The new magazine's editorial policy was clearly spelled out in the "Publisher's Announcement" that led off the first issue, March 1907. "It is our intention," Holmes wrote, "to make a magazine that will appeal to the greatest number of blind, not of so high a class as to appeal only to the few very literary, and yet one in which the blind will find matters of interest to them."

We will have short stories, a continued story, the news of the month condensed, a department of poetry and one of letters from successful blind people, telling of the line of work in which they are engaged. This will stimulate others to take up similar lines of work. There may be a page devoted to games.... A page will be devoted to short humorous paragraphs, and a prize will be given each month for the one who sends in the best joke.... A musical column will be added later and prizes given for the best musical composition furnished by a blind reader. If sufficient number of our readers can read music, a piece of music will be published each month.

"It is the intention to make the magazine as near as possible like those published for the seeing. As Miss Helen Keller puts it in her letter to Mrs. Ziegler published in this issue, 'The Blind are not specialists interested only in blindness.'"

Not all these features materialized, though the musical interest was evidently so great that for several years it evolved into a separate magazine, The Ziegler Musical Quarterly, listing Walter G. Holmes as publisher, and costing $1.00 per year. This publication chronicled the music events of the day. It enabled the blind musician in far-away places to read about "Elektra" as well as if he had sight. When permission was received, parts of new and popular songs were printed. This filled a serious gap in the availability of music to blind people. Those who supported themselves by teaching music and by playing at dances and in cafes and other public places were supplied by the schools with classical music, but practically none of the popular kind.

Other features of the Ziegler were later dropped in light of changing conditions. All the same, the basic precept—that the magazine would not center on blindness, but on the world at large—has never changed throughout the magazine's long history.