The Decline and Fall of the WASP : The Kagan nomination for the
Supreme Court shows the weakening grip of the U.S. Protestant
establishment
By ROBERT FRANK
On a recent morning at the Links Club, New York's wood-paneled reserve
of the old banking elite, a small crowd of white-haired members
gathered for breakfast. The talk around the tables, over poached eggs
and toast, was of Europe and sovereign-debt markets. Some were quietly
negotiating deals. The crowd was mostly older, though it included a
smattering of 40-something and 50-something members. While undeniably
upper-crust, the scene, which included a Latin American and an Asian,
was a far cry from the Links Club of 20 years ago, when doing business
was forbidden and the strictly homogenous crowd of Protestant
blue-bloods spent their mornings comparing golf scores and vacation
homes. "It's changed with the times," said one former member. "That's
both our gain and our loss."
In the long downward spiral of what used to be known as America's
Protestant Establishment, there have been several momentous
milestones: Harvard's opening up its admissions policies after World
War II. Corporate America's rush in the 1980s to bring more diversity
to the corner office. Barack Obama's inauguration as the first
African-American president. History may reveal another milestone—Elena
Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court. If she is confirmed, the
nation's nine most powerful judges will all be Catholic or Jewish,
leaving the court without a Protestant member for the first time. Of
the 111 Supreme Court Justices who have served, 35 have been
Episcopalians, making them the largest religious group on the court,
according to court historians. The court's first non-Protestant was
Catholic Justice Roger Taney, appointed by President Andrew Jackson in
1836. Whether the court's religious makeup even matters in today's
legal world has become a subject of hot debate. Yet by ushering in a
Protestant-free court, Ms. Kagan is helping to sweep away some of the
last vestiges of a group that ruled American politics, wealth and
culture for much of the nation's history.
"The fact that we're going to zero Protestants in the court may not be
as significant as the fact that her appointment perfectly reflects the
decline of the Establishment, or the WASP Establishment, in America,"
said David Campbell, associate professor of political science at the
University of Notre Dame.
Seen from the distance of time, the changes are stunning. In the
1960s, the vast majority of corporate managers were Protestant,
according to E. Digby Baltzell's famous 1964 tome, "The Protestant
Establishment."
The percentage of Protestants in Congress has dropped to 55% from 74%
in 1961, according to Pew Forum. The corner offices of the top banks,
once ruled by Rockefellers and Bakers, now include an Indian-American
and the grandson of a Greek immigrant.In old-money enclaves like Palm
Beach, Fla., Nantucket, Mass., and Greenwich, Conn., WASPs are being
priced out of their waterfront estates and displaced on their
nonprofit boards by Jewish, Catholic and other non-Protestant
entrepreneurs. A survey by Pew Research found only 21% of mainline
U.S. Protestants had income of $100,000 or more, compared with 46% of
Jews and 42% of Hindus. Until the early 1980s, when a flood of new
wealth began to democratize the American elite, the path to power and
status in America was straight and narrow. It usually began with
old-line families in the lush estates of Greenwich, Boston, New York
or Philadelphia and wound its way through New England boarding
schools, on to Harvard or Yale and finally to the white-shoe law firms
or banks of the Northeast or the corridors of power in Washington.
John J. McCloy—the Philadelphia-born, Harvard-educated lawyer and
banker who served as assistant secretary of War during World War II
and on several corporate boards, including Chase Manhattan
Bank's—became known as "the Chairman of the Establishment." His son,
John J. McCloy II, a Connecticut-based venture capitalist, says Ms.
Kagan's nomination is a sign of the nation's commendable meritocracy,
but also a "dangerous departure" from Establishment mores, since Ms.
Kagan, while a brilliant scholar, has no experience as a judge."I
think we're losing something fundamental with the Establishment," he
said. "The Establishment was really about people who became leaders
because they were confident and highly competent in their areas."
The Protestant downfall can be attributed many things: the
deregulation of markets, globalization, the rise of technology, the
primacy of skills over family connections. Yet many also point to the
shifting dynamics of the faith itself, with mainline Protestantism
giving way to the more fire-and-brimstone brands of Evangelicals in
recent decades. The Episcopal Church, usually seen as the church of
the Establishment, has seen some of the most pronounced declines in
recent years.
Meantime, WASP culture has been left to live out its days as a fashion
statement, on the shelves of Ralph Lauren stores. In "The Protestant
Establishment," Mr. Baltzell pointed to the prejudice and insularity
of the elite as the causes of its decline. "A crisis has developed in
modern America largely because of the White-Anglo-Saxon Protestant
establishment's unwillingness, or inability, to share and improve its
upper-class traditions by continuously absorbing talented and
distinguished members of minority groups into its privileged ranks."
Jamie Johnson, the documentary filmmaker and heir to the Johnson &
Johnson fortune, said he believed the destructive effects of wealth
over multiple generations were also a factor. "The generations of
affluence bred a certain kind of casual, passive approach to life and
wealth building," he said. "Lots of people just got lazy."
Supreme Court shows the weakening grip of the U.S. Protestant
establishment
By ROBERT FRANK
On a recent morning at the Links Club, New York's wood-paneled reserve
of the old banking elite, a small crowd of white-haired members
gathered for breakfast. The talk around the tables, over poached eggs
and toast, was of Europe and sovereign-debt markets. Some were quietly
negotiating deals. The crowd was mostly older, though it included a
smattering of 40-something and 50-something members. While undeniably
upper-crust, the scene, which included a Latin American and an Asian,
was a far cry from the Links Club of 20 years ago, when doing business
was forbidden and the strictly homogenous crowd of Protestant
blue-bloods spent their mornings comparing golf scores and vacation
homes. "It's changed with the times," said one former member. "That's
both our gain and our loss."
In the long downward spiral of what used to be known as America's
Protestant Establishment, there have been several momentous
milestones: Harvard's opening up its admissions policies after World
War II. Corporate America's rush in the 1980s to bring more diversity
to the corner office. Barack Obama's inauguration as the first
African-American president. History may reveal another milestone—Elena
Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court. If she is confirmed, the
nation's nine most powerful judges will all be Catholic or Jewish,
leaving the court without a Protestant member for the first time. Of
the 111 Supreme Court Justices who have served, 35 have been
Episcopalians, making them the largest religious group on the court,
according to court historians. The court's first non-Protestant was
Catholic Justice Roger Taney, appointed by President Andrew Jackson in
1836. Whether the court's religious makeup even matters in today's
legal world has become a subject of hot debate. Yet by ushering in a
Protestant-free court, Ms. Kagan is helping to sweep away some of the
last vestiges of a group that ruled American politics, wealth and
culture for much of the nation's history.
"The fact that we're going to zero Protestants in the court may not be
as significant as the fact that her appointment perfectly reflects the
decline of the Establishment, or the WASP Establishment, in America,"
said David Campbell, associate professor of political science at the
University of Notre Dame.
Seen from the distance of time, the changes are stunning. In the
1960s, the vast majority of corporate managers were Protestant,
according to E. Digby Baltzell's famous 1964 tome, "The Protestant
Establishment."
The percentage of Protestants in Congress has dropped to 55% from 74%
in 1961, according to Pew Forum. The corner offices of the top banks,
once ruled by Rockefellers and Bakers, now include an Indian-American
and the grandson of a Greek immigrant.In old-money enclaves like Palm
Beach, Fla., Nantucket, Mass., and Greenwich, Conn., WASPs are being
priced out of their waterfront estates and displaced on their
nonprofit boards by Jewish, Catholic and other non-Protestant
entrepreneurs. A survey by Pew Research found only 21% of mainline
U.S. Protestants had income of $100,000 or more, compared with 46% of
Jews and 42% of Hindus. Until the early 1980s, when a flood of new
wealth began to democratize the American elite, the path to power and
status in America was straight and narrow. It usually began with
old-line families in the lush estates of Greenwich, Boston, New York
or Philadelphia and wound its way through New England boarding
schools, on to Harvard or Yale and finally to the white-shoe law firms
or banks of the Northeast or the corridors of power in Washington.
John J. McCloy—the Philadelphia-born, Harvard-educated lawyer and
banker who served as assistant secretary of War during World War II
and on several corporate boards, including Chase Manhattan
Bank's—became known as "the Chairman of the Establishment." His son,
John J. McCloy II, a Connecticut-based venture capitalist, says Ms.
Kagan's nomination is a sign of the nation's commendable meritocracy,
but also a "dangerous departure" from Establishment mores, since Ms.
Kagan, while a brilliant scholar, has no experience as a judge."I
think we're losing something fundamental with the Establishment," he
said. "The Establishment was really about people who became leaders
because they were confident and highly competent in their areas."
The Protestant downfall can be attributed many things: the
deregulation of markets, globalization, the rise of technology, the
primacy of skills over family connections. Yet many also point to the
shifting dynamics of the faith itself, with mainline Protestantism
giving way to the more fire-and-brimstone brands of Evangelicals in
recent decades. The Episcopal Church, usually seen as the church of
the Establishment, has seen some of the most pronounced declines in
recent years.
Meantime, WASP culture has been left to live out its days as a fashion
statement, on the shelves of Ralph Lauren stores. In "The Protestant
Establishment," Mr. Baltzell pointed to the prejudice and insularity
of the elite as the causes of its decline. "A crisis has developed in
modern America largely because of the White-Anglo-Saxon Protestant
establishment's unwillingness, or inability, to share and improve its
upper-class traditions by continuously absorbing talented and
distinguished members of minority groups into its privileged ranks."
Jamie Johnson, the documentary filmmaker and heir to the Johnson &
Johnson fortune, said he believed the destructive effects of wealth
over multiple generations were also a factor. "The generations of
affluence bred a certain kind of casual, passive approach to life and
wealth building," he said. "Lots of people just got lazy."
--
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