The Digest at 50

The Reader's Digest has never actually printed an article titled "New Hope for the Dead," but probably not for want of trying. For 50 years the Digest has taught Americans how to cope with everything from brakeman's headache to athlete's foot, and this preoccupation continues today with a series of first-person articles--told by the body's organs. One of the latest: "I Am Joe's Prostate."

The Digest's concern goes far beyond medicine, but it somehow sees the world in related terms. Various cancers and infections are represented by Communism, bureaucrats, radicals and the welfare state; the healing antibodies are the traditional American virtues and verities. Perhaps it is the magazine's sanguine postulate that man can manage his destiny that has made it so resoundingly popular. Brevity, of course, is its other asset. Its assumption that even War and Peace could be cut to a few hours' reading brought sneers from the sophisticated, but the formula has proved useful and durable. The Digest now sells 18 million copies a month in the U.S. and 12 million abroad in 13 languages.

To celebrate the Digest's anniversary last week, President and Mrs. Nixon gave a white-tie dinner for 100 in the State Dining Room of the White House. The guests of honor were the Digest's formidable founders and cochairmen, DeWitt Wallace and his wife Lila, both 82. Wallace, son of a Presbyterian minister, married Lila Acheson some months before publication of the first issue, which they launched with $1,800. Now, 50 years later, DeWitt and Lila Wallace are probably still the most unforgettable characters either of them has ever met.

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