The Literary Digest – Page 17 – Old Magazine Articles

Gregor Strasser: the Nazi Rebel
(Literary Digest, 1933)

Attached is a profile of Hitler’s director of the NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers’ Party), and their political differences that led to his resignation.

Hitler was hard hit when Gregor Strasser
(1892 – 1934), one of his ablest and oldest supporters, broke away from him. It happened in one of the fights between rival factions in the Hitlerite movement which followed losses sustained in the November Reichstag elections.

Profound gratitude is due Strasser from Hitler because when Hitler was released from jail, there was at least a nucleus of his party left, so that its reconstruction did not have to begin in a void. Gratitude was expressed on Hitler’s part for he made Strasser chief of his propaganda work.

He was murdered in his prison cell during the Night of Long Knives (June 30, 1934).

Read about the German POWs who were schooled in virtues of democracy.

The Murder of SA Stormtrooper Herbert Hentsch
(Literary Digest, 1933)

The Nazis were very adept at eating their young; here is but one of many stories from assorted German and Austrian newspapers that illustrated that point:

The Hitlerites, it alleges, have their own Army, police, and courts functioning independently of the constituted authorities, even defying those authorities, and passing death sentences by secret tribunals.

In Dresden dwelt a ‘shock-troop division’ man named Herbert Hentsch whose body was found not so long ago.

Various circumstances suggest that comrades of the dead young man within the Nazi ranks put him out of the way…

CLICK HERE to read about the beautiful Blonde Battalions who spied for the Nazis…

Atrocity Denials
(Literary Digest, 1933)

Shortly after Hitler had assumed power came the eyewitness accounts concerning all the assorted government sanctioned murders, public beatings, and confiscations that characterized the Third Reich.

This article appeared on the newsstands just three months after Hitler’s coronation and is offers numerous repudiations, abnegation and disavowals all composed by the polished pros of the regime; such as Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, Reichsbank Chairman Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht, newspaper editor Fritz Klein of the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, and the editor from the Nazi organ in Munich, the Voelkischer Beobachter, who opined

We hereby nail this shameless lie. The accusations remain unexampled in the history of any cultured nation.

Click here to read about the contempt that the Nazis had for Modern Art.

Click here to read about the similarities and differences between communism and fascism.

The Richest Tribe
(Literary Digest, 1936)

Living, as we do, in the age of Indian gaming casinos it seems rather quaint to talk about which tribe was considered the richest of them all back in the Thirties. Nonetheless, this 1936 article tells the tale of the Osage Indians (Missouri) and the great wealth that was thrust upon them when oil was discovered on their tribal lands:

In 1935, some 3,500 Osage Indians proved their right to the title of wealthiest Indian tribe in America by drawing an income of $5,000,000 from their oil and gas leases…The members of Chief Fred Lookout’s tribe were not stingy with their new wealth. They bought clothes, big cars lavishly ornate homes…

Foolhardiness on the Western Front
(Literary Digest, 1917)

The manner in which front-line soldiers in a war are able to stave off boredom has been the topic of many letters and memoirs throughout the centuries, and the attached article will show you how one Frenchman addressed the issue – it is a seldom seen black and white photograph depicting an acrobatic stunt being performed above the parapet and in plain view of German snipers.

The First Car Radio
(Literary Digest, 1922)

An article that your gadget-loving, audiophile pals will probably not enjoy from the days before woofers and tweeters. Will wonders never cease? A radio IN THE CAR and an antenna that looks like a luggage rack, for heavens sake…

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Amelia Bloomer
(Literary Digest, 1922)

Excerpts from the diary of Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815 – 1902) on the matter of the 1850s Women’s Suffrage Movement, Bloomers and the public reaction to that queer attire…

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a member of the Unitarian religion…

The Klan as a National Problem
(The Literary Digest, 1922)

A two page article reporting on the growth of the KKK throughout the United States in the early Twenties, it’s general rise in popularity and the resolve of elected officials at both the state and Federal levels to contain the Invisible Empire.

Interesting comments can be read by a reformed Klansman named H.P. Fry, who authored a cautionary memoir titled, The Modern Ku Klux Klan.

Congress Adresses the Problem of the Hip-Flask
(Literary Digest, 1927)

Seven years after wine and spirits were banished from the land, the government in Washington felt pressured to discipline all those restaurateurs who failed to defenestrate their patrons who brought illicit drink into their establishments. This is an article about how an attempt was made to get restaurant owners to police their customers.

The Costliness of Mesopotamia
(Literary Digest, 1922)

The attached article from LITERARY DIGEST will give you a clear understanding of all that Britain went through in order to govern Iraq in the early Twenties; Britain’s treaties with the Turkish and Angoran Governments in regards to the oil-rich region of Mosul, the selection of an Arab King and the suppression of various Iraqi revolts.

The Mesopotamian Adventure required a tremendous amount of treasure and yielded very little excitement for either party:

At the end of the war we found Iraq upon our hands, and our Government agreed to accept a mandate for the administration for this inhospitable territory.

Click here to see a Punch Magazine cartoon about the British adventure in Iraq.

Library of Congress Salutes the Dime Novel
(Literary Digest, 1937)

In 1937 the Rare Book Department at the Library of Congress launched a surprising exhibit of what they called, ephemeral literature – these works were popularly known as Dime Novels and they were not simply the father of the modern comic book but also the father of one other form of popular literature:

The roots of the American historical novel are sunk in the so-called dime novel – the first effort at popular fiction. It began with the stories based on the Revolutionary War, then historical fiction of incidents in the War of 1812, the Mexican War and the struggle for Cuban independence, which stated about that period.

‘Rise and Fall of the Dime Novel”
(Literary Digest, 1900)

Although the dime novel was in full swing as a popular form of mass literature in 1900, the journalist titled this article as he did because the genre was undergoing so many changes at the time, departing from it’s original format. A short history of the dime novel is provided with an emphasis on it’s classic period spanning the years 1860 through 1870:

Some references are also made to the work of the Beadle and Adams bookkeeper, George Munro, who completely changed the direction of the dime novel when he took up the pen in 1865.

Captain Eddy Rickenbacker: Fighter Pilot
(The Literary Digest, 1919)

This is a wonderful read in which the American World War One fighter pilot Eddie Rickenbacker (1890 – 1973), recounted his experiences in France. Arriving rather late in the game (March, 1918), he quickly racked up 26 kills, a Croix de Guerre, a Distinguished Service Cross, the Legion d’Honeur and the Congressional Medal of Honor (which would not be approved and awarded to him until 1930). He was the top Ace in the American Air Service. In his later life, he would go on to become one of the founders of Continental Airlines.

I learned pretty fast. Long practice in driving a racing-car at a hundred miles an hour or so gives first-class training in control and judging distances at high speed…

In his later life, Rickenbacker would go on to become one of the founders of Continental Airlines.

Click here to read an article about the development of aerial reconnaissance during W.W. I.

Read what the U.S. Army psychologists had to say about courage.

The Future of War-Artists
(Literary Digest, 1917)

Just as the American poet Walt Whitman once remarked concerning the American Civil War – that the real war will never make it into books, so goes the thinking of the ink-stained wretch who penned the attached column regarding the efforts of the Official War Artists during W.W. I – who attempted to render accurately the horrors of war. Such genuine indecency could never allow itself to be duplicated into a two or three dimensional format.

William Orpen and W.W. I
(Literary Digest, 1923)

In the immediate aftermath of the First World War there were many eye witnesses to the slaughter who refused to remember it as a Noble Struggle. The chubby and comfortable fellows who ran the British Government couldn’t have known that the society portraitist William Orpen was one of these witnesses – but they soon found out when they commissioned him to make a pretty painting depicting all the pomp that was taking place at Versailles…

Wars Affect the Art of a Nation
(Literary Digest, 1916)

Various musings concerning the influences that war has had on art through the centuries are discussed in this article, with particular attention paid to the historical belief that wars are won by those nations that host the more vibrant and original arts communities.

Butcher Bill Paid by the French Arts Community
(Literary Digest, 1917)

Three hundred and fifty French artists, among whom are painters, sculptors, engravers, and architects, have paid the extreme price of their devotion to country and are counted with the dead.

A List of German Versailles Treaty Violations
(Literary Digest, 1936)

This is an interesting article that announced the Germans march into the Rhineland as well as the island of Hegoland. The journalist also listed various other Versailles Treaty infractions.

Click here to read an additional article concerning the Versailles Treaty violations.