Just before The Freeman ceased publication on 5 March
1924, the Nation described it as the "best written and most
brilliantly edited of the weeklies of protest," "a literary production to
compel admiration, whether one agreed with its views or not."[1] The New Republic,
believing
that The Freeman's "wit and vigor and lucidity . . . ought not
to perish in America," said, "It carried on through four perplexing years,
satisfying the intellectual needs and clarifying the political views of
thousands of readers. . . . On its constant readers — and few
periodicals
ever had more loyal ones — the Freeman exerted an influence that
will
not die. This is success. It is through such successes that a nation's cultural
wealth is slowly accumulated."[2] The
Century felt that The Freeman "commented
upon the
news of the world with remarkable insight and unflagging wit" and
considered it
worthy of comparison with the Tatler and
Spectator.[3]
Enthusiastic
comments continued to appear in discussions of the period,[4] and one of its editors, Albert Jay
Nock,
later declared that it was "quite generally acknowledged to be the best paper
published in our language"[5]
— a
judgment concurred in by Van Wyck
Brooks, who called it "a paper that was generally known as the best written
in the country."
[6]
There is no question that The Freeman, published in
New
York between 17 March 1920 and 5 March 1924 by that enterprising young
publisher B. W. Huebsch,[7] was one
of the important and influential journals of this century. Its 4,992 large
double-column pages maintain a consistently high standard and must surely
constitute one of the most massive monuments of journalistic excellence
ever produced in so short a period. The failure to compromise,
characteristic of The Freeman, is illustrated by the manner
of
its demise. After four years (with Helen Swift Neilson as the financial
backer), the paper was discontinued both because of the "large annual
deficit" and because of the failure to secure a "body of readers sufficiently
large to warrant further publication." An editorial announcement explained
that "circulation 'experts' who were consulted offered feasible suggestions,
but every suggestion was based on a different Freeman than
the one the editors were making. If we had adopted them the circulation
might have gone up a few tens of thousands, but the Freeman
would have lost its soul — and the adherence of those who mourn
over
it to-day."[8] The twenty-four weekly
pages continued in their usual fashion for a month after the first
announcement of discontinuance (on 6 February 1924), in order to round
out Volume VIII, and then publication ceased, with eight full volumes to
look back on and no gradual diminishing of strength at the end.
The list of frequent contributors included Van Wyck Brooks, Charles
A. Beard, Constance Rourke, Kenneth Burke, Lewis Mumford, Padraic
Colum, Ernest A. Boyd, Llewelyn Powys, and many other well-known
names, and it was equally penetrating on literary and political matters (with
practically every point of view represented). As the period of the twenties
becomes more intensively studied, it is inevitable that The
Freeman will receive increasing attention. Although the story of its
inception and brief career has been told by one of its editors,
Francis Neilson,
[9] and by Susan Jane
Turner,
[10] one difficulty in studying
it has been the presence in it of a great amount of both unsigned and
initialed material, the authorship of which could not be easily
established.
The only clue to the authorship that has been generally available is
The Freeman Book (New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1924), an
anthology of selections from The Freeman; although it
contains
samples of all the kinds of articles in the journal and indicates the authors,
it is of course in no sense a systematic guide to the authorship of the
unsigned pieces since it gives only a small selection from the work of forty
writers. However, the authorship of all unsigned work was marked in
several copies of each issue, and some of these marked files are available
for examination. Mr. B. W. Huebsch has one such set in his possession,
and there is a partially marked set in the library of Francis Neilson at
Harbor Acres in Port Washington, Long Island. The set which belonged to
Helen Swift Neilson, founder of The Freeman, and which
was
marked by Emilie McMillan, a member of the staff, is now in the
Newberry Library, the gift of Mrs. Neilson. Because of the rarity of these
marked copies and the importance of the information they contain, it seems
highly desirable that a complete description of the special information in
them be made readily accessible.[11]
It may be helpful, first of all, to have in mind the format of
The
Freeman. Each issue consisted of 24 pages and generally followed
this pattern: the first three pages were made up of separate unsigned
paragraphs or very short articles under the heading "Current Comment";
pages 4 through 8 consisted of the longer unsigned editorials, collectively
called "Topics of the Day"; the next six pages (pp. 9-14) usually contained
the signed articles; there followed a short section, "Miscellany," made up
of paragraphs similar to those in "Current Comment," sometimes by several
hands and sometimes by one (signed "Journeyman"); the sixteenth page
might carry a review of a current
musical or dramatic performance or a literary essay (referred to, along with
the other signed pieces, as "Middle Articles" in
The Freeman
Book); then came two pages of letters to the editors, often from
distinguished persons or from other members of the staff writing under
pseudonyms; pages 18 to 23, roughly, consistuted the book review section,
consisting of a series of individual reviews (many signed with initials)
followed by a column of literary comment; and page 24 was an
advertisement (for
The Freeman itself or for other Huebsch
publications).
The lists which follow record the information about authorship that
has been written into the Newberry and Huebsch copies. The first indicates,
by initials, the authors of all unsigned work; the second identifies these
initials and many other initials (and pseudonyms) which actually appeared
as signatures in The Freeman. The third is an index to the
first
two, supplementing the index to the signed material which The
Freeman published with each volume.
