Recent Articles – Page 4 – Old Magazine Articles

The First two Years of Prohibition
(N.Y. Times Book Review, 1922)

After living under Prohibition for two years a journalist for The New York Times collected numerous facts and concerns on the matter of Prohibition and the political battles between Wets and Drys..

“Prohibition is undoubtedly the most drastic of all sumptuary laws. I have found it hard to believe that the men who drafted the Constitution ever supposed that it would contain a clause like the Eighteenth Amendment, which, when once inserted in the document, is practically irreversible.”

The Sherman
(Newsweek Magazine, 1942)

“‘We’re so far ahead of that Heinie in tank design and production that he’s never going to catch us’ – that was the opinion expressed by Major General Levin H. Campbell (1886 – 1976), the War Department’s Ordnance Chief, in an interview in New York last week. He quoted a British officer as saying that the American M-4 General Sherman tank is the ‘answer to a tankman’s prayer.'”

Meet Margaret Sanger
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1936)

“Persistence has been characteristic of Mrs. Sanger. Principally because of her long campaign, 235 birth control clinics have been made lawful in the United States…. In 1913 Mrs. Sanger started a magazine called The Women Rebel which was quickly banned by postal authorities. For some time after that she faced trouble, sometimes landing in jail and sometimes being fined.”

Fort Des Moines
(Liberty Magazine, 1942)

“When recruits in the new Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps – commonly dubbed WAACS – reported for training at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, women for the first time in American history became members of Uncle Sam’s Army.”

(The title concerning “the first woman in the Uncle Sam’s Army” is believed to go to a lass named Deborah Sampson who served in George Washington’s army in 1781, under the name “Robert Shurtliff”.)

Fort Des Moines
(Liberty Magazine, 1942)

General Helmuth von Moltke
(N.Y. Times Book Review, 1923)

“If ever there was a German who foresaw nothing but defeat and punishment for his native land, even in the days when the great majority of his fellow-countrymen were mad with anticipation of victory and world domination, it was Helmuth von Moltke (1848 – 1916).”

Click here to read a 1922 review of the Kaiser’s war memoir.

Berliners Under the Bombs
(Liberty Magazine, 1944)

A Turkish diplomat explains all that he saw in the war-weary Berlin of 1944:

“You see children wildly seeking for their mothers, wives wildly seeking for their husbands. Women carry dead children in their arms and children weep beside their dead mothers.

The Border-Jumper Problem
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1952)

Using numerous unkind pejoratives throughout his article, this journalist interviewed plenty of farmers and politicians who had many thoughts and observations concerning this question:

“What to do with the thousands of Mexican farm laborers who illegally enter the U.S. each year to harvest South Texas crops.”

The Late-War Era Brought Late-War Divorces
(Liberty Magazine, 1944)

“The divorce rate took a sharp upswing in all the warring countries after World War I, and another rise after this war is already being foreshadowed… Much of the post-war rise in the divorce rate is expected to come from the untying of knots too hastily tied as a result of [the 1941] war hysteria.”

A Refugee Looks at America
(Liberty Magazine, 1942)

Photographer Herbert Sonnenfeld (1906 – 1972) was able to escape from his native Germany in the winter of 1939, shortly after the Second World war had just begun. After the initiation of the Nuremburg Laws four years earlier, life for him and his fellow Jews had taken a terrible turn for the worse and he was delighted to be able to depart for New York. The attached photo-essay and the accompanying captions reveal his joy and elation for living in a land of plenty, far away from the Nazi boot.

”The Separation of God and State”
(Christian Herald, 1963)

The attached article by Joseph Martin Hopkins, was most likely written in response to the 1962 Supreme Court decision in Engel v. Vitale. This decision stated that it is unconstitutional for state officials to compose an official school prayer and encourage its recitation in government schools. Hopkins had this to say:

“Is this what the Founding Fathers intended? It has been well stated that to the contrary, their concern was that the American people enjoy freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.”

Pants for Women Become a Thing
(Spot Magazine, 1942)

In the Digital Age we simply don’t think much about pants on women – but they sure thought about it in the Forties – and everyone was expected to have an opinion on the subject. This article is about the dust-up that was caused at a new Jersey high school when some of the girls came to school in pants.

The Arsenal of Democracy Kicks-In
(Newsweek Magazine, 1941)

Sitting before a senate committee, FDR’s Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson (1867 – 1950) warned the country that the United States will have a time trying to catch-up with the Germans, who have been producing armaments since 1933. Whether our factories are making weaponry for the Allies alone, or whether we enter the war and have to make ordinance for us and the Allies – a challenge has presented itself.

Japan’s Industrial Shortcomings
(American Legion Magazine, 1943)

This article said nothing to the American home front readers that they didn’t already know, in fact the Associated Press ran a similar article that appeared on numerous front pages on December 8th of 1941. Simply stated, it reported that the Japanese were totally incapable of maintaining prominence in a war against the United States due to the fact that Japan’s war industry was far too small and they had few natural resources to rely upon. The reason that the subject was broached again in early 1943 was because it was all beginning to appear quite true. During the first 13 months of the war the Japanese let loose with everything they had, now they were on the defensive, and discovering that their industry was woefully inadequate.

Articles about the significance of 1943 can be read here can be read here and here…

”I Like Being a Teacher”
(Pageant Magazine, 1952)

Eleanor Metheny (1908 – 1982) enjoyed a full life in academia, spanning over forty years. Mid-way through her career she wrote the attached article explaining to one and all why she found teaching such a fulfillment.

Popular Mechanics
(Pageant Magazine, 1952)

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