ARGUMENTS
varying quality; and having made this decision the
Herald
T ribune
has felt obligated to publish columns by Lippmann
and the Alsops that must have been gall and wormwood to its
editors, and columns by Thomson which they must have dis–
approved of.
The Nation
has exactly the same responsibility and
obligation, and for nineteen years has operated in exactly the
same way, with my column- which is to say that in those nine–
teen years it has published a highly regarded total output that
has included an occasional article y.ou disliked.
The Nation
was right in so doing; and it will be right only if it continues
to do so.
119
But Miss Kirchwey insisted that in deciding against these columns
The Nation
had not interfered unduly with my prerogatives as a regular
contributor.
It was after these exchanges that I read in the
Times
about her
transfer of
The Nation
to Mr. Kirstein. And a couple of weeks later
Mr. McWilliams, notifying me that he had withdrawn my column
from the September 24 issue because it included an obituary paragraph
on Olin Downes, added that my earlier exchanges with Miss Kirchwey
made it unnecessary for him to say-but he would say-that the Downes
paragraph was objectionable because it was
in
extremely bad taste. In
reply I reminded him of the passage on the proper relation of
The
Nation
to my column that I quoted a moment ago from my letter to
Miss Kirchwey, and added:
If
the
Herald Tribune
were
to
refuse to publish a column of
Lippmann or the Alsops,
The Nation
would, correctly, call
this censorship and suppression of opinion (as it did when the
World
refused
to
publish a column of Heywood Broun on the
ground that it was in bad taste ); and it remains censorship
and suppression of opinion when
The Nation
does it.
Mr. McWilliams wrote that he wholly disagreed with the contention
that it had been censorship and suppression of opinion when
The Na–
tion
had dropped my September 24 column. And in connection with
this and other matters relating
to
my column he suggested a conference
with him and Mr. Kirstein at my convenience. I answered that since I
was involved with the publication of a book, the conference would be
inconvenient at any time just then; and I questioned the need for one,
since our letters had made our positions on the refusal to publish my
columns completely clear, and other matters could also be handled by
correspondence. He now wrote that Mr. Kirstein and he felt a con–
ference was absolutely necessary; and so it took place, inconveniently
for me, early in October.
