Newburyport Public Library

The House of Truth, a Washington political salon and the foundations of American liberalism, Brad Snyder

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 741-772) and index

contains biographical information

illustrations

index present

non fiction

The House of Truth

bibliography

946610656

Brad Snyder

a Washington political salon and the foundations of American liberalism

"Theodore Roosevelt's Bull Moose campaign. They self-mockingly called the 19th Street row house in which they congregated the 'House of Truth,' playing off the lively dinner discussions with frequent guest (and neighbor) Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. about life's verities. Lippmann and Frankfurter were house-mates, and their frequent guests included not merely Holmes but Louis Brandeis, Herbert Hoover, Louis Croly--founder of the New Republic--and the sculptor (and sometime Klansman) Gutzon Borglum, later the creator of the Mount Rushmore monument. Weaving together the stories and trajectories of these varied, fascinating, combative, and sometimes contradictory figures, Brad Snyder shows how their thinking about government and policy shifted from a firm belief in progressivism--the belief that the government should protect its workers and regulate monopolies--into what we call liberalism--the belief that government can improve citizens' lives without abridging their civil liberties and, eventually, civil rights. Holmes replaced Roosevelt in their affections and aspirations. His famous dissents from 1919 onward showed how the Due Process clause could protect not just business but equality under the law, revealing how a generally conservative and reactionary Supreme Court might embrace, even initiate, political and social reform. Across the years, from 1912 until the start of the New Deal in 1933, the remarkable group of individuals associated with the House of Truth debated the future of America"--Provided by publisher

Expanding horizons -- 1727 Nineteenth Street -- The call of the moose -- The center of the universe -- Buddha -- The soldier's faith -- Temperamentally unfit -- Our founder -- Fighting Valentine's fight -- The house at war -- One man war -- Uniting the labor army -- The inquiry -- The wonderful one -- The H/T cannot be re-constituted -- Harvard's dangerous men -- Touched with fire -- Protestant of Nordic stock -- We live by symbols -- The 1924 election and the basic issues of liberalism -- Eloquence may set fire to reason -- A fly on an elephant -- No ordinary case -- This world cares more for red than for black -- A damn poor psychologist -- The happy warrior -- Freedom for the thought that we hate -- America's shrine for political democracy -- The best men -- A very great beginning -- The hard case has melted