Walter Lippmann and the American Century — 8 “Hypocritical Neutrality”

1. 1. Lippmann and the New Republic editors were initially focused on domestic reform and unprepared for World War I.
2. 2. Lippmann's sympathies were with the Allies from the start, influenced by his family's anti-Prussian background and Anglophile intellectual heroes.
3. 3. The Lusitania sinking in May 1915 led Lippmann to argue that America must cooperate with Britain or build a rival navy.
4. 4. Lippmann opposed full U.S. entry into the war, fearing it would engulf the last great power in unreasonableness.
5. 5. The New Republic advocated 'differential neutrality'—open sympathy for the Allies while stopping short of blaming Germany for the war.
6. 6. In his 1915 book The Stakes of Diplomacy, Lippmann argued nationalism intensified competition by tapping into primitive human loyalties.
7. 7. Lippmann proposed separating commercial interests from national ones in backward areas through international commissions.
8. 8. By late 1915, Lippmann felt Americans were 'choked by feelings unexpressed' and yearned for a leader like Roosevelt to act.
9. 9. Lippmann first laid down his thesis that America's fate and Britain's were inextricably linked, a theme he would strike for decades.
10. 10. After the Sussex torpedoing in April 1916, Lippmann urged Wilson to use U.S. power for moral ends and abandon 'hypocritical neutrality.'
11. 11. Lippmann broke with his radical friend John Reed, who accused him of playing Wall Street's game, leading to a bitter exchange.
12. 12. Lippmann endorsed Wilson's 1916 support for a League to Enforce Peace, seeing it as a way to break American isolation and enter the war.