Free Republic

In "The New Democracy", by Walter Weyl, he writes the following: (page 166) Nor do all these revolutionists comprehend that they are allies. One group in the community strives to end the exploitation of child labor. Other groups seek to extend and improve education, to combat tuberculosis, to reform housing conditions, to secure direct primaries, to obtain the referendum, to punish force and fraud at the polls, to secure governmental inspection of foods, to regulate railroad rates, to limit the issue of stocks and bonds of corporations doing an interstate business, to change the character and incidence of taxation, to...

THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISMTHE future of journalism is a large subject. It is but a thing of yesterday, but already it overshadows the world. The rustle of its myriad sheets, unfolded afresh every morning and folded for ever at night, supplies a realistic fulfilment of one part of the old Norse saga of the Ash-tree Ygdrasil, whose roots were watered by the Norns, and on whose leaves were written the scenes of the life of man. It has part of the necessary garniture of the civilized man. The Northcountry pitman said "He felt quite naked-like without his dog." A man...

Little known is it that FDR is not the first president to have relocation camps, and Japanese Americans were not the original target. Nearly 30 years prior to World War two, German Americans were the targets and the most interesting thing is that very little is written about this. History has been virtually expunged of this topic. Historians do not write about it, so history books don't contain it, and even from various news journals at the time it was largely unreported. When it was reported, some of the blurbs on it were small and not noteworthy. The first American...

How the United States Takes Care of German Prisoners (June, 1918)A VISITOR TO THE PRISON CAMP AT FORT McPHERSON, GEORGIA, DESCRIBES THE COMFORTABLE LIFE LED BY THE INMATES By Reuben A. Lewis WHAT sort of treatment will American soldiers receive when the fortunes of war leave them prisoners in German hands? The question is one that may come to have a very poignant interest as the great struggle goes on; and we shall have the right to ask it in a most emphatic manner. For, in championing the cause of humanity, we are fighting with clean hands. We already have...

Considering that "distributive justice" is an ideal that progressives wholly ripped off from German intellectuals, I thought we all ought to know how to at least spell it in it's native tongue. It's a Germanic idea so why should we all act like it's American? Just a few notes: This is the Wikipedia page for "Verteilungsgerechtigkeit", and this is the Google translation of that page. There are various books out there that discuss Gustav Schmoller's ideas of Verteilungsgerechtigkeit, such as 1, 2. There are of course other intellectuals to be named besides Schmoller(Such as Adolph Wagner), but this long German...

I recently wrote about how John A Ryan, the "Right Reverend New Dealer", used the writing of Gustav von Schmoller as a source for his idea of "distributive justice." As I noted then, another person influenced by Schmoller was Emily Greene Balch. There are plenty of others: Thorstein Veblen was influenced by him, having written a piece on Gustav von Schmoller's Economics. William J. Ashley, gave his inaugural address to the University of Toronto with a dedication to Gustav Schmoller on page 2. W.E.B. DuBois, like Emily Balch, studied under Schmoller. Richard T. Ely, Florence Kelley, John Graham Brooks, and...

Levin has said for a long time that we live in a "post constitutional republic" and in a general sense this is correct, but specifically we live in a "Progressive Democracy". This is also the title for a book written by Herbert Croly. The book is not in copyright, I hope people will download it online and read it. I would like to teach you how/where to find and verify everything that I stated: Theodore Roosevelt specifically recommended Croly's book "Progressive Democracy" in an article of his titled "Two noteworthy books on Democracy". I stated that the progressives hate the...

I have seen and heard plenty of people vent frustration about things such as preaching to the choir or being willing to do more but not knowing what more they can do, or perhaps where to do it. Well, I want to offer you to help me with what I am trying to accomplish, or rather, ask all of you to help me, offer your time. I wish to see to it that the Debates between our Founding Fathers, in which our great Constitution was forged, are made into an audiobook that people can download freely, listen to, and learn...

In his book "Distributive Justice" John A. Ryan writes the following: (page 252) The Canon of Human WelfareWe say "human" welfare rather than "social" welfare, in order to make clear the fact that this canon considers the well being of men not only as a social group, but also as individuals. It includes and summarises all that is ethically and socially feasible in the five canons already reviewed. It takes account of equality, inasmuch as it regards all men as persons, as subjects of rights; and of needs, inasmuch as it awards to all the necessary participants in the industrial...

THE IDEA OF JUSTICE IN POLITICAL ECONOMYIs there a just distribution of economic goods? Or should there be? This is a question which is raised again to-day, a question which has been asked as long as human society and social institutions have existed. The greatest thinker of ancient history asked the question and thousands after him have repeated it, sages and scholars, great statesmen and hungry proletarians, thoughtful philanthropists and enthusiastic idealists. To-day the question seems less opportune than ever. Even those who pride themselves on their idealism declare it to be one of the useless questions which nobody can...

In the first hour of his show on monday, Glenn discussed the revolutionary nature of large wars and how they change everything. He specifically mentioned WW1 during the show, which is something I've long thought of myself but I also thought perhaps I was being too aggressive in my beliefs. Coinciding with this blog post, I also posted an article from The Nation which was published in 1917, in which the progressives' eagerness cannot be contained: Our cause, then, can give us a calm conscience. But that is not enough. The question is whether we can remain true to the...

The American Tradition and the War, April 26th, 1917THE past months have witnessed a rebirth of American patriotism. Many of us had been taking the United States almost for granted. It had been to us something like a club in which we were members by right of birth - a club in which we paid our dues as a matter of course, on behalf of which we accepted our casual slight responsibilities more or less grudgingly, and to which we paid comparatively little attention: the purpose of the club was something so vague to us that in the pressure of...

Per the Wikipedia page: A Test of the News is a 1920 study done by Walter Lippmann, a US journalist, and Charles Merz, later editorial page editor of the New York Times. They examined press coverage of the Bolshevik revolution for a three-year period beginning with the overthrow of the Tsar in February 1917. They used the New York Times as their source because of its reputation for accurate reporting.

When I pointed out that Lippmann is widely considered the Father of Modern Journalism, I did of course overlook one thing. A rather large thing. As I pointed out then, Harvard has a monument to Walter Lippmann on it's campus, (Lippmann House, 1 Francis Ave, Cambridge, Middlesex, MA 02138) but what about what goes on inside this and other locations? One of the items that I have had an extremely hard time locating is a book titled "A Test of the News", which Lippmann co-wrote with Charles Merz. The thought never really occurred to me until recently to go digging...

He didn't believe in democracy; he believed simply in government. In "Roosevelt, an Autopsy", Mencken makes the following observations: I have no doubt that Roosevelt himself, carried away by the emotional storms of the moment and especially by the quasi-religious monkey-shines that marked the first Progressive convention, gradually convinced himself that at least some of the doctrinaires, in the midst of all their imbecility, yet preached a few ideas that were workable, and perhaps even sound. But at bottom he was against them, and not only in the matter of their specific sure cures, but also in the larger matter...

(Theodore) Roosevelt: An AutopsyONE thinks of Dr. Woodrow Wilson's biography of George Washington as of one of the strangest of all the world's books. Washington: the first, and perhaps also the last American gentleman. Wilson: the self-bamboozled Presbyterian, the right-thinker, the great moral statesman, the perfect model of the Christian cad. It is as if the Rev. Dr. Billy Sunday should do a biography of Charles Darwin - almost as if Dr. Wilson himself should dedicate his senility to a life of the Chevalier Bayard, or the Cid, or Christ. . . . But such phenomena, of course, are not...

A LETTER FROM PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT ON RACE SUICIDE (1907) [After reading Dr. Cronin's article on "The Doctor in the Public School," in the April number of the Review Of Reviews, President Roosevelt dictated the following letter to the editor of this magazine. Owing to the widespread interest in the subject, the President has acceded to the editor's request that the letter be given to the public. It is perhaps only fair to Dr. Cronin to call attention to the fact that he was dealing in his article with the question of large families in some of the crowded sections of...

In "The Gathering Storm", which is the first volume of Churchill's memoirs, he writes the following: (page 64) Amid the excitement of the election the exultant columns of the National Socialist Party filed past their leader in the pagan homage of a torchlight procession through the streets of Berlin. It had been a long struggle, difficult for foreigners, especially those who had not known the pangs of defeat, to comprehend. Adolf Hitler had at last arrived. But he was not alone. He had called from the depths of defeat the dark and savage furies latent in the most numerous, most...

H.L. Mencken had Roosevelt nailed when he wrote the following: He didn't believe in democracy; he believed simply in government. In 'The "New Freedom" and the Courts', Theodore Roosevelt said the following: The "New Freedom" is nothing whatever but the right of the strong to prey on the weak, of the big men to crush down the little men, and to shield their iniquity beneath the cry that they are exercising freedom. The "New Freedom" when practically applied turns out to be that old kind of dreadful freedom which leaves the unscrupulous and powerful free to make slaves of the...

Edward Bellamy, author of the book "Looking Backward: 2000-1887" (text and audio) wrote the following in an essay of his titled "Progress of Nationalism in the United States": A book of propaganda like "Looking Backward" produces an effect precisely in proportion as it is a bare anticipation in expression of what everybody was thinking and about to say. Indeed, the seeming paradox might almost be defended that in proportion as a book is effective it is unnecessary. The particular service of the book in question was to interpret the purport and direction of the conditions and forces which were tending...