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PARTISAN REVIEW
conducted through persuasion and argument, not by legal or administra–
tive means. Ideological commitments can shut you out from reality. Orig–
inal creative and critical works can resolve problems that polemics only
exacerbate. I told William I would stay Chairman as long as he attended
every meeting of the Advisory Board-and in over thirty years he never
missed one. At our meetings he was dismissive of writers whose work he
disliked, impatient with what he considered banal (a lot!), picky about his
food, restless when we digressed, sparing with praise, but always forth–
right. He could be cranky, though not petty. He had fallouts with his
friends, but eventually usually made up. An endless stream of women
adored him and his seeming lack of vanity made men comfortable with
him. He admired responsible, organized, dedicated, loyal people, those
without malice, guile, or envy, although he frequently found himself in
the company of their opposites. He liked anyone helpful
to
Partisan
Review.
He believed in the omnipotence of argument and reason.
For sixty-eight years he edited, formed, and forged an independent
journal-through the Depression, World War II, the McCarthy years,
Vietnam, the increasing power of the media in the arts, and the rise of
mass and middle culture. His memoir of his early decades will soon be
reprinted. He shepherded new writers coming up, defended old writers
changing their views, and lived long enough to realize that ideological
divisions cannot be bridged by talk. Yet, through it all, he kept his mag–
azine afloat, alive, aware.
Partisan Review
has been the voice of America's intellectuals for over
six decades, and William Phillips was the voice of
Partisan Review.
JOHN SILBER
Most people in this room undoubtedly knew William Phillips better and
longer than
I.
But by the time he and the magazine he had helped found
came
to
Boston University, I doubt he'd changed all that much. He was
a man for duration and steadiness in his person: courtesy and a certain
elegance marked him.
I know of his history secondhand. I knew that the New York City in
which William had been born, in what he called "the poor boy's land"
of the city, was a heartland of two things: politics and literature.
The politics was that of the left.
It
was the passionate sort that came
with those who saw this country as a promised land, but a land with
John Silber is Chancellor of Boston University.
