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November 16, 1954 Internal Memorandum Interview with Evans Clark, formerly Executive Director of the Twentieth Century Fund, now on the editorial staff of the New York Times Because the Twentieth Century Fund, during the years of Mr. Clark's directorship, has published so many books on economic subjects, it seemed wise to find out what their procedure was. Mr. Clark says that they started by having books bearing the imprint of the Twentieth Century Fund published by various publishers. Specifically, they used, at various times, Harder Brothers, Appleton, Macmillan, and McGraw-Hill. Of these, they found Macmillan and McGraw-Hill the most useful. He is under the impression that at no time did they subsidise publication of books, but that these stood on their own feet and returned royalties to the Twentieth Century Fund. Asked why the Twentieth Century Fund shifted from the process of having books published by individual houses to that of publishing their own books, Mr. Clark said that they could control the second process more easily than the first. He has been particularly aware since the beginning of the need for special care for readability and for design of books of this character. Apparently it was in an effort to get complete readability or as nearly that as possible that they took over the publishing into their own hands. Mr. Clark will get a memorandum from the Twentieth Century Fund giving us full data as to books published, the chief points in the contract under which they were published, and the profits^returned by those books. In this business of profits, it should be noted that not all the costs of publication were absorbed by the companies. Apparently proofreading at least was provided by the Twentieth Century Fund, and in the later stages, the editing was done within the Fund. This editing was a very long and careful job, and in some instances, meant almost a complete rewriting of manuscripts. Obviously, the -2staff costs were such that, hed they been added to costs of publication by a commercial house, they would have eaten up the royalties. Mr. Clark suggested that, in setting up the publication process for this Committee, special attention be paid to readability of manuscripts. He thinks that in contract with authors this matter of editing for readability should be stressed. This needs to be taken up with someone in the Committee or perhaps with the Committee as a whole. Mildred Adams
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