Newcomers

Because magazine publishers find it hardest to get advertising and subscriptions in the summer, autumn is the time to start new magazines. The New Deal, Repeal, and low costs of paper and printing helped make this year's crop larger than usual.

Out upon the newsstands at 10-c- the copy came Today, the weekly that Professor Raymond Moley left President Roosevelt's side to edit, with Vincent Astor's money behind him and Journalist V. V. McNitt's experience behind them both. "Chiselers In Action" shouted a red headband and in the cover cartoon a rotund Andrew Mellon wearing J. P. Morgan's watch-chain chopped a hole in the side of the dory S. S. Recovery, apparently preferring the Rugged Individualism life preserver around his neck to the NRA sail bellying nobly from the mast.

For "An Independent National Weekly" the magazine was more than generous to President Roosevelt and all his works

That was virtually all it talked about. Publisher Astor admitted, "It is indeed a fact that we shall support to the utmost limit of our strength the ideals so admirably embodied in the Roosevelt Administration." But, he explained, " 'Liberal' is a word of many definitions. We intend it in the sense that we shall preserve our freedom from the call or dictates of any class, whether economic, social or religious."

Articles and illustrations were as breezy as a college cheering section, as offhand and undocumented as a street-corner argument. William Hard, seasoned, voluble Washington correspondent and radio com mentator, wrote the leading piece on the Chiselers; very brisk and readable.

Marvelous to behold in an Astor-financed publication was a cartoon by Art Young, of all oldtime anti-Capitalists one of the most irreconcilable. He showed Individualism, with crutch and running nose, penitently ringing the Government's doorbell in a snowstorm.

An intellectual touch was an imaginary interview with Mark Hanna by Thomas Beer, making the point that Hanna would have thought present-day Capitalists were weaklings to go sniveling to the Government about their fortunes. In his day strong men "hunted fortunes as if they were bears. . . . We didn't whistle--and then whine to 'em. ... An individualism that squalls for protection from its own mistakes ain't even as respectable as one that bought votes and slugged its way into power with a gun in its hand."

General Johnson was given a page to explain that the NRA is by its very nature controversial. "That is the test of Democracy."

Lincoln Colcord analyzed Labor's strike mood. He found it justifiable and important, with President Roosevelt on the side of the unions.

A piece by Arthur Brisbane was mostly questions left hanging midair. Paul Mallon took the reader behind some Washington scenes, with few surprises, and another page summarized the week in Washington with no surprises at all. "These Times" was another review, of events all over the nation and all run in together.

On page 17 came Editor Moley's message. From Cartoonist Walt Disney had been obtained a special drawing of the Wise Little Pig's house, labeled Constitution. Huffing & puffing at it was a big bad wolf called Dictatorship. "Who IS Afraid?" asked Editor Moley's caption and in his editorial, "Wolf, Wolf!", he assured everyone that President Roosevelt is no Dictator. Whoever thinks so, he said, has no sense of humor.

A final section, "Strictly Business," perhaps written by Editor Moley, is devoted to short expository essays on administrative subjects of the moment. To begin with: "Capital Goods," "Stabilization," "Agriculture."

Publisher Astor sportingly included money-making as one of Today's three objectives. (The other two: "To do good"; to discomfit its enemies.) For Vol. 1, No. 1 he had rounded up eleven pages of advertising.

P:American Wine & Liquor Journal, published by Charles H. Lipsett, whose Atlas Publishing Co. puts out ten other trade magazines, is designed to "build up the industry and encourage the demand for alcoholic beverages." It contains articles on hotel liquor-selling by Oscar (Tschirky) of the Waldorf, a discussion of wine merchandising by Louis H. F. Mouquin, 44 pages of liquor advertising, "Subject to Repeal," a directory of wine and liquor agents, and the first wholesale price list published in the U. S. for 13 years. Excerpts: Medoc $16 (case of 12); Port and Sherry $24 to $30; high-grade champagnes $50 to $63; brandy $15 (case of 12).

P:In Boston, where no imitation of The New Yorker has yet taken firm hold, The Yankee Tatler edited by spry young Alyce Siemens, onetime conductor of the Boston American's "Girl About Town" colyum, last week promised to offer "the urbane, maturely yet sparklingly written type of editorial content which has made periodicals such as The New Yorker and Vanity Fair so successful." P:The National Recovery Survey no sooner appeared last week than it and its editor, Henry Woodhouse, found themselves in difficulties. NRA headquarters in Washington promptly issued a bulletin which said: "There is being published in New York a publication . . . bedecked with blue eagles and the national colors. . . . [It] advertises a list of publications concerning the activities of the NRA. . . . The NRA has no connection with any of these publications. . . ."

On the cover of his National Recovery Survey last week Editor Woodhouse (original name Mario Terenzio Enrico Casalegno, born in Turin) described himself as "Chairman of the National Recovery Council." In the caption of a picture which showed his face peeking out from behind Secretary of Labor Perkins and NRA Counsel Donald R. Richberg, he de scribed himself as the "originator of the 'National Recovery' movement." The magazine contained a photograph of a part of a letter to Editor Woodhouse signed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and dated 1915, an "article" by Secretary Ickes which was actually part of his speech to the Conference of Mayors in Chicago last September. The magazine's second page was occupied entirely by advertisements for nine other products of Mr. Woodhouse's National Recovery Publications, Inc., none of which cost less than $5 for a sub scription. Informed that New York's NRAdministrator, Grover Whalen, had accused him of trying to create a false impression, Editor Woodhouse called Mr. Whalen a "newcomer to the NRA." The district attorney's office began an investigation of Mr. Woodhouse. P:Other newcomers last week were: The Sunday Review of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, edited by Edward Gushing, an ambitious newspaper supplement which aims to be an independent "magazine of liberal opinion" on politics, economics and the arts; Detective, a mystery story monthly published by Delo Publications, distinguished from its competitors by starting its first story on the cover; The Fraternity Month, devoted to doings of U. S. college fraternity members; Tiny Tower, a Tower Group monthly of cutouts, drawings, stories, puzzles and what not for small children, whose parents will buy it, like other Tower publications, in Woolworth 5-c- & 10-c- stores.

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