Pragmatism, The New Republic, and American Public Administration at Its Founding
| Published date | 01 April 2017 |
| Date | 01 April 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0095399714558714 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
research-article2014
Article
Administration & Society
2017, Vol. 49(4) 491 –529
Pragmatism, The New
© The Author(s) 2014
DOI: 10.1177/0095399714558714
Republic, and American
journals.sagepub.com/home/aas
Public Administration at
Its Founding
John F. Brennan1 and Lawrence F. Keller2
Abstract
We argue that philosophical pragmatism explicitly influenced the founding
of American public administration. We analyze the case of The New Republic
magazine to support our contention. The New Republic was founded in 1914
and edited by two pragmatists—Herbert Croly and Walter Lippmann—
and put forth a pragmatic editorial stance that supported administrative
innovations in American government that characterized the era. We
illustrate the magazine’s pragmatic orientation toward public administration
by analyzing the editorials of Croly and Lippmann and the writings of John
Dewey, Frederick Cleveland, and Charles Beard—all written during the
magazine’s first decade of publication.
Keywords
pragmatism, founding era, The New Republic
Introduction
An ongoing debate questions the presence if not the relevance of philosophi-
cal pragmatism to American public administration’s founding era. We present
1University of North Carolina–Wilmington, USA
2Cleveland State University, Lakewood, OH, USA
Corresponding Author:
John F. Brennan, University of North Carolina–Wilmington, 601 South College Road,
Wilmington, NC 28412, USA.
Email: brennanj@uncw.edu
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Administration & Society 49(4)
one of the first empirical connections of the people and events of philosophi-
cal pragmatism to the founding era. After defining pragmatism and reviewing
the debate over pragmatism’s influence on the founding era that has taken
place in the last two decades, we offer a critical analysis of those who see
little direct influence of pragmatism on our founding. For example, Keith
Snider has asserted that pragmatists were notably absent from debates during
the founding era (construed in this article as being roughly the first quarter of
the 20th century) regarding public administration and affairs and that the
influence of pragmatist ideas were also missing. The actual role of pragma-
tism in the American public administration does fall in line with part of
Snider’s criticism of pragmatism—specifically, that pragmatism had become
part of the common cultural parlance in America and that such acceptance
seemingly lessened any meaningful impact. We argue below that John Dewey
himself noted that this mass acceptance of notions of pragmatism was a
strength of pragmatism—not a weakness. In the end, we show that the prag-
matism was present—in part due to this common cultural parlance—through
a new examination of the historical record.
As the founding of public administration is seen as the reform era, the
influence of pragmatism has meaning for both the current practice and theory.
During the founding era, the focus of public affairs reform was at the three
levels of government in our federal system, but the most vibrant reform was
taking place at the state and local levels. In the burgeoning cities of the late
19th and early 20th century, reformers created public administration as gov-
ernance—and did so within pragmatic frameworks.
This article has two major sections. First, we provide an overview of prag-
matism’s relation to American public administration. Here, we define pragma-
tism and then analyze the work of Dwight Waldo, Patricia Shields, Karen
Evans, and Keith Snider, all of whom have insights on the historical influence,
or noninfluence, of philosophical pragmatism on American public administra-
tion’s founding. We then provide a critical analysis of what constituted prag-
matism and what pragmatism contributed to the founding, largely using the
ideas and words of the most important reform era pragmatist, John Dewey.
Second, to illustrate pragmatism’s relevance to American public administra-
tion’s founding, we analyze the case of The New Republic magazine. It is well
established that pragmatism was the philosophical basis of The New Republic,
and during its first decade of existence, editors wrote or commissioned dozens
of editorials, commentaries, articles, or book reviews that detailed movements
and innovations associated with American public administration’s founding
that put it firmly within a pragmatic framework. Importantly, this study repre-
sents one of the first thoroughgoing empirical analyses of the impact of prag-
matic thought on the founding era of American public administration.
Brennan and Keller
493
Pragmatism and Public Administration
After crediting the rise of pragmatist thought to Charles Peirce and William
James, in his work The American Mind, Henry Steele Commager (1950)
wrote of pragmatism’s content and influence in an expansive and culturally
encompassing manner:
. . . It put ideas to work and judged them by their results. It accepted “any idea
upon which we can ride” as “true instrumentally” and instrumentalism came to
be its preferred name . . . It was a democratic philosophy, held every man a
philosopher, gave every man a vote, and counted the votes of the simple and the
humble equal to those of the learned and the proud . . . It overthrew the tyranny
of philosophical authoritarianism and substituted the democracy of popular
representation . . . It was an individualistic philosophy. It assigned to each
individual, as it were, a leading role in the drama of salvation, gave him a share
and a responsibility in making what he held good come true . . . It was
voluntaristic and raised its armies by enlistment, not by conscription . . . It was
impatient with authority—the authority of history or science or theology—and
preferred the teachings of experience to the dictates of logic . . . It celebrated
the perceptions of the average man rather than the subtleties of metaphysicians,
for, “it is only the minds debauched of learning,” said James, “who have ever
suspected common sense of not being absolutely true” . . . That these qualities
of pragmatism reflected the qualities in the American character has been too
often remarked to justify elaboration. Practical, democratic, individualistic,
opportunistic, spontaneous, hopeful, pragmatism was wonderfully adapted to
the temperament of the average American. It cleared away the jungle of
theology and metaphysics and deterministic science and allowed the warm sun
of commons sense to quicken the American spirit as the pioneer cleared the
forests and the underbrush and allowed the sun to quicken the soil of the
American West . . . For America had been a gamble that had paid off, an
experiment that succeeded; it had enlisted the average man, had required him
to play his part in the common enterprise, and had rewarded his courage and
audacity with boundless generosity. (pp. 95-97)
Commager’s conception of pragmatism is broad based and applicable to
many avenues of American life and development. It captures and reflects the
spirit of the age. It is well recognized and accepted that philosophical prag-
matism undergirded the various movements of progressive reform.1 Of great
importance to the founding of American public administration, Commager’s
emphasis on the importance of democracy to the core of pragmatism’s char-
acteristics and goals provides a workable framework for its application to
American public administration’s founding era. Administrative reforms of
the era including executive budgets, municipal home rule, and the city
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Administration & Society 49(4)
manager form of government, for example, exemplify the experimental and
democratic spirit that Commager highlights. In the first thorough review of
the intellectual underpinnings of American public administration, The
Administrative State, Dwight Waldo did grant pragmatism a role in public
administration’s founding but noted that, in 1948,
There are none among well-known students of administration who have written
in a speculative way about pragmatist philosophy; nor by a wide margin is
there as much overlapping between public administration and pragmatism as
there has been between legal realism and pragmatism. Nevertheless,
“pragmatism” is occasionally mentioned in the texts, and the writers often
appeal to or indicate that they wish to be judged by pragmatic standards or
tests. (Waldo, 1948, pp. 83-84)
Waldo (1948, pp. 164-165) later highlighted that the then young Brookings
Institution was a center for pragmatism, which was exemplified by the leadership
and methods of William F. Willoughby, whom he characterized as a pragmatist.
To be sure, Waldo associated the rise of American public administration
more so with the “Positivist Spirit” and the influence of scientific manage-
ment. Waldo (1948, pp. 47-48) argued that scientific management under-
girded by positivistic methods accompanied public administration’s rise. But
Waldo also recognized pragmatism’s relationship with public administration.
In the concluding section of The Administrative State, Waldo noted that pub-
lic administration’s atheoretical and experimental nature also exhibited ele-
ments of pragmatism. Though Waldo clearly sees the rise of American public
administration as a positivist endeavor, it is also evident that he understands
the presence of the pragmatic aspects of the profession’s rise.2
Over the last two decades, an impressive literature blossomed arguing
about the effect, or...
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