Seventy begins to be a venerable age for a magazine, as for a man. In the lead editorial of our first issue on this day in 1955, our founder, William F. Buckley Jr., wrote that we meant to stand athwart history, yelling Stop! History never stops, of course. What was it in the world of 1955 that we wished to stop? What do we wish to stop now?
The churn of the world ever breeds external civilizational dangers. On Day One and for decades thereafter, the foreign threat was communism — wrong, bloody, and godless. Communism of the first incarnation is gone, though its orphans, Russia and China, are still hostile powers. Jihad — wrong, bloody, and pledged to its own god — seeks every opening for conquest, from slaughtering Christians in Nigeria to duping college students on Ivy League campuses.
The ally of these enemies, often though not always unwitting, is shame — shame not for the failings of America and Western civilization but for their virtues. Toppling statues and defiling temples are only the consequences of sly analysis and abusive polemics. Even as NR condemned Khrushchev, Mao, and Osama bin Laden, so we critiqued the ideas and idea-mongers that made resisting them seem pointless.
Our work has not been all negative, however. Life, especially in our dear country, is filled with beauty and good work and is always open to grace. We prize great art, sober statesmanship, and human flourishing. Bach, Lincoln, your labor, and your child are worth celebrating, and so we have.
We began in a mediascape dominated by broadsheet newspapers, weekly magazines, and two television networks. Now everything from porn to Plato is in everyone’s pants pocket. Through it all we have labored to assemble the best words — clear, amusing, stirring whenever we can. We remember the great writers who passed through these pages and have passed away; we delight in presenting the next young tunesmiths to come along. At 70 we give thanks — to our colleagues over the years; to our supporters and readers; to the United States of America; and to the God of victories, and of mercy.