141 CHRONICLESnfound its civil religion, in sports and in icons of the Ruths,nCobbs, Dempseys, Granges, and others — names whichnseem still to come trippingly off the tongue.nI turn now to another aspect of the 20’s, one that I shallnstay with for the rest of the lecture. This was the decade innwhich the political intellectual, what the French call thenpolitique, made his arresting entry into American culture,nand with him an idea that would remain lustrous for all thenyears down to the.present moment: the idea of the nahonal,npolitical community; a national community to replace whatnwere perceived as moribund forms of community such asnthe family, local community, church, and so on.nIt is useful to point out first, though, that the politicalnintellectual of the 20’s had his predecessor in the warnintellectual of 1917-1918. President Wilson was nothing ifnnot a political intellectual himself, and, as I have alreadynsuggested, seeing the war as he so ardently did, as a strugglenfor American minds and America herself in need of afflatus,nhe brought to his government artists, novelists, journalists,nacademic scholars, and others who, without being forced tondepart their accustomed places in the world of arts andnletters, could yet aid the war effort by simply turning theirntalents to the cause of the war against Germany. Individualsnof the stature of John Dewey, Isaiah Bowman, Guy StantonnFord, Carl Becker among academics; Walter Lippmannnfrom journalism; Samuel Hopkins Adams, novelist; andnJoseph Pennell, artist; all presented arms with pen andnbrush.nA group of about 30 scholars and journalists and somenbusinessmen met through much of the war secretly in thenbasement at nights of the old American GeographicalnSociety building, there to help, at the President’s strongnrequest, in preparing the government for the eventual peacentable. Here drafts of the Fourteen Points were prepared,nwith Lippmann having a particularly influential role here.nThe emergence in numbers of the political intellectual innthe 1920’s was thus yet another consequence in somendegree of the Great War. It was a kind of clerisy, a politicalnclerisy, that emerged in behalf of the provident state. Therenwere Dewey, Charles Beard, Charles Merriam (who hadnworked closely and confidentially with President Wilsonnduring the war) among academics. Outside the academy,nand profoundly influential, were the likes of Lippmann,nLewis Mumford, Herbert Croly, Waldo Frank, StuartnChase, Oswald Villard of The Nation, Harold Laski—nEnglish, but closely affiliated with American interests andnissues.nFew of these knew each other personally. Yet, takenntogether, they constituted a clerisy, a political clerisy, itsnsworn objective that of reforming the American politicalncommunity. All of them had been connected in one way ornother with the Great War; all were sensitively aware of thenchange that had come over Americans, however briefly,nduring the war, a change, as I have noted, that comprised andeep sense of war community and an equally poignantnawareness of American progress, American fatalism, destiny,nfuture fulfillment. Both the war community and the Americannfatalism were charged with the moral dimension.nTo the political minds I am referring to, it seemed a pitynfor America to lose its sense of moral community andnprogress. Why not create, as William James had recom­nnnmended, a moral equivalent of war in order to enjoy andnthrive on the virtues of war? John Dewey expressed himselfnpositively on this: much, he thought, of the Great Warnwould hang on. It was indeed Dewey’s call to action fornsomething larger than scholarship and philosophy in thenacademy.nDewey had long been obsessed by the idea of community.nA staunch Hegelian before he worked his way tonpragmatism, he seems to have absorbed permanenfly thenidea of the Hegelian national community as set forth innPhilosophy of Right and other major works. He never forgotnhis native rural Vermont, nor did he ever return to ruralnAmerica. He was a product of great nationally mindednuniversities: Johns Hopkins, Michigan, Chicago, and finallynColumbia. Dewey preceded Charies Horton Cooley by 10nyears in the teaching of community at the University ofnMichigan. When he transferred to Chicago, he commencedna series of experiments in the construction of thenideal classroom. His constant predicate was community,nand he described the school as, ideally, a “miniature community.”nIn the 1920’s, by then in New York, Dewey published hisnIndividualism Old and New. The key to the book lies in anlong chapter tided “The Lost Individual.” There was alsonhis seminal The Public and Its Problems, which became anveritable charter to the new clerisy. Democracy he definednhere as “the idea of community itself” He cites WoodrownWilson’s The New Freedom: “Everywhere . . . relationshipsnare largely great impersonal concerns, with organizations,nnot with other individuals.” What must be done,nDewey asks in a long chapter titied “Search for the GreatnCommunity”: “What are the conditions under which it isnpossible for the Great Society to approach more closely andnvitally the status of the Great Community, and thus takenform in genuinely democratic societies and states?”nThere we have, superbly stated, evocatively and almostnthrillingly, a theme, a quest, that has remained important innthe American reform canon from John Dewey and WalternLippmann through Franklin Roosevelt down to GovernornCuomo. How, in a word, to convert society into community.nCommunity is a loaded word. The Romans wiselynplaced communis (the root of Communitas) in a differentndeclension from socius (the root of societas). Never thentwain shall meet, said the wise patres conscripti, as if tonwarn: You can call a camel a horse, but that does not make itnone. You can twist rhetorically society, the great society,ninto a community, but that doesn’t make it one. The factnthat a nahonal war — which has but one objective, destructionnof the enemy—brings disparate groups and classes intonthe feeling of community, but only in respect to onenpurpose, the war and defeating the enemy, doesn’t meannthat a multipurpose, a hydra-valued and myriad-interestnsociety in peace can be molded, like a twist of dough in anbakery, into a community. So might the Roman Fathersnhave wisely said.nBut not our American Fathers in the 20’s. It was to benGreat Community instead of Great Society. Beginningnearly in the 20’s the catch-question “We Planned in War,nWhy Not in Peace?” was to be found in more and morenbooks, journals, and lectures. The memory of the GreatnWar and its venture into national community served advo-n