An Experiment In Journalism

1901

Once there was a really radical paper, in London it was, but the man who made it now lives here and tells the tale. It was one of those papers which are a tragedy. They represent the wreck of the enthusiasm of strong men who must find the outlet for their apostolate. This paper began by being at odds with all that was established, and it had readers. But as time went on the man who made the paper drove off singly and in groups all those who had begun by being his supporters. It was found a little too radical for them, and they no longer kept step with its newest march.

"Of course I now can see that such a paper was foredoomed to failure," the editor said after he had recited the early history of his venture. "I confess it was pretty strong even for British radicals. After the circulation had dwindled down to the extremists I succeeded in alienating about half of them by denouncing social democracy as feudal oppression, and the other half left me when I attacked atheism on the score of its superstitious tendencies. After that I ran the paper as long as I could without any subscribers. But I had to give it up. Nobody would read it except myself, and toward the end I had to give up reading it myself. I found it too unsettling. So it stopped." — New York Commercial Advertiser.