Old ProgressivesrnDon’t Diernby Justus D. DoeneckernForgotten Lessons: SelectedrnEssays of John T. FlynnrnEdited by Gregory P. PavlikrnIrvington-on-Hudson, New York:rnFoundation for Economic Education;rn199 pp., $14.95rnSurprisingly enough, in many waysrnjournalist and commentator John T.rnFlynn was a typical progressive. Long arnfigure of prominence on the Americanrnright, he was not politically active in therntime of Woodrow Wilson, whose domesticrnpolicies he much admired. He did,rnhowever, first gain prominence as arnmuckraker denouncing the financialrnchicanery of Wall Street. From 1930 torn1940, he contributed a weekly columnrnfor the reformist New Republic, which involvedrnexposes of investment trusts andrnmanipulation in securities. The very titlernof his column, “Other People’s Money,”rncame from a book by prominentrnWilsonian jurist Louis Brandeis and wasrnused with Brandeis’s permission. In thern30’s, Flynn helped staff Senate investigationsrnof Wall Street and of the munitionsrnindustry, the latter best known as thernNye committee. Like many old progressives,rnFlvnn quickly soured on much ofrnthe New Deal, finally accusing it of seekingrnto impose a corporate state uponrnthe United States. As Wodd War II approached,rnFlynn became an ardentrnanti-interventionist, heading the semiautonomousrnNew York chapter of thernAmerica First Committee. Like suchrnother old progressives as publisher WilliamrnRandolph Hearst and publicistrnGeorge Creel, Flynn moved sharply tornthe right. Indeed, during his later years,rnhe was an ardent defender of Senator JoernMcCarthy.rnFlynn was a quintessential progressivernnot only in his political odyssey but in hisrndistinction between appearance and reality.rnAs noted by Richard Hofstadter inrnhis Age of Reform (1955), to the progressivernreality was “a series of unspeakablernplots, personal iniquities, moral failures,rnwhich, in their totality, had come to governrnAmerican society only because therncitizen had relaxed his moral vigilance.”rnYet, not limiting himself to businessrngraft and New Deal bureaucracy, Flynnrnthought that he had stumbled upon thernmajor key to modern history, a “discovery”rnthat he propounded from the laternI930’s to his death in 1964. To Flynn,rnthe dynamics of war and revolution centeredrnnot so much on global aggrandizement,rncommercial domination, or thernquest for power. Rather, it was the commonrnpractice of rulers to alleviate unemploymentrnby means of massive spending,rnalong with its accompanying debt, thatrnmade them trigger-happy. When thernchips are finally called in, powers go tornwar, thereby creating a national emergencyrnthat gives their regimes a new leasernon life and justifies even greater spendingrnin the name of survival. The price:rninevitable economic collapse once thernconflict is over. Flynn combined thisrntheory with a belief in what historianrnEric F. Coldman called “The GreatrnConspiracy,” the belief that Franklin D.rnRoosevelt and his advisors, together withrnassorted intellectuals, betrayed the nationrnby manipulating American policy tornstrengthen world communism.rnThe material in Forgotten Lessons isrnvery much in this mold. Here the essaysrnfocus on many of Flynn’s favorite enemies:rnthe National Industrial RecoveryrnAct of 1933, which he saw rooted in business’srneffort to restrain competition; thernmassive spending policies of Harry Hopkins,rnNew Dealer par excellence; the economicrnbooms produced by Wodd War IIrnand the Cold War; those “eggheads”rnfrom Plato to Henry Wallace who advocatedrncollectivism under the innocentrnguise of “social planning”; the UnitedrnNations, which Flynn saw as a device tornmanipulate the United States into preservingrnthe British Empire. CompilerrnGregory P. Pavlik, who also edits ThernFreeman, contributes a most appreciativernintroduction.rnOccasionally in these essays, Flynn’srnold-time “radicalism” comes through.rnThe social welfare movement, he wroternin 1939, “did an immense amountrnof good.” Hopkins, who directed thernmuch-criticized Work Projects Administration,rnwas “an able administrator” whorn”has done a good job in a most difficultrnrole under the most trying conditions.”rnIn 1949, Fhnn claimed that in times ofrndepression government borrowing of idlernmonc}^ for public works was “a completelyrnsound device.” Herbert Hoover himself,rnFlynn said in 1955, had correctlyrnwarned in the I920’s about “the wildrnstock speculations, easy credit, badrnbanking practices, abuses of the corporaternsystem.” At other times Flynn isrnthe prototypical McCarthyite, his giftrnfor innuendo symbolized by the wordrn”strange” whenever he wants to implvrnconspiracy without evidence. Thus itrnwas “strange” that key Roosevelt advisorsrnwere not informed of Henry Morgenthau’srnplan to cripple Germany untilrnafter FDR had approved it at the 1944rnQuebec Conference. Joe McCarthy wasrnsimply “a man who doesn’t think theyrn[communists] should hold jobs—particularlyrnimportant jobs—in the government.”rnThe reader is spared much of Flynn’srneady “liberalism.” In 1933, he claimedrnthe nation desperately needed a plannedrnsociet}’ “organized not for economic war,rnbut for economic cooperation, with a nationalrnmechanism to control productionrnand distribution, money, wages, andrnprofit.” In the period 1933-1935, Flynnrnfavored a battery of federal legislation:rnself-liquidating government loans tornconstruct low-cost homes, a federal “securityrnwage” law for the unemployed andrnaged, the Rural Electrification Administration,rnthe Tennessee Valley Authority.rnIn 1936, he endorsed Socialist NormanrnThomas for President. In 1940, he calledrnthe Federal Bureau of Investigation “arnGestapo.”rnNor does the reader catch the fullrnimpact of the later Flynn. In 1945, hernaccused Roosevelt of seeking a back doorrnto war by deliberately concealing vital informationrnfrom American commandersrnin Hawaii. Though Flynn’s AmericarnFirst Committee was called a “Nazirntransmission belt” and he himself wasrnsuddenly dropped from some prominentrnjournals in the eady 40’s, Flynn did notrnreally express outrage over the characterrnassassination of others. In 1949, herncalled the work of the House Un-AmericanrnActivities Committee “a monumentrnto their vision and their patriotism” andrnclaimed that noted American missionaryrnE. Stanley Jones preached “the glory ofrnRed Christianity.” Almost all publicityrngiven outrages against Southern blacksrnwas due to “the propaganda agencies ofrnthe Communist trouble-makers.” Inrn1951, he wrote, “We launched the greatrnenterprise of turning over more than halfrnthe world to the Communist tyranny.”rnThe China Lobby seldom found a morernardent exponent than John T. Flynn.rnIn short, Flynn and his politics remainrnmore complex than the picture present-rn32/CHRONICLESrnrnrn