The Walt Whitman Archive
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
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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]