The coming of the War in 1914 forced a new program. It became a grave question whether, under the changed conditions, the increased confusion of mind, the intellectual and financial uncertainties, an independent magazine backed with little money could live. In undertaking the _American_ we had all of us put in all the money we could lay our hands on. We had cut the salaries of _McClure’s_ in two, reduced our scale of living accordingly, and done it gaily as an adventure. And it had been a fine fruitful adventure in professional comradeship. We had made a good magazine, and we were all for making a better one and convinced we could do it. “I don’t think,” Ray Baker wrote me not long ago, “that I look back to any period of my life with greater interest than I do to that—the eager enthusiasm, the earnestness, and the gaiety!” But we had come to a time when under the new conditions the magazine required fresh money, and we had no more to put in. The upshot was that in 1915 the _American_ was sold to the Crowell Publishing Company. The new owners wanted a different type of magazine, and John Siddall, who had been steadily with us since I had unearthed him in Cleveland as a help in investigating the Standard Oil Company, was made active editor. Siddall was admirably cut out to make the type of periodical the new controlling interests wanted. I have never known any one in or out of the profession with his omnivorous curiosity about human beings and their ways. He had enormous admiration for achievement of any sort, the thing done whatever its nature or trend. His interest in humankind was not diluted by any desire to save the world. It included all men. He had a shrewd conviction that putting things down as they are did more to save the world than any crusade. His instincts were entirely healthy and decent. The magazine was bound to be what we call wholesome. Very quickly he put his impress on the new journal, made it a fine commercial success. Gradually the old staff disintegrated. Peter Dunne went over to the editorial page of _Collier’s_—Bert Boyden went to France with the Y.M.C.A.—Mr. Phillips remained as a director and a consultant—Siddall would hear of nothing else. “He is the greatest teacher I have ever known. I could learn from him if I were making shoes,” he declared. And years later when, facing his tragic death, he was preparing a new man to take his place he told him solemnly, “Never fail to spend an hour a day with J. S. P. just talking things over.”