"Today"

What Vincent Astor does not know about publishing magazines would doubtless fill the logbook of his yacht Nourmahal. What William Averell Harriman does not know about it would fill the minute-book of his Union Pacific board of directors. Mr. Harriman's sister, Mrs. Mary Harriman Rumsey, chairlady of the NRA Consumers Advisory Board, once backed a friend, William Johnson, in an ambitious but unsuccessful Editors' Feature Service (newspaper syndicate), but she is no editorial genius. Neither, for popular purposes, is Raymond Moley, criminologist, economist and erstwhile chief of President Roosevelt's Brain Trust, whose resignation therefrom last fortnight was explained on the grounds that he was to serve the New Deal by editing a weekly magazine to be financed by the other three (TIME, Sept. 4). The practical brains of the group seemed to be a fifth figure, Board Chairman Virgil Vercingetorix McNitt of McNaught (McNitt) newspaper syndicate, onetime publisher of defunct McNaught's Magazine (like Plain Talk). But Mr. McNitt has been headed toward retirement lately, so last week when Messrs. Astor, Harriman & Moley announced further details about their weekly, observers concluded that if it did nothing else the subsidy would afford employment to a few unoccupied literati.

Ever since last summer's campaign Franklin Roosevelt & friends have felt the need of a magazine through which the New Deal could be expounded and illustrated to the masses. Both Mr. & Mrs. Roosevelt wrote for the gum-chewing Macfadden Press. After inauguration the Roosevelt secretariat was encouraged to talk by radio and write for publication. Professor Moley was most prolific, turning out a "State of the Nation" colyum for the McNaught syndicate, less readable but more helpful than Democrat Al Smith's monthly pieces in the New Outlook. In elaborating their plans last week, Backers Astor & Harriman did not say just what Editor Moley's contribution to their organ would be, but they gave these details:

They had Arthur Brisbane's consent and blessings to use the title "Today." (They had considered "Looking Forward" and "These Times." Wags had suggested "Asterisks" and "Moley, Just Moley.") The magazine would be 24 pages, printed on newsprint, without a cover. Price: 5-c- the copy. First print order: 100,000 copies or more. Advertising ("You bet your life we want it!") would not be declined but it was planned to break even on circulation income, with American News Co. and the national Democratic machine as salesmen.

Mr. Moley: "In no sense will it be an Administration organ or a party organ. . . . It would be better to say we are all Roosevelt-for-President. . . ."

Mr. Astor: "I don't know. I'll go farther than that."

Mr. Moley: "We want this to be a very popular journal written in plain, square-toed English for the man in the street and the man on the farm. We are not forgetting the man on the farm."

Interviewer: "Would you welcome a contribution from Cordell Hull?''

Mr. Moley: "Well, I won't answer that now. I think"

Mr. Astor: "You can't tell what a publisher might want."

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