the Author

John Chamberlain

John Chamberlain (1903–1995) was an American writer.

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Since the third volume of Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.’s The Age of Roosevelt, separately titled The Politics of Upheaval (Houghton Mifflin, $6.95), is written from a point of view which I adhered to myself in the late thirties, the vision of a Max Beerbohm cartoon of the Old and the Young Self kept dancing through my mind as I read it. Judged strictly as reading matter, the Old and Young Self might agree that the volume is very good. The portraits, whether of demagogues like Father Coughlin and Huey Long or of intellectuals like Reinhold Niebuhr, are cleanly etched; the narrative flow is skillfully managed. But when it comes to dealing with Professor Schlesinger’s own current opinions, the Old Self of the reviewer is confronted with the painful duty of reflecting on the shortcomings of his Young Self of former days.

As of 1939 or 1940, the reviewer’s Young Self was what Schlesinger classifies as a neo-Brandeisean. The Politics of Upheaval, which carries the Age of Roosevelt through 1935 to the tremendous Democratic election sweep of 1936, catches the New Deal in the precise moment of its own neo-Brandeisean transformation. The centralizing policy embodied in the NRA was foundering on the reefs of America’s individualistic reality, and old Justice Brandeis, with his mien of Hebraic prophet, was busy urging his disciples in Washington to push the New Deal back toward the enforcement of competition. Tugwell, the “organic” Planner, was on his way out; Corcoran and Cohen, who believed that private industry could be trusted to function on its own once it had been purged of certain dubious financial practices, were in the ascendancy. Everything seemed ripe for a return to a tradition that was acceptable as Old Democratic Party gospel in particular, and Old American gospel in general.