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Old Right (United States)
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In the United States, the Old Right was a faction of American conservatism that opposed both New Deal domestic programs and also the entry of the U.S. into World War II. Many members of this faction were associated with the Republicans of the interwar years led by Robert Taft, but some were Democrats. They were called the "Old Right" to distinguish them from their anti-communist New Right successors, such as Barry Goldwater, who were interventionist in foreign policy, although a great majority of Old Right intellectuals were passionately opposed to communism and socialism.
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In the United States, the Old Right was a faction of American conservatism that opposed both New Deal domestic programs and also the entry of the U.S. into World War II. Many members of this faction were associated with the Republicans of the interwar years led by Robert Taft, but some were Democrats. They were called the "Old Right" to distinguish them from their anti-communist New Right successors, such as Barry Goldwater, who were interventionist in foreign policy, although a great majority of Old Right intellectuals were passionately opposed to communism and socialism. Many members of the Old Right were laissez-faire classical liberals, some were business-oriented conservatives like Herbert Hoover; others were ex-radicals who moved sharply to the right, like John Dos Passos; others, like the Southern Agrarians, dreamed of restoring a premodern communal society.
Views
The Old Right emerged in opposition to the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt. By 1937 they formed a Conservative coalition that controlled Congress until 1964. They were consistently non-interventionist and opposed entering WWII, a position exemplified by the America First Committee. Later, most opposed US entry into NATO and intervention in the Korean War.
This anti-New Deal movement was a coalition of multiple groups:
- intellectual individualists and libertarians, including H. L. Mencken, Albert Jay Nock, Rose Wilder Lane, Garet Garrett, Raymond Moley, and Walter Lippmann;
- laissez-faire liberals, especially the heirs of the Bourbon Democrats like Albert Ritchie of Maryland and Senator James A. Reed of Missouri;
- pro-business or anti-union Republicans, such as Herbert Hoover and Robert Taft;
- conservative Democrats from the South;
- pro-business Democrats such as Al Smith and the founders of the American Liberty League,
- reformed radicals who had supported FDR in 1932, such as William Randolph Hearst and Father Charles Coughlin
Jeff Riggenbach argues that some members of the Old Right were actually classical liberals and "were accepted members of the 'Left' before 1933. Yet, without changing any of their fundamental views, all of them, over the next decade, came to be thought of as examplars of the political 'Right.'"
Members
Influential members of the American Old Right include:
- politicians: Bennett Champ Clark, Lewis Douglas, Hamilton Fish III, Howard Buffett
- businessmen: Robert E. Wood, John J. Raskob
- publishers: Robert R. McCormick, Frank Gannett, Henry Luce, R.C. Hoiles
- journalists: John T. Flynn, Oswald Garrison Villard, and Westbrook Pegler
- scholars: Harry Elmer Barnes and Frank Lawrence Owsley
- celebrities: Charles Lindbergh, Lillian Gish
- tax resistance leaders: John M. Pratt
- authors: Robert Frost, Zora Neale Hurston, Ezra Pound, John Dos Passos, Frank Chodorov, Isabel Paterson, Ayn Rand, Louis Bromfield, Leonard Read, Francis Neilson, Felix Morley,
Southern Agrarians reject modernity
The Southern Agrarian Wing of the “Old Right” drew on some of the values and anxieties being articulated on the anti-modern right, including the desire to retain the social authority and defend the autonomy of the American states and regions, especially the South. [Murphy p 124] Donald Davidson was one of the most politically active of the agrarians, especially in his attacks on the TVA in his native Tennessee. As Murphy [2001 p 5] shows, the Southern Agrarians:
"Rejected industrial capitalism and the culture it produced. In I'll Take My Stand they called for a return to the small-scale economy of rural America as a means to preserve the
cultural amenities of the society they knew. Ransom and Tate believed that only by arresting the progress of industrial capitalism and its imperatives of science and efficiency could a social order capable of fostering and validating humane values and traditional religious faith be preserved. Skeptical and unorthodox themselves, they admired the capacity of orthodox religion to provide surety in life."
However, the Southern Agrarians were very much a different breed as opposed to the list of what is now thought as "Old Right", such as the list of individuals above. In contrast to many of the Southern Agrarians, many on the Old Right, such as Hamilton Fish and Rose Wilder Lane, embraced free markets, industrial development, and civil rights.
Legacy
The successors and torchbearers of the Old Right view in the late 20th century and current era are the paleoconservatives and paleolibertarians. Both of these groups often rally behind Old Right slogans such as "America First" while sharing similar views to the Old Right opposition to the New Deal. Recently, the ideas of the Old Right have seen a resurgence due to the presidential campaign of Ron Paul.
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