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"Ah, yes, I remember it now. I meant to read it at the time, but somehow I always found myself reading Harold J. Laski instead. I think it was unfavorably reviewed in the New Republic, and Max Lerner did not like it. It called him a prisoner of the left. Now that that permanent layer of atmospheric dust obscures the sun, I don't suppose I shall ever be able to see to read it. Of course," she coaxed, "I don't want to seem to dictate what you should or should not do, but tell mother what's in The Liberal Tradition before the rats come again."
Young.Miss Katz, who in the pre-atomic world had been an inveterate book reviewer, instantly lapsed into her professional manner. Said she:
The Liberal Tradition, by William Aylott Orton (Yale University Press; $3.50), is a 317-page attempt to redefine liberalism by groping for i) its spiritual roots; 2) its historical roots; 3) the adventitious roots that nourish its current distortions and perversions. Author Orton is an Anglo-Catholic liberal. Since the religious ground on which he stands is one of the few relatively solid footholds in a shifting universe, it makes a cozy vantage point from which to scrutinize that inherently shifting political and moral position—liberalism.
The Liberal Tradition is as provocative as the basic question it poses: liberals, what of the night? Readers are likely to find it most penetrating in its analysis of liberalism's current crisis, helpful but less exciting in its review of the liberal record, least satisfying in its concluding counsel: back to faith, which flies in the face of that skeptical materialism which is part of the dynamic of liberal rationalism.