The Press: End of the Line

Manhattan's Communist New Masses, butcher-paper bible of the far left, last week had a birthday—its 37th and its last. Mounting costs had starved it to death; the 1947 deficit was an unmanageable $65,000. In two doleful, defiant pages, the editors wrote the obituary of a Marxist magazine that had first attracted, then repelled, some of the most brilliant writers of its day.

The day dawned in 1911. Max Eastman, John Reed, Floyd Dell, Artist Art Young and other idealistic radicals joined the Masses to help their bright socialist dream come true. Suspended for...

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