Volume I Part 2 (1/2)

Everything great in North Carolina, Page declared, belonged to a vanished generation. ”Our great lawyers, great judges, great editors, are all of the past. . . . In the general intelligence of the people, in intellectual force and in cultivation, we are doing nothing. We are not doing or getting more liberal ideas, a broader view of this world. . . .

The presumptuous powers of ignorance, heredity, decayed respectability and stagnation that control public action and public expression are absolutely leading us back intellectually.”

But Page did more than berate the mummified aristocracy which, he declared, was driving the best talent and initiative from the state; he was not the only man in Raleigh who expressed these unpopular views; at that time, indeed, he was the centre and inspiration of a group of young progressive spirits who held frequent meetings to devise ways of starting the state on the road to a new existence. Page then, as always, exercised a great fascination over young men. The apparently merciless character of his ridicule might at first convey the idea of intolerance; the fact remains, however, that he was the most tolerant of men; he was almost deferential to the opinions of others, even the shallow and the inexperienced; and nothing delighted him more than an animated discussion. His liveliness of spirits, his mental and physical vitality, the constant sparkle of his talk, the sharp edge of his humour, naturally drew the younger men to his side. The result was the organization of the Wautauga Club, a gathering which held monthly meetings for the discussion of ways and means of improving social and educational conditions in North Carolina. The very name gives the key to its mental outlook. The Wautauga colony was one of the last founded in North Carolina--in the extreme west, on a plateau of the Great Smoky Mountains; it was always famous for the energy and independence of its people. The word ”Wautauga” therefore suggested the breaker of tradition; and it provided a stimulating name for Page's group of young spiritual and economic pathfinders. The Wautauga Club had a brief existence of a little more than two years, the period practically covering Page's residence in the state; but its influence is an important fact at the present time. It gave the state ideas that afterward caused something like a revolution in its economic and educational status. The n.o.blest monument to its labours is the State College in Raleigh, an inst.i.tution which now has more than a thousand students, for the most part studying the mechanic arts and scientific agriculture. To this one college most North Carolinians to-day attribute the fact that their state in appreciable measure is realizing its great economic and industrial opportunities. From it in the last thirty years thousands of young men have gone: in all sections of the commonwealth they have caused the almost barren acres to yield fertile and diversified crops; they have planted everywhere new industries; they have unfolded unsuspected resources and everywhere created wealth and spread enlightenment. This inst.i.tution is a direct outcome of Page's brief sojourn in his native state nearly forty years ago. The idea originated in his brain; the files of the _State Chronicle_ tell the story of his struggle in its behalf; the activities of the Wautauga Club were largely concentrated upon securing its establishment.

The State College was a great victory for Page, but final success did not come until three years after he had left the state. For a year and a half of hard newspaper work convinced Page that North Carolina really had no permanent place for him. The _Chronicle_ was editorially a success: Page's articles were widely quoted, not only in his own state but in New England and other parts of the Union. He succeeded in stirring up North Carolina and the South generally, but popular support for the _Chronicle_ was not forthcoming in sufficient amount to make the paper a commercial possibility. Reluctantly and sadly Page had to forego his hope of playing an active part in rescuing his state from the disasters of the Civil War. Late in the summer of 1885, he again left for the North, which now became his permanent home.

III

And with this second sojourn in New York Page's opportunity came. The first two years he spent in newspaper work, for the most part with the _Evening Post_, but, one day in November, 1887, a man whom he had never seen came into his office and unfolded a new opportunity. Two years before a rather miscellaneous group had launched an ambitious literary undertaking. This was a monthly periodical, which, it was hoped, would do for the United States what such publications as the _Fortnightly_ and the _Contemporary_ were doing for England. The magazine was to have the highest literary quality and to be sufficiently dignified to attract the finest minds in America as contributors; its purpose was to exercise a profound influence in politics, literature, science, and art. The projectors had selected for this publication a t.i.tle that was almost perfection--the _Forum_--but which, after nearly two years'

experimentation, represented about the limit of their achievement. The _Forum_ had hardly made an impression on public thought and had attracted very few readers, although it had lost large sums of money for its progenitors. These public-spirited gentlemen now turned to Page as the man who might rescue them from their dilemma and achieve their purpose. He accepted the engagement, first as manager and presently as editor, and remained the guiding spirit of the _Forum_ for eight years, until the summer of 1895.

That the success of a publication is the success of its editors, and not of its business managers and its ”backers,” is a truth that ought to be generally apparent; never has this fact been so eloquently ill.u.s.trated as in the case of the _Forum_ under Page. Before his accession it had had not the slightest importance; for the period of his editors.h.i.+p it is doubtful if any review published in English exercised so great an influence, and certainly none ever obtained so large a circulation. From almost nothing the _Forum_, in two or three years, attracted 30,000 subscribers--something without precedent for a publication of this character. It had accomplished this great result simply because of the vitality and interest of its contents. The period covered was an important one, in the United States and Europe; it was the time of Cleveland's second administration in this country, and of Gladstone's fourth administration in England; it was a time of great controversy and of a growing interest in science, education, social reform and a better political order. All these great matters were reflected in the pages of the _Forum_, whose list of contributors contained the most distinguished names in all countries. Its purpose, as Page explained it, was ”to provoke discussion about subjects of contemporary interest, in which the magazine is not a partisan, but merely the instrument.” In the highest sense, that is, its purpose was journalistic; practically everything that it printed was related to the thought and the action of the time.

So insistent was Page on this programme that his pages were not ”closed”

until a week before the day of issue. Though the _Forum_ dealt constantly in controversial subjects it never did so in a narrow-minded spirit; it was always ready to hear both sides of a question and the magazine ”debate,” in which opposing writers handled vigorously the same theme, was a constant feature.

Page, indeed, represented a new type of editor. Up to that time this functionary had been a rather solemn, inaccessible high priest; he sat secluded in his sanctuary, and weeded out from the ma.s.s of ma.n.u.scripts dumped upon his desk the particular selections which seemed to be most suited to his purpose. To solicit contributions would have seemed an entirely undignified proceeding; in all cases contributors must come to him. According to Page, however, ”an editor must know men and be out among men.” His system of ”making up” the magazine at first somewhat astounded his a.s.sociates. A month or two in advance of publication day he would draw up his table of contents. This, in its preliminary stage, amounted to nothing except a list of the main subjects which he aspired to handle in that number. It was a hope, not a performance. The subjects were commonly suggested by the happenings of the time--an especially outrageous lynching, the trial of a clergyman for heresy, a new attack upon the Monroe Doctrine, the discovery of a new substance such as radium, the publication of an epoch-making book. Page would then fix upon the inevitable men who could write most readably and most authoritatively upon these topics, and ”go after” them. Sometimes he would write one of his matchless editorial letters; at other times he would make a personal visit; if necessary, he would use any available friends in a wire-pulling campaign. At all odds he must ”get” his man; once he had fixed upon a certain contributor nothing could divert him from the chase. Nor did the negotiations cease after he had ”landed” his quarry. He had his way of discussing the subject with his proposed writer, and he discussed it from every possible point of view. He would take him to lunch or to dinner; in his quiet way he would draw him out, find whether he really knew much about the subject, learn the att.i.tude that he was likely to take, and delicately slip in suggestions of his own. Not infrequently this preliminary interview would disclose that the much sought writer, despite appearances, was not the one who was destined for that particular job; in this case Page would find some way of shunting him in favour of a more promising candidate. But Page was no mere chaser of names; there was nothing of the literary tuft-hunter about his editorial methods. He liked to see such men as Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, William Graham Sumner, Charles W. Eliot, Frederic Harrison, Paul Bourget, and the like upon his t.i.tle page--and here these and many other similarly distinguished authors appeared--but the greatest name could not attain a place there if the letter press that followed were unworthy. Indeed Page's habit of throwing out the contributions of the great, after paying a stiff price for them, caused much perturbation in his counting room. One day he called in one of his a.s.sociates.

”Do you see that waste basket?” he asked, pointing to a large receptacle filled to overflowing with ma.n.u.scripts. ”All our Cleveland articles are there!”

He had gone to great trouble and expense to obtain a series of six articles from the most prominent publicists and political leaders of the country on the first year of Mr. Cleveland's second administration.

It was to be the ”feature” of the number then in preparation.

”There isn't one of them,” he declared, ”who has got the point. I have thrown them all away and I am going to try to write something myself.”

And he spent a couple of days turning out an article which aroused great public interest. When Page commissioned an article, he meant simply that he would pay full price for it; whether he would publish it depended entirely upon the quality of the material itself. But Page was just as severe upon his own writings as upon those of other men. He wrote occasionally--always under a nom-de-plume; but he had great difficulty in satisfying his own editorial standards. After finis.h.i.+ng an article he would commonly send for one of his friends and read the result.

”That is superb!” this admiring a.s.sociate would sometimes say.

In response Page would take the ma.n.u.script and, holding it aloft in two hands, tear it into several bits, and throw the sc.r.a.ps into the waste basket.

”Oh, I can do better than that,” he would laugh and in another minute he was busy rewriting the article, from beginning to end.

Page retired from the editors.h.i.+p of the _Forum_ in 1895. The severance of relations was half a comedy, half a tragedy. The proprietors had only the remotest relation to literature; they had lost much money in the enterprise before Page became editor and only the fortunate accident of securing his services had changed their losing venture into a financial success. In a moment of despair, before the happier period had arrived, they offered to sell the property to Page and his friends. Page quickly a.s.sembled a new group to purchase control, when, much to the amazement of the old owners, the _Forum_ began to make money. Instead of having a burden on their hands, the proprietors suddenly discovered that they had a gold mine. They therefore refused to deliver their holdings and an inevitable struggle ensued for control. Page could edit a magazine and turn a s.h.i.+pwrecked enterprise into a profitable one; but, in a tussle of this kind, he was no match for the shrewd business men who owned the property. When the time came for counting noses Page and his friends found themselves in a minority. Of course his resignation as editor necessarily followed this little unpleasantness. And just as inevitably the _Forum_ again began to lose money, and soon sank into an obscurity from which it has never emerged.

The _Forum_ had established Page's reputation as an editor, and the compet.i.tion for his services was lively. The distinguished Boston publis.h.i.+ng house of Houghton, Mifflin & Company immediately invited him to become a part of their organization. When Horace E. Scudder, in 1898, resigned the editors.h.i.+p of the _Atlantic Monthly_, Page succeeded him.

Thus Page became the successor of James Russell Lowell, James T. Fields, William D. Howells, and Thomas Bailey Aldrich as the head of this famous periodical. This meant that he had reached the top of his profession. He was now forty-three years old.

No American publication had ever had so brilliant a history. Founded in 1857, in the most flouris.h.i.+ng period of the New England writers, its pages had first published many of the best essays of Emerson, the second series of the Biglow papers as well as many other of Lowell's writings, poems of Longfellow and Whittier, such great successes as Holmes's ”Autocrat of the Breakfast Table,” Mrs. Howe's ”Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and the early novels of Henry James. If America had a literature, the _Atlantic_ was certainly its most successful periodical exponent. Yet, in a sense, the _Atlantic_, by the time Page succeeded to the editors.h.i.+p, had become the victim of its dazzling past. Its recent editors had lived too exclusively in their back numbers. They had conducted the magazine too much for the restricted audience of Boston and New England. There was a time, indeed, when the business office arranged the subscribers in two cla.s.ses--”Boston” and ”foreign”; ”Boston” representing their local adherents, and ”foreign” the loyal readers who lived in the more benighted parts of the United States. One of its editors had been heard to boast that he never solicited a contribution; it was not his business to be a literary drummer! Let the truth be fairly spoken: when Page made his first appearance in the _Atlantic_ office, the magazine was unquestionably on the decline. Its literary quality was still high; the momentum that its great contributors had given it was still keeping the publication alive; entrance into its columns still represented the ultimate ambition of the aspiring American writer; but it needed a new spirit to insure its future. What it required was the kind of editing that had suddenly made the _Forum_ one of the greatest of English-written reviews. This is the reason why the canny Yankee proprietors had reached over to New York and grasped Page as quickly as the capitalists of the _Forum_ let him slip between their fingers.

Page's sense of humour discovered a certain ironic aspect in his position as the dictator of this famous New England magazine. The fact that his manner was impatiently energetic and somewhat startling to the placid atmosphere of Park Street was not the thing that really signified its break with its past. But here was a Southerner firmly entrenched in a headquarters that had long been sacred to the New England abolitionists. One of the first sights that greeted Page, as he came into the office, was the angular and spectacled countenance of William Lloyd Garrison, gazing down from a steel engraving on the wall. One of Garrison's sons was a colleague, and the anterooms were frequently cluttered with dusky gentlemen patiently waiting for interviews with this benefactor of their race. Page once was careless enough to inform Mr. Garrison that ”one of your n.i.g.g.e.rs” was waiting outside for an audience. ”I very much regret, Mr. Page,” came the answer, ”that you should insist on spelling 'Negro' with two 'g's'.” Despite the mock solemnity of this rebuke, perennial good-nature and raillery prevailed between the son of Garrison and his disrespectful but ever sympathetic Southern friend. Indeed, one of Page's earliest performances was to introduce a spirit of laughter and genial cooperation into a rather solemn and self-satisfied environment. Mr. Mifflin, the head of the house, even formally thanked Page ”for the hearty human way in which you take hold of life.” Mr. Ellery Sedgwick, the present editor of the _Atlantic_, has described the somewhat disconcerting descent of Page upon the editorial sanctuary of James Russell Lowell:

”Were a visitant from another sphere to ask me for the incarnation of those qualities we love to call American, I should turn to a familiar gallery of my memory and point to the living portrait that hangs there of Walter Page. A sort of foursquareness, bluntness, it seemed to some; an uneasy, often explosive energy; a disposition to underrate fine drawn nicenesses of all sorts; ingrained Yankee common sense, checking his vaulting enthusiasm; enormous self-confidence, impatience of failure--all of these were in him; and he was besides affectionate to a fault, devoted to his country, his family, his craft--a strong, bluff, tender man.

”Those were the decorous days of the old tradition, and Page's entrance into the 'atmosphere' of Park Street has taken on the dignity of legend. There were all kinds of signs and portents, as the older denizens will tell you. Strange breezes floated through the office, electric emanations, and a pervasive scent of tobacco, which--so the local historian says--had been unknown in the vicinity since the days of Walter Raleigh, except for the literary aroma of Aldrich's quarantined sanctum upstairs. Page's coming marked the end of small ways. His first requirement was, in lieu of a desk, a table that might have served a family of twelve for Thanksgiving dinner. No one could imagine what that vast, polished tableland could serve for until they watched the editor at work.

Then they saw. Order vanished and chaos reigned. Huge piles of papers, letters, articles, reports, books, pamphlets, magazines, congregated themselves as if by magic. To work in such confusion seemed hopeless, but Page eluded the congestion by the simple expedient of moving on. He would light a fresh cigar, give the editorial chair a hitch, and begin his work in front of a fresh expanse of table, with no clutter of the past to disturb the new day's litter.

”The motive power of his work was enthusiasm. Never was more generous welcome given to a newcomer than Page held out to the successful ma.n.u.script of an unknown. I remember, though I heard the news second hand at the time, what a day it was in the office when the first ma.n.u.script from the future author of 'To Have and To Hold,' came in from an untried Southern girl. He walked up and down, reading paragraphs aloud and slapping the crisp ma.n.u.script to enforce his commendation. To take a humbler instance, I recall the words of over generous praise with which he greeted the first paper I ever sent to an editor quite as clearly as I remember the monstrous effort which had brought it into being. Sometimes he would do a favoured ma.n.u.script the honour of taking it out to lunch in his coat-pocket, and an a.s.sociate vividly recalls eggs, coffee, and pie in a near-by restaurant, while, in a voice that could be heard by the remotest lunchers, Page read pa.s.sages which many of them were too startled to appreciate. He was not given to overrating, but it was not in his nature to understate. 'I tell you,' said he, grumbling over some unfortunate proof-sheets from Manhattan, 'there isn't one man in New York who can write English--not from the Battery to Harlem Heights.' And if the faults were moral rather than literary, his disapproval grew in emphasis.

There is more than tradition in the tale of the Negro who, presuming on Page's deep interest in his race, brought to his desk a ma.n.u.script copied word for word from a published source. Page recognized the deception, and seizing the rascal's collar with a firm editorial grip, rejected the poem, and ejected the poet, with an energy very invigorating to the ancient serenities of the office.

”Page was always effervescent with ideas. Like an editor who would have made a good fisherman, he used to say that you had to cast a dozen times before you could get a strike. He was forever in those days sending out ideas and suggestions and invitations to write.