Child-Man

To cut in on Bernarr Macfadden's True Story, Publisher George T. Delacorte Jr. last year brought out My Story, withdrew it after a bitter squabble in which Macfadden threatened to undersell My Story with a new one to be called Your Story. Later Publisher Delacorte upset a Macfadden scheme to publish Hullabaloo in imitation of Delacorte's Ballyhoo. Few months ago Delacorte pilfered Macfadden's idea for a burlesque tabloid newspaper, Laugh Parade, beat him to the newsstand with a Nutty News. When Macfadden announced last fortnight a forthcoming magazine entitled Babies: Just Babies, with Mrs. Franklin Delano Roosevelt as editrix, no one would have been greatly surprised to hear Publisher Delacorte say that he would do something similar. Last week he said that very thing. On Sept. 1 he will issue The Children's Magazine.

Besides insisting that he had no advance knowledge of his competitor's plans, Publisher Delacorte pointed to three prime differences between his magazine and Macfadden's: 1) Children's Magazine will be sold not on newsstands, but exclusively in Kresge and Kress chainstores (like his Modern Screen, Modern Romances); 2) it will not be edited by the wife of a famed politician but by "John Martin," editor of John Martin's Book ("The Child's Magazine"); 3) it will not be addressed to parents, with advice on infant-raising, but to readers aged 5 to 8. Explained Publisher Delacorte: "It's supposed to entertain them, not make 'em eat spinach."

Publisher Delacorte believes that mass entertainment of very small children has been neglected by U. S. publishing. John Martin's Book, selling for 50-c- a copy (circulation 23,000) and Child Life at 35-c- (166,000) are too expensive for most U. S. families. Children's Magazine will sell for 10-c-.

The announcement of "John Martin's" new job coincided with the 20th anniversary of his magazine. His real name is Morgan von Roorbach Shepard. He says he is 55, looks about ten years older, is small, wiry, baldish. Contrary to strangely persistent legends (besides one that he is a woman) he is neither crippled nor blind, nor has he a harelip. His professional name dates back to his childhood on a Maryland plantation. A bird house in the backyard was occupied by a colony of martins, identified by his mother in her story telling as John, Joan, Robin, Alice (et al.) Martin.

Following the death of his mother, when he was 11, Morgan Shepard was shipped to a boarding school in Germany where he was "manhandled, bullied, and misguided almost beyond endurance." At 17 he began vagabonding around the U. S. and Central America, working in mines, on farms, cattle ranches, freighters. In California he was hired as a streetcar conductor, fired for letting youngsters ride free. He got a job as bookkeeper in a San Francisco bank, held and hated it for 13 years. In the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 he suffered injuries to his shoulder and foot. Short while later in Manhattan he underwent an operation, was in bed for months. Says he: "It was while I was flat on my back, after that operation, that I became 'John Martin.' . . . There has been a deep and strong undercurrent in my life, an urge that kept pushing me on. It was a great love of children, a desire to give them something of the joy and understanding my mother had given me. . . . I began to write verses for children. . . . I signed these verses 'John Martin' because of the bird friends of my boyhood."

About that time Morgan Shepard began building a subscription list of parents to whose children he would write "John Martin" letters, full of A. A. Milneish stories and whimsical drawings. Within two years he was sending 2,000 printed letters a month. In 1912 the letter writing business had grown so big (although "there was no money in it") that he changed it to the monthly magazine, John Martin's Book. Richly illustrated and printed, nearly barren of advertising, the magazine has not been profitable. To make money, Editor Shepard has written children's booklets for Wanamaker's store, advertisements for various companies.

Editor Shepard at present occupies a cluttered office in "John Martin's House," on the 14th floor of a Manhattan office building. He smokes cigarets incessantly, speaks confusingly about himself as a dual personality: "John Martin," altruist, idealist; and "hardboiled, almost unmoral" Morgan Shepard. Sometimes he will dash to a nearby hospital to amuse bedridden children. His favorite device for 30 years has been the "Quizz-wizz." He thrusts a pencil into a child's hand, holds a pad of paper under it, jiggles the child's elbow. Then he sketches lines around the meaningless scrawl, telling a story as he goes, finally completing a drawing of a grotesque animal.

When he was 18 in California "John Martin" fell in love with a girl several years his senior. She married someone else. To visitors at his office he exhibits a baby's shoe which he keeps on the top shelf of a book case. It belonged to the California girl's firstborn. Some 25 years ago (he does not remember exactly when) he married Mary Elliott Putnam. They have no children. His wife does not share his enthusiasm for them. Also, he says, having children of his own might destroy, by "paternal poisoning," his interest in all children.

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