Reader’s Digest

Articles from Reader’s Digest

Free Enterprise And The Assimilation of Immigrants (Readers Digest, 1923)

The testimony given in this column from the early Twenties is as true today as it was then. It was written by a 1905 immigrant who observed that the first word immigrants learn when arriving in America is BUY. When presented at every corner with products they’d never seen before in tandem with the smiling and encouraging face of the sales staff, the immigrant can’t help but feel an inner drive to join the American society:

And when he succumbs, why wonder that he grows more aggressive, demanding higher wages and striking when the demand is denied?

Free Enterprise And The Assimilation of Immigrants (Readers Digest, 1923) Read More »

In Defense Of Chemical Warfare (Reader’s Digest, 1923)

This article is very different from the others posted in the W.W. I Poison Gas Warfare section of this site. The column is a spirited argument advocating for chemical weapons, recalling the productive roll they played in the Great War. It was written by General Amos A. Fries (1873 – 1963) who had commanded the U.S. Army Chemical Warfare units during the First World War:

Poison gas is the most effective weapon mankind has ever devised. Will any nation with its back to the wall, and fighting for its life, hesitate to use it?

In Defense Of Chemical Warfare (Reader’s Digest, 1923) Read More »