Advance

Up pops Advance for the third time, glowing heartily in self-congratulation, far too prosperous by now to worry about what may be written of it here. Those who publish and edit this journal of progressive Republican thought have good cause for contentment, for since their earliest effort of last January a mighty wash of tribute has poured into their Quincy House offices.

Roscoe Drummond has written an enthusiastic column about it that I do not understand, although I suspect it to be approving. The magazine's letter pages grin with encouraging notes from progressive members of the Congress. Publisher Chapman and Editor Gilder have accepted (I hear) numerous speaking engagements. If the entire country is not exactly agog with Advance, at least the part of it that is has spoken not the least unkindness.

Now all this cannot be good for Advance's soul, and in saying this it is difficult not to feel self-conscious: one seems like Piglet, a Very Small Animal Entirely Surrounded By Water. The danger in universal approval is that the journal may begin to think itself the perfection others suppose it to be, and to maintain the studious mediocrity of (for example) Number Three.

The lead article is by Senator Javits of New York; it concerns "The Free Enterprise System in Foreign Policy"; and, conventional phrases at its start and finish subtracted, it ranks with Gilder's discussion of nuclear testing in No. 1 as Advance's most intelligent and interesting offering so far. There is nothing new in his suggestions of increased direct private investment abroad, or of government leading "American business away from a reliance on protectionism to a reassertion of its basic strength," but in his presentation of them there is something appealingly lucid that one finds neither in Committee for Economic Development or Government pamphlets.

True, the Senator's discussion suffers from a perplexing partisanship. Why should Republicans be "ideally suited to lead" a partnership of government and business in overseas development? Eisenhower and Kennedy Administrations have agreed without hesitation that such alliance is absolutely necessary, and I fear that Democrats have had to carry most of the battle against protectionism. Javits speaks of providing "pools of management and technical personnel for long-term...governmental development projects," but fails to mention anywhere that the U.S. Government itself will be incapable of long-term planning unless the President's foreign aid bill, under scrutiny in the House at this moment, is passed. Nor does he deal thoroughly enough with perhaps the stickiest wicket in American investment abroad: precisely how the investors should go about cooperating with foreign governments.

G.O.P. on Civil Rights

For all this it is an impressive tract, and contrasts strangely with the rest of the issue. "Civil Rights: A Republican Imperative" accuses the President of "cynical and cowardly ... welshing" on his campaign promises to Negroes, and attacks him for failure "to submit to the Congress one civil rights measure." It does not trouble to acknowledge that the more important course is to execute existing legislation. Not that there isn't much unhappy truth to the contentions of the report--indeed there is, but sentences like this one explaining how Eisenhower acted not from cynicism or cowardice, but from inhibitions "by an interpretation of constitutional functions of his office," include one's sympathies well away from the tone of Advance's opinions.

Neva Goodwin's "Mark Hatfield, Western Progressive" is a treacly success story of the sort I had hoped not to meet again in this journal. Emil Frankel's "Crisis in Republican Tradition" is a bizarre blending of truism, commonplace, and political myth appropriately flavored with citations from Russell Kirk and Goals For Americans. "Dynamic energy," Frankel insists, "Vibrant center. Creative traditionalism," and concludes that "It is the danger of depersonalization and conformity which must be fought in out society." I still don't know what liberal Republicans are. If they are simply a Crolyite fan club, why doesn't Frankel (or someone else) say so? Finally, five books are reviewed, all of them shockingly amateurishly.

"Pointless Snipes"

Perhaps, after all, that is Advance's most trying encumbrance, its amateurishness. if it is to give its party, in Drummond's words, "the stimulus of vigorous, youthful intellectual leadership which it has been needing for a long time," it must realize that this job can be done in no incompetent manner. Of course the President must be criticized; the papers of the country have hung fire far too often. Yet there is no easily perceptible honesty of critical intention in the pointless snipes of (say) the civil rights reports: "Surely we are not to suppose that Kennedy believes in the justice of the segregationist position. But if not, we can only conclude that he is deterred by political considerations. He wants to roll his precious pork-barrels through. Or is the author of Profiles In Courage afraid of Lyndon and Sam?"

The magazine must be competent if only because rival organs are. One the political Left the Kraken has waked and has begun to treat America with a half-dozen bright, new lollipops: literate, exciting journals of opinion. The older liberal publications, such as the New Republic and the Reporter, still engender consistent flashes of excellence; a single dispatch of Douglass Cater is worth more than the sum of Advance's recent efforts. Even the conscience of the primitive right, the National Review exudes professional slickness. Surely liberal Republicanism deserves as much. It is a creed that puzzles me, but it appeals to many, and probably it is good politics. As explicated in Advance it is certainly not good journalism.