Life & Letters

Correspondence

About this Item

Title: S. S. McClure to Walt Whitman, 3 December 1889

Date: December 3, 1889

Whitman Archive ID: loc.03107

Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Transcribed from digital images or a microfilm reproduction of the original item. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.

Contributors to digital file: Kirby Little, Ashlyn Stewart, Alex Ashland, and Stephanie Blalock



page image
image 1
page image
image 2


S. S. McCLURE,
TRIBUNE BUILDING,
NEW YORK, N. Y.
Cable Address, "Aiddecamp, New York."
Dec. 3, 1889.
Walt Whitman, Esq.,

Dear Sir:

Bishop Potter1 suggests that a short letter giving your ideas how best "To lift, how little howsoe'er, the hearts of toilers struggling here," would perhaps be a better idea than the one suggested in my previous letter. I should like to hear from you in response to either of these questions. A letter of one hundred words would perhaps be sufficiently long for this purpose.

Very truly yours,
S. S. McClure


Correspondent:
Samuel Sidney McClure (1857–1949) was an investigative journalist who in 1884 established the first newspaper syndicate in the United States, which occasionally solicited and published work by Whitman; later, he co-founded McClure's Magazine, which published work by Whitman posthumously.

Notes:

1. Henry Codman Potter (1834–1908) was Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York and a venerated religious and civic leader who devoted much of his ministry to what he called "the problem of the poor"; he also was well known for his efforts to support the interests of labor and labor unions. [back]


Comments?

Published Works | In Whitman's Hand | Life & Letters | Commentary | Resources | Pictures & Sound

Support the Archive | About the Archive

Distributed under a Creative Commons License. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price, editors.