New Leader columns by Richard J. Margolis
In addition to writing numerous feature articles for The New Leader, Dick wrote a column in each issue under the banner "States of the Union" from 1968 to 1991. The New Leader, founded in 1924, was published by the American Labor Conference on International Affairs. It was the first publication to publish Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" and gave national voice to America's most prominent progressive thinkers and writers. The print publication ended in 2006 but continued online through August 2010. Issues are archived at Columbia University.
The following are selected "State of the Union" columns in chronological order, starting with the most recent, written as Dick was battling kidney disease. Select the title to download a PDF file.
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Rural Dialysis (The New Leader, 1991)
Having a Dream in Goshen (The New Leader, 1991)
Make Me Whole (The New Leader, 1990)
​Read My Blips (The New Leader, 1990)
​A World without Wheels (The New Leader, 1990)
​Tragedy in a Small Space (The New Leader, 1990)
​This Is Mexico? (The New Leader, 1989)
​A Certain Species of Helplessness (The New Leader, 1989)
​Caring While Curing (The New Leader, 1989)
​Looking for a Partner (The New Leader, 1989)
​Return of the Homestead (The New Leader, 1989)
​Juvenile Justice (The New Leader, 1988)
​Buzzings in the Berkshires (The New Leader, 1988)
​A Generous Teacher (The New Leader, 1988)
​A Hospital for All Seasons (The New Leader, 1988)
​A Moving Violation (The New Leader, 1988)
​George, Mike and Adlai (The New Leader, 1988)
​Our Closet Youth Institutions (The New Leader, 1988)
​Tracking Our Troubled Children (The New Leader, 1988)
​When Irish Skies Are Frowning (The New Leader, 1987)
​America's New Entrepreneurs (The New Leader, 1987)
​How Medicare Puts the Elderly On Hold (The New Leader, 1987)
The Fast-Care Industry (The New Leader, 1987)
​The Health Gift Repossessed (The New Leader, 1987)
​Wisconsin's Child-Support Experiment (The New Leader, 1987)
​Is the Next Stop Penn Station? (The New Leader, 1986)
​Long-Term Caring (The New Leader, 1986)
​When Youth Creep Succumbs to Age Creep (The New Leader, 1986)
​Travels in an Edgy India (The New Leader, 1986)
​Bring Us to This Hovel (The New Leader, 1986)
​Melody and Mystery (The New Leader, 1986)
​Paybacks from the Poor (The New Leader, 1985)
​Hungry in the Eighties (The New Leader, 1985)
​Sic Paratransit Gloria Omnibus (The New Leader, 1985)
​Growing up Jewish in America (The New Leader, 1985)
​Older Citizens in Search of Security (The New Leader, 1985)
​Voices of the Elderly Poor (The New Leader, 1985)
​Rosebud Revisited (The New Leader, 1984)
​The Big Lie in Iowa (The New Leader, 1984)
​How to Reach the Rural Voter (The New Leader, 1984)
​Native Roots (The New Leader, 1984)
​Navajos, Hopis and the Law of the Land (The New Leader, 1984)
​Polonius vs. Tartuffe (Jesse Jackson) (The New Leader, 1984)
​The Star and the Plow (The New Leader, 1984)
​Yours, Anne (The New Leader, 1984)
​All Against All (The New Leader, 1983)
​In the Quill of the Knight (The New Leader, 1983)
​Populists and Strangers (The New Leader, 1983)
​Deliberate Pleasures (The New Leader, 1983)
​Funding Feminists (The New Leader, 1983)
​Homogenized Democrats (The New Leader, 1983)
​The Little Kernel (The New Leader, 1983)
​The Two Faces of Populism (The New Leader, 1983)
​A Modern Parable (The New Leader, 1981)
​Down and Out in America (The New Leader, 1981)
​Liberals and the Rural Vote (The New Leader, 1981)
​Strained Mercy of the Truly Rich (The New Leader, 1981)
​The Voices of the People (The New Leader, 1981)
​A Night with the Winners (The New Leader, 1980)
​Letter from Cambridge (The New Leader, 1980)
​New Life in the Old Village (The New Leader, 1980)
​Outline of a New Liberal Coalition (The New Leader, 1980)
​The 49th Campaign (The New Leader, 1980)
​Tales Out of School in Colorado (The New Leader, 1979)
​Spring Seedling (The New Leader, 1979)
​The Same Old Jimmy Carter (The New Leader, 1979)
​Wasted Energy (The New Leader, 1979)
​Iran - Notes of a Confused American (The New Leader, 1979)
​Dreams of a Third Party (The New Leader, 1979)
​Racing through Childhood (The New Leader, 1979)
​Standing Up for Ma Bell (The New Leader, 1979)
​The Little Red Post Office on Pike Street (The New Leader, 1979)
​Unmailed Memos (The New Leader, 1979)
​Carter's Record Home (The New Leader, 1978)
​The Dreams of Hubert Humphrey (The New Leader, 1978)
​Limousine Ruminations (The New Leader, 1978)
​The Battle of Pill Hill (The New Leader, 1978)
​Have a Good Decade (The New Leader, 1978)
​Doctors for Sale (The New Leader, 1978)
​Groping for Intimacy (The New Leader, 1978)
​Power and the Poor (The New Leader, 1978)
​Red-White Relations (The New Leader, 1978)
​The Day the Presses Stopped (The New Leader, 1978)
​The New Challenge to Labor (The New Leader, 1978)
​Trouble in Crystal City (The New Leader, 1978)
​A Job-Seeker's Journal (The New Leader, 1977)
​Bermuda Shorts (The New Leader, 1977)
​Winning Back the West (The New Leader, 1977)
​JP Stevens' Satanic Mills (The New Leader, 1977)
​A Diarist's Blue Period (The New Leader, 1977)
​Bert and Jimmy (The New Leader, 1977)
​Dollars and Doctors (The New Leader, 1977)
​Indians and the Law (The New Leader, 1977)
Book Review: O Pioneer, O Morris: Good Neighborhood: The Challenge of Open Housing - by Morris Milgram (The New Leader, 1977)
The Redlining of Rural Americans (The New Leader, 1977)
Selling the Land (The New Leader, 1977)
​Shuffling for a New Deal (The New Leader, 1977)
​The Little Agency That Could (The New Leader, 1977)
​Letter to a Friend (The New Leader, 1976)
​Primary Poems (The New Leader, 1976)
​Thunder, Sticks and Avocets (The New Leader, 1976)
​On Husbanding One's Resources (The New Leader, 1976)
​Men at Middle Age (The New Leader, 1976)
​New York in Search of a Bard (The New Leader, 1976)
Off the Campaign Trail (The New Leader, 1976)
​Pride and Prejudice (The New Leader, 1976)
​The Compleat Natterer (about Ralph Nader; The New Leader, 1976)
​Death of the Country Doctor (The New Leader, 1975)
​A Graduation Letter (The New Leader, 1975)
​Conversations with My Dentist (The New Leader, 1975)
​Deep in the Heart of Texas (The New Leader, 1975)
​Stamping Out Hunger (The New Leader, 1975)
​The Indian in Fiction (The New Leader, 1975)
​The Practical Economist (The New Leader, 1975)
​Waiting for the Bloodless Revolution (The New Leader, 1975)
​Diary of a Freeze (The New Leader, 1974)
​Breaking the Recidivist Circle (The New Leader, 1974)
​Getting Along with Wallace (The New Leader, 1974)
​Gloria Get Your Gun (The New Leader, 1974)
​A Letter to the President (Ford) (The New Leader, 1974)
​Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Streaking (The New Leader, 1974)
​From Bullets to Ballots (The New Leader, 1974)
​Payments to the Past (The New Leader, 1974)
​Death of a Magazine (The New Leader, 1973)
​A Fine Meter of Civilization (The New Leader, 1973)
​Pennies for the President (The New Leader, 1973)
​The Last of the Paugussetts (The New Leader, 1973)
​Waiting for the Justice Man (The New Leader, 1973)
​Feuding over the Flag (The New Leader, 1973)
​The Still Possible Dream (The New Leader, 1973)
​An Appeal from Death Row (The New Leader, 1973)
​A Glossary of 'Watargot' (Watergate) (The New Leader, 1973)
​Getting Gulled (The New Leader, 1973)
​Metropollyana and Rural Poverty (The New Leader, 1973)
​Return to Wounded Knee (The New Leader, 1973)
The New 'Standard Police Practice' (The New Leader, 1973)
​Traveler's Notebook (The New Leader, 1973)
​One Night in the Life of Yevgeny Yevtushenko (The New Leader, 1972)
​Nirvana on Wheels (The New Leader, 1972)
​Notes Toward a Father's Blessing (The New Leader, 1972)
​All the Agnews Fit to Print (The New Leader, 1972)
​Countering the Commercials (The New Leader, 1972)
For Whom the Drum Beats (The New Leader, 1972)
​Memoirs of a McGovern Canvasser (The New Leader, 1972)
​Robbing the Poor (The New Leader, 1972)
​Segregating the Poor (The New Leader, 1972)
​The Gospels of Ecology (The New Leader, 1972)
​So You Want to Go to College (The New Leader, 1971)
​A Tree Grows in Eden (The New Leader, 1971)
​Blacks and Browns in Blue (The New Leader, 1971)
​Learning about Asia (The New Leader, 1971)
​Letter from an Ex-Con (The New Leader, 1971)
​Living the Hopi Legend (The New Leader, 1971)
​Looking for America (The New Leader, 1971)
​Minority Hiring and the Police (The New Leader, 1971)
​Recruiting Police in the Ghetto (The New Leader, 1971)
​Sheriffs North and South (The New Leader, 1970)
​The Duffey Formula (The New Leader, 1970)
​The Rural Housing Famine (The New Leader, 1970)
​Whitewashing the Indians (The New Leader, 1970)