Liberty Magazine – Page 3 – Old Magazine Articles

Nazi Spy Master
(Liberty Magazine, 1942)

This is a profile of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris (1887 – 1945), Hitler’s man in charge of sabotage and espionage. It tells the story of what he was up to during the First World War and throughout the Twenties; how he greased the wheels in Belgium, Norway, Denmark and France to make the invasion of those nations a bit easier. It explains how impressed Hitler was with his abilities and how suspicious Himmler was at the same time.

The Well-Organized War
(Liberty Magazine, 1942)

In the attached column, Liberty Magazine publisher Paul Hunter responded to all the naysayers who were carping about how poorly the American war was being prosecuted, he would have none of it. Hunter pointed out that previous American wars were plagued with all manner of shortages and bureaucratic foul-ups that hampered military success but that was not the case with the current conflict. The war at that point was not even half-way over, yet Hunter seemed clairvoyant when he wrote these words that historians yet un-born would agree with:

“On performance to date it is an even bet this war will go down in the history books as the best-run war America has ever fought.”

A similar article can be read here.

Did He Postpone the War?
(Liberty Magazine, 1936)

On March 7, 1936, Hitler ordered his army to violate the Versailles Treaty, once more, and march into the Rhineland (the portions of Western Germany that border France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands). Hitler was knee-deep in such violations by this time – since 1919, Germany was forbidden to raise an army, manufacture armaments or draft conscripts, so he thought he’d test the waters once more. Western Europe was appalled, seeing this encroachment as the biggest crisis since 1914. Journalist Earl Reeves, insisted in this column that what happened next was entirely due to the acumen of King Edward VIII, but, alas, it really made no difference and the 22,000 German soldiers remained in the Rhineland.

The Duchess and her New Life
(Liberty Magazine, 1938)

The first indication for the Windsors that the life of an abdicator is a tough one came on their wedding day, when none of their friends or family stood in attendance. All the yes-men and royal hangers-on who they believed so loyal, were nowhere in sight. In this article, journalist Adela Rogers St. John (1894 – 1988) looks at the tasks before the newly minted Duchess of Windsor. Seeing that the former king had been snubbed at his own wedding, the most burdensome cross that the Duchess bore was seeing to it that this man never be placed in a position that made him appear as a fool.

Yes, We Know There’s a War On
(Liberty Magazine, 1942)

This is an interesting editorial that pretty much implies that the U.S. Congress reigning in 1942 thought the American people were just as dumb as Congress does today. Although the Selective Service had reached into almost every household in the country and taken every able-bodied male, Congress behaved as if these households only cared about gas and sugar rationing:

“Don’t Think that We the People, can’t take anything you have to hand out. And don’t get it into your minds that we don’t know there is a war on… He won’t be home for dinner [again] tonight. And your worry about our rationing cards would be funny if it weren’t so pitiful.”

The War in Northern Finland
(Liberty Magazine, 1940)

When Stalin decided to mess with the Finns in 1939 he failed to take into consideration one demographic that was accustomed to blood, and that was the seal hunters of Finland. Upon hearing of the invasion, these men immediately burned their houses and turned their rifles away from the seals, toward the Soviets. Liberty war correspondent Edward Doherty (1890 – 1975) witnessed much of the fighting.

”It’s Fun to be a Jew”
(Liberty Magazine, 1957)

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They Gave Their All for the Troops
(Liberty Magazine, 1945)

This is one of the more enjoyable reads on the site. Published during the Summer of 1945, with the war in Europe over and the Japanese capitulation only six weeks away, the Liberty editors saw fit to run an article that recalled the absolute devotion that so many USO performers displayed again and again in order to guarantee that American military personnel abroad was fully entertained and amused – no matter their proximity to the enemy.

”If Lincoln Were in the White House”
(Liberty Magazine, 1936)

By cleverly borrowing from the state paper, letters and speeches of the Great Emancipator, a journalist from the usually pretty anti-New Deal Liberty Magazine was able to piece together a few paragraphs indicting
what they hoped Lincoln would think of the New Deal.

H.L. Mencken on the Brain Trust
(Liberty Magazine, 1934)

“The Brain Trust has devised a number of schemes for getting money away from the fellows who accumulated it during the Golden Age of Coolidge, and some of those schemes are working…”

Fritz Thyssen on Hitler
(Liberty Magazine, 1941)

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‘God and Alcoholics”
(Liberty Magazine, 1939)

Somebody said The Lord’s Prayer as the meeting broke up. I walked three blocks to the subway station. Just as I was about to go down the stairs – bang! – It happened! I don’t like the word miracle, but that’s all I can call it. The lights in the street seemed to flared up. My feet seemed to leave the pavement. A kind of shiver went over me and I burst into tears…I haven’t touched a drop in four years and I’ve sent four other fellows on the same road.

‘I Am Not a Dictator”
(Liberty Magazine, 1938)

In 1938, Fulton Oursler (1893 – 1952), editor of Liberty, crossed the Atlantic Ocean in order to ask Benito Mussolini why he invaded Ethiopia and to get his thoughts as to whether there would be peace in Europe. We can’t say that Il Duce gave very thorough answers to those questions, but Oursler did find out what was eating Mussolini:

Why is it that the people of the United States are so against Fascism? What is the matter with them? Why is the whole press so bitter against Fascism? Can you answer me that?

The Black Women Who Pass For White
(Liberty Magazine, 1949)

In most of our larger cities and many small towns there are thousands of Negroes who have successfully ‘gone over the line’ and are now living as white. Among them, it is said, are several well-known athletes and members of Congress – But you don’t hear much about the Negro women who pass. The roving male nature makes it easier for a man to pass completely, though it involves giving up his family as well as his friends. A woman finds passing harder to take.

Click here to read about the social differences between darker skinned and lighter skinned black people.

DON’T BECOME AN EXTRA
(Liberty Magazine, 1935)

If you were planning to use your time machine to travel back to 1935 so you could work as a Hollywood extra – you might want to read this article about what a bad hand was dealt to that crowd back in the day. It was written by Campbell MacCulloch, General Manager of the Central Casting Corporation – and he knew all about it:

In Hollywood dwell some ten or twelve thousand misguided folk who cling tenaciously to a couple of really fantastic illusions…

She Fought in the Trenches
(Liberty Magazine, 1938)

Well, Monsieur, did I ever tell you about the time I was a Doughboy in the Great war?

This is the story of Marie Marvingt (1875 – 1963), an amazing French woman who did indeed serve in the forward trenches disguised as a man during the Summer of 1917.

Threat of Nationalizing
(Liberty Magazine, 1938)

In the winter of 1938, when one of FDR’s anointed Brain Trusters made an off-the-cuff remark that the Federal Government would take over industry if the economy did not turn around, it must have alarmed many of the industry captains and sent the stock market through the floor. It also moved the eccentric Bernarr MacFadden (1868 – 1955) to put a fresh ribbon in his typewriter and have at it:

The present administration has made a ghastly failure of the business management of this government. It has increased the national indebtedness at the rate of five to ten million dollars every day. It has added more than twenty thousand million dollars to our national debt, and it probably has twenty million or more of our citizens on the dole, or in charity jobs, which is the dole in another form.

A Few Days With Lenin and Trotsky
(Liberty, 1920)

Often published by the editors of Liberty, Life and Judge, was the American cartoonist Ellison Hoover (d. 1966) who poked some fun at the instability and blood-lusting thirst of the still-born Soviet Union in 1920.

Click here to read an article about the NKVD agent who murdered Trotsky.