A goodly company:
Skillin, Edward S
A goodly company Looking back over Commonweal's sixty-five years, I think first of the pioneers who did the hard part, who started from nothing and in a very short time enabled the magazine to...
...Comparisons are supposed to be a no-no, but under the magazine's present editor and her supporting staff, I believe that Commonweal is now at its all-time best-and that the sixty-fifth anniversary is a harbinger of a great future...
...Its distinguished list included such early contributors as G.K...
...In 1933 I finally succeeded in joining the staff in a very menial capacity, in the circulation department under the tutelage of the experienced and caring John F. McCormick, whose management in the face of recurring financial crises kept Commonweal going for the first fourteen years...
...It was mighty nervy of me to seek (unsuccessfully) to become part of such a lofty enterprise upon graduation from a liberal arts college in the magazine's first year...
...It was also during these decades as well that the roles of laity and, in particular, women in the church have made some advances-if hardly reflected by the present climate at the Vatican...
...A goodly company Looking back over Commonweal's sixty-five years, I think first of the pioneers who did the hard part, who started from nothing and in a very short time enabled the magazine to attain national recognition...
...There were a number of truly critical moments...
...The magazine also secured an impressive number of subscribers in its very first years...
...My connection with Commonweal has enabled me to get to know personally such figures as Jacques Maritain, Dorothy Day, Father Reinhold (anti-Nazi refugee and promoter of the Mass in the vernacular), Msgr...
...This reflected our somewhat youthful assumption that through a more socially conscious editorial policy and the development of other progressive ideas, the new version of the magazine could succeed as a business venture...
...How can one overval ue such an inspiring experience both as editor and publisher...
...Hayes, Lewis Mumford, Luigi Sturzo, Dorothy Day, Hilaire Belloc, Agnes Repplier, and Walter Lippmann...
...It was particularly inspiring to sense the realization of long-held hopes in the advent to the papacy of John XXIII and the positive achievements of the Second Vatican Council, which he convoked...
...Leading these pioneers was the zealous and eloquent founder and editor Michael Williams, who believed that the Catholic tradition had an important contribution to make to the public discussion of the issues of the day...
...One result was the loss of over one-fifth of our subscribers...
...This was before the days of the solicitous Commonweal Associates...
...It has also been a privilege to work alongside a succession of able, if not prophetic, editors down through the years...
...Our offices in Grand Central Terminal, at 386 Fourth Avenue, 232 Madison Avenue, and now 15 Dutch Street, have witnessed a remarkable procession of talented, dedicated men and women contributors...
...Ligutti (director of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference), Clare Huchet Bishop (noted author of children's books and promoter of better Christian-Jewish relations), and Benedictine Father Godfrey Diekmann, to mention a few...
...Here we made the mistake of giving up Commonweal's tax-exempt status, which was not regained until 1983...
...k.s.s...
...Three months later such hopes were dashed when the reorganized Commonweal issued a widely quoted statement calling for "positive impartiality" toward the Spanish Civil War...
...k.s.s...
...For years thereafter survival was a matter of touch and go, made possible only by the generous donations of the magazine's most loyal supporters, while a most dedicated staff held on despite their extremely low salaries...
...Chesterton, Carlton J.H...
...But when he relinquished the magazine to Philip Burnham and me in 1938, it was badly in debt...
...That Commonweal has somehow succeeded in bearing witness for a full sixty-five years is to me a source of wonder and gratitude to God...
...Shortly after the beginning he was joined by the erudite and prolific George N. Shuster, as managing editor, who was convinced the greatly limited range of American Catholic thought should be broadened by exposure to the stimulating ideas of European theologians and philosophers...
Vol. 116 • November 1989 • No. 20
