"Missy" Meloney

HELEN ROGERS REID

THE publication of articles about the correspondence
between A-Iadame A^arie Curie and Mrs. Afarie Alat-
tingly Aleloney in Columbia Library Columns, has
brought back to life one great achievement in the record of a
remarkable human being—"A4issy" Meloney. (This first name by
which she was known to all her friends had been given by her
Kentucky mammy and it endured to the end.)

The friends who called her "A'lissy" included statesmen, scien¬
tists, and leading figures in every field throughout the world.
Outstanding literary people and artists created for her some of
their most original work. She was a great editor and on the
Delineator she was one of the first to break the million mark in
circulation among magazines.

After that, she did such brilliant work for the Herald Tribune
Sunday Magazine that she was drafted and reluctantly persuaded
to become editor of the extraordinarily successful This Week.
Under her leadership its circulation reached six million and it is
now over fourteen million, thanks in large part to her inspiring
legacy to fellow workers: "Never stop learning—Never stop
growing". President Theodore Roosevelt once said of her, "Mrs.
Meloney knows how to think, but what's more important she's
thinking in terms of the future."

The basis of her talented editorial success was her experience
as a newspaperwoman. She started early. At 15 she did music criti¬
cism for the Washington Post. At 17 she was head of the Washing¬
ton Bureau of the Denver Post and the first woman to sit in the
 

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