Some words of thanks

In a recent issue of the London Telegraph, the journalist Harry Mount described The New Criterion as “America’s leading review of the arts and intellectual life.” Many people reading this will agree, though perhaps not all will be happy about it. For the truth is that The New Criterion, now completing its twenty-fourth year, is as pugnacious and polemical as it is informative. We take that bit about “the correction of taste,” quoted above, as seriously as we do the bit about elucidating works of art. Any publication that intervenes forthrightly in matters of cultural controversy is bound to garner a certain amount of enmity. That comes with the territory. And besides, enemies are important: their ire helps to certify the rightness of one’s own position. But no publication like The New Criterion—conservative, dedicated to the vocation of criticism—can survive without friends as well as enemies. Since its inception nearly a quarter-century ago, The New Criterion has been blessed with dedicated friends. As has been our custom for the last few years in our June issue, we are pleased to acknowledge in this space the dedication and generosity of these friends: without their support The New Criterion simply could not continue. We are grateful to the John M. Olin Foundation and its director, James Piereson. The Olin Foundation closed its doors last year, but for nearly twenty-five years it was a faithful supporter of our efforts: we are pleased to have this occasion, once again, to thank Mr. Piereson and the Olin Foundation for their help. We are equally grateful to the Sarah Scaife Foundation and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, both of which have been stalwart supporters of our work for more than twenty years. Their generous help not only has been a welcome confirmation of the importance of what The New Criterion stands for but also is absolutely essential to our continuation. We are also grateful to the ever-growing circle of Friends of The New Criterion: your gifts, large and small, have been critical in helping us carry on in what we, like many conservative non-profit enterprises, think of as the “post-Olin” world. Finally, we wish to give special acknowledgment to our friend and benefactor Donald Kahn. The worthy causes he has aided are too numerous to list. But we are every day cognizant of his exceptionally generous help. Approaching the milestone of our silver anniversary, we naturally are moved to reflect on what we’ve accomplished in the last quarter-century. We are very proud of what we have done at The New Criterion, but we are deeply conscious that we could never have done it without the help of our friends. Thank you again for your continued confidence in our work.

This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 24 Number 10, on page 3
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