The Days of a Ma?z 1:1913 



Service 



the Na- 

 tion?" 



National In 1915 Browncll undertook what he called "the 

 Editorial National Editorial Service" — originally sponsored 

 by the Philadelphia Public Ledger — the plan being 

 to gather careful editorials on current events to be 

 published simultaneously in about twenty leading 

 papers. The articles furnished by me were all more 

 or less along the line of international conciliation, and 

 the tone of the series was opposed to war in general 

 as well as to our entrance into the current one. The 

 enterprise succeeded admirably at first, but with 

 the increased determination on the part of the owners 

 of large journals to bring about our participation in 

 Europe, it lost one paper after another and was 

 necessarily abandoned. 

 "What of After its suspension, namely in 1916 and 1917, I 

 prepared by request a series of short articles for The 

 Sunset Magazine of San Francisco under the caption, 

 "What of the Nation?" Subsequently I contributed 

 editorials — usually but not always signed — for 

 The Public and U^iity, the one published in New 

 York, the other in Chicago. I was now naturally 

 obliged to face the existence of actual war, though 

 reluctantly — as one accepts an earthquake or a 

 tornado! 



Regarding certain efforts of mine in earlier years, 

 Anderson spoke in singularly and sadly prophetic 

 lines written in response to my poem to him on 

 Florence: ^ 



Bloody the hue Ciatalgia's bivouacs lend 



Unto the waning Star of Bethlehem; 



And though your beacon bravely strive with them, 

 It but reveals how deep the night, dear friend. 



I See Vol. I, Chapter xi, pages 251-253. 



c 452 -} 



