State of the Nation

The Nation is a pulp-paper, pinko weekly in what publishers call the "deficit group" of magazines. Only in a few of its 78 years has it ever made money, and even then the profits were minuscule. Nevertheless, with annually solicited contributions, the Nation managed to stay alive.

Since last fall the Nation's circulation (15-c- a copy, $5 a year) has been climbing slowly (now 33,000). But advertising has fallen to half its pre-1929 level. (For several years book advertising, the backbone of the liberal weeklies, has been trending toward daily newspapers.) And since the war production costs have mounted. In 1941 the Nation lost around $10,000 (made up by contributions); in 1942, another $10,000. Last week, its chin barely above water, the Nation was reorganized.

The life preserver was thrown by whip-smart, likable Editor-Owner Freda Kirchwey, 48, who bought the Nation from Maurice Wertheim in 1937 for two reasons: 1) she wanted to maintain it as a voice for leftism; 2) she hoped to make it selfsupporting. Her new plan: to transfer the magazine's ownership from The Nation, Inc. (herself) to Nation Associates, Inc., a new, nonprofit organization. Freda Kirchwey will still be editor and publisher, will draw a salary. Sole advantage of the new plan: she will feel freer to ask for funds when it is understood that she has no chance of a personal profit.

To 900 run-of-the-mill subscribers went a frank letter: "I ask your immediate help. . . . Within the next two months we must raise $25,000. If we fail . . . the Nation will [die]. . . . Won't you fill out the enclosed membership blank and send it back with a check? ..."

The response delighted Editor Kirchwey. In four days the 900 letters produced $1,285, with another thousand or so anticipated. One contributor wrote: "I am diverting this [$100] from a war bond subscription as ... the U.S. without the Nation would be like the Founding Fathers without Jefferson."

So Freda Kirchwey started sending out another 10,000 letters, confidently expected to get the $25,000 needed to cover 1942's deficit and provide a backlog for 1943. The U.S. Treasury has been asked to rule that contributions are taxdeductible, "on the ground that the Nation is a nonprofit corporation for educational purposes." If contributions are insufficient, which is unlikely, Editor Kirchwey will retrench drastically, try any expedient to avoid the Nation's death.

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