The New Age, November 20 1913

The New Age's myriad pseudonyms always begs the question: why bother? Why write under so many names without revealing one's identity? To this point I've thought that it's probably because there are only a few writers who wish to give the impression of being a group with a consensus: pseudonyms as rhetoric. I still think that is true, but a brief note in "Readers and Writers" (on page 82) makes me wonder if there are also legal reasons. I've assumed that when an article appears without attribution, or attributed to The New Age, it's written by the editors (Orage and Hastings). This small column, though, is by the editor on getting sued for libel by "Mr. Thomas, the Assistant Secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen." In it, the editor disowns the "Open Letter to Railwaymen" published on Oct. 30 under the name The New Age. The editor also explains that the journal has no money to pay damages, and suggests that Mr. Thomas publish his grievances in the journal itself instead. There's a whiff of fear in this: "Equally invariably--including the latest--the Editor of The New Age has never written a word of the offending passages himself!" This despite admitting earlier that the open letter was an editorial.

Other interesting bits:

Maud Allan the famous dancer is going to tour India, which has offended English propriety (even more than her Salome already had) because they think it's shameful to have an Englishwoman dance in front of Indians. The New Age, via Lional de Fonseka, calls bullshit on this, pointing out that India has more refined attitudes toward dance than England (oddly, arguing from the point that Indian culture looks down on dancers. True? Not to my knowledge).

Beatrice Hastings' occasional column "Tesserae" appears in this issue, this time on war and feminism. She accuses militant feminists of encouraging war in order to get more power at home, calling them "blackleg industrialists." I've always heard the narrative that women were liberated in part because their labor was needed as men left to fight the world wars. Hastings implies that people saw this coming, and that feminists encouraged it. Intense thought.

AER contributes a pleasant rant against germ theory and for homeopathic medicine, including that we should "treat the patient, not the disease," a catchphrase that's still being tossed around.

Anthony Ludovici is really happy about the opening of an exhibit of Blake's artwork at the Tate. Nice to see him happy, for once.