Herbert Croly
Herbert David Croly was an intellectual leader of the progressive movement as an editor, political philosopher and a co-founder of the magazine The New Republic in early twentieth-century America. His political philosophy influenced many leading progressives including Theodore Roosevelt, Adolph Berle, as well as his close friends Judge Learned Hand and Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter.
His 1909 book The Promise of American Life looked to the constitutional liberalism as espoused by Alexander Hamilton, combined with the radical democracy of Thomas Jefferson. The book influenced contemporaneous progressive thought, shaping the ideas of many intellectuals and political leaders, including then ex-President Theodore Roosevelt. Calling themselves "The New Nationalists", Croly and Walter Weyl sought to remedy the relatively weak national institutions with a strong federal government. He promoted a strong army and navy and attacked pacifists who thought democracy at home and peace abroad was best served by keeping America weak.
Croly was one of the founders of modern liberalism in the United States, especially through his books, essays and a highly influential magazine founded in 1914, The New Republic. In his 1914 book Progressive Democracy, Croly rejected the thesis that the American liberal tradition was inhospitable to anti-capitalist alternatives. He drew from the American past a history of resistance to capitalist wage relations that was fundamentally liberal, and he reclaimed an idea that progressives had allowed to lapse—that working for wages was a lesser form of liberty. Increasingly skeptical of the capacity of social welfare legislation to remedy social ills, Croly argued that America's liberal promise could be redeemed only by syndicalist reforms involving workplace democracy. Though many have said his love of trusts and monopoly were directly contradictory to liberal syndicalism. His liberal goals were part of his commitment to American republicanism.
Family
Herbert Croly was born in Manhattan, New York City in 1869 to journalists Jane Cunningham Croly—better known by her pseudonym "Jenny June"—and David Goodman Croly.Jane Croly was a contributor to The New York Times, The Messenger, and the New York World. She was the editor of Demorest's Illustrated Monthly for 27 years. Jane Croly wrote only on the subject of women and published nine books in addition to her work as a journalist. She was one of the best-known women in America when Herbert Croly was born.
David Croly worked as a reporter for the Evening Post and The New York Herald, as well as the editor of the New York World for 12 years. He was also a noted pamphleteer during Abraham Lincoln's presidency.
Herbert Croly married Louise Emory on May 30, 1892. They remained married until Herbert Croly's death in 1930. They had no children.
Education
Croly attended the City College of New York for one year and entered Harvard College in 1886.David Croly soon became concerned that his son was being exposed to improper philosophical material at Harvard. The father was a follower of Auguste Comte and discouraged Herbert from studying theology and philosophers that did not agree with Comte. During Herbert’s first two years at Harvard, David became gravely ill, and in 1888 Herbert dropped out of Harvard to become his father’s private secretary and companion. His father died on April 29, 1889.
After Herbert married Louise Emory in 1892 he re-enrolled in Harvard. But, in 1893, Herbert suffered a nervous breakdown and withdrew again from Harvard. Herbert and Louise moved to Cornish, New Hampshire, where he recovered. In 1895, Herbert enrolled for the final time at Harvard at the age of 26. He excelled in his studies until 1899, when he withdrew for the last time from Harvard for unknown reasons, without a degree.
In 1910, after the publication of Herbert Croly's book The Promise of American Life, he was awarded an honorary degree by Harvard University.
Early career
Little is known about Croly's immediate actions after he left Harvard in 1899. Historians believe he went to Paris intending to study philosophy, but by 1900 he had returned to New York City. After returning to America, Herbert Croly worked as an editor for an architectural magazine, The Architectural Record, from 1900 to 1906.Cornish Art Colony
After Croly had first come to Cornish, a thriving art colony, he decided to build a house there, designed by Charles A. Platt, a prominent architect and friend of Croly through Croly's magazine. It was typical of Platt's early style, done in an Italianate style with formal gardens and a sweeping view of Mt. Ascutney, a famous feature of many colony homes.It was in Cornish that Croly worked on a new project: The Promise of American Life, a political book he hoped would provide guidance for Americans during the transition from an agrarian to an industrialized society. When it published in 1909, Croly became a leading political thinker and prominent figure in the progressive movement.
In addition to Platt, Croly was good friends with judge Learned Hand, whose family vacationed in Cornish at their estate "Low Court", and Louis Shipman, a Harvard classmate and playwright who accompanied Croly on his first visit to the colony. Shipman and his wife Ellen had a home in the neighboring town of Plainfield. It is near there that Croly and the Shipmans are buried, in the Gilkey Cemetery just north of the village.
''The Promise of American Life''
In The Promise of American Life, Herbert Croly set out his argument for a progressive-liberal government in twentieth-century America. He saw democracy as the defining American trait and described democracy not as a government devoted to equal rights but as one with the aim of “bestowing a share of the responsibility and the benefits, derived from political economic association, upon the whole community.” He returned to Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton as representatives of the two main schools of American political thought. Croly famously admitted, “I shall not disguise the fact that on the whole my own preferences are on the side of Hamilton rather than of Jefferson.”Despite his preference for Hamilton, Croly believed there were some good aspects about Jefferson’s philosophy on government. He wrote, "Jefferson was filled with a sincere, indiscriminate, and unlimited faith in the American people." However, Croly viewed Jeffersonian democracy as "tantamount to extreme individualism", suitable only for pre-Civil War America when the ideal Americans were pioneers pursuing individual wealth. Croly's largest contribution to American political thought was to synthesize the two thinkers into one theory on government: Jefferson’s strong democracy achieved through Hamilton’s strong national government.
Economy
Croly argued that when America shifted from an agrarian economy to an industrial one, Jefferson’s vision was no longer realistic for America. Instead, Croly turned to Alexander Hamilton’s theory of big national government. Government, according to Croly, could no longer be content with protecting negative rights; it needed to actively promote the welfare of its citizens. Croly proposed a three-pronged program: the nationalization of large corporations, the strengthening of labor unions, and a strong central government.Croly firmly believed that labor unions were “the most effective machinery which has yet been forged for the economic and social amelioration of the laboring class.” He wanted unions to have the right to negotiate contracts to ensure companies would only hire union workers. Unlike other progressives, Croly did not want the government to wage war against large corporations. He wanted the Sherman Antitrust Act repealed and replaced with a national incorporation act that would regulate and, if necessary, nationalize corporations. Croly had little sympathy for non-union workers and small businesses, declaring that “Whenever the small competitor of the large corporation is unable to keep his head above water, he should be allowed to drown.”
Croly did not support economic equality or large disparities in wealth. He believed it was the responsibility of a powerful central government to practice “constructive discrimination” on behalf of the poor. Croly's plan included a federal inheritance rate of 20%, not the individual income tax that other progressive reformers wanted. Croly argued that compensation for work should be adjusted to “the needs of a normal and wholesome life”—an idea along the lines of the Utopian author Edward Bellamy.