When it was finally decided that Mr. Phillips was to sever his long relation to McClure’s several members of the editorial staff resigned, including Ray Stannard Baker, Lincoln Steffens, John Siddall, the efficient young managing editor Albert Boyden, and myself. We could not see the magazine without Mr. Phillips.
The last day we left the office, then on Twenty-third Street near Fourth Avenue, some of us went together to Madison Square and sat on a bench talking over our future. We were derelicts without a job.
But not for long.
First year of The American Magazine, 1907
There was then in New York, though it was not generally known, a magazine group which wanted a change. The magazine was very old—long known as Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Monthly, recently changed to The American Magazine. Its owner was Frederick L. Colver; its editor, Ellery Sedgwick (afterward editor of the Atlantic); its publisher, William Morrow (afterward the founder of William Morrow & Company, the book publishing house). Mr. Colver approached Mr. Phillips: “Why don’t you take it over?”
Finally in council assembled, our editorial group together with David A. McKinlay and John Trainor of the McClure business department, decided to incorporate the Phillips Publishing Company and buy The American Magazine. With what we could put in ourselves and money from the sale of stock to interested friends, we secured funds for the purchase and sufficient working capital.
We left McClure’s in March: six months later, October, 1906, appeared our first issue. The announcement shows how seriously we took ourselves, as befitted people who had seen something in which they deeply believed go to pieces. We had been too cruelly bruised to take anything lightly, but luckily we were able to make two additions to our staff, each man with a vein of humor not to be dried up or muddled by any cataclysms—William Allen White and Finley Peter Dunne (Mr. Dooley).
We had known Mr. White in the McClure’s office since the day of his famous editorial, “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” After that came his Boyville stories, two or three of which McClure’s published, and then at intervals studies of political situations and political figures. It was not long before he began to come to New York. He was a little city-shy then, or wanted us to think so. As I was one of the official entertainers of the group, it occasionally fell to me to “take him by the hand,” as he put it, and show him the town. I could have hardly had a more delightful experience. He judged New York by Kansas standards, and New York usually suffered. His affection and loyalty for his state, his appreciation and understanding of everything that she does—wise and foolish—the incomparable journalistic style in which he presents her are what has made him so valuable a national citizen. His crowning achievement among the many to be credited to him has been remaining first, last, and always the editor of the Emporia Gazette. A staunch friendship had sprung up between Mr. White and Mr. Phillips, and it was natural enough that he interested himself in the new venture.
As for Peter Dunne, we went after him and rather to my surprise he came along, taking a desk in our cramped offices and appearing with amazing regularity. At this time he was some forty years old—the greatest satirist in my judgment the country has yet produced. He had a wide knowledge of men and their ways. There was no malice in his judgments, but a great contempt for humbuggery as well as for all forms of self-deception devoted to uplifting the world. However, he felt kindly towards our ardent desire to improve things by demonstrating their unsoundness and approved our unwillingness to use any other tools than those which belonged legitimately to our profession. He came out strongest in his contributions to the department of editorial comment, which Mr. Phillips had introduced under the head of “The Interpreter’s House.” We were all supposed to contribute whatever was on our minds to this department. Mr. Phillips and Mr. Dunne did the censoring and dovetailing. I did not often make “The Interpreter’s House,” much to my chagrin. Dunne said, “You sputter like a woman,” which I fear was true. If it had not been for him the first Christmas issue of “The Interpreter’s House” would have been bleak reading. We had each of us broken forth in lament for the particular evil of the world which was disturbing us, offering our remedies.