When I did my first stint at the Washington Monthly in the 1980s, as a 24-year-old, the magazine was in a ramshackle office near Washington’s Dupont Circle. I worked long hours for $10,000 a year ($28,111 in today’s dollars) as we all did, including Paul Glastris, also in his 20s, who was finishing his tenure at the magazine and is now the editor-in-chief. Our boss, the magazine’s founder Charles Peters, was deeply inspiring, but he could also be, shall we say, infuriating. One night after being up for days, I went to his home amid a snowstorm to drop off copy, leaving it in an old-fashioned steel milk box on his stoop. (These were the earliest days of email. And neither the Monthly nor Charlie had a fax machine.) By the time I made it back to my garret, as sunrise approached, Charlie was calling me to tell me how I’d erred in editing a story about Gary Hart, the senator and presidential candidate. The real scandal, Charlie said, wasn’t that the Coloradan had been photographed with a young woman aboard the yacht named Monkey Business. But that Hart, whom we liked, was cavorting with the Louisiana lobbyist who owned the boat. I can’t remember what subpoint I flubbed. I do remember that I assumed wrongly, but not without reason, given his tone, that I’d been fired. 

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This year was no exception when it came to challenging shibboleths of the left and right. The Monthly broke ground by raising questions about the “abundance” critique of some liberals we admire, such as Ezra Klein, who maintain that red tape and regulation are holding back the country and liberals. While acknowledging that bureaucracy is often burdensome—the Monthly was born with the idea of making government work—we found that other factors, such as monopolies and corporate lobbying, were often bigger drivers of our national dysfunction. See “The Meager Agenda of Abundance Liberals” by Glastris and my colleague Nate Weisberg, and “The Broadband Story Abundance Liberals Like Ezra Klein Got Wrong” by Glastris and Kainoa Lowman. 

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The Washington Monthly was born 56 years ago during a crisis for liberals. It was 1969. John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier and Lyndon B. Johnson’s had crashed on the shoals of the Vietnam War, riots, and the 1968 presidential election, where the combined vote of Richard Nixon and George Wallace was just under 57 percent. The magazine was born to examine how government should work, where it succeeds, and where it often fails. Peters had been a New Frontiersman and a founder of the Peace Corps. 

When Glastris took over the magazine in 2001, liberals, progressives, and common-sense centrists were on their back foot after the 2000 elections. But he enriched the magazine with a newfound focus on antitrust and sophisticated, big-idea thinking about industrial policy, health care, and international trade. While some in the center pushed for incremental solutions and some on the left advocated big, but bad, ideas, the Monthly fused ideas that were both big and smart. The result was the acclaimed magazine you’re reading today, where a new breed of young editors and some wizened hands like me and Glastris keep this venerable institution going.  

We need your help. The Washington Monthly is a nonprofit, so your donation is entirely tax-deductible. Whatever you can afford helps. For just $50, you’ll receive the magazine’s print edition, going strong since 1969.  

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Charles Peters, born in Charleston, West Virginia, just before Christmas in 1926, died at his home in Washington, D.C., on Thanksgiving Day. He was 96.

Charlie, as he was universally known, had been in declining physical health for several years, mainly from congestive heart failure. His mind, wit, encyclopedic recall, passion, curiosity, and sense of humor were undiminished until his last days. Charlie frequently said that his partnership with his beloved wife, Beth, who had been a ballet dancer before their marriage, was the greatest good fortune in his long and eventful life. Charlie and Beth celebrated their 66^th wedding anniversary last summer. She had been caring for him, with hospice support, in the same modest house in Washington where they had lived since coming to the city in 1961 as part of John F. Kennedy’s new administration. They had jointly determined that, if possible, Charlie would remain at home, with Beth, and in familiar settings until the end. Thanks to Beth’s strength, constant presence, and their hospice support, he could do so. My wife, Deb, and I join the vast network of Peters family friends in sending condolences and love to Beth, their son Chris, and all of their family.

Through his work and force of personality, Charlie directly influenced several generations of journalists and people in government and public life. It’s been more than 20 years since the American Society of Magazine Editors elected him to its Hall of Fame for the example he had set and the forms of journalism he championed during his tenure as founding editor of The Washington Monthly, from 1969 to 2000. In the days to come, you’ll hear in this space from many people who have learned from, worked for, or in other ways have been shaped by Charlie’s enormous presence in our field. Most of them will have laughed with Charlie and argued with him—perhaps both at the same time. They will have loved him and been exasperated by him, marveled at his insights and resented his quirky or imperious demands, rolled their eyes during his animated editorial-guidance pep talks known as “rain dances” but then been motivated or chastened by what he said. All of them have become more aware with the passing years how deeply grateful we are to have been part of his world.

This brief post is meant as a notice of Charlie’s death and an introduction to the appreciations to come.

For a few samples of earlier reflections on Charlie’s work and effect, please see this by Matt Cooper, on the occasion of Charlie’s 95^th birthday and this by Paul Glastris, Charlie’s worthy successor for the past 20-plus years as editor-in-chief of the Monthly. Paul’s piece was framed as a review of Charlie’s lastingly important final book, We Do Our Part: Toward a Fairer and More Equal America, which came out when Charlie was 90 and drew on his lessons as a young man during the Great Depression and World War II. I wrote an appreciation of the book as well. Judy Woodruff of the PBS NewsHour did a special segment on Charlie and that book; Jonathan Martin wrote about it in The New York Times. Fifteen years ago, Ezra Klein, then of Vox and now of the Times, did a revealing Q-and-A with Charlie in the Monthly. Early this year, Paul Glastris explained why the “neoliberal” outlook Charlie was proud to have pioneered in the 1980s was entirely different from the crass and heartless market-mindedness that goes by that name now. Together, these pieces offer a very useful guide to the through-lines in Charlie’s thinking about patriotism, about justice, about kindness, and decency, about ways to recreate an American sense of idealism and fellow-feeling. I hope you’ll read and watch them all, read and think about We Do Our Part, and join in the reflections on Charlie and his influence that will be appearing on this site.

Few could dispute that Charlie Peters has mattered. His presence in the Hall of Fame of the American Society of Magazine Editors is only the most obvious indicator. It is more important to realize that he matters and that his ideas and example can play an ongoing indispensable role in responding to our country’s deepest problems.

Charlie Peters matters in the example he has given us for journalism: For reporting that is hard-headed but not hard-hearted, that rides on stories but is anchored in data and fact, that calls out the evil and failures in people and institutions but also recognizes their possibility for good.

He matters in the ideals he has set for his country: That it should be patriotic but not jingoistic, that it can respect the military without being pro-war, that it can celebrate ambition and entrepreneurship without forgetting those left behind, that it should be skeptical of government failures precisely because effective government is so crucial to America’s success.

He matters as a person: Showing that one can be flawed but triumphant, that awareness of one’s flaws can be the greatest strength, and that an open mind and a ready laugh are gifts to all. He fully enjoyed life’s pleasures, including, for many decades, season tickets to what was then a good local NFL team. And he was delighted to have lived long enough to see that team freed from the clutches of its previous evil owner! But in what he said, and more importantly in the way he lived, he warned against the Marie Antoinette effects of big money, lavish spending, and conspicuous consumption. Charlie believed that cheap could be fun.

Charlie Peters matters. Many who have known him will explain why he matters to them. In lieu of flowers, Beth Peters suggests that donations be made to The Washington Monthly, as the truest tribute to Charlie’s memory and ongoing example.     

We will miss Charlie tremendously even while his example remains with us.

The post Why Charlie Peters Matters appeared first on Washington Monthly.