Recent Articles – Page 100 – Old Magazine Articles

H.L. Mencken: Not Impressed with Lincoln
(The Smart Set, 1920)

As far as culture critic and all-around nay-sayer H.L. Mencken was concerned, Abraham Lincoln was simply another opportunist who fed at the federal trough and he found himself at a loss when it came to understanding the American deification of the man. It seemed that even Jefferson Davis might have had an easier time uttering a few sweet words to describe Lincoln then did the Bard of Baltimore. Yet, there was one contribution Lincoln made that Mencken applauded, the Gettysburg Address:

It is eloquence brought to a pellucid and almost gem-like perfection –the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases. Nothing else precisely like it is to be found in the whole range of oratory. Lincoln himself never even remotely approached it [in other speeches]. It is genuinely stupendous.

(Although, like any unreconstructed Confederates, he thought the argument was all a bunch of rot.)

She Worked The Graveyard Shift
(The American Magazine, 1943)

Thousands of American girls are traveling the same road as 21-year-old Dorthy Vogely, our new Cover Girl this month. No longer do they live at home waiting for a nice young man. Instead they’ve gone on their own to help win the war…

Movie Streaming was Invented in 1950
(Quick Magazine, 1950)

We were surprised to learn that the earliest television mavens recognized that television programming could be enhanced and customized when the signal is carried through telephone lines of individual subscribers – a perk that wasn’t made widespread for a few decades. The early concept was called Phonevision.

American English and American Identity
(American Legion Weekly, 1920)

When it came to the issue of assimilating immigrants on American shores and deporting Alien Slackers, few groups yelled louder than the editors at The American Legion Weekly. In this anonymous editorial the author gently advocates for the recognition of American English in all schools with heavy immigrant numbers.

Why not inform these aliens they are about to be taught the American language… [and] announce to the world that there is a new language? Why, even in Mexico they do not stand for calling their language the Spanish language. They insist it is the Mexican language… why not quit press-agenting John Bull and have our own language – the American language.

– from Amazon: A Decade-by-Decade Guide to the Vanishing Vocabulary of the Twentieth Century

Movies will Promote Americanism
(Touchstone Magazine, 1920)

The attached article, The Immigrant and the Movies: A New Kind of Education, is about Hollywood filmmakers with the dream of instilling among the newcomers a sense of pride in being American, the Americanism Committee of the Motion Picture Industry was formed in 1920 in order to create films that would impart this sensation.

Who Are the Italian Fascists?
(The Literary Digest, 1921)

There have been other ‘Fasci’ before the present, for the word, derived from Latin ‘fascia’ (a bandage), means any league or association. Thus, the association of laborers and sulfur-workers, that caused the agrarian agitation in Sicily in 1892, were called Fasci… the essence of the word being the close union of different elements in a common cause that binds them all together. Each ‘Fascio’ possesses so-called ‘squadre de azione’ (squadrons of action), composed of young men who have mostly served in the war. Each of these ‘squadrons’ has a commandant, named by the directing council of the particular Fascio.

In Milan there existed a general committee that supervised all these yahoos, but by enlarge, each local Fascio was free to do as they saw fit within their own domains. The earliest ‘Fasci di Combattimento’ were created in 1919 by Mussolini, who at the time enjoyed some popularity as the editor of the Il Popolo d’Italia. The Fascists saw the destruction of Italian socialism as their primary job.

The Proxy Wars
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1950)

On June 24 [1950] Soviet Russia dug deep into her bag of tricks and came up with a new one – war by proxy. Today, still sadly unprepared for satellite warfare, the US may yet profit by tragic experiences – so that even possible defeat in Korea will not be totally without gain. What has been learned and how this knowledge might be used in future satellite wars is discussed here.

The Lay-Out Plan for the Rohwer Internment Camp
(U.S. Gov. 1943)

Attached is a black and white plan depicting the Rohwer Relocation Center, which was located in Desha County, Arkansas. The plan clearly illustrates how the residential huts were to be placed in addition to the churches, shops and schools.

When New York City Mourned F.D.R.
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

With the exception of the attached piece, there is no magazine article in existence that illustrated so clearly the soul-piercing pain that descended upon the city of New York when the word got around that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had died. YANK correspondent Bill Davidson walked from one neighborhood to the next recording much of what he saw:

Nowhere was grief so open as in the poorest districts of the city. In Old St. Patrick’s in the heart of the Italian district on the lower East Side, bowed, shabby figures came and went, and by the day after the President died hundreds of candles burned in front of the altar. ‘Never’ a priest said ‘have so many candles burned in this church’.
A woman clasped her 8-year-old son and said, ‘Not in my lifetime or in yours will we again see such a man.’

The FDR Assassination Attempt
(Coronet Magazine, 1960)

The attached article recalls that seldom remembered day in February of 1933 when Giuseppe Zangara (1900 – 1933) fired fifteen bullets wildly into a Florida crowd in an attempt to murder President-Elect Franklin Roosevelt.

Lew Ayres at Twenty
(Photoplay Magazine, 1930)

Here is a profile of the actor Lew Ayres (1908 – 1996) that was published, quite coincidentally, shortly before the release of ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (Universal):

Naturally a great deal depends on the outcome of this picture. Lew is not the type that will go on for years as a moderate success. He will either be a tremendous hit or or a failure.

Click here to read about Lew Ayres and his status as a conscientious objector during the second World War.

Truman’s China Policy for 1951
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1951)

This is a single column that clearly lays out the Truman Administration’s diplomatic policies concerning Mao’s China – the summary is reduced to five bullet points.

Red Tactics in Hollywood
(Photoplay Magazine, 1940)

American political parties have not been the only folks to visit Beverly Hills – hat-in-hand; Soviet-backed Reds have done it, too. This 1940 article goes into some detail explaining all the various false fronts that American Communists would erect in order to attract Hollywood’s empathetic pretty boys – a tribe that is so easily separated from their wealth. Once an actor was hooked, they were steadily relied upon by the Reds to cough-up the do-re-mi without question; if they didn’t – they got the works.

Walter Winchell has already passed on to Washington documentary evidence proving that thousands of dollars contributed by Hollywood to innocent-sounding organizations eventually wound up in the hands of Communist leaders. Police and other investigatory groups have gone about accumulating evidence of the conspiracy.

One of the many Communist-front advocacy groups that milked Hollywood of much of its wealth was called theIndependent Citizen’s Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions; actress Olivia de Havilland was one of their willing dupes until she worked with the FBI and helped to bring them down.

German Choices In 1940
(Click Magazine, 1940)

Attached is a Phoney War magazine article by Major General George Ared White (1880 – 1941) in which he mused wistfully (as Oregon men are wont to do) as to all the various horrible choices that were spread before Herr Hitler in the early months of 1940. The General believed that France’s Maginot Line was impregnable and he did not think that Hitler would commit to such an undertaking.

The Five Wealthiest Counties
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1937)

During the summer of 1937 the U.S. Census Bureau released the data that was compiled by it’s business department concerning the payrolls dolled out by the nation’s wealthiest industries in 1935. The information gleaned from these payrolls indicated which were the five richest counties in the country based on personal income. These small municipalities could be found in two Eastern states, two Mid-Western states and one Western state.

Jump ahead to our own time and you’ll learn how much the game has changed: today the top five wealthiest counties in the United States are all located in the Maryland and Virginia Suburbs that lie just outside the District of Columbia!

The Early CIA
(Coronet Magazine, 1951)

The CIA is a young and relatively untested child in the strange world of intelligence. The enemy dourly accuses it of ‘Black Warfare.’ But there is definite proof of its success. Radio Moscow never misses a chance to scream shrilly of ‘the extended spy network of the Wall Street mercenaries.’

The CIA formula avoids the fog of rumor that fills any world capital, and goes straight to the hard facts of the enemy’s economy, production, transportation, raw materials and manpower. A modern war must be organized, much of it in the open, long in advance. Guns must be manufactured; munitions, food, and raw materials stockpiled; railways and roads expanded and soldiers trained. The allocation of scarce Soviet-controlled steel is far more important than the minutes of the Politburo.

In 1958, Fidel Castro wrote an article for an American magazine in which he thoroughly lied about his intentions; click here to read it.

A Word on New York Waiters
(Stage Magazine, 1939)

Waiters are to New York City what lobbyists are to Washington and celebrated illustrator, author and all-around foodie Ludwig Bemelmans (1898 – 1962) had some thoughts on this very diverse group:

New York is full of waiters, Chinese, American, Congo, French, Italian and German waiters, Jewish and Christian waiters, Vegetarian and Greek waiters, many good waiters, many bad waiters.

Click here to read an article by Benny Goodman concerning the arrival of Swing on Park Ave.

1921 Saw Many Single European Women Moving to the U.S.
(Literary Digest, 1921)

The death and disfigurement of over four million young men during the course of the First World War (1914 – 1918) created an enormous problem for the women of Europe:

A French statesman recently estimated that in his country there are now 1,000,000 women for whom there are no mates, while similar conditions exist also in England, Italy, Germany and Austria.

This article makes clear that in a quest for husbands, half a million women had arrived in the U.S. following the end of hostilities and it was further believed that by the close of 1921 another half million will have landed.