A fantastic issue with a major article from John Reed, ‘At the Throat of the Republic’ on the growth of U.S. imperialism, leading it, Jim Larkin reviews the 1916 Easter Rising with three articles, Louise Bryant, a close friend and comrade of Larkin’s also writes on the Irish rebellion with ‘A Poet’s Revolution,’ Dante Barton reports on Pittsburgh’s steel strike for the 8-hour day, the usual fine prose and reviews, and art from Robert Minor, Cornelia Barns, Boardman Robinson, Jo Davidson, K.R. Chamberlain, Ralph Pearson, Maurice Becker, and George Bellows.

The Masses. Vol. 8 No. 9. July, 1916.

Contents: What I Think of The Masses by Arturo Giovannitti, At the Throat of the Republic by John Reed, Political Stew by Howard Brubaker, A Talk across the Border by Lincoln Steffens, Visits by Jeannette Phillips, The Boy Who Refused to Go to Church by Seymour Barnard, The Masses at the White House by Max Eastman, The Pittsburg Strike by Dante Barton, The Irish Rebellion by Jim Larkin, A Note on the ‘Sinn Fein’ by Jim Larkin, The British Lie by Jim Larkin, The Unchanging by Helen Hoyt, From the Tower by Louise Bryant, Shelley by G.C.M., Solace by Lydia Gibson, Geraniums by Rosalind Winslow, The Inscrutable Gods by M.E. Buhler, The Romance of War, Methodistic, Churchly Statistics, Rebellion by Harry Kemp, College by Mary Carolyn Davies, Birth-Control, The Anthracite Argeement by George P. West, Imperial Democracy by H.M., Argyin’ with Elder Walling by Eugene Wood, The Poet’s Revolution by Louise Bryant, Book Reviews by Floyd Dell and Louis Untemeyer, Correspondence. Relaxation in Verse by Murray G. Breese, Parliamentary Etiquette by Arturo Giovanitti, ART BY Robert Minor, Cornelia Barns, Boardman Robinson, Jo Davidson, K.R. Chamberlain, Ralph Pearson, Maurice Becker, George Bellows.

The Masses is among the most important, and best, radical journals of 20th century America. It was started in 1911 as an illustrated socialist monthly by Dutch immigrant Piet Vlag, who shortly left the magazine. It was then edited by Max Eastman who wrote in his first editorial: “A Free Magazine — This magazine is owned and published cooperatively by its editors. It has no dividends to pay, and nobody is trying to make money out of it. A revolutionary and not a reform magazine; a magazine with a sense of humour and no respect for the respectable; frank; arrogant; impertinent; searching for true causes; a magazine directed against rigidity and dogma wherever it is found; printing what is too naked or true for a money-making press; a magazine whose final policy is to do as it pleases and conciliate nobody, not even its readers — There is a field for this publication in America. Help us to find it.” The Masses successfully combined arts and politics and was the voice of urban, cosmopolitan, liberatory socialism. It became the leading anti-war voice in the run-up to World War One and helped to popularize industrial unions and support of workers strikes. It was sexually and culturally emancipatory, which placed it both politically and socially and odds the leadership of the Socialist Party, which also found support in its pages. The art, art criticism, and literature it featured was all imbued with its, increasing, radicalism. Floyd Dell was it literature editor and saw to the publication of important works and writers. Its radicalism and anti-war stance brought Federal charges against its editors for attempting to disrupt conscription during World War One which closed the paper in 1917. The editors returned in early 1918 with the adopted the name of William Lloyd Garrison’s The Liberator, which continued the interest in culture and the arts as well as the aesthetic of The Masses. Contributors to this essential publication of the US left included: Sherwood Anderson, Cornelia Barns, George Bellows, Louise Bryant, Arthur B. Davies, Dorothy Day, Floyd Dell, Max Eastman, Wanda Gag, Jack London, Amy Lowell, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Inez Milholland, Robert Minor, John Reed, Boardman Robinson, Carl Sandburg, John French Sloan, Upton Sinclair, Louis Untermeyer, Mary Heaton Vorse, and Art Young.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/masses/issues/tamiment/t63-v08n09-m61-jul-1916.pdf