War and revolution had generated a climate of intolerance and fanaticism, according to Harold Steams. Neither the right nor the left hand had any faith in "rational persuasion"; they were "interested only in their own propaganda." In his postwar analysis of the "temporary collapse" of liberalism, Stearns identified liberalism with "hatred of compulsion," "respect for the individual," and "tolerance." Liberalism in America (1919) gave the impression that people who believed in these things now considered themselves a beleaguered minority. The war had strengthened the "violence-loving tradition" in American life and thereby weakened liberalism. Not just a set of political programs, liberalism was a "whole philosophy of life," according to Stearns—"scientific, curious, experimental." In a world full of the clamor of "political idealists, diplomats, labor leaders, prohibitionists, reformers, revolutionists," liberals remained "au-dessus de la mêlée," convinced that "liberalism's best service can be performed through creating a certain tolerant temper in society at large." Liberalism was "urbane, good-natured, non-partisan, detached." It was not clear, however, that American society had much use for these qualities or that it could "get through the impending social revolution without widespread violence."

Liberalism thus reentered the political vocabulary at a time when liberalism appeared to be in retreat. "The chief distinguishing aspect of the Presidential campaign of 1920," wrote Herbert Croly as the campaign was drawing to a close, "is the eclipse of liberalism or progressivism as an effective force in American politics." "Capitalist domination" of the state had led to the replacement of "good humored toleration" by a "policy of intimidation." Nor was the danger to freedom confined to the state. The public clearly approved the government's suppression of political dissent—the Palmer raids, the Lusk committee's crusade against subversion, the deportation of foreign-born radicals, the imprisonment of Debs. The postwar reaction convinced many liberals that the American people had even less tolerance for unpopular opinions than the state. Led by demagogues like William Jennings Bryan, once a progressive hero but a contemptible figure in the eyes of postwar liberals, the people passed laws forbidding the teaching of evolution in the public schools. They clamored for "100 percent Americanism" and an end to immigration. They revived the Ku Klux Klan and used it to terrorize Jews and Catholics as well as Negroes. They demanded passage of the prohibition amendment, a measure supported by many "progressives" but universally condemned by

-413-