FDR and Congress
(PM Tabloid, 1943)
Read more …
‘The New Deal Was Not Fascist”
(The Atlantic Monthly, 1933)
In certain quarters it is asserted that Mr. Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ is nothing other than the first stage of an American movement toward Fascism. It is said that, although the United States has not yet adopted the political structure of Italy and Germany, the economic structure of the country is rapidly being molded upon the Fascist pattern.
FDR’s D-Day prayer can be read here
Duke Ellington: Twenty Years in the Spotlight
(Click Magazine, 1943)
The top man in Negro music climbed on the bandwagon when he and his band played a hot spot called the Kentucky Club. That was twenty years ago, in New York City’s Harlem. This year, Duke Ellington (1899 – 1974) made another debut, at Carnegie Hall, goal of the great in music…Piano lessons bored Ellington when he was six years old. He never learned to play conventionally, but he was only a youngster when his flare for improvisation reaped attention and landed him a job in a Washington theater…one by one, his compositions hit the jackpot: ‘Mood Indigo’, ‘Sophisticated Lady’, ‘Ebony Rhapsody’, ‘Solitude’, ‘Caravan’.
Ellington calls his work Negro Music, avoids the terms ‘jazz’ or ‘swing’.
Hermann Goering as Fop: a Cartoon
(The Jesters in Earnest, 1944)
Here is a W.W. II gag cartoon by the Czech chuckle-meister himself, W. Trier (probably a pseudonym) that was smuggled out of his occupied homeland to Britain where it was published in Jesters in Earnest (1944). The cartoonist truly succeeded in satirizing Goering’s love of costume and his precious self-image. However glorious the drawings may be, they fail to impart to the viewers just how enamored the Reichsmarschall was with perfume (and he was)
Stalingrad Exordium
(PM Tabloid, 1942)
A short article explaining the significance of Stalingrad to Stalin (aside from its name) and the battle that took place there 24 years earlier during the revolution – when the city was called Tsaritsyn.
Anticipating A Robert Kennedy Presidency
(Coronet Magazine, 1968)
Three months prior to the assassination of Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, the editors of CORONET MAGAZINE posed the question: ‘Will Bobby make a great President?’ Or even a good one? What would his policies be? The numerous assorted answers were all enthusiastically positive – the one that stood out came from the perennial contrarian of the time:
‘The inevitability of Bobby’ comes just after that of death and taxes, say Conservative quipster William F. Buckley, only half in fun.
Ogden Nash on Fashion
(The American Magazine, 1940)
In one of his other verses poet Ogden Nash (1902 – 1971) wrote that women are not female men. In the attached poem he expanded on that thought to a greater degree as he observed women and their approach to fashion.
Slaughter of the Innocents’
(See Magazine, 1943)
Terrible accounts of the Nazi murders that took place in the occupied nations in Europe between 1939 through 1943. The journalist pointed out that these massacres were not the work of the SS or the Gestapo, but of the Wehrmacht.
The Drive On Berlin
(Newsweek Magazine, 1945)
(Newsweek Magazine, 1945)
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Paris Fashion: Spring, 1915
(Vanity Fair, 1915)
During the Spring of 1915 Mme. Parisienne had decided that it was time to add some gaiety into her wardrobe. Since August of the previous summer there had been such bad news and although the rationing of fabric continued, there was still much available for the asking.
Click to read about the U.S. fabric rationing during W.W. II.
‘Fear of the Police”
(Pageant Magazine, 1964)
As 1964 came to a close this venom-packed column was read by many in the white American middle-class and it must have seemed very clear to many among them that matters between the races would not be righted for decades to come. Written by the Harlem-born writer James Baldwin (1924 – 1987) on the occasion of the 1964 Harlem Race Riot, Baldwin did not simply denigrate the NYC Police Department but the culture, government and sacred documents of the entire nation.
The Decline of Masculine Elegance
(Vogue Magazine, 1922)
A Parisienne with a good many thoughts regarding menswear goes to some length to impart that men are dressing worse, not better, and the substitution of the dinner jacket (read: Tuxedo) for the tail-coat is an example of the slovenliness to come.
You are entirely wrong in imagining that we pay no attention to the way men dress…The truth is that while we may say nothing, we do not in the least consent, and we find, messieurs, that for some time now you have been very much changed, and for the worse.
Click here to read about the fashion legacy of W.W. I…
To read about one of the fashion legacies of W.W. II, click here…
Click here to read about the origins of the T-shirt.
An Islamic View of Western Imperialism
(Literary Digest, 1908)
The Indian Muslim scholar Syed Ameer Ali (1849 – 1928) is remembered as a man who, at times, fully recognized that there were indeed some benefits in store for the developing nations serving as colonies with the British Empire; but in the attached 1908 column, the man preferred to only list the damnable qualities of colonization:
A few years ago ‘Spread-eagleism’ was used for mere purposes of ridicule; christened ‘Imperialism’ it has acquired a holy meaning – it sanctions crusades against the liberty of weaker states…England treats her provincials worse than Rome did.
[NOTE: The author of this piece mistakenly assumed Ali to have been a follower of Hinduism.]
An article about the Muslim opinion concerning
Christianity can be read here…
The Uniform of German POWs in World War I
(The Stars and Stripes, 1918)
This small notice appeared in The Stars & Stripes at the very end of the war and described how German Prisoners of War, while in the care of the American Army, would be clothed.
After the Armistice a minority of German prisoners would remain in U.S. hands to dig the graves of American soldiers and Marines.
The Dying Underclass…
(Pageant Magazine, 1964)
This article chronicles the poor health that had been a constant companion within the African-American communities and how it differed from their white counterparts.
To the men who count the living and the dead – the statisticians, discrimination against the Negroes carves a picture in their death charts as clear as an inscription on a new tombstone, as pathetic as a dead child’s forgotten doll… There is no question in any public health expert’s mind that to get a real improvement in the death rate picture among Negroes, they must be able to improve their diet, housing, education, and living standards, including medical care. And that can only come about, it seems, by removal of all the discriminatory barriers on the economic and social level.
The Backdrop of the Harlem Renaissance
(The Independent, 1921)
The excitement that was 1920’s Harlem can clearly be felt in this article by the journalist and Congregational minister, Rollin Lynde Hartt:
Greatest Negro city in the world, it boasts magnificent Negro churches, luxurious Negro apartment houses, vast Negro wealth, and a Negro population of 130,000…
‘The Communists Are After Our Minds”
(The American Magazine, 1954)
Oh how we all laughed when we used to read of these old Cold Warriors who actually believed that Communists were active in our schools in the 1990s! Gosh, it was funny! But it wasn’t funny when we discovered how close an actual Marxist came to winning the presidential nominations of the Democratic Party in both 2016 and 2020. It seems like the long march through the institutions has finally paid off for the Leftists. The attached article was written by J. Edgar Hoover and it was penned in order that Americans would know that this day would come if we were not vigilant.
Why The Rebels Fought
(Confederate Veteran Magazine, 1918)
Fed-up with decades of articles and editorials declaring that he and his Confederate comrades fought tirelessly for four years in order to preserve and advance the cause of slavery, elderly Southern veteran, James Callaway, put pen to paper in order explain that this was not the case. Equipped with numerous passages from A Soldier’s Recollections and an artificial Lincoln quote, Calloway argued that it was Northern aggression that swelled the Confederate ranks.