SOURCE: "New Politics, New New Yorker," in Time, New York, Vol. 99, No. 18, May 1, 1972, pp. 34, 39.

In the following excerpt, the critic offers observations on the more liberal social and political attitudes reflected by the New Yorker during the volatile era of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

In more ways than the obvious visual ones, The New Yorker since its founding in 1925 has seemed almost immune to dramatic change. It has had only two editors in those 47 years, Harold Ross and the man who took over after Ross's death in 1951, William Shawn. The devotion to low-key fiction and gentlemanly criticism has persisted, as have the horse-racing column and such self-mocking images as Eustace Tilly and an imaginary correspondent called "The Long-Winded Lady."

So would you believe that The New Yorker is today one of the most socially activist and politically polemical among major magazines? That it vibrates in tones...