Since the Iraq war , discussions concerning the content and direction of American foreign policy have revolved around three fundamental antinomies. These are, in no particular order, unilateralism versus multilateralism , regionalism versus globalism , and military engagement versus military restraint. There was nothing novel in their appearanceâthey had first entered into public debate during and after the Spanish American War. But, their contrapositions were the legacy of the period between World War I and II, in the context of the Progressive Movement, and the debate as to how much and what kind of Progressivism should guide American foreign policy . They were reactions to the progressive program as had been enunciated by Herbert Croly and The New Republic (TNR) in the run-up to World War I, which had established the conditions of Americaâs entry into the European war. All discussion of the basis of American foreign policy between the world wars, and the direction it should take in confronting the fascisms, took off from the progressive program and were presented either as amendments to it or its necessary overthrow.
Progressivism in foreign policy had been laid down in Woodrow Wilsonâs speech to Congress of April 2, 1917, laying out the direction that the Democratic administration would take in prosecuting the war. His avowals represented the conditions that the progressively minded congressmen, who held the balance of power in Congress , had demanded to secure their support for the war effortâconditions that formed the basis of the war consensus. It was a hard-won consensusâAmerica was not yet prepared for an active foreign policy in peacetime, and the war resolutions had been gained on the promise that the war would conclude with a liberal peaceâa peace that would âmake the world safe for democracyâ . That consensus broke down after the announcement of the provisions of the Versailles treaty, when it became clear that Wilson could not forge a liberal peace. Herbert Croly, its leading intellectual, announced in November 1920 that âwhen liberalism shakes hands with war, it is liberalism that is defeatedâ, marking the end of the brief-lived progressive orthodoxy on the war question. After Versailles , the movement split between a reinvigorated pacifist wing, led by Salmon Levinson and supported by John Dewey, and a collective security wing, led initially by the Committee on Disarmament , organized and engineered by James Shotwell.
In other respects, however, the progressive program strengthenedâit became more elaborate and more institutionally specific, and it scored victories. America committed itself to the new World Court , and support for international institutions and for the enhancement of the rule of law came to be backed by a strong popular movement whose leadership was determined on internationalism and its institutionalization in treaties and organizations. The scope of the progressive program also widened, notably in the direction of engagement in a world economy. When America came to Bretton Woods in 1945 to institutionalize a New World Order, it was a reformed Progressivism that was speaking.
Progressivism Before World War I
Progressivism had begun as a social movement in America in the late nineteenth century, gradually developing into a political movement under the aegis of Theodore Roosevelt, in what became known as the Progressive Era. The term signified a range of diverse political and social schemes and political pressure groups, supporting issues from tax reform and conservation to trade unionism and womenâs suffrage , not always united. But progressives generally rejected the prevalent Social Darwinism of the time and believed that social problems of poverty , violence and greed, racism, and class warfare could best be addressed by providing education, a safe environment, and an efficient workplace. They aspired to a reformed and empowered federal system led by an enlightened and nationally minded executive. In foreign policy, Progressivism revolved around the âwar questionââwhether and under what conditions the United States should join the Allies in fighting Germany during World War I. The progressives eventually gave a qualified âyesâ to the question, provided that the war effort was directed to reforming the international system and ending colonialism.
Many progressives, including US President Theodore Roosevelt, had seen no conflict between imperialism and reform at home. Both were forms of uplift and improvement. They saw in Puerto Rico and the Philippines âthe new colonies America had acquired in the Spanish American war âan opportunity to further the progressive agenda around the world. Others, however, especially after the violence of the 1898 Philippine insurrection (which the US administration refused to term a war) became increasingly vocal in their opposition to US foreign intervention and imperialism . Still others argued that foreign ventures would detract from much-needed domestic political and social reforms. Under the leadership of US Senator Robert La Follette , progressive opposition to foreign intervention increased under the âdollar diplomacyâ policies of Republican President William Howard Taft and Secretary of State Philander Knox.
In origins, it was a Christian movement calling for the universal application of Christian values in everyday life. Published in 1877 by Anglican pastor Washington Gladden, his book, The Christian Way: Whither it Leads and How to Go On, was the first national call for such a universal application. In his Recollections, he declared that the âChristian law covers every relation of lifeâ, including the relationship between employers and their employees (pp. 252, 292). The Social Gospel proclaimed care in the workplace as well as education and healthcare to needy people in slum neighborhoods. It was Protestant Progressivism, and it established the Social Gospel movement as well as Gladdenâs leadership of it. Historians consider Gladden to be one of the Social Gospel Movementâs founding fathers. By the mid-1890s, the Social Gospel was common in many Protestant theological seminaries in the United States. Reinhold Niebuhr began his pastoral career in Detroit as an advocate of Social Gospel .
The actual term âprogressiveâ seems to have originated in 1892, in a report in The Quarterly Register of Current History , a Detroit journal, outlining the details of a political battle, ongoing in London between landlords and their tenants:
Land was untaxed in the America of the open prairies, and American tax reformers were arguing that tax on land was the most just form of tax as well as the most rational. By association, the tax reform movement in America ...The discontent of the workingmen and the mercantile classes in London against the wealthy titled landlords, has been increasing for several years. The latter have always succeeded in the past in minimizing the taxes on their own property, throwing a large part of the burden upon their tenants. The landlord element style themselves âModeratesâ, and the tenant element are known as âProgressivesâ.1