Washington,
October 13, 1867.
Messrs. Church.1
Gentlemen:
I write merely to say that I have finished the article on Democracy;
(that will be its name.) I feel persuaded that it will please you thoroughly.
It will make thirteen pages in Galaxy—the arrangement that it appear as leader in December number, being of course carried out.
It will reach your hands by or before Monday next, 21st.
Walt Whitman.
Notes
- 1. William Conant Church
(1836–1917), journalist and publisher, was a correspondent for several New
York newspapers until he founded the Army and Navy
Journal in 1863. With his brother Francis Pharcellus (1839–1906),
he established the Galaxy in 1866. Financial control of
the Galaxy passed to Sheldon and Company in 1868, and it
was absorbed by the Atlantic Monthly in 1878. William
published a biography of his life-long friend Ulysses S. Grant in 1897, and
Francis wrote for the New York Sun the unsigned piece
"Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus." See Edward F. Grier, "Walt Whitman, the
Galaxy, and Democratic
Vistas," American Literature, 23 (1951–1952),
332–350; Donald N. Bigelow, William Conant Church
& "The Army and Navy Journal" (New York: Columbia University Press,
1952); J. R. Pearson, Jr., "Story of a Magazine: New York's Galaxy, 1866–1878," Bulletin of the New York
Public Library, 61 (1957), 217–237, 281–302. [back]