Republic of Words: The Atlantic Monthly and Its Writers, 1857–1925

30. Across the Decades

Across the Decades in the Atlantic’s November 1925 issue, the English novelist E. M. Forster wrote that “literature . . . is alive—not in a vague complementary sense, but alive tenaciously.”1 This was the principle that guided the magazine into the 1920s. The founders had merely reflected common belief when they asserted the centrality of literature to American identity. Nothing else—no credo, manifesto, or decree—could give form to the jumble of lives and history that in combination and against all logic reflected the spirit of the nation. The Atlantic’s pledge “to leave no province unrepresented . . . [and] to keep in view the moral elements that transcend all persons and parties” resonated through the decades because it spoke to America’s better nature, to its dream of a more equitable and inclusive society. If the magazine’s ambitions seemed at times bigger than the size or will of its audience, its editors remained committed to frank dealing. They believed that the basis of a true and lasting national prosperity depended on a responsible press. This is not to say that the Atlantic’s early writers and their successors agreed about what constituted “national progress.” No one, for example, underestimated the importance of controversy to sales. Rather, they argued their positions vehemently, mindful of the motives that drove great debaters like Abraham Lincoln. The Atlantic’s authority came partly from its mission to hold the nation to a higher ideal, and 30 We aren’t in the news business, we’re in the thinking business. david bradley, e-mail read at the Atlantic farewell dinner to Boston, 2005 Across the Decades [ 273 ] partly from example, which assured readers that even the most daunting problems could be resolved through meaningful dialogue. Writers such as Emerson and Stowe, Muir and Du Bois, still central to Americans’ understanding of their heritage, transmitted through decades what the original mission statement called “the American idea”—defined by the large abstractions of “Freedom, National Progress, and Honor.” Yet what the Atlantic achieved that no other magazine before or after has managed to achieve—whether the Nation, Scribner’s, the New Republic, or the New Yorker—was a grasp of implicitly “American” aspirations, in a format that combined high literary excellence with political, ethical, and educational imperatives. There are few more comprehensive courses in American history and culture than those contained in the Atlantic Monthly. To isolate any given topic recurring across the decades is not only to read history in the making but to watch a nation wrestling with its sense of right and wrong. Race relations in the United States, Middle East politics, changing social mores—the same thorny topics engage readers today. The Atlantic published Justice Felix Frankfurter’s sympathetic analysis titled “The Case of Sacco and Vanzetti” (March 1927) and Alfred E. Smith’s defense of religious freedom, “Catholic and Patriot” (May 1927)—which John F. Kennedy reiterated in his 1960 address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association when he upheld the absolute division of church and state in the United States. The Atlantic also published shrewd analyses of the Cold War, the Korean War, Nixon’s Checkers speech, the Tonkin Resolution , the Watergate break-in, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of its pivotal moments remains the publication of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (16 April 1963). Written in response to the criticism of fellow clergymen and published under the title “The Negro Is Your Brother” (August 1963), King’s letter carried on the work of other great Atlantic writers such as Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington , and W. E. B. Du Bois: For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” . . . We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown r e p u b l i c o f w o r d s [ 274 ] your sisters and brothers at whim; . . . when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television. . . . There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and...