The Little Review, September 1916 (vol. 3, No. 6)

This September 1916 issue of The Little Review pulses with the anxious energy of a nation at war with itself. The most influential little magazine in America turns its considerable literary firepower toward the San Francisco Preparedness Day bombing, a case that would become a landmark in the struggle between labor, capital, and civil liberties. The issue opens with editor Margaret Anderson skewering her own editorial anxieties before plunging into impassioned arguments for the accused workers' innocence, sharp critiques of organized labor's cowardice, and an urgent appeal for defense funds. The literary criticism bristles with purpose: a New York letter dissects experimental theater with acid precision, while "The Reader Critic" publishes furious debates about free verse and artistic standards, complete with tart editorial replies. Throughout, the magazine insists that art and politics cannot be separated, that the bombshell in San Francisco and the revolution in poetry are part of the same fight. For anyone interested in where American modernism learned to take sides, this issue is a time capsule of literary culture at its most politically engaged and aesthetically radical.