Battle for the Freeman

As an editor and president of the fortnightly Freeman, John Chamberlain, 49, was prepared from the start for people "either to love or hate us." But he never expected the two groups to form right on the magazine's own staff and fight it out in the Freeman's offices on Manhattan's Madison Avenue, as they were doing last week. Before the war broke out, the Freeman had reached a measure of success in its determination to be the best-known "right-wing magazine of opinion" in the U.S. In two years its circulation had climbed from a scant 6,000 to close to 22,000, and it was slowly edging its way into the black.

Sacred Character. The trouble really started after Freeman Editor Henry Hazlitt brought Forrest Davis, ex-Saturday Evening Post Washington editor, to the magazine. Instead of being Hazlitt's man, Davis had ideas of his own on how to run the magazine, and Chamberlain and Managing Editor Suzanne La Follette generally agreed. In short order Hazlitt had a falling-out with them. Among other things he also objected to putting out the "kind of magazine in which McCarthy is a sacred character." In October Hazlitt, Newsweek contributing editor and onetime (1934-46) New York Times editorial writer, resigned, though he had the backing of other director-stockholders.* Said Director Lawrence Fertig, World-Telegram and Sun economic analyst: "The Freeman became intemperate . . . It should have convinced by logic and reason, with less shrillness, less direct hysteria."

On many other issues the directors and editors disagreed. For example, Editors Chamberlain and Davis supported Senator Taft for the Republican presidential nomination and Managing Editor La Follette was pro-MacArthur. But some of the directors were for Eisenhower, and wanted the magazine to stay neutral until after the convention. In another disagreement, when the editors planned a fund-raising dinner, lined up $60,000 in advance and invited Taft to speak, the board vetoed the plan because of "all the dissension." Through the presidential campaign, the Freeman's readers waited for an all-out editorial endorsement of Ike Eisenhower, but it never came.

Strong Emotions. To the Freeman's editors, the stockholders' insistent demands for a change in the editorial tone of the Freeman smacked strongly of "interfering with freedom of the press." The directors replied that since their money was behind the magazine, they had some rights in deciding what kind of magazine it should be. Said Editor Davis: "The Freeman is a militant magazine appealing to strong emotion . . . The directors want to make it a quiet, semi-academic review of economics."

This week at the annual director-stockholder meeting, Freeman Treasurer Alex L. Hillman, successful publisher (Pageant Homeland, People Today), announced his resignation because "it has been almost impossible for the past six months to run the magazine." With the board lined up against them, Editors Chamberlain Davis La Follette also resigned. Then the directors present unanimously brought back Henry Hazlitt as top editor. As soon as Hazlitt assembles a new staff he expects to recreate a Freeman with a quieter voice. Said he: "I want to put out a journal of opinion which will represent the older liberalism and that puts emphasis i liberty of the individual . . . and conduct it with a certain authority." Ex-Editors Chamberlain, Davis and La Follette immediately began discussing starting their own new magazine.

* A board of 18, that has included the editors of the Freeman; Economists Leo Wolman, Ludwig Von Mises and Leonard Read; Importer Alfred Kohlberg: Armstrong Cork Board Chairman Henning W. Prentis Jr.; Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad Vice President W. F. Peter, and others. The Freeman is also in debt for $220,000 in notes. Two noteholders: Du Pont Vice President Jasper E. Crane; Sun Oil Co. Director and ex-President J. Howard Pew.

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