Woollcott once told McMein that “I’m thinking of writing the story of our life together. The title is already settled.” McMein: “What is it?” Woollcott: “Under Separate Cover.”) Woollcott joined the staff of "The New York Times" as a cub reporter in 1909. In 1914 he was named drama critic and held the post until 1922, with a break for service during World War I. In April 1917, the day after war was declared, Woollcott volunteered as a private in the medical corps. Posted overseas, Woollcott was a sergeant when the intelligence section of the American Expeditionary Forces selected him and a half-dozen other newspaper men to create the "Stars and Stripes", an official newspaper to bolster troop morale. As chief reporter for the "Stars and Stripes", Woollcott was a member of the team that formed its editorial board. These included Harold Ross, founder of "The New Yorker" magazine; Cyrus Baldridge, multifaceted illustrator, author and writer; and the future columnist and radio personality, Franklin P. Adams. Going beyond simple propaganda, Woollcott and his colleagues reported the horrors of the Great War from the point of view of the common soldier. After the war he returned to "The New York Times", then transferred to the "New York Herald" in 1922 and to "The World" in 1923. He remained there until 1928. One of New York's most prolific drama critics, he was banned for a time from reviewing certain Broadway theater shows due to his florid and often vitriolic prose. He sued the Shubert theater organization for violation of the New York Civil Rights Act, but lost in the state's highest court in 1916 on the grounds that only discrimination on the basis of race, creed or color was unlawful. From 1929 to 1934, he wrote a column called "Shouts and Murmurs" for "The New Yorker". His book, "While Rome Burns", published by Grosset & Dunlap in 1934, was named twenty years later by critic Vincent Starrett as one of the 52 "Best Loved Books of the Twentieth Century." Woollcott's review of the Marx Brothers' Broadway debut, "I'll Say She Is", helped the group's career inflate from mere success to superstardom and started a lifelong friendship with Harpo Marx. Harpo's two adopted sons, Alexander Marx and William (Bill) Woollcott Marx, were named after Woollcott and his brother, Billy Woollcott.