Abstract

Ninety Years of The Nation

The battlefield of liberal journalism is strewn with the neglected graves of high-minded and short-lived periodicals, nobly conceived and ignobly buried. Precious little in newspapers and magazines today reminds readers that the American free press was born of protest and revolt. Time and time again men and women of vision and talent have dedicated their dream's and their energies, sometimes their fortunes and even their lives, to the proposition that freedom of the press and democracy itself can survive only so long as responsible dissent is kept alive. At periods throughout the U.S. history it has been a bitter battle and often a losing one. There have been many signs on all sides in recent years that this may well be one of those periods. One publication that has survived adversity and animosity for almost a century and still dares to print what it believes despite the climate of conformity. For ninety years now the journal "The Nation" has carried on in the independent tradition of its founders, escaping the fate of so many of its fellows.