Probe: a quarterly [six issues]

Boston: Probe, 1946. Newsletter. Six issues of the newsletter, three mimeographed, three printed on newsprint; all 8.5x11 inches, generally very good, one with chipped corner, two with postal markings. Issues present are the inaugural number from Jan. 1945, Spring, Summer, Autumn 1945, Winter 1946, and the final issue from Spring 1946. The first issue of this libertarian socialist publication has an introductory explanation by Marvin Penner. The Spring 1945 issue notes that a good Samaritan had donated printing facilities; this explains its more professional production, but for the last two issues it reverts to mimeograph. The co-publishers and co-editors were Charles Bloomstein and J. Dickinson. Bloomstein, a friend of Bayard Rustin, was a conscientious objector during WWII and spent time at three different Civilian Public Service camps. Even as he was working on these issues of Probe, Bloomstein was serving as a human guinea pig for medical experiments at CPS Unit 115-24, at Massachusetts General Hospital. The farewell message on the rear cover of the last issue gives reasons for shutting down. "Perhaps the major reason for discontinuance is our inability to afford printing, though there are other reasons as well. We feel that a mimeographed publication labors under a tremendous handicap (heightened by our own poor workmanship). Some form of printing process is a necessity for a regular periodical meant to be taken seriously. Not affording such a process, we are obliged to suspend. In retrospect, altho we have not swept the country, we have every reason to be satisfied with our progress. For a magazine dedicated to extremely unpopular views and catering to a tiny minority thru an almost illegible medium, we had over two hundred bona-fide subscribers and at least an equal number who indicated their interest in the magazine. To those of you who subscribed, we hope you were not disappointed. To our life subscribers we can only say that we warned you.