During the past twenty years the short story has come to occupy a distinct place in American letters. While it must perhaps be granted that we are not pre-eminent in the novel or the essay, we may quite fairly pride ourselves upon the high achievement of our authors in short story writing. American magazines (and this is said in no spirit of braggadocio) today carry more and better short stories than do the magazines of any other country. In addition it should be taken into consideration that we in America publish a greater number of periodicals devoted either wholly or in part to fiction than is the custom elsewhere. Thus automatically the would-be short story writer is given opportunity and encouragement, two powerful factors in all creative endeavor. Success in short story writing means both fame and pecuniary reward. It is professionally worth while both from the artistic and the financial points of view. To the American editor should be given much of the credit for this development in the short story. A story, no matter how vital or well written, carries no real weight until it is in print. The printed page gives it permanency; through print it reaches the multitude. The editor, at his or her desk, has final say as to what shall or shall not go into the pages of his or her magazine. There are often outside factors that shape the magazine’s editorial and fiction policy. But editors are sincere in desiring to give their readers the best stories they can procure of the kind they are ready to publish. But they do a great deal more than just select from the mass of material that is submitted to them. They go out after the type of stories they want. They see the men and women who can write and personally confer with them, suggesting new things to write about, new trends in thought, new angles of approach, new methods of handling. To George Horace Lorimer certainly should go much of the credit for the evolution of the American business story; a chance remark of Ray Long’s at editorial conference brought the first Pell Street tales into existence; it is no exaggeration to say that John M. Siddall with his search for clean-cut Americanism has had much to do with the growing prominence and popularity of American small town portrayal which popularity has in turn profoundly affected the development of the American novel; to Perriton Maxwell should be given the honor of having been the first to publish stories of Jewish life in one of our leading monthlies. Not only do the editors shape and mould the literary taste of their readers but they have and do actually create new forms of literary output.