(He made the mistake of expressing his disdain in one of his late-night letters to Lila, a young woman entirely committed to the world of wealth, only to receive a sharp rebuke from her. Harry quickly backtracked: “Far from being opposed to ancestors and aristocracy, I am heartily in favor of them…. Far from looking askance at inherited wealth, I only wish to heaven that I had nothing to do on earth but to inherit wealth.”) And working so closely with Hadden, he also occasionally—and uncharacteristically—echoed some of Brit’s class-bound prejudices as well. “Bratch and I are going to Philly to-morrow to see Gimbel (Jew store),” he wrote in early June. A few days later he reported a “raid upon ‘Charlie’ Rosenbloom—the Jewboy we missed, stupidly, at Pittsburg [
sic
]
.” 29
At meeting after meeting they encountered friendly but guarded receptions, which usually ended with expressions of goodwill but no willingness to invest. Even those who did agree to buy shares usually did so in small increments—five hundred dollars here, a thousand there. (“Of course, any loose change I have is yours,” one of their wealthy Yale friends said, somewhat condescendingly, when they asked him for support.) “It’s an awful strain on the nerves,” Luce wrote, “because one has to believe and believe and believe.” In reality the fund-raising was going badly only when measured by their own unrealistically optimistic projections. By early June, only a few weeks after they had begun searching in earnest for investors, they had raised twenty thousand dollars. “Not bad,” Harry confessed in a hopeful moment. In mid-June they received a five-thousand-dollar pledge—one of their largest so far—from their Yale friend Shorty Knox, a wealthy, polo-playing “S-v-g-” (“Savage,” the Skull and Bones epithet for a member of a rival Yale senior society). A few days later another Yale friend invited Harry to lunch and, unsolicited, offered one thousand dollars. Even so it was hard to maintain their confidence and optimism in the face of the “terrible grind and slow results.” “People are naturally very scarey,” he admitted, “about entrusting their hard earned cash to youngsters.” It was not, he confessed, “the easiest thing ever attempted by three unknown musqueteers.” It was harder still because he could not turn to his most reliable supporter, Nettie McCormick, who was now gravely ill. Harry, in desperation, wrote to his father, who was himself traveling the country in search of money, asking (in vain) for five hundred dollars for the magazine and for help in identifying other investors. He even guiltily hinted that he would not be displeased if his father asked Mrs. McCormick for help on his behalf. (There is no evidence to suggest that his father did any of these things.) “If I had only $1,000, I would put it all in,” he said. “So much so, that right now, at least, I wish I hadn’t gone to Oxford—although fundamentally, I suppose, the Oxford year is indirectly invested in the paper as it is.” Even decades later Luce looked back on “that business of raising the money” as “about the toughest, hardest, most discouraging work that I’ve experienced.” 30
In the midst of this grueling process they received a surprising inquiry from the
Independent
—a once-distinguished journal of opinion, closely associated with Woodrow Wilson and the League of Nations, which was now floundering. The owners proposed that Luce and Hadden abandon their plans for a new magazine and take over the
Independent
instead. It would, they argued, be easier to raise money for anestablished publication than for a new one. “Of course, it is hard to resist the chance of stepping at our age into control of what has been a pretty famous and powerful publication,” Luce conceded. But after considering the
Independent’s
grim financial circumstances, they declined the offer. (The magazine declared bankruptcy a
sic
]
.” 29
At meeting after meeting they encountered friendly but guarded receptions, which usually ended with expressions of goodwill but no willingness to invest. Even those who did agree to buy shares usually did so in small increments—five hundred dollars here, a thousand there. (“Of course, any loose change I have is yours,” one of their wealthy Yale friends said, somewhat condescendingly, when they asked him for support.) “It’s an awful strain on the nerves,” Luce wrote, “because one has to believe and believe and believe.” In reality the fund-raising was going badly only when measured by their own unrealistically optimistic projections. By early June, only a few weeks after they had begun searching in earnest for investors, they had raised twenty thousand dollars. “Not bad,” Harry confessed in a hopeful moment. In mid-June they received a five-thousand-dollar pledge—one of their largest so far—from their Yale friend Shorty Knox, a wealthy, polo-playing “S-v-g-” (“Savage,” the Skull and Bones epithet for a member of a rival Yale senior society). A few days later another Yale friend invited Harry to lunch and, unsolicited, offered one thousand dollars. Even so it was hard to maintain their confidence and optimism in the face of the “terrible grind and slow results.” “People are naturally very scarey,” he admitted, “about entrusting their hard earned cash to youngsters.” It was not, he confessed, “the easiest thing ever attempted by three unknown musqueteers.” It was harder still because he could not turn to his most reliable supporter, Nettie McCormick, who was now gravely ill. Harry, in desperation, wrote to his father, who was himself traveling the country in search of money, asking (in vain) for five hundred dollars for the magazine and for help in identifying other investors. He even guiltily hinted that he would not be displeased if his father asked Mrs. McCormick for help on his behalf. (There is no evidence to suggest that his father did any of these things.) “If I had only $1,000, I would put it all in,” he said. “So much so, that right now, at least, I wish I hadn’t gone to Oxford—although fundamentally, I suppose, the Oxford year is indirectly invested in the paper as it is.” Even decades later Luce looked back on “that business of raising the money” as “about the toughest, hardest, most discouraging work that I’ve experienced.” 30
In the midst of this grueling process they received a surprising inquiry from the
Independent
—a once-distinguished journal of opinion, closely associated with Woodrow Wilson and the League of Nations, which was now floundering. The owners proposed that Luce and Hadden abandon their plans for a new magazine and take over the
Independent
instead. It would, they argued, be easier to raise money for anestablished publication than for a new one. “Of course, it is hard to resist the chance of stepping at our age into control of what has been a pretty famous and powerful publication,” Luce conceded. But after considering the
Independent’s
grim financial circumstances, they declined the offer. (The magazine declared bankruptcy a
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