Digest Overhauled

If those two eminently worthy old gentlemen Dr. Isaac Kauffman Funk and Dr. Adam Willis Wagnalls could have returned to earth last week to check up on their Literary Digest, they might have suffered enough of a shock to send them kiting back to their Lutheran heaven. As recently as two weeks ago there would have been no shock at all. For, two weeks ago, they would have found the Digest bearing a tasteful painting of horses & riders taking a water-jump in a steeplechase. (Not quite so happy as one Digest cover of a year ago showing a tot peering into the eyes of a collie--Title: "Can't You Talk?" but nonetheless pleasing.) Thumbing through the copy the Drs. Funk & Wagnall would have found things just about as they left them, respectively in 1912 and 1924. In fact, things were much as they had been since 1905. There were the "Topics of the Day" and the "Foreign Comment," with editorial v. editorial, cartoon v. cartoon, colorlessly balanced. There were the familiar sentences of transition: "It seems to the Tribune that two effects will be observed: . . ." "Says H. H. Bennett, writing in the New York Times: ..." "As the Auckland (N. Z.) Weekly News tells us: . . ." There were the "Current Poetry" column, and "The Spice of Life" page of jokes. That was two weeks ago. Last week what would they have found on the newsstands? P: A Digest whose cover consisted of a photograph of President Roosevelt, topped by a red band. P: On the first inside page, an article "Written for The Literary Digest by J. Frederick Essary." (Dr. Funk: "Adam, did you ever hear of original contributions in the Digest?" Dr. Wagnalls: "Never before, Isaac.") P: Clean typography. P: Staff-written articles based on newspaper news. P: A Washington letter signed "Diogenes." P: Sport and cinema reviews, specially written and signed. P: Good old Digest pleasantries. ("Beauties in distress," was what the Digest called some unemployed women at an emergency relief camp.) If Drs. Funk & Wagnalls had suspected the newsdealer was playing a joke on them, they might have hurried to the Digest office and seen copies of this week's issue which sported no cover photograph but a caricature -- of Budget Director Lewis W. Douglas by famed Cuban Artist Massaguer. The new format of the Digest is technically the work of its new editor, able Arthur Stimson Draper, longtime correspondent and assistant editor of the New York Herald Tribune (TIME. May 22). But the enterprise of breaking moth-eaten tradition is that of the man who made the tradition famous, Robert Joseph Cuddihy.* Drs. Funk and Wagnall, classmates at Wittenberg College, Ohio and both ordained Lutheran ministers, started business in 1876 in Manhattan, publishing for ministers books, pictures, and the Homiletic Review. A 16-year-old Catholic boy, Robert Cuddihy, came to them and got a job as clerk. Except for a porter, he was the only employe. The new boy worked so well that when the doctors started the Digest in 1890 he was told to "go ahead and make it go." Shrewd, tremendously energetic, and guided by such homely maxims as "Keeping everlastingly at it . . ." Manager Cuddihy not only made it go but made it far & away the most successful current events magazine in the U. S. during the two decades, 1910-30. The Digest formula was better adapted to a survey of public opinion than to a narration of actual events. Nevertheless, it attained some 400,000 circulation before the War. The War was its meat. It blossomed with excellent colored maps of the War zones, and painstaking reviews of War events. When it was over the Digest could justly claim that it handled the War better than any other magazine. Its circulation was well over the million mark, and in the next few years hit a 2,000,000 peak, with a year's gross revenue of $11,000,000. Perhaps no non-fiction magazine could have maintained that circulation. In any case the Digest had circulation trouble, slumped to 1,000,000. Last year's total revenue: $3,000,000. Publisher Cuddihy looks much younger than his 70 years. He lives in elegant style in a Park Avenue apartment building which also houses Sherry's, swank restaurant. In summer he goes in his Rolls-Royce to his place in fashionable West Hampton. L. I. where he surrounds himself with as many as possible of his enormous family. He has three sons, Paul, Lester & Arthur -- all working in the business -- and four daughters, Helen, Mabel, Emma, Alice. All seven are married and have presented Father Cuddihy with a grand total of 28 grandchildren (some of them nearly as old as his youngest daughter). A frequent summer visitor is the Rt. Rev. Msgr. John P. Chidwick. famed chaplain of the U. S. S. Maine, who likes to putter around the place in a ragged sweater. Publisher Cuddihy knows well many a famed politician, among them Herbert Hoover with whom he dealt while the Digest raised some $10,000,000 for War relief in Europe. (Publisher Cuddihy's private charities are understood to be large. ) He was an early Hoover booster, has now reverted to Democracy. Sometimes he attends Tammany powwows on Long Island. In tastes as well as in faith R. J. Cuddihy differs from his oldtime employers. Mr. Cuddihy does not frown upon conviviality. He firmly believed that beer would balance the budget.

*Wilfred John Funk, son of the founder, is titular president but is famed only for light verse which has been published, not by his father's firm, but by Robert M. McRride.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.