ABSTRACT

Walter Lippmann's own Preface to Politics — with its call for strong leadership, big government, and regulated monopolies operating in the public interest — had been influenced by Herbert Croly. Lippmann, Croly added, "has real feeling, conviction and knowledge to give a certain assurance, almost a certain dignity to his impertinence, and of course the ability to get away with the impertinent is almost the best quality a political journalist can have". It was an impertinent journal they were planning to put out. Although Lippmann was awesomely organized, the system allowed him to write his articles at home and do occasional pieces for other journals. Experience was the key to reputation, and on that all else hinged. "A writer on public affairs can't pretend to despise reputation", he added significantly, "for reputation is not only flattering to the vanity, it is the only way of meeting the people have got to know in order to understand the world".