LETTERS
79
the New York, New Haven
&
Hartford by
Charles Edward Russell (spies in his of–
fices learned of the article) , he would be
smashed. He published 'The Surrender
of New England,' and after fighting Wall
Street for about half a year was bank–
rupt, and the magazine ruined. 480,000
circulation!
"Didn't the serious muckrakers take
great chances, and wasn't it because of
public support that they escaped ruin?
Wasn't their success a measure of the
strength of the reform movement?
"Tom Lawson, for example, was not
even a journalist. When he declared war
on Standard Oil, he was worth some 50
million dollars. In other words, he turned
on his class. He died in
1925,
worth
nothing. (No tears necessary: he enjoyed
life all the way-but does 'The Wolf of
Wall Street' adequately characterize him?)
"All the muckrakers had to be careful
not to make a factual mistake in their
articles, beware of assassination, avoid
being decoyed into scandal (e.g., with
women) by trust agents. David Graham
Phillips was so successfully calumniated
that there is a general impression that he
was a shallow sensation-monger. The facts
are overwhelmingly the other way. Rus–
sell was reputed so radical that he could
publish consistently in only three maga–
zines
during the muckraking era. (Suc–
cess, Hampton's, Cosmopolitan.)
"Obviously, men like Russell, Phillips
and Hampton could have taken it easier
-even been liberal, without subjecting
themselves to the kind of opposition they
met.
It
was often less troublesome to be
a devout Socialist than a militant muck–
raker...."
Mr. Filler calls attention to the strength
of the labor movement during the muck–
raking period, and to the face that "the
muckrakers were not clearly marked from
the labor movement. They were uniform–
ly
pro-labor, many ardently so. Their ar–
ticles were often published in the labor
and Socialist press. And, of course, many
of them were, or became, Socialists, be–
fore the World War scattered them."
I thought your readers would be inter–
ested in these comments by Mr. Filler.
Sincerely,
JAMES RoRTY,
Flatbrookville, N.J.
NOTE FROM KAY BOYLE
Sirs:
I was rather surprised on looking
through this number (Fall
1939)
of PAR–
TISAN to find my name signed to a pro–
test against the "dance of war in which
Wall Street joins with the Roosevelt ad–
ministration." Also, am I a member of
"The League for Cultural Freedom and
Socialism"? I did not know this before.
I did, some time in August, sign my name
to a manifesto which was in spirit simi–
lar to Breton's, but as the war had not
then been declared in Europe it is pat–
ently impossible that I signed the docu–
ment which you publish in this issue.
You have perhaps felt that in changing
the letter of the manifesto or protest that
you did not alter the general spirit of the
thing, but you, to my mind, have nar–
rowed the issue down to precisely one
point, and that point my opinion was not
asked on before my name was included in
the list at the ioot of page
126.
What my
opinion is, is of no importance here; I
wish merely to state that I think it a most
questionable policy to place anybody's
signature after a document which he has
not had the opportunity to read.
My husband and I have been both very
much interested in your article "The
War of the Neutrals." It is exceedingly
clear and good. Louise Bogan's transla–
tions of Eluard's poems I find very awk–
ward. It is too bad she sacrificed so much
to an almost lame precision-and that she
sacrificed precision sufficiently to trans–
late "demain" as "today." It must be ob–
vious to even the most elemental student
of the language that the last line on page
87 should read: "Which tomorrow will
roll on gold." Eluard is now mobilized,
with that other good poet Jacques Baron,
and is checking up army supplies, as you
probnbly know.
Yours sincerely,
KAY BOYLE,
Megeve, France.
As secrr:tary of the League /or Cultural
Freedom and Socialism, I wish to express
my regrets to Miss Boyle. I
did
assume
that she would go along with the war
statement since she signed our earlier
general manifesto of common political
aims. In signing this manifesto, by the
way, Miss Boyle became a member of
the League.-DWICHT
MACDONALD.
