CHAPTER VII
POLITICS AND JOURNALISM
Settling down for the winter in Boston after my Canadian travels in 1905, I was recalled by an urgent request of Hobhouse to join him in the editorial work of the newly established Tribune. The venture was short-lived and unfortunate. My own connection was brief, for I soon discovered how ill fitted I was for a daily journalism that needed resources of information and presentation which I did not possess. After ceasing my daily attendance, I continued, however, to write special articles until the paper passed out of existence.
Then came a new and a far more interesting experience as a writer in the Nation under the brilliant editorship of H. W. Massingham. From 1906 to 1920 much of my political and other writing went into this weekly publication. While in its earlier years many of my articles were devoted to current politics, I had scope in the form of ‘‘middles’’ and reviews for other topics of a broader sociological character, many of them relating to my growing sense of the interdependence of politics, economics, and ethics.
But an even more valuable influence upon my views and sentiments was the free talk at the weekly lunches where for many years the regular contributors to the Nation met and to which distinguished outside visitors
