Walter Lippmann

Abstract

Abstract My choice of an American, the memory of whose greatness is fading, is Walter Lippmann. He is called a journalist but there is no recognized profession for what he really was: Thinker. His book A Preface to Morals,published in 1929, is better than the Bible and easier to understand. Walter Lippmann, journalist and author, was born in New York City, the son of Jacob Lippmann, an investor, and Daisy Baum. Born into a family of wealth and leisure, Lippmann traveled yearly to Europe with his art-loving parents, attended private schools in New York City, and entered Harvard in the illustrious class of 1910. Among his classmates were Heywood Broun, T. S. Eliot, and John Reed, who hailed him, to no one’s surprise, as a future president of the United States. An idealistic young man, Lippmann worked with the poor of Boston, founded the student Socialist Club, and wrote for college journals pledged to social reform.