"No Longer Young, No Longer Innocent"

Abstract

When he died twenty-seven years ago, Irving Howe was a few months younger than I am now. He seemed like an eminence grise to me then, certainly old enough to have been my father, though definitely not fatherly. I'd met him in the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC), which he, Michael Harrington, and others had founded. When he was among those who interviewed me for the position of managing editor for the organization's monthly publication, his verdict had been, "Qualified, but too nice to be an editor." I responded in my first week on the job by rejecting one of his articles. We got along.