New Republic

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New Republic

Heir to a long tradition in American magazines, the New Republic was born as a journal of "the collective opinion of the editors, mainly on the political, economic, and social problems" in 1914, even though those opinions were considered largely liberal and occasionally radical. The first editor, Herbert Croly, was a progressive reformer who used the New Republic to arouse in his readers "little insurrections." The successes of the 1930s New Deal and the rise of communism induced his successors to adopt a more pragmatic political philosophy, but the magazine remained left of center. The conservatism of the 1950s, along with an acute financial problem, pulled the magazine from its pure philosophizing to criticism of the arts, books, and mass. However, its ultimate circulation success was grounded in aggressive national political journalism. From covering Watergate through the well tempered reports of John Osbourne, the New Republic drifted to the center in the last two decades of the century under the editorship of Martin Peretz, much to the dismay of its traditional liberal readers. During most of the magazine's history, its "T.R.B." column has been one of the most popular forecasters of the shifting political winds in the nation's capitol.

Magazines have always been made for cultural minorities, especially the well educated and politically involved. The North American Review was the most influential intellectual journal for much of the nineteenth century, but it was pressed by newer productions such as Harper's, Scribner's, Atlantic Monthly, and The Nation after the Civil War. The latter was founded by Irish journalist E. L. Godkin in 1865 and quickly became the country's leading liberal weekly for its support of labor, African-American rights, and other liberal causes. The heady years of the early twentieth century produced a number of challengers to the Nation, including the socialist Masses, but the New Republic was the most endearing and successful.

Herbert Croly launched the weekly New Republic on November 7, 1914, as a "journal of opinion to meet the challenge of the new time." A political philosopher who had edited Architectural Digest, Croly received encouragement and financial support from Willard D. and Dorothy Straight, who in turn had discovered Croly, as did many other liberals, through his 1909 The Promise of American Life, a book which argued that traditional economic individualism was no longer possible in the industrialized early twentieth-century United States. Joining Croly on the New Republic's first editorial board were Walter Weyl, a prominent economist, and the brilliant Walter Lippmann, a scholar and author who would become the first nationally syndicated political columnist a decade later. The board featured other learned and articulate voices, but Croly predominated in their decisions through his position as editor and his sense of fair play. The Straights' support for the New Republic was so strong that H. L. Mencken once referred to the editors as "kept idealists."

The New Republic was decidedly intellectual and elitist. Croly explained his purpose was "less to inform and entertain readers than to start little insurrections in the realm of their convictions," and he marketed the magazine for a group of readers roughly equivalent to W. E. B. Du Bois's "Talented Tenth." Under Croly, the magazine opposed monopolies, entry into World War I, and fascism and favored child labor laws and other workers' reforms, civil liberties, and liberal third party movements. Circulation climbed from 875 for the first issue to 43,000 during the height of World War I, but settled in the range of 25,000 up to World War II. Willard D. Straight died in 1918, but his wife kept supporting the magazine's cost overruns for the rest of her life. Croly died in 1930 and was replaced by Bruce Bliven, who remained as an influence on the publication until his death in 1952. In 1926, a new column, "T.R.B.," first appeared, written by Frank Kent of the Baltimore Sun. The column's political gossip and commentary came to be coveted by readers in part because it was written anonymously and it was used by politicians to test the popularity of new ideas. The title and pseudonym were adopted by subsequent writers and remained one of the best read features of the magazine.

The magazine survived the Great Depression, even though its circulation dropped to an all-time low of 10,000 in 1929. It faced an unprecedented financial challenge in 1953 when support from a trust fund set up by Willard and Dorothy Straight finally ended. The magazine attracted some advertising but could only boast of a paid circulation of 30,000 or less, which was not enough to support itself. It had first published original poetry in 1915, but turned to cartoons and serious criticism of literature and music as both it and the Nation struggled to survive in the 1950s political atmosphere. The New Republic's circulation corner was not turned until it began featuring political journalism, however, "from shaping events to commenting upon them" as magazine historian Theodore Peterson explained. The circulation climbed to over 100,000 in the 1960s.

The New Republic continued to champion political idealism in the 1950s and promoted the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960. It actively supported the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and began criticizing Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam policies as early as 1965, especially for their detrimental effect on American liberalism. The magazine's John Osborne provided a humane portrait of Richard Nixon, counting himself as one of Nixon's "silent majority" at one point, in the 1970s. Ironically, Osborne's investigative reporting of Watergate helped bring about Nixon's resignation as president in 1975. The magazine abandoned Jimmy Carter and the Democratic party in 1980, supporting Congressman John Anderson's third party presidential candidacy, as it had backed earlier third party bids by Theodore Roosevelt, Robert La Follette, and Henry Wallace.

The New Republic found a renewed sense of leadership in Martin Peretz, a former Harvard University intellectual who with his wife bought the magazine in 1974. Peretz engineered what he termed a "politically balanced," pragmatic liberalism for the magazine, disillusioning many of its traditional readers. "The editors of Nation still thrill to the word revolution," Peretz commented in 1992, "and we don't. I don't mean to sound churlish, but I think that's the big difference." Peretz regained some credibility with liberals when he fired a new editor for being an "obsessive right winger" in 1997, but was criticized for his unfettered support of Vice President Al Gore, a former Harvard student, as the 2000 presidential campaign neared. The New Republic and the Nation were deadlocked in paid circulation at the turn of the century, both around 100,000, while their conservative rival, The National Review, had a circulation exceeding 150,000.

—Richard Digby-Junger