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Each Friday, I’ve been doing a bit of archive digging, looking back at old issues of Mother Jones to bring you the good stuff. So, let’s go back to our second-ever issue. It is from April 1976, replete with our usual strong reporting.

We covered a rent strike in the Bronx’s Co-Op City (the high-rise heavy apartment megaplex brought to you by Robert Moses on the former site of an amusement park called Freedomland). We told the story of a worker-owned mine in Vermont. We looked at the presidential race (or, at least, listed musician endorsements: Pat Boone for Ronald Reagan; Linda Ronstadt for Mo Udall; the Allman Brothers for Jimmy Carter). We had a Der Spiegel reporter write from Vietnam.

Also, we covered baseball.

The issue had two short pieces on baseball. One was significantly harder-hitting than the other: a report of a canceled trip by US baseball to Cuba, derailed by Henry Kissinger (over, the State Department said, Cuban relations with Angola):

And the other is the best advice you’ll ever get in your life, from Leroy “Satchel” Paige, a pitcher who played until 59 years old both in the Negro Leagues and for Major League Baseball:

Here are the six pieces of wisdom from Paige, taken from his book Maybe I’ll Pitch Forever:

1. Avoid fried meats which angry up the blood.

2. If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts.

3. Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move.

4. Go very lightly on the vices, such as carrying on in society. The social ramble ain’t restful.

5. Avoid running at all times.

6. Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.

Great stuff. Overall, I’d say Mother Jones was looking to be a top-flight magazine. But you can’t please everyone. One reader had picked up our inaugural issue. He wrote to us:

Dear Editors,

As a newspaperman of some 25 years’ experience, I might agree with your letter that there is a question where American society is headed. I must say I did not have quite such a question 25 years ago, but the reaction of people like yourself to the problems of the world, make me wonder.

No, I don’t think I want to read your magazine. There’s room for an honest publication that tells it as it really is—but that wouldn’t be trendy enough to sell well, would it?

Gordon E. White

ALEXANDRIA, VA.

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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