Out of the Night

In their pre-World War I heyday U. S. Socialists boasted a potent press. Under Debs's leadership the Socialist weekly Appeal to Reason ran its circulation up to 5,000,000; the New York Call once had a million readers. Of such might, the mere remaining shadow is the Manhattan weekly, the New Leader. Under forced draft it pulls 43,000 readers--mostly among Manhattan and Hollywood malcontents and old Socialists who sigh for the good old days. Its assistant editor--tireless, 5 ft. 2 in. Victor Riesel--is also most of the New Leader's editorial staff (he writes under five noms de guerre and is the New Leader's Washington Bureau besides).

Last week the New Leader emerged briefly from obscurity. One dark night its offices were rifled by unknown footpads.

For outsiders the raid drew attention to the New Leader's main claim to distinction--as bellwether for exile and native anti-Communists in the U. S. Among them: Willi Schlamm, leader at 16 of the Austrian Communist Party, one of the first to break with Stalin; Eugene Lyons (Assignment in Utopia); the late General Walter Krivitsky. For Editor Riesel these characteristic contributors afforded a probable reason for the visit: Communist footpads were looking for the address of Richard Julius Herman Krebs, alias Jan Valtin, ex-Communist author of Out of the Night, currently best-selling Baedeker of the Stalinist underworld. The raiders found no addresses.

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