When editors were gods

The editor's road to you-know-where is paved with you-know-whats

"Every one of the men and women who now control the editorial and business policy of the magazine is pledged to the carrying onward to its highest possible success the work of making a great, high-class, popular magazine of world wide circulation which shall portray and encourage the good in individual, social, business, and political life, rather than the evil; which shall stand for peace rather than war; which shall search out beauty rather than ugliness; which shall build up rather than tear down; which shall constantly plan and labor, and co-operate with those who are planning and laboring, to make the world a better and happier place to live in, both for the poor and the wealthy, for the unlearned and the learned, for the weak and for the strong."

    — From an advertisement seeking investors for The Circle magazine, signed by its president and editor, Eugene Thwing, Aug. 3, 1909.

"The Circle Publishing Company, publisher of the Circle Magazine, at 50 Madison avenue, has filed a petition in bankruptcy, with liabilities $411,200 and assets $51,832. The company owes $2304 to 31 employes for salaries and $6726 to 250 writers for articles. Among the writers are William Jennings Bryan, $50, due since July 26, 1909; John Philp Sousa, $100…. Eugene Thwing, president and founder of the magazine, who is a creditor for $57,000, says he has put all his own property into it and comes out without a dollar in the world."

    — From an article in the Buffalo Evening News, Aug. 13, 1910. 

One magazine editor's beautiful dream... shared by many

"When at times I read the despairing lamentations of contributors who declare that their work has been ruined by too many changes and the derisive outcries of those critics who point out that too few have been made, I sometimes have a beautiful dream of allowing one number of the magazine to go out into the world with every contributor displaying just that degree of art and skill that he has received from his Maker, untouched by the polishing-brush of the editor." — L. Frank Tooker, in his 1924 book "The Joys and Tribulations of an Editor."

Tooker was an editor with The Century, a major magazine in its day.

Magazine editor or U.S. president: Who's worth more?

"There was a time, I understand, when magazine editors were not highly paid, but today competition is so keen that the men who can build circulation can command substantial incomes. There are at least three magazine editors whose incomes are double that of the President of the United States, several others whose salaries approach that of the President." — Ray Long, editor of Hearst’s International Combined with Cosmopolitan (as today's Cosmopolitan was officially known for a number of years), quoted in 1927.

In 1927, the president’s salary was $75,000 a year. Long was reportedly the highest paid magazine editor of his day, earning as much as $180,000, the equivalent of something over $3 million now.