TRIBUTES TO WILLIAM PHILLIPS
177
Another consequence of the expansion and democratization was a
policy encouraged by William to hold every other meeting at different
venues around the country. That was a successful
~nd
popular policy,
helping to create a sense of a national literary community, a lack in our
culture often felt and bemoaned over the years. On the other hand, cer–
tain tendencies that had been for the most part latent or subdued–
although Phillips had sensed them and had warned us about them
earlier-began to surface, threatening the existence of the organization
as an effective and continuing entity.
Actually, it was the ancient animus, at times verging on paranoia,
against a so-called "Eastern establishment." Never mind that we had
broad national representation-the little "littles" often complained of
this, and every so often a whiff of anti-Semitism could be detected. In
fact, in the early I980s the then-executive director of CCLM would aver
that in its early days CCLM "represented the Anglo-Jewish literary estab–
lishment."
Oi veh.
William also sensed this early on, at a meeting we had
with an editor of a leading black magazine in Chicago. I pooh-poohed it
at the time, but, as in many things, Phillips was prescient on that score.
I left the organization and for a while retired from active editorship
of
MR,
in I972, in order to do more writing. William continued to try
to hold the organization together for many years, as it grew in budget
and numbers . But finally he had to leave CCLM to its own destiny.
CCLM and its successor have continued to struggle to achieve some of
the goals we had originally, and somewhat successfully, set for ourselves
and the community of literary journals. William Phillips's contributions
to the American literary community were unparalleled and central, as
they were to many of the deeper issues of our collective intellectual life.
MORRIS DICKSTEIN
In paying tribute to William Phillips's life and achievements, I've asked
myself what drew me to him in the first place and what allowed us to
maintain a sometimes embattled friendship for thirty years. After the
mid-I98os we often disagreed about politics, though not about the
shadow politics acted out on university campuses; but even earlier, when
he generously published chapters of a book of mine, there were always
annoying rejoinders in the little editorials he could not resist writing.
More thin-skinned contributors might have balked at this. It's no news
Morris Dickstein is Director of the CUNY Institute for the Humanities.
