The tragedy of the situation was that Mr. McClure did not see and could not understand the arguments of his associates that his plan was not only impossible but wrong. This failure of judgment was, I am convinced, due to his long illness. The mental and physical exhaustion from which he was suffering, and which he could not bring himself to understand or accept, explains the unwisdom of this undertaking, his contention that it was an inspiration, his stubbornness in insisting that it be accepted and set to work. Human reason has little influence on one who believes he is inspired. The members of the staff were little more than outsiders when it came to the final decision. It was up to John Phillips to accept and do his utmost to aid in the grandiose adventure or patiently to wait while persuading the General that it was not the mission of the McClure crowd to reconstruct the economic life of the country, that we were journalists, not financial reformers. I think no man ever tried harder to keep another from a suicidal undertaking; and certainly no man could have been firmer from the start in his refusal to go along. The struggle went on for six months, and no two men ever tried more honestly to adjust their differences; but they were irreconcilable. It came to a point where one or the other must sell his interest in the magazine. It was Mr. McClure who bought out his partner. Although _McClure’s Magazine_ is no longer on the newsstands, it does occupy a permanent place in the history of the period that it served, because it worked itself into the literary and economic life of the country. It was a magazine which from the first put quality above everything else and was willing to chase checks around town in order to pay for it. For those who collect Kipling there are the first publications of many of his rarest poems, short stories, and such distinguished serials as “Captains Courageous” and “Kim.” Here first appeared Willa Cather and O. Henry. It was a magazine which backed regardless of expense, one might say, the investigations and reports of men like Ray Stannard Baker and Lincoln Steffens. For twelve years it encouraged with liberality and patience the work of which I have been talking in this narrative.