"Pint to the Goal"

I du believe with all my soul

In the gret Press's freedom

To pint the people to the goal

An' in the traces lead 'em.

--The Biglow Papers.

Thus James Russell Lowell, first editor of the Atlantic Monthly, proclaimed a challenge to the adolescent nation's infant press. This week from slim, long-nosed Edward Augustus Weeks Jr., the 86-year-old Atlantic's ninth* editor, came another challenge to U.S. journalism and its readers. In his February issue, Editor Weeks announced a prize contest (top: $1,000) for articles on freedom of the press in the U.S., the promise of publication in the Atlantic (at standard rates) of the best five or six.

Said 45-year-old Ted Weeks: "I feel this is a year when realization of the question whether the press is to remain free will come to every American, will be felt by every person working in the press. The main purpose of the contest is to examine the functioning of newspapers in a democracy."

The Atlantic addressed its competition to working newsmen, but it left the field open to every reader, expected 1,000 entries. Heading its announcement was a statement of the goal by Walter Lippmann: "The attainment of full freedom requires rising standards of competence, responsibility, fairness, objectivity, disinterestedness, and indeed of charity, chivalry and good humor, in using the mighty engine of a free press. By this criterion we must recognize that we could do better."

New Blood, New Diet. Editor Weeks got into the Atlantic the lively way. After World War I (in the French and U.S. Armies) he went to Harvard, became an editor of the Harvard Advocate, turned out an issue parodying the effete Atlantic. First result was a conversation with Editor Ellery Sedgwick, and eventually Weeks joined the Atlantic's staff. When old Ellery Sedgwick retired six years ago, Ted Weeks was ready to succeed him (TIME, June 13, 1938).

The Atlantic was wan and weak when Editor Weeks took over. Later other young blood (notably urbane Richard Ely Danielson, with new ownership money) was infused. The oldtimer soon sat up to a new diet: less literature for literature's sake, more topical, issue-grappling articles. This week Editor Weeks and Publisher Donald B. Snyder could report a strong Atlantic pulse: 1943 advertising up 38% from 1939, December 1943's circulation of 108,037 (not including newsstand sales, which bring it to Snyder's estimate of 125,000) up 78% from 1939's average. The Atlantic had hit its alltime high, had passed Harper's (December estimated circ. 117,000) and now topped its field.

*The others, in order: James Thomas Fields, William Dean Howells, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Horace Elisha Scudder, Walter Hines Page, Bliss Perry, Ellery Sedgwick.

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