The Literary Digest

Articles from The Literary Digest

Protestant Churches Forced into Submission (Literary Digest, 1933)

Hitler wasted little time in securing control over the Christian churches in Germany: within six months of taking power he began to put the screws to the Protestant churches. This article devotes much column space to the pastors who had no problem with any of Hitler’s commands.

The issue, then, is broader than the Reich. Jews, Protestants and Catholics the world over have seen another scrap of paper torn up in Hitler’s repudiation of his pledge on taking office that the Nazi regime would respect the freedom and legal rights of German churches… Hitler modified an order requiring all Protestant pastors on a recent Sunday to display Nazi banners from their church spires…. The Nazis have also suppressed the German branch of International Bible Students’ Society, outlawed the Boy Scouts, and, to make their program more effective – given a Nazi cast to the Lord’s Prayer.

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Gandhi’s Struggle Against British Imperialism (Literary Digest, 1937)

A news article from a 1937 issue of LITERARY DIGEST pertaining to Mahatma Gandhi‘s ongoing struggle to break free from the bonds of English imperialism:

The basic policy of this Congress, Nehru admonished, is to combat the ‘Government of India Act’ (the Federal Constitution); resist in every way the attempt by British imperialism to strengthen its hold on India and its people; stress a positive demand for a constituent assembly, elected by adult suffrage.

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Danzig Nazis (The Literary Digest, 1936)

The attached 1936 magazine article presents a picture of the Polish city of Danzig as it was during the mid-thirties. It was a city in which Danzig Nazis, like Arthur Karl Greiser, spoke of making that town a part of Germany once more (it was ordained a Polish city as a result of the Versailles Treaty) and Minister Joseph Beck who liked everything just the way it was, thank you very much.

NAZI PATIENCE: Neither Beck nor Hitler is anxious to come to a break over Danzig. Hitler, a sworn enemy of Soviet Russia, advises his Danzig Nazis to forbear from mentioning their intention of completely abandoning League control for secession to Germany…

Hitler’s troops invaded Poland on August 31, 1939.

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Danzig Nazis (The Literary Digest, 1936)

The attached 1936 magazine article presents a picture of the Polish city of Danzig as it was during the mid-thirties. It was a city in which Danzig Nazis, like Arthur Karl Greiser, spoke of making that town a part of Germany once more (it was ordained a Polish city as a result of the Versailles Treaty) and Minister Joseph Beck who liked everything just the way it was, thank you very much.

NAZI PATIENCE: Neither Beck nor Hitler is anxious to come to a break over Danzig. Hitler, a sworn enemy of Soviet Russia, advises his Danzig Nazis to forbear from mentioning their intention of completely abandoning League control for secession to Germany…

Hitler’s troops invaded Poland on August 31, 1939.

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Dinner with Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford (Literary Digest, 1922)

This article is a simply wonderful read for many reasons and the chief among them is that the journalist hated Los Angeles. The New York writer Karl K. Kitchen was dispatched to Beverly Hills to interview the recently divorced Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford and he seemed to have had a nice enough time with the estranged couple, so much so that the Hollywood Royals invited him to dine at their house. The whole article is written in a very chatty way and there is one small, but distinct, slanderous aside referring to Jewish power in the nascent film industry.

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Just Another Airborne Wedding Ceremony (Literary Digest, 1922)

Another article on this site marks 1912 as being the year that saw the first airborne wedding ceremony; but this article reported on the first wedding to be performed in a Fokker Monoplane with the added benefit of a wireless radio transmitter that broadcast the event to numerous well-wishers down below. The wedding was officiated by non-other than the Flying Parson himself, Belvin W. Maynard. Maynard was a legend in early aviation and he died in a crash some four months later.

The number of in-flight nuptials that have been performed since the first in 1912 are too numerous to count; however the last high-profile event took place in the Fall of 2007, when Sir Richard Branson (b. 1950) of Virgin Airlines presided over an in-flight wedding ceremony at 35,000 feet en route from San Francisco to Las Vegas.

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