A wry anecdote circulated at Columbia University as the presidential election
of 1952 approached. It was rumored that an Eisenhower-for-President
meeting had been held on the campus and that only one faculty
member had attended. All the rest were janitors, clerical staff,
buildings-and-grounds people, athletic coaches, and so forth.
Virtually the entire
faculty was enthusiastic about the
stylish and articulate Adlai Stevenson, but would no doubt have
supported just about any liberal Democrat.

It has to be understood, of course, that in 1952 liberalism was
very different from the New Left frenzy that severely wounded
Columbia in 1968. For one thing, it was largely anti-Communist. Some
of my professors had been Marxists of one sort or another during the
1930s, but this had largely faded. A small number had supported
Henry Wallace and his policy of accommodation with the Soviets in
1948. But by 1952, that, too, had largely evaporated and Wallace
himself even voted for Eisenhower. If I had to generalize about
Columbia liberalism circa 1952, I would call it “New Dealish.” The
professors, like John Dewey before them, wanted “intelligence” to be
active in shaping society. They probably underestimated things like
unintended consequences on one hand and the positive value of habit
on the other. And, being
academics, they were not friendly to the business culture. Even
William James spoke of the “bitch-goddess Success.”

Yet in 1952 the integrity of the classroom was such that I do not
recall a word of partisan politics being uttered