arting a newspaper in
Boston, but investigation soon showed him that this was a rather
hazardous undertaking. He next began subsidizing small weeklies which
should advocate his reforms, but this resulted in little. His interest
in pamphleteering did bring his name to the attention of Martin W. Davis
of the Swinton-Scudder-Davis Company, whose imprint on books, magazines
and weeklies was as common throughout the length and breadth of the land
as that of Oxford is upon the English bible.

The Swinton-Scudder-Davis Company was in sad financial straits.
Intellectually, for various reasons, it had run to seed. John Jacob
Swinton and Owen V. Scudder, the men with book, magazine and true
literary instincts, were long since dead. Mr. Davis had tried for the
various heirs and assigns involved to run it intelligently and honestly,
but intelligence and honesty were of little value in this instance
without great critical judgment. This he had not. The house had become
filled with editors, readers, critics, foremen of manufacturing and
printing departments, business managers, art directors, traveling
salesmen and so on without end, each of whom might be reasonably
efficient if left alone, but none of whom worked well together and all
of whom used up a great deal of money.

The principal literary publication, a magazine of great prestige, was in
the hands of an old man who had been editor for nearly forty years. A
weekly was being run by a boy, comparatively, a youth of twenty-nine. A
second magazine, devoted to adventure fiction, was in the hands of
another young man of twenty-six, a national critical monthly was in the
hands of salaried critics of great repute and uncompromising attitude.
The book department was divided into the hands of a juvenile editor, a
fiction editor, a scientific and educational editor and so on. It was
Mr. Davis' task to see that competent overseers were in charge of all
departments so that they might flourish and work harmoniously under him,
but he was neither sufficiently wise or forceful to fill the role. He
was old and was veered about first by one theory and then by another,
and within the house were rings and cliques. One of the most influential
of these--the most influential, in fact--was one which was captained and
led by Florence J. White, an Irish-American, who as business manager
(and really more than that, general manager under Davis) was in charge
of the manufacturing and printing departments,