EDITOR'S NOTE
Rothschild, Matthew
EDITOR'S NOTE Matthew Rothschild Mary Sheridan Rubin, 1912-1995 Death came to visit us again this month. This time, it claimed Mary Sheridan Rubin, our dear, sweet, tough friend, who devoted...
...To her friends, she was loyal and selfless, always steering the conversation toward their concerns, not hers...
...Too many words," she said...
...So when Phil put the arm on Morris, he was susceptible to the pressure...
...This time, it claimed Mary Sheridan Rubin, our dear, sweet, tough friend, who devoted more than half a century to "this little magazine," as she always called it in her modest Midwestern style...
...When I visited her a few months back, I used the word "colleague," and she said: "Can't we do any better than that...
...She always referred to Erwin as "Mr...
...And she was known to indulge in a cigarette or two...
...But after three decades, the La Follette family grew exhausted by the financial headaches of publishing a leftwing magazine in America and was looking to hand it off...
...Throughout her tenure, Mary was a steadying influence...
...Bring me a piece," she whispered, as I was about to leave...
...Mary was the last tie to the La Follettes, who led the Progressive Movement in the early part of this century and founded this magazine in 1909...
...I assured her that the magazine was doing fine, and that seemed to make her happy...
...Pipe the Sweet Birds in ignorant cadence— Ah, what sagacity perished here...
...Knoll," and she kept to her territory as book editor, trespassing not at all into the other acreage...
...People just don't read anymore...
...But here is Emily Dickinson: Light laughs the breeze in her Castle above them— Babbles the Bee in a stolid Ear...
...Morris suffered from manic depression, and it was Mary who held things together...
...She was far and away the best proofreader who ever worked here...
...Leave that word to the fraternities...
...She'd always ask about my family, and wonder how I was doing...
...And Mary also was instrumental in getting and keeping distinguished writers for The Progressive, including Sidney Lens and Milton Mayer, who were the voice of this publication for many years...
...That issue sold 180,000 copies—a record for us...
...I remember mentioning some professor who had a reputation as a great man of ideas...
...In the end," Morris wrote in his memoirs, "she surrendered as easily as I did, although, more practical creature than I am, she had her doubts that we could manage with what the salaries might be...
...And I told her that it was getting on time for a rhubarb pie...
...For Mary, that salary was nothing the first two years...
...If we're going to go down, then god damn it, let's go down with a good fight," she said on more than one occasion...
...She had her pleasures: she loved spy novels, classical opera, homegrown tomatoes, and homemade rhubarb pie...
...And she was tenacious in her defense of the magazine...
...Morris was an accomplished newspaperman, and he had served as Phil La Fol-lette's press secretary...
...But first he discussed it with Mary...
...She served as managing editor of The Progressive for thirty-eight years, then as book editor for thirteen years...
...Mary's finest hour came in 1954, when she and Morris put out a courageous expose of Senator Joseph McCarthy...
...The rhubarb pie I cannot now provide...
...She was tight with the purse strings...
...She detested pomposity, arrogance, and pretension...
...Imet Mary when I came to The Progressive in January 1983, and I was struck by how formal she was...
...She was frail, but lucid as always...
...Her editorial judgment was shrewd, her pen quick, and her eyes sharp...
...First-class fraud," she said...
...For all her toughness, she was extraordinarily considerate...
...She was immensely capable, and would work behind the scenes to make sure that all the details were taken care of...
...I asked if she'd like me to read her some Emily Dickinson poems next Sunday, and she nodded...
...She used to enjoy going out to lunch at the elegant old Fess Hotel in Madison—now an upscale microbrewery...
...Late one evening in 1940, Phil La FoUette, who had been governor of Wisconsin like his father Robert before him, phoned up Mary's husband, Morris, to see if he'd take over...
...She was a devastating judge of character, and she could skewer people with astonishing economy...
...And for fifty-five years, she served as a member of the board of directors of The Progressive, Inc...
...More than any single individual, Mary Sheridan Rubin was responsible for the continued existence of this magazine...
...One time I was quite proud of an in-depth book review I had written for the magazine, and I was foolish enough to ask Mary how she liked it...
...It is no exaggeration to say that the issue you hold in your hands today would not be there if it were not for her...
...To the end, Mary was worried about this country, and about "the future of the written word," as she put it to me last year...
...Ilast saw Mary on Sunday, April 30, at Attic Angels Nursing Home in Madison, three days before she died...
Vol. 59 • June 1995 • No. 6
