SOURCE: Gannett, Lewis S. “Villard's Nation.” In One Hundred Years of “The Nation”: A Cenntenial Anthology, edited by Henry M. Christman, pp. 35-40. New York: Macmillan, 1940.

In the following essay, Gannett examines the social and political impact of The Nation under Villard's editorship.

I doubt that there was ever another such journalistic heaven as was The Nation in the early post-war years. I came back from France that autumn of 1919 with one ambition in all the world: to land a job on Villard's Nation. I knew what I wanted, and was blissful when I got it: half-time at first, and small pay.

Those were rousing days on Vesey Street. Every week's issue was a new adventure. The country was still in a state of war shock: it was blockading Germans, seeing Reds under every bed, crushing strikes in the name of freedom. And yet there was a breeze...