The Nation’s 150th Anniversary Special Issue

Founded by abolitionists to finish the job of Emancipation in 1865, The Nation became a moribund defender of the status quo. But its firm anti-imperialism, and one crusading editor, brought it back to life.
About Jack Berlin

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Nation editor issue year time William Invest
About Jack Berlin

Founded Accusoft (Pegasus Imaging) in 1991 and has been CEO ever since.
Nation editor issue year time William Invest
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A P R I L  2 0 1 5 
James Agee
Eqbal Ahmad
Ai Weiwei
Hannah Arendt
James Baldwin
Amiri Baraka
Moustafa Bayoumi
Wendell Berry
Kai Bird
Margaret Bourke-
White
Steve Brodner
Noam Chomsky
Alexander Cockburn
Sue Coe
Stephen F. Cohen
Arthur C. Danto
Bill de Blasio
E.L. Doctorow
Ariel Dorfman
Eric Drooker
W.E.B. Du Bois
Barbara Ehrenreich
Albert Einstein
Frances FitzGerald
Eric Foner
Mark Gevisser
Paula J. Giddings
Allen Ginsberg
Milton Glaser
Emma Goldman
Vivian Gornick
Clement Greenberg
William Gropper
Robert Grossman
D.D. Guttenplan
Melissa Harris-Perry
Christopher Hayes
Christopher Hitchens
Langston Hughes
Molly Ivins
Henry James
Martin Luther King Jr.
Freda Kirchwey
Stuart Klawans
Naomi Klein
Andrew Kopkind
Tony Kushner
John Leonard
Penny Lernoux
David Levine
Maria Margaronis
Michael Massing
Carey McWilliams
H.L. Mencken
Edward Miliband
Arthur Miller
Jessica Mitford
Marianne Moore
Michael Moore
Toni Morrison
Ralph Nader
Victor Navasky
Katha Pollitt
Adolph Reed Jr.
Marilynne Robinson
Edward W. Said
Kshama Sawant
Jeremy Scahill
Jonathan Schell
Ben Shahn
Daniel Singer
Mychal Denzel Smith
Rebecca Solnit
Edward Sorel
Art Spiegelman
John Steinbeck
I.F. Stone
Hunter S. Thompson
Tom Tomorrow
Touré
Calvin Trillin
Dalton Trumbo
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Gore Vidal
Alice Walker
Carrie Mae Weems
Edmund White
Amy Wilentz
Patricia J. Williams
William Appleman 
Williams
Ellen Willis
JoAnn Wypijewski
Howard Zinn
1916: Women line up at Planned Parenthood’s first health center
2014: Supporters rally to protect women’s health 
Making history, together
Planned Parenthood congratulates our friends and partners 
at The Nation for 150 years of groundbreaking journalism
1
The Nation
The Nation. 
since 1865
Freda Kirchwey, the first woman editor of The Nation, said, 
“Anniversaries should be approached without awe.” That was 
seventy-five years ago. The Nation’s longevity over 150 years 
is a remarkable feat—especially in our fast-changing media 
landscape.   ¶ For the magazine to survive and thrive for another century and
a half, however, The Nation will have to adapt. Indeed, 
sixty years ago, Kirchwey’s successor Carey McWilliams 
declared: “The Nation must change, as it has changed in 
the past, if only to encompass certain harsh realities of 
present-day American journalism.” The Nation, he added, 
has a “special responsibility to report the significant hap-
pening that might otherwise go unreported, to air un-
popular views and controversial issues.” When every day 
seems to bring the demise of another iconic voice, and the 
news is increasingly dominated by sound bites and gossip, 
The Nation’s commitment to covering the issues that mat-
ter, giving space to unconventional news and 
views, takes on even greater urgency.
This special issue, which I have co-edited 
with my valued colleague D.D. Guttenplan, 
our London correspondent, weaves together 
voices from The Nation’s rich history with 
contributors writing about the current cul-
tural and political moment. In three sections 
of archival excerpts, each representing five 
decades of the magazine’s history, we reprint 
some of the best that was thought and said 
in our pages—much of it inspiring and eerily prescient, 
some of it shocking, but all of it fascinating to read. We 
have also included a few selections that turned out to be 
less than prophetic. As we look toward the future, the 
mistakes of our past remind us that taking a principled 
stand often requires running intellectual risks.
Interspersed with the archival excerpts are three sec-
tions of newly commissioned material. In the first, “The 
Nation and the Nation,” writers explore the magazine’s 
surprising influence on everything from poetry to femi-
nism, radicalism to right-wing conservatism, Cuba to 
coverage of the arts. In “Fierce Urgencies,” contributors 
consider topics as pressing today as at any time in the 
last 150 years, including the politics of fear, from anti-
communism in the 1950s to Islamophobia today, and the 
relationship of the left to power—in movements, in elec-
toral politics and in government. Finally, in “Radical Fu-
tures,” Nation writers map out new ideas and strategies 
for radicals, progressives and liberals seeking to expand 
the terms of our public discussion and look beyond the 
present moment. Throughout these sections, we repub-
lish a selection of the most dazzling poetry and art that 
has appeared in our pages, as well as newly commissioned 
work by some of the most exciting artists working today.
Reading through the issue, I was struck by the many 
continuing conversations among Nation contributors, 
the deep correspondences between past and 
present ideas about what it would mean to 
imagine a radically better future. But then 
The Nation’s founding prospectus, 150 years 
ago, called for “a more equal distribution of 
the fruits of progress and civilization.” That 
still seems like a good idea.
This momentous anniversary will also be 
marked by Guttenplan’s spirited new book, 
The Nation: A Biography. Excerpts here lend 
historical context to the issue, and selections 
from the transcript of a recent Nation-sponsored conver-
sation at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black 
Culture point the way toward a revival of the abolition-
ist project that launched this magazine, exploring what it 
might mean to actually finish the work of Reconstruction.
This year also marks my twentieth anniversary as edi-
tor of The Nation. I came to the magazine as an intern at 
the outset of the Reagan years, following in the footsteps 
of remarkable editors like Carey McWilliams, Victor 
Navasky and, of course, Freda Kirchwey—an early femi-
nist, a fiercely principled and early opponent of fascism, 
a determined foe of McCarthyism and an inspiration to 
me—who led the magazine from 1937 to 1955. My two 
decades as editor have coincided with turbulent times, 
both for The Nation and the nation: from the Clinton im-
peachment to the Supreme Court’s selection of George 
There Are Always 
Alternatives
A p r i l  2 0 1 5 
James Agee
Hannah Arendt
Eqbal Ahmad
Ai Weiwei
James Baldwin
Amiri Baraka
Moustafa Bayoumi
Wendell Berry
Kai Bird
Margaret Bourke-
White
Steve Brodner
Noam Chomsky
Alexander Cockburn
Stephen F. Cohen
Sue Coe
Bill de Blasio
Arthur C. Danto
Mychal Denzel Smith
E.L. Doctorow
Ariel Dorfman
Eric Drooker
W.E.B. Du Bois
Barbara Ehrenreich
Albert Einstein
Frances FitzGerald
Eric Foner
Mark Gevisser
Paula J. Giddings
Allen Ginsberg
Milton Glaser
Emma Goldman
Vivian Gornick
William Gropper
Robert Grossman
Clement Greenberg
D.D. Guttenplan
Melissa Harris-Perry
Christopher Hayes
Christopher Hitchens
Langston Hughes
Molly Ivins
Henry James
Martin Luther King Jr.
Freda Kirchwey
Stuart Klawans
Naomi Klein
Andrew Kopkind
Tony Kushner
John Leonard
Penny Lernoux
David Levine
Maria Margaronis
Michael Massing
Carey McWilliams
H.L. Mencken
Edward Miliband
Arthur Miller
Jessica Mitford
Marianne Moore
Michael Moore
Toni Morrison
Ralph Nader
Victor Navasky
Katha Pollitt
Adolph Reed Jr.
Marilynne Robinson
Edward W. Said
Kshama Sawant
Jeremy Scahill
Jonathan Schell
Ben Shahn
Daniel Singer
Rebecca Solnit
Edward Sorel
Art Spiegelman
John Steinbeck
I.F. Stone
Hunter S. Thompson
Tom Tomorrow
Touré
Calvin Trillin
Dalton Trumbo
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Gore Vidal
Alice Walker
Carrie Mae Weems
Edmund White
Amy Wilentz
Patricia J. Williams
William Appleman 
Williams
Ellen Willis
JoAnn Wypijewski
Howard Zinn
1
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04_06 Cover v2.indd   2
3/17/15   11:39 AM
K AT R I N A  VA N D E N  H E U V E L
2
April 6, 2015 
Change is 
inevitable, 
but the one 
constant in 
The Nation’s 
history has 
been a faith 
in what can 
happen if you 
tell people 
the truth. 
✒
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strategy than military intervention—in 1954!
That independence has been one of the keys to The 
Nation’s longevity—and has become ever more impor-
tant in an age when the need for dissident and rebellious 
voices is ever more urgent. Our commitment to provid-
ing a venue for passionate arguments between liberals and 
radicals has instilled in both a deep sense of ownership 
in The Nation—and a stake in its continued survival. Fi-
nally, The Nation’s readiness to fight and refight the same 
battles—a persistence that permeates every page of this 
issue—has inspired a rare and precious devotion among 
our readers. As the great Carey McWilliams once said, “It 
is precisely because The Nation’s backers cared more about 
what it stood for than what it earned that the magazine 
has survived.”
Yet, while i am delighted to honor 
the magazine’s illustrious history, I am 
determined to bring The Nation into the 
twenty-first century. I have worked to 
promote younger writers, appeal to young 
readers, and engage with the issues and social movements 
that inspire the passions of young people. Our country 
and the world are undergoing extraordinary tectonic 
shifts. When it comes to citizen control of government 
or corporate power, we’re in the fight of our lives. These 
times demand that The Nation be ever bolder, willing 
to unshackle our imaginations and ready to think anew. 
The advent of digital publishing and social media offers a 
historic opportunity to reach vastly larger audiences and 
have a greater impact in the world.
But it also represents a challenge. Storytelling and 
opinion are no longer confined to the orderly columns 
of print: videos, infographics, photo essays and real-time 
reporting are now all common journalistic tools. At The 
Nation, we’re committing to embracing this change. One 
measure of our commitment: acclaimed director Barbara 
Kopple’s rollicking documentary Hot Type: 150 Years of 
The Nation will be a key part of our anniversary celebra-
tions around the country. 
On July 6, 2015—exactly 150 years from the debut of 
The Nation’s first issue—we’ll launch a new website, rede-
signed from top to bottom. The reimagined TheNation 
.com is elegant, nimble and innovative, and I believe it 
will ensure that The Nation is more vital than ever for the 
next generation of readers. At the same time, print re-
mains an anchor, an essential part of The Nation’s identity. 
As breaking news continues to migrate online, the print 
edition retains a distinct mission, offering considered 
comment and a more curated opportunity to focus our 
readers’ attention on matters of critical interest.
Change is inevitable, but the one constant in The Na-
tion’s history has been faith—not in political parties or 
policies, but in what can happen when you tell people 
the truth. Our very first issue described “the conflict of 
the ages, the great strife between the few and the many, 
between privilege and equality, between law and power, 
between opinion and the sword.” This anniversary issue is 
a record of the last 150 years of that conflict—and as long 
as The Nation is around, that fight will go on. 
150th
W. Bush in 2000; from September 11 and the invasion of 
Iraq to the revelations of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib 
and elsewhere. Then there was Hurricane Katrina, Amer-
ica’s worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and, 
today, the risk of a new Cold War with Russia.
One of my most important responsibilities has been 
guiding The Nation through periods of strife, from the 
grim days after 9/11 to our early and unwavering opposi-
tion to the Iraq War. Criticizing government policy in 
wartime is not a path to popularity. But I drew on the 
strength of my predecessors, who were also willing to 
take unpopular stances, animated by The Nation’s en-
during principles. There have been electrifying mo-
ments, too: the election of Barack Obama, the first black 
president in our history; and the proliferation of social 
movements at home and abroad, including Occupy Wall 
Street and #BlackLivesMatter. I have never—yet—expe-
rienced a week like the one described in the very first line 
of The Nation’s first issue: “The week has been singularly 
barren of exciting events.”
Instead, the decades have only increased my respect 
for this extraordinary institution and the debates, both 
civil and uncivil, that fill its pages—and now its web 
pages. Our columnists and contributors argue and de-
bate among themselves on matters of principle, politics, 
policy and even morality. 
Through it all, I have my own passions and fixed 
points on my political compass. These include an abid-
ing belief in inside/outside politics—that against en-
trenched injustice, it takes a movement of courageous 
citizens sick and tired of being sick and tired, but also 
principled political leaders with the will and the skill to 
push change through a system designed to impede it. 
They also include the conviction that only an organized 
people can avert the theft of our country by oligarchical 
money and dismantle the rigged system that cheats too 
many working and poor people; that democracy without 
women is not democracy; and that we’d be wise to get 
our own house in order before remaking the globe. And 
while we’re at it, isn’t it high time to craft a politics of 
hope, not of fear? Of true security, not perpetual war?
Above all, I see myself as the steward of an idea that 
has sustained The Nation since its founding: the idea that 
there are always alternatives—in history, in politics, in 
life—that would make our country and the world a more 
humane, just and secure place.
Take racial justice—a commitment that formed part of 
The Nation’s founding purpose in 1865. In this issue, you 
can read James Baldwin’s eloquent, outraged report from 
what in 1966 he called “occupied territory”—meaning 
not the Middle East, but Harlem. His essay has particular 
echoes in our own time, but these same parallels are ap-
parent in our coverage of feminism, of corporate power, 
of anti-imperialism and many other topics. Throughout 
its history, The Nation has challenged the conventional 
wisdom and narrow consensus of our public debate. We 
have repeatedly championed proposals originally labeled 
heretical, only to see them accepted as common sense 
a generation later. For instance, The Nation argued that 
reaching a negotiated solution in Vietnam was a better 
T H E  N A T I O N
1 5 0  Y E A R S
Bryan Stevenson
Cultural Freedom Prize for his  
work on behalf of Alabama’s  
Equal Justice Initiative
2014 
Max Blumenthal
An Especially Notable Book Award  
for Goliath: Life and Loathing in  
Greater Israel (Nation Books, 2013)
David Zirin
Fellowship for his social critique 
through the lens of sports writing  
on football star Jim Brown 
Alexis Bonogofsky  
Fellowship for her efforts to  
build coalitions between  
indigenous groups and ranchers  
to fight coal development in  
southeastern Montana
Steve Erickson
Lifetime Achievement Award for Fiction
Joseph Stroud
Lifetime Achievement Award for Poetry
Claudia Rankine
Award for Poetry
Adrian Matejka
Fellowship for Poetry
Jamaal May
Fellowship for Poetry
Jill McDonough 
Fellowship for Poetry
LITERARY 
Awards & Fellowships
CULTURAL FREEDOM 
Awards & Fellowships
Mitchell S. Jackson
Fellowship for Fiction
www.lannan.org
Lannan Foundation is a family foundation 
dedicated to cultural freedom, diversity, and creativity 
through projects that support exceptional 
contemporary artists and writers, as well as inspired 
Native activists in rural indigenous communities. 
The Foundation recognizes the profound and often 
unquantifiable value of the creative process and 
is willing to take risks and make substantial 
investments in ambitious and experimental thinking. 
Understanding that globalization threatens all 
cultures and ecosystems, the Foundation is 
particularly interested in projects that encourage 
freedom of inquiry, imagination and expression.
AWARDS & FELLOWSHIPS  
T H E  N AT I O N  A N D  T H E  N AT I O N
 38 
 Freedom’s Song 
eric foner 
Illustrated by Steve Brodner
 44 
 Night Thoughts 
 joann wypijewski
 48 
 Going All the Way 
rick perlstein 
Illustrated by Eugène Mihaesco
 52 
 How to Lose Friends  
and Influence People 
elizabeth pochoda
 53 
 The Dream Life of Desire 
ange mlinko
 56 
 Spreading Feminism  
Far and Wide 
betsy reed and katha pollitt 
Illustrated by Frances Jetter
 60 
 Cuba Libre 
peter kornbluh
 64 
 How I Got That Story 
david corn
 67 
 Cruising to Port 
calvin trillin
 68 
 Radical Hope 
maria margaronis
 70 
 Separated at Birth 
ariel dorfman 
Illustrated by Yuko Shimizu
 73 
 Who We Are, Then and Now
D E C A D E S
 20 
 The Nation:  
A Biography Part I  
d.d. guttenplan
 
 1865–1875
 22 
 E.L. Godkin, Henry James, 
John Richard Dennett, 
Frederick Law Olmsted 
 
 1875–1885
 26 
 Lewis Henry Morgan, 
E.L. Godkin
 
 
 1885–1895
 28 
 E.L. Godkin; with a reflec-
tion by Rochelle Gurstein
 
 1895–1905
 32 
 Horace White, Charles 
Sanders Peirce, Bernard 
Berenson, D.M. Means, 
Rollo Ogden; with a reflec-
tion by Elinor Langer
 
 1905–1915
 36 
 Annie R.M. Logan, Oswald 
Garrison Villard, Simeon 
Strunsky; with a reflection 
by Richard Kreitner
 
1 
 editor’s letter 
There Are Always 
Alternatives 
katrina vanden heuvel
 
8 
 Founding  
Prospectus
 10 
 Letters to 
the Editor
 16 
 Beneath  
the Radar 
gary younge
 18 
 The Liberal  
Media  
eric alterman
T H E  N A T I O N
1 5 0  Y E A R S
The Nation. 
since 1865
5
The Nation
F I E R C E  U R G E N C I E S
 108 
 A Sense of Obligation 
An Interview With  
marilynne robinson
 109 
 The Roads Not Taken 
victor navasky
 111 His Master’s Voice 
 
 
Illustration by Victor Juhasz
 112 
 The Left in Power 
walden bello
 116 
 Revisiting “Myths About 
the Middle East” 
kai bird
 119 Drawing the Line 
 
 
Illustration by Art Spiegelman
 120 
 Lesser-Evilism We Can 
Believe In 
michael tomasky
 124 
 Occupy and Organize 
robert l. borosage
 127 
 Weird Bedfellows 
michael sorkin
 128 
 Game Not Over 
helen lewis
 129 All the Right Enemies 
 
 
Illustration by Tom Tomorrow
 132 
 “Why Do They Hate Us?” 
moustafa bayoumi
 134 
 Michael Moore  
for President 
michael moore
D E C A D E S
 74 
 The Nation:  
A Biography Part II  
d.d. guttenplan
 
 1915–1925
 76 
 Roger Nash Baldwin, Floyd 
Dell, Art Young, William 
MacDonald, H.L. Mencken; 
with reflections by Michelle 
Goldberg and Bill de Blasio
 
 1925–1935
 82 
 Zona Gale, William Grop-
per, Langston Hughes, Ben 
Shahn, Oswald Garrison 
Villard, Heywood Broun, 
Paul Y. Anderson, Albert 
Einstein, Emma Gold-
man; with reflections by 
Touré and Vivian Gornick
 
 1935–1945
 90 
 Margaret Bourke-White, 
John Dos Passos, Mar-
garet Marshall, Norman 
Thomas, John Steinbeck, 
Freda Kirchwey, Clem-
ent Greenberg, I.F. Stone
 
 1945–1955
 96 
 Freda Kirchwey, James Agee, 
Hannah Arendt, Jean-Paul 
Sartre, Manny Farber, 
Carey McWilliams, Bernard 
Fall, Ray Bradbury, Oscar 
Berger; with a reflection 
by Frances FitzGerald
 
 1955–1965
 102 
 W.E.B. Du Bois, Ralph 
Nader, Dalton Trumbo, 
Howard Zinn, Harold Clur-
man, Carleton Beals, Jessica 
Mitford; with a reflection 
by Paula J. Giddings
D E C A D E S
 142 
 The Nation:  
A Biography Part III  
d.d. guttenplan
 
 1965–1975
 144 
 Eqbal Ahmad, Wendell Berry, 
Martin Luther King Jr., Rich-
ard A. Cloward and Frances 
Fox Piven, Hunter S. Thomp-
son, James Baldwin; with 
reflections by Wen Stephen-
son and Carrie Mae Weems
 
 1975–1985
 152 
 Orlando Letelier, David 
Levine, Penny Lernoux, 
Edmund White, William 
Appleman Williams, Gore 
Vidal, Daniel Singer, Robert 
Grossman, Barbara Ehren-
reich, E.P. Thompson; with a 
reflection by Greg Grandin
 
 1985–1995
 160 
 Christopher Hitchens, Ai 
Weiwei, John Leonard, 
Andrew Kopkind, Alexander 
Cockburn, Alice Walker, 
Edward Miliband, Katha 
Pollitt, Tony Kushner, Adolph 
Reed Jr., Sue Coe, Robert 
Sherrill, Arthur Miller
 
 1995–2005
 168 
 Edward W. Said, Edward 
Sorel, Marshall Berman, Mark 
Hertsgaard, Arthur C. Danto, 
Jonathan Schell, Ellen Willis, 
Molly Ivins, William Greider
 
 2005–2015
 176 
 Naomi Klein, Jeremy 
Scahill, Patricia J. Williams, 
Tom Tomorrow, Richard 
Kim, Melissa Harris-Perry, 
Christopher Hayes, Laila 
Lalami, Stephen F. Cohen
6
April 6, 2015 
 224 
 Aiming Higher: 
Make College  
Tuition Free 
jon wiener
 226 
 The Big Fix 
thomas geoghegan 
Illustrated by Sue Coe
 230 
 Haiti: The Devil’s 
Bargain 
amy wilentz
 233 
 Engendered:  
Beyond the Binary 
mark gevisser
 
 
 
B AC K  TA L K
 138 
 Toward a Third  
Reconstruction  
A forum at the Schomburg 
Center for Research in 
Black Culture
 
 
 Eric Foner, Khalil Gibran 
Muhammad, Darryl Pinckney, 
Mychal Denzel Smith, Isabel 
Wilkerson, Patricia J. Wil-
liams, Katrina vanden Heuvel
 246 
 Why We  
Can’t Wait 
StudentNation writers 
and former interns  
discuss a radical future
 251 
 Contributors 
to This Issue
             P O E M S
  41 
 Robert Frost
  46 
 Sylvia Plath
  59 
 Frank O’Hara
 115 
 William Butler Yeats
 125 
 W.H. Auden
 186 
 Claude McKay
 196 
 John Berryman
 202 
 Allen Ginsberg 
 204 
 Wallace Stevens
 214 
 Adrienne Rich
 220 
 Anne Sexton
 223 
 LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka)
 229 
 Elizabeth Bishop
 248 
 William Carlos Williams
 249 
 Marianne Moore
 250 
 Mahmoud Darwish
R A D I C A L  F U T U R E S
 184 
 No Place for Self-Pity,  
No Room for Fear 
toni morrison
 185 
 Unpredictable Weather 
rebecca solnit 
Illustrated by Eric Drooker
 188 
 Beginning to See  
the Light 
jack o’dell
 190 
 Saving the Commons 
noam chomsky 
Illustrated by Milton Glaser
 194 
 Traces of Light 
stuart klawans
 198 
 Following the Sound 
gene seymour
 200  Skin in the Game 
dave zirin
 201 
 Home 
e.l. doctorow 
Illustrated by Mirko Ilic
 206 
 Productive  
Democracy 
joel rogers
 210 
 We Built This City 
kshama sawant
 212 
 An Investigative  
Blueprint 
michael massing 
Illustrated by Marshall Arisman
 218 
 Privacy 2.0: 
Surveillance in  
the Digital State 
david cole
 221 
 Move to Amend 
john nichols
 222 
 A Red by Any  
Other Name 
bhaskar sunkara
VOLUME 300, NUMBER 14, 
April 6, 2015
The digital version of this issue is  
available to all subscribers March 23 
at TheNation.com. 
Cover art © Jasper Johns/
Licensed by VAGA. 
New York, NY
Jasper Johns (b. 1930). 
Three Flags, 1958. En-
caustic on canvas,
30 5/8 x 45 1/2 x 4 5/8 in.  
(77 .8 x 115.6 x 11.7 cm). 
Whitney Museum of 
American Art,
New York; purchased with 
funds from the Gilman 
Foundation Inc., the Lauder
Foundation, A. Alfred 
Taubman, Laura Lee 
Whittier Woods, How-
ard Lipman and Ed
Downe, in honor of the muse-
um’s fiftieth anniversary 80.32
Digital lmage © Whitney 
Museum of American Art, NY
T H E  N A T I O N
1 5 0  Y E A R S
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8
April 6, 2015 
Founding Prospectus
Copies of this mission statement were distributed to potential donors, subscribers and  
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This version appeared as an advertisement in The Elevator, a black newspaper in San Francisco.
A Message From President Barack Obama
I n an era of instant, 140-character news cycles and reflexive toeing of the party line, it’s incredible to think of the 150-year 
history of The Nation. It’s more than a magazine—it’s a crucible of ideas forged in the time of Emancipation, tempered 
through depression and war and the civil-rights movement, and honed as sharp and relevant as ever in an age of breathtak-
ing technological and economic change. Through it all, The Nation has exhibited that great American tradition of expanding our 
moral imaginations, stoking vigorous dissent, and simply taking the time to think through our country’s challenges anew.
If I agreed with everything written in any given issue of the magazine, it would only mean that you are not doing your jobs. But 
whether it is your commitment to a fair shot for working Americans, or equality for all Americans, it is heartening to know that an 
American institution dedicated to provocative, reasoned debate and reflection in pursuit of those ideals can continue to thrive.
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April 28, 1910
Sirs: I do not need to tell you that the 
reports of my recent address in Pittsburgh 
have, by piecemeal quotation, conveyed 
an entirely false impression. You yourself 
have made allowance for this distortion 
in your kind editorial of this week. I can 
only assure you, therefore, that I entirely 
agree with the views of your editorial. It 
would be inexcusable for any man respon-
sible for the administration of a university 
to overlook the value of culture and of 
all that quiet and deeper development of 
the mind which displays itself in personal 
poise, in quiet insight, in the finer forms 
of intellectual power, rather than in public 
service and material achievement.
I beg that you will not believe that 
because I seem incapable of stating more 
than one side of a question in any one 
speech, I do not know and appreciate the 
other side.
Woodrow Wilson
princeton university 
August 24, 1921
My Dear Mr. Shaw:
I understand a number of friends are 
writing to you and urging you to come to 
the United States. May I say how grati-
fied we of The Nation would be should you 
come to us?
Yours very sincerely,
Oswald Garrison Villard
Dear Mr. Villard:
This conspiracy has been going on 
for years; but in vain is the net spread in 
sight of the bird. I have no intention ei-
ther of going to prison with Debs or tak-
ing my wife to Texas, where the Ku Klux 
Klan snatches white women out of hotel 
verandas and tars and feathers them. If 
I were dependent on martyrdom for a 
reputation, which happily I am not, I 
could go to Ireland. It is a less dangerous 
place; but then the voyage is shorter and 
much cheaper.
You are right in your impression that a 
number of persons are urging me to come 
to the United States. But why on earth do 
you call them my friends?
G. Bernard Shaw
March 2, 1932
Sir: I have been a subscriber to The Nation 
most of the time from its beginning until 
now. I read its very first issue, and was so 
delighted with its fine spirit, its splendid 
forward look, its scholarship, its daring, 
and the brilliant pen of Mr. Godkin, its 
editor, that I subscribed at once. I was 
then a student at the University of Chi-
cago, and I conceived the idea of organiz-
ing a Nation club. We met every Thursday 
evening to discuss the last number of The 
Nation, all the members being pledged 
to read it before the meeting. We soon 
became enthusiastic. To spend an evening 
each week, with a company of alert and 
eager minds, thinking about, digging into, 
criticizing, weighing, trying to form intel-
ligent judgments on such living, vital mat-
ters was a new and amazingly stimulating 
kind of education.
Mr. Editor, I venture to inquire 
whether there ought not to be such clubs 
all over the land. Ten thousand would 
in ten years revolutionize the country’s 
thinking and give us a new America.
J.T. Sunderland
ann arbor, mich.
April 4, 1959
Dear Sirs: [Nelson] Algren would have 
been a lot more sympathetic to our work in 
Chicago if he’d attended our reading and 
not taken his information from expurgated 
radio tapes, local newspaper crap and Time. 
None of us lisps. What fairy he been talk-
ing to?
Gregory Corso, in respect to Shelley
Allen Ginsberg, in the name of Myakovsky
Peter Orlovsky, heart felt with 
the beauty of Sergei Esenin
July 9, 1960
Dear Sirs: It is difficult to comment on 
Robert Spivack’s article, “How Modern Is 
Republicanism?,” because Mr. Spivack ob-
viously doesn’t understand the basic tenets 
of the Republican Party. I think Republi-
canism today is modern. It has provided 
civil rights, the greatest armed might in the 
history of the country, a return to fiscal re-
sponsibility, and a recognition that central-
ized government, with its attendant power, 
is the ultimate evil to all freedoms. That 
power is the one thing that the Spivacks of 
the country fail to take into consideration 
as they proclaim themselves for more and 
more government spending and control.
Barry Goldwater
US Senator (Ariz.)
January 1, 1968
Dear Sirs: Professor Toch asks: What 
have the hippies contributed to soci-
ety? The answer is that they have at 
least contributed a little color, a little 
gaiety and humor, a little greater sense 
of freedom, to our dreary, ugly and 
murderous industrial culture. Have 
professors of psychology, with their 
salaries of $10,000 or $15,000 a year, 
contributed as much? Half as much? 
Anything at all?
Edward Abbey 
tucson, ariz. 
August 5, 1978
If I was doing my act I would say that I 
deserve all those marvelous things you 
said about me in your editorial [“Mu-
hammad Ali for Congress”]. But seri-
ously I am extremely flattered by your 
appraisal of me. You sure done your 
homework and covered all the bases. 
It ain’t often that I am quoted so ac-
curately. But to get down to the nubbin, 
I ain’t interested in politics. I mean like 
running for office. I’m a world man. My 
fellow man is not just an American and 
my race is the human race. I’m shook up 
when I see a child that is going hungry 
or a mother who is without medical at-
tention. These are the things I’m inter-
ested in. And of course peace. Peace for 
all men and all nations at all times.
Muhammad Ali
new york city
Letters
@thenation.com
Letters are condensed. Go to thenation.com/archive.
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Letters
@thenation.com
February 13, 1989
It’s right to recommend 
Mississippi Burning [“Films,” 
Stuart Klawans]. It is a 
thoroughly engrossing, well-
acted drama that reminds us 
that legal segregation (apart-
heid) existed in our country 
in the not-so-distant past. 
Also, it correctly informs us 
that in the 1960s, as it had 
been since Reconstruction, 
the Klan’s reign of terror 
was supported and often 
joined by local law enforce-
ment officials and politi-
cians. But Mississippi Burning 
has numerous and at times 
baffling distortions.
Blacks are only background 
material. There is only the 
barest suggestion that a move-
ment is going on throughout 
the state to tear down segrega-
tion. Movement songs, the 
beautiful spiritual armor of 
that nonviolent struggle, are 
badly short-changed. Chaney, 
Goodman and Schwerner 
were serious civil rights orga-
nizers; but what they did, what 
the movement was about, are 
completely neglected.
For anyone who lived 
through the period (I was in 
Mississippi and Georgia then), 
the idea that the F.B.I. brought 
an end to a segregated South 
is about as ludicrous as say-
ing that noble elements inside 
the Joint Chiefs of Staff were 
responsible for ending the war 
in Vietnam.
Somehow Hollywood finds 
a way to use even controversial 
history to prove “the system 
works.” The excuse that “we’re 
only making a movie” is hardly 
enough to account for all this.
Abbie Hoffman 
solebury, penn.
September 30, 1991
My girlfriend just told me to 
leave. I’m sitting outside on 
our kitchen roof (the dog-
house) here in Louisville. 
And it’s hot as hell up here. 
I’ve thought about this letter 
for a long time now.
My dad started getting 
The Nation in 1988. That 
was the year I went to col-
lege, and many times he sent 
me Xeroxed articles, mostly 
from your newspaper. I knew 
nothing of The Nation, and 
up to then my father had 
had no connections with any 
news sources other than the 
usual media. I don’t know 
what prompted him to start 
exploring. He can write you 
all a letter about that. I am 
here to tell you about the 
impact The Nation has had 
on our lives.
My dad has changed from 
a man somewhat imprisoned 
by himself and his sphere of 
relations and responsibili-
ties into a man of the world, 
shackled to history but with 
an overview and a position. 
And like most things in my 
dad’s life, it has not come easy. 
A gift bearing the burden of 
responsibility. He has passed 
the burden down to me.
Not to say that your 
newspaper has been solely 
responsible for this growth in 
his or my life, but it has been 
an important attribute. When 
running against the tide of 
fear, indifference and loss, 
knowing you have comrades is 
especially good. And once one 
can look beyond self out into 
the world, he or she would be 
wise to take along a subscrip-
tion to The Nation. In your 
pages, as in my heart, there is 
faith, belief in good and bad, 
and a desire for betterment.
Also, if where I am now 
becomes my regular resting 
place, old issues might be 
crumpled up and used for 
padding.
J. Britt Walford
louisville, ky.
150 years ago... The Nation magazine publishes its first issue • 
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• Congress passes the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery • Robert 
E. Lee is named Commander-in-Chief of Confederate Armies • Martin 
Robison Delany is appointed the first black major in the US Army 
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Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated for his 2nd term as US president 
and subsequently assassinated • W.G. Grace makes his cricketing  
debut • Wild Bill Hickok shoots Davis Tutt in the first Western 
showdown • the steamboat SS Sultana explodes in the Mississippi 
River, killing more than 1,700 passengers • Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s 
Adventures in Wonderland and Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend 
are first published • the Ku Klux Klan is founded by Confederate 
veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee • Francis Galton,  inventor of the silent  
dog whistle, introduces eugenics • Rudyard Kipling is born • and  
OR Books, proud partners in the Nation’s superb e-book program, 
is just 145 years away from publishing its first title, the NY Times 
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April 6, 2015 
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To the editors of The Nation  
from the editors of Lapham’s Quarterly:
Your splendid 150th  
anniversary issue comes  
bearing voices in time that  
bring life to the mind, warmth  
to the heart, meaning to America’s  
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You take up the weapon  
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We thank you.
VOLUME V
II, NUMBE
R 2                 
                       
                       
                       
  SPRING 20
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NS
DEATH
VOLUME VI, NUMBER 4
                                                   
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L 2013 
SWINDLE & FRAUD
VOLUME VIII, NUMBER 2                                                                                      SPRING 2015
The Nation.
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T H E  N A T I O N 
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The Nation.
16
 April 6, 2015
In the wake of the deaths of Mike Brown and Eric Gar-
ner, Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly had some advice for 
black America: “Don’t abandon your children. Don’t 
get pregnant at 14. Don’t allow your neighborhoods to 
deteriorate into free-fire zones. That’s what the African-
American community should have on their T-shirts.” (That’s 
either a very big garment or very small lettering.)
Whenever black kids get shot, black parents get lectured 
about personal responsibility. If you raised your kids better, 
goes the conservative logic, we wouldn’t have to shoot them. 
Arguments about systemic discrimination and racist legacies are 
derided as liberal excuses for bad behavior. Neither history nor 
economics nor politics made Mike Brown grab Dar-
ren Wilson’s gun—that was his choice. Individuals, 
we are told, are responsible for their own actions and 
must be held accountable for them. 
The vehemence with which this principle is held 
is eclipsed only by the speed with which it is aban-
doned when it becomes inconvenient. Discussions 
about choices and accountability change tenor when 
we shift from talking about the black and the poor to 
the powerful and well-connected. 
The release of the Senate’s torture report in December re-
vealed far more extensive and brutal interrogation techniques 
than had been admitted previously, and it also confirmed that 
the CIA had lied to Congress, the White House and the media. 
This didn’t happen by itself. To take just one example, someone 
or some persons had to purée a mixture of hummus, pasta with 
sauce, nuts and raisins; pour it into a tube; forcibly bend Majid 
Khan over; shove the tube up his anus and then “let gravity do 
the work.” And then they lied about it. The report showed with-
out question that American interrogators were operating outside 
both domestic and international law. And yet none have been 
arrested and charged, let alone prosecuted. 
Similarly, millions of Americans and many foreign lead-
ers were spied upon by the NSA. A federal judge has ruled 
such actions unconstitutional. But metadata does not collect 
itself; instead, its collection was both ordered and executed by 
people who then lied about it until they were exposed. Not a 
single person has been held responsible. I have yet to hear Bill 
O’Reilly custom-design a T-shirt for those people.
Indeed, the only known arrests in these cases have been of 
those who exposed the crimes. Edward Snowden is on the run; 
Chelsea Manning—the source for WikiLeaks, which showed the 
US military killing innocents and laughing about it—is in jail; 
John Kiriakou, who blew the whistle on waterboarding, is out 
of jail but still under house arrest. The crime, it seems, is not to 
break the law but to report the infraction.
The point here is not to demand the slaughter of a scapegoat. 
All of the incidents above were underpinned by shortcomings 
that are fundamentally systemic and must be addressed. But it 
is difficult to see how that can happen in the future if nobody 
pays a penalty now for past wrongdoing. The moral hazard in 
failing to hold people to account is self-evident: it sets a bad 
example. Black kids aren’t the only ones who need role models.
But then the Manichaean reasoning of the right was always 
bogus. Holding people responsible for their actions does not 
contradict the notion that those actions have a context—just 
because we have free will, it does not follow that we have free 
rein. So when the left argues that problems are structural, we 
do not mean that individuals should not be held to 
account, but that without also holding accountable 
the institutions that made their actions possible, one 
merely changes the players, not the game. 
Which brings us back to those Bill O’Reilly T-
shirts. The federal investigations into Ferguson lay 
bare a corrupt, racist  kleptocracy in which police 
harassed African-Americans with impunity, stuff-
ing the city’s coffers with their money and its jails 
with their bodies. But when officials or their friends 
broke the law, they had no problem pardoning themselves. 
“Don’t steal, cheat, harass or discriminate”: that’s what these 
white people should have on their T-shirts. 
This was the system that killed Mike Brown and produced 
his killer. The Justice Department found no evidence to pros-
ecute Darren Wilson, but ample 
evidence to incriminate the Fergu-
son police and the broader criminal-
justice system. As of this writing, 
the county clerk has been fired, the 
city manager has “parted ways,” and 
two police officers, the municipal 
judge and the chief of police have 
resigned. Wilson, it appears, was the 
only incorruptible man in the city. 
Nobody has been charged. The law 
apparently does not apply to them.
“Where all are guilty, no one is,” 
argued the political theorist Han-
nah Arendt. “Confessions of collective guilt are the best possible 
safeguard against the discovery of culprits, and the very magni-
tude of the crime the best excuse for doing nothing.”
Welcome to Ferguson, where Mike Brown allegedly stole 
cigarillos and is dead, while the members of the white power 
structure stole an entire civic apparatus and the constitutional 
rights of black residents but remain at their desks. 
150th
Nobody in 
 Ferguson’s white 
power structure 
has been charged 
with a crime. The 
law apparently 
does not apply to 
them.
Irresponsible Power 
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Gary Younge
Accountability isn’t only for black people. 
 
president 
secretary-treasurer  
executive vice president
Randi Weingarten 
Lorretta Johnson 
Mary Cathryn Ricker
The American Federation of Teachers is a union of 1.6 million professionals that champions fairness; democracy;  
economic opportunity; and high-quality public education, healthcare and public services for our students, their families  
and our communities. We are committed to advancing these principles through community engagement, organizing,  
collective bargaining and political activism, and especially through the work our members do.
150
LET’S CELEBRATE!
Congratulations 
to The Nation on 150 years of connecting thinkers,  
doers and the most forward-looking writers of their time. 
YEARS
The Nation.
18
A 
week before his 2009 inauguration, President-
elect Barack Obama chose as his first high- 
profile social engagement a dinner party at 
George Will’s house, where he was joined by 
William Kristol, Charles Krauthammer and 
David Brooks. Obama no doubt intended to demonstrate his 
desire to reach across the ideological divide and engage his 
neoconservative critics in a healthy debate. Conservatives saw 
a president they could roll.
Part of the problem was Obama’s misplaced confidence that 
he could heal the divisions forged in the Bush era. A second 
complication arose from his unique position as the first African-
American president. But the fundamental problem 
was a much deeper one that, in retrospect, has come 
to define US politics in the Obama era and remains 
the greatest obstacle to liberal progress.
The primary difference between liberalism and 
conservatism, at least in theory, is that the latter is 
an ideology and the former isn’t. Conservatism, as 
Milton Friedman argued, posits that “freedom in 
economic arrangements is itself a component of 
freedom broadly understood, so economic free-
dom is an end in itself.” Liberalism, however, as Lionel Tril- 
ling observed, “is a large tendency rather than a concise body 
of doctrine.” And while John Kenneth Galbraith helpfully 
pointed out that only those programs and policies that honor 
“the emancipation of belief” are worthy of the term, liberal-
ism, at bottom, is pragmatism. Conservatives desire low taxes 
and small government because this is how they define freedom. 
They like to pretend that liberals prefer the opposite in both 
cases, but the truth is that liberals are OK with whatever works.
Our political dysfunction has many sources, but one way 
to describe our problem is this: we have allowed conserva-
tives to define the terms of debate at a time when conserva-
tives have lost all sense of moral, intellectual and especially 
practical responsibility.
In The Liberal Imagination, Trilling famously complained 
that he could find “no conservative or reactionary ideas in 
general circulation.” What we had instead were “irritable 
mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.” Conservatives 
subsequently invested a great deal of money to address this 
problem, and the result was the rise of a bevy of right-wing 
intellectuals—Friedman, James Q. Wilson, Alan Bloom and 
 Gertrude Himmelfarb among them—able to offer arguments 
that liberals ignored at their peril.
Today, however, we have no such figures and nothing re-
sembling challenging ideas. Will, undoubtedly America’s most 
prominent conservative intellectual, thinks that rape victims 
enjoy their “privileges,” that Ebola can be spread through the 
air, and that global warming is a hoax. Faced with the fact that 
97 percent of climatologists have formed a scientific consensus 
about man-made climate change, he responded, “Where did that 
figure come from? They pluck these things from the ether”—as 
if his own purposeful ignorance were a counter to empirical data.
Conservative “wise man” Bill Kristol has achieved this status 
by proving himself, time and again, to be the worst predictor in 
the history of the punditocracy. Kristol recently summed up his 
political philosophy in a debate about US policy in the Middle 
East with Laura Ingraham—herself a symbol of the decline of 
conservative thought—by asking, “What’s the harm of bomb-
ing them at least for a few weeks and seeing what 
happens?” Charles Krauthammer’s analyses evince 
a similarly reflexive belligerence, while David 
Brooks, believe it or not, is too liberal to qualify.
Why do such smart guys say such stupid things? 
The answer lies in the locus of power in today’s 
conservative movement. The Koch brothers make 
billions off the exploitation of carbon-producing 
fossil fuels, while donating more than $67 mil-
lion to groups that deny the destruction it causes. 
This is to say nothing of the nearly $900 million they plan to 
raise for the Republican presidential nominee in 2016. Casino 
magnate Sheldon Adelson, who handed out $150 million to 
the Republicans and related groups during the 2012 elec-
tion cycle, believes the United States should drop an atomic 
bomb in the Iranian desert and say: 
“See! The next one is in the middle 
of Tehran.” Media mogul Rupert 
 Murdoch thinks all the world’s 
Muslims should be “held respon-
sible” for “their growing jihadist 
cancer.” His networks and news-
papers spread the idiotic calumny 
that the president is a secret Mus-
lim and an undocumented alien 
who hates all white people (includ-
ing, apparently, his own mother).
Today’s conservative intellec-
tuals aren’t even bothering to offer 
“irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.” In-
stead, they’re making calculated attempts to undermine our 
democracy, exploiting and manipulating a public that has 
decreasing resources for the kind of reliable information that 
would lead to a pragmatic “liberal” response. It’s time we 
woke up to that reality while we still have a country—and a 
planet—left to save. 
150th
Liberals have  
let conservatives 
define the terms 
of debate at  
a time when  
conservatives 
have lost all sense 
of responsibility.
A Wake-Up Call for US Liberals
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Eric Alterman
The state of conservative intellectual debate demonstrates the power of movement crazies.
 April 6, 2015
Congratulations to  
The Nation on your  
150th anniversary
Member FDIC. 
© 2015 Amalgamated Bank. All rights reserved. 
amalgamatedbank.com
Thank you for steadfastly carrying the torch of 
progressive journalism. We are proud to share 
The Nation’s and Katrina vanden Heuvel’s deep 
commitment to the important fight for social 
and economic justice.
–  Keith Mestrich, President & CEO
20
April 6, 2015 
n june 25, 1863, as confederate 
forces fought their way north toward Gettysburg, a group of wealthy New 
Yorkers gathered at the Union League Club on 17th Street to hear a pitch. 
The speaker, journalist and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, 
laid out a “dream of an honest weekly paper.” The idea was to aim not 
for a large circulation, but for a select, influential readership. By the end 
of the evening, Olmsted had his first thousand dollars. By the end of the 
week, he had trustees, a fundraising committee and an editor: his friend 
E.L. Godkin, an Anglo-Irish journalist who had covered the Crimean War 
and toured the American South (inspired by Olmsted’s own writings). “The 
thing starts so favorably,” Olmsted wrote to his wife, “I shall go into it 
strong, meaning to succeed.”
But Olmsted was impulsive, and when an offer came that August to man-
other causes, Garrison proposed that the American 
Anti-Slavery Society, which he had founded, should 
be dissolved. But Wendell Phillips, who had joined 
the movement after rescuing Garrison from a Boston 
lynch mob thirty years earlier, disagreed, and a bitter 
power struggle ensued.
It was in the midst of this battle for the future, and 
legacy, of the abolitionist movement that James Miller 
McKim, a Philadelphia activist with friends in both 
camps, determined to start a national weekly to con-
tinue the work of The Liberator “on a broader ground.” 
McKim soon had his funding, as well as a name for the 
new magazine: The Nation. Now he needed a staff. Nor-
ton, of course, knew about Godkin’s interest in start-
ing his own weekly, and after getting him to recant his 
skepticism about black male suffrage—his suggestion 
that freedmen should have to earn a living for ten years 
before voting was hardly a position that would appeal to 
The Nation’s backers—Norton recommended Godkin to 
his friend McKim.
“N o. i is afloat,” godkin wrote to nor-
ton on July 5, 1865, “and the tranquility 
which still reigns in this city, under the 
circumstances, I confess amazes me.” 
“The political complexion of The Nation is not at 
all doubtful,” sniffed The New York Times in a review 
of the first issue. Radical on all questions regarding the 
freed slaves, the magazine viewed the Civil War’s end 
as a triumph not just for the Union, but for “demo-
cratic principles everywhere.” Nor did The Nation have 
a great deal of sympathy for the defeated slaveholders. 
“However much opposed we may be to political ven-
geance,” the editors wrote, “there is nobody who will 
deny that men who have made themselves conspicuous 
in instigating an appeal from the ballot to the sword 
age an enormous gold mine in California, he turned 
“The Paper,” as they still called it, over to Godkin, along 
with a letter of introduction to Charles Eliot Norton, 
editor of The North American Review. Godkin met with 
Norton and received encouragement, but not invest-
ment, so he gave up.
In April 1865, Godkin wrote to Olmsted to con-
gratulate him on “the great events of the last fortnight.” 
Lee’s surrender at Appomattox had left him “dumfoun-
dered,” and though he was thrilled by the Union vic-
tory, “I confess I should be very anxious about the terms 
of reconstruction, if Lincoln were not to be president 
for the next four years.” The letter was dated April 
12, and long before it reached California, Lincoln was 
dead. Yet even as the nation was binding up its wounds 
and mourning the slain emancipator, the prospect of 
victory was tearing the abolitionist movement apart.
The question was whether the Thirteenth Amend-
ment, in decreeing the end of slavery, also meant the 
abolitionists’ work was done. William Lloyd Garrison, 
editor of The Liberator, thought it was. Declaring “my 
vocation as an Abolitionist, thank God, is ended,” and 
wishing to devote himself to women’s suffrage and 
O
Founded by abolitionists to finish the job  
of Emancipation, The Nation became a 
moribund defender of the status quo. But its 
firm anti-imperialism, and one crusading 
editor, brought it back to life.
D. D.  G U T T E N P L A N 
1865-1915
THE  NAT ION :  A  B IOGRAPHY
T H E  N A T I O N
1 5 0  Y E A R S
Excerpts from The 
Nation: A Biography, 
available as an 
e-book or paperback 
at www.thenation 
.com/ebooks.
21
The Nation
can railroads, eventually taking control of the Northern 
Pacific. With Godkin as one of his front men, Villard 
bought the New-York Evening Post as a vehicle for his 
interests. But Godkin came at a price: in addition to 
being named one of the editors, Godkin demanded that 
Villard also buy The Nation, leaving the new owner’s 
brother-in-law (and Godkin’s longtime underling), 
W.P. Garrison, in nominal charge.
I n the 1890s, the nation picked a fight with 
the whole country—indeed, with the whole trend 
of contemporary American foreign policy. The 
roots of the magazine’s opposition to America becom-
ing a global empire are as tangled as the history of 
American anti-imperialism. Though many of those who 
opposed America’s wars did so for the reasons cited by 
Henry David Thoreau in “Civil Disobedience,” there 
had also always been a less high-minded reluctance to 
get entangled in the affairs of darker, non-European 
peoples—especially if they might then become Ameri-
can citizens. Nothing but trouble, The Nation warned 
in 1898, would come from “dependencies inhabited by 
ignorant and inferior races” with whom A</p>