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For some time the periodical was chiefly literary, and was a medium for stories and verse used by a considerable group of Chicago men engaged in a fair order of literary endeavor. Among the contributors to early numbers were Opie Read, Stanley Waterloo, George Horton, John McGovern, and William Lightfoot Visscher; and the paper secured a following among readers interested only in the part of its contents which were of a literary nature. But after a few months some of the writers who had been members of the "Bichloride of Gold Club" surrendered their membership, and the periodical, which is still published as a monthly organ for the gold-cure, lost entirely its literary admixture.

In 1893, when socio-economic congresses were held in connection with the World's Fair, a magazine designed to give a popular presentation of social and political questions, but in such a form as compared with newspaper-writing that it was rated as literary, was begun. It bore the name New Occasions. The first editor, B. F. Underwood, was succeeded by Frederick Upham Adams, who is today a general magazine and newspaper syndicate writer on these subjects. In 1897 New Occasions was merged in New Time, of which Mr. Adams, at Chicago, and B. O. Flower, at Boston, were the joint editors. Mr. Flower was the founder of the Arena, and had a large personal following. The July, 1897, number said "Chicago-Boston" in its imprint, and mentioned a union of West and East. But in April, 1898, Mr. Flower sent his valedictory, in which he said: "For some time I have felt it impossible to perform the duties of senior editor in a manner satisfactory to myself, while living 1,000 miles from the office of publication." Mr. Adams continued editing the magazine and writing for it, particularly in opposition to the existing money system, declaring that it was his ambition "to aid in the founding of a magazine on the rock of economic truth." In June, 1898, he complained that only about