THE WAYWARD LIBERAL
THOMAS E. VADNEY
THE
Wayward
LIBERAL
A POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY OF
DONALD RICHBERG
Standard Book Number 813112435
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 75132832
COPYRIGHT 1970 BY THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY
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Contents
Preface
The title of this study is somewhat paradoxical. Wayward Liberal conjures up images of the agnostic, whereas Donald Richbergs story is that of a persistent faithfulness to outdated concepts of liberalism rather than a turning away to something new. True, the usual stereotype of Richberg is that of the old Progressive turned conservative, of the traitor to organized labor who defected to big business. Yet the real paradox is to be found in the ever-changing meaning of liberalism itself. The problem was that after the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt liberalism came to mean something different than it had in the days of the Progressives of 1912, but Richberg refused to trade the old liberalism for the new. Even in his later reputedly conservative years, he privately felt that his views were essentially consistent with his youthful identification with the Progressives, and in many respects he was correct. Though after the 1930s Richberg superficially gave the appearance of having changed, the reality was that he had not. The words liberal and progressive no longer described what Richberg stood for because they had taken on a new meaning.
Attempting to locate Donald Richberg in the American reform tradition raises a difficult problem of definition. For much of this study, I shall speak of Richbergs ideological and political position in terms of specific ideas and programs. But it will at times be necessary to use such overworked categories as liberal, progressive, and conservative. Such generalizations, of course, are imprecise, yet language would be unduly cumbersome without them. The problem can be partly resolved by agreeing at the outset on how these terms will be used, even though these definitions may be arbitrary to some degree.
The term progressive will be used interchangeably with liberal. Both will denote sympathy for reform movements regardless of political party, and generally will indicate a receptivity to increased government activity and regulation of economic life within the confines of the capitalist system. Both terms require the addition of a time dimension, for the emphasis on government intervention which they denote increased markedly after the New Deal, culminating in an idealization of the welfare state. The term Progressive, capitalized, will refer to the formal political party created in 1912 by Theodore Roosevelt, or to the 1924 movement which nominated Wisconsin Senator Robert M. La Follette, Sr., for president. Conservative will denote an identification with the business community and especially with the interests of its larger units, the corporations. It will carry with it such connotations as opposition to government regulation and to increased government activity, reluctance to acknowledge organized labor as a factor in economic policymaking, and a general preference for the status quo.
The problem of definition can never be completely solved, for the ideas and movements which terms represent are not static, so that they can only be understood relative to the context in which they are used. A constant awareness of the setting in which ideas emerge and evolve is thus necessary for an accurate interpretation of their meaning.
Many people contributed to the successful conclusion of this project. In particular, I wish to thank David C. Mearns and the staff of the Manuscripts Division of the Library of Congress; Miss Elizabeth Drewry, director of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, and her assistants, librarian Joseph Marshall and archivists Jerome Deyo and Robert Parks; Archie Motley, manuscripts librarian of the Chicago Historical Society; Miss Ruth Davis of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin; and the many archivists and librarians at the National Archives in Washington, D. C.; the Federal Records Center in Suitland, Md.; the Oral History Research Office of Columbia University; the Social Welfare History Archives of the University of Minnesota; and the University of Chicago Library. David A. Shannon of the University of Virginia, Robert Berkhofer, Jr., of the University of Wisconsin, Ralph F. de Bedts of Old Dominion University, and my former colleagues at the University of Minnesota, George Green and Clarke Chambers, provided me with the benefit of their critical comments. I owe a special debt of gratitude to E. David Cronon of the University of Wisconsin, under whose direction this study was initiated.
THE WAYWARD LIBERAL
CHAPTER I
The Making of a Progressive
In his prime, Donald Richberg was once described as resembling an amiable woodchucktall and a bit chubby, yet surprisingly loose and agile, with an ever-ready smile and a glad hand. But beneath the easygoing exterior there was a studiously intense individual, one given to theorizing and moralizing about social and economic problems, about matters of law and the Constitution, and about the ultimate questions of life itself. A man of soaring ambition, Richberg immersed himself in the world of big business, organized labor, and national politics. His work was his life, and his need for personal recognition and success prodded him on to higher and higher levels of achievement.
In historical perspective, what draws attention to the political career of Donald Richberg is his reputation as an old progressive turned conservative. Gerald Johnson, reviewing Richbergs autobiography in 1954, classified him as a played-out liberal of a type known to Americans ever since Tom Paine and John Randolph. Others have reiterated this conclusion time and again.
Although historians have instinctively hit upon this puzzle as the most relevant question to ask about Richberg, their pet image of the tired liberal is not really a very illuminating answer. And so far, historians have said little about why Richberg became a liberal or progressive in the first place. Yet it is essential to determine the nature and content of his early progressivism before deciding whether or how he moved away from it. The thesis presented here is that Richberg remained relatively immobile in ideology, at the level of abstract political theory, though not in his active life in the world of law and politics, where his fortunes were affected by his career-situation, his friendships and personal connections, and his deep-seated need for personal recognition.
On the surface, Richbergs public political loyalties appear very unstable. By stages he was a Theodore Roosevelt Progressive, a labor lawyer representing the cautious ambitions of the railway unions in the 1920s, a New Dealer promoting the corporate-state ideals of the National Recovery Administration, and finally a propagandist against organized labor and civil rights in the 1940s and 1950s. The apparent change in Richberg was made all the more dramatic by the way in which he lost his old friends in the progressive camp and took up with new friends in the business world.
