ABSTRACT
Walter Lippmann was exaggerating only slightly when he told his readers, scarcely a week after Franklin D. Roosevelt's (FDR) inauguration, that the nation had "regained confidence in itself." As much as FDR welcomed Lippmann's support, he understood the danger of agitating Congress unnecessarily with talk of dictatorial powers. He asked Felix Frankfurter—who had installed himself as unofficial White House adviser and talent scout—to calm Lippmann down. Improvising all the way, FDR propelled through an action-hungry Congress a dizzying succession of measures to restore economic stability. Lippmann backed the entire package, swallowing every one of his earlier strictures about government intervention in the economy. Economic nationalism meant control over domestic prices and wages. If Lippmann's argument for guiding elite had some pragmatic basis, his equation of political freedom with capitalism was questionable.
