1921 – Page 4 – Old Magazine Articles

‘Canonizing the Flapper”
(Vanity Fair, 1921)

The following is an excerpt from the review of the New York production of the 1921 play, A Bill of Divorcement by Clemence Dane (born Winifred Ashton 1888 – 1965). With much enthusiasm, the reviewer wrote:

We know of no better expression of the creed of the new generation than that which Clemence Dane has drawn up….

What followed was a very short soliloquy which beautifully summed up not only the philosophy of the modern woman, but the philosophy of much the Twentieth Century.

Farewell Woodrow Wilson
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1921)

Celebrated columnist Walter Lippmann (1889 – 1974) wrote this piece to mark the end of the Wilson administration (1912 – 1920) and usher-in that of Warren G. Harding (1865 – 1923).

Unlike the ink-slingers in ages to come, Lippmann had pleasant remarks to make regarding his presidency:

And I firmly believe that the historian who examines the state papers of Wilson up to November, 1918, will say, not only that they are in an unbroken line from Washington’s Farewell Address, but that it required something very like genius under the pressure and in the fog of a world war, to keep that line intact.

Click here to read about a dream that President Lincoln had, a dream that anticipated his violent death.

Read a 1951 profile of a future First Lady: the young Nancy Reagan.

Quotas in 1921 Immigration
(The Independent, 1921)

One hundred years ago the U.S. Government processed immigrants through a quota system – entry would be granted if the applicants arrived before the quota amount arriving from their country had not been reached – and if they passed their physical examination. The immigration agents did not accept one nationality for citizenship officially while permitting hundreds of thousands from this same country to reside illegally, as is the practice today. The attached column pertains to how unfair the quota system was and how it tended to break-up families. President Harding’s response to this issue is quoted.

…many would-be immigrants arriving at the port of New York had been refused admission and been sent home again, because they had happened to arrive a few hours after their country’s legal quota for the month…

Britain and France Draw Closer
(Literary Digest, 1921)

When Capitol Hill rejected the Versailles Treaty in 1919, Paris and London found themselves having to rely upon each other in ways they weren’t expecting.

‘The Real Yellow Peril”
(The Independent, 1921)

Three cheers for the late Earl S. Parker, long-suffering secretary of the now-defunct American League of Justice (California) who recognized the tyranny inherit in the California Alien Land Bill of 1921! Seeing that the Japanese immigrants had been dealt enough cruelty by being denied citizenship, he was quick to point out that it was wrong to deny them real estate as well.

Click here to read about the Yellow Peril in Canada.

Alien Poll Tax Overruled
(The Independent,1921)

A report on the California Supreme Court of 1921 which saw fit to overturn a piece of legislation that mandated an alien poll tax.

The tax had been passed into law just one year earlier and was found to be in conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Read another article about Asian immigration to California.

Ties, Waistcoats, Panama Hats & the Right Clothes for Summer Sports
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1921)

This article is very broad in it’s appeal; the fashion journalist did not simply cover the summer suit options available to the Well-Dressed Man of 1921 but also the tennis apparel, equestrian attire and the apropriate togs for slacking off at your favorite homo-phobic, sexist, anti-semetic and racist club.

The Shirt Tuck
(Magazine Advertisement, 1921)

There is no doubt about the fact that in the 1920s, there lived a great number of men who left the world a far richer place for their having walked the earth when they did; fellows like Pablo Picasso and Bertrand Russel, to name only two. The shallow editors at OldMagazineArticles.com think that is all just ducky, but what we really want to know is how did these men keep their shirts tucked in? How could such fellows as these look so presentable when so many men before them have failed?

We did some digging around and this is what we discovered…

He Spied on the Bolsheviks
(Literary Digest, 1921)

‘The Wreck of the Word’s Largest Plane”
(Literary Digest, 1921)

Click here to read about the China Clipper.Read more …

Fracture in Moscow
(Literary Digest, 1921)

Sharp encounters between Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev, Dzerzhinsky and other Bolshevik leaders took place when Trotsky tried to take Warsaw in 1920 and the majority of the committee antagonized his policy, we learn from a letter written by a Bolshevik adherents in Russia, who is ‘presumably‘ high up in the Soviet hierarchy and a partisan of Trotsky.

Soviet-Approved Poetry
(Literary Digest, 1921)

No liberty of the press exists in Russia and so none but a poet recognized by the Government can get his verses published… In justice to Russian letters it must be said that all talented Russian authors have abstained from writing, or at any rate, from publishing their works during the rule of the proletariat, so that only the official poets, the literati hired by the Government, have their say.

The only Soviet-approved poet they single out for derision is Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893 – 1930), who is quoted liberally.

Fearing German Filmmakers
(Current Opinion, 1921)

Teutonic film producers must have gotten a good guffaw upon reading the attached article that announced how insecure Hollywood producers felt when faced with the filmmakers of Germany. These intimidated studio heads and distributors believed that the Germans had a leg-up on Hollywood due to the high quantity of well-trained actors, crew and writers who had benefited from the traditions set forth generations earlier in German theater – so much so that they beseeched the law givers in Washington to protect them from these Germans…

A POW Hears About The Armistice
(American Legion Weekly, 1921)

A former American prisoner of war recalled the American flag that he and his fellow prisoners had fashioned from Bull Durham and Lucky Strike bags the day they heard that the Germans had quit.

The Swing of Cecil Leitch
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1921)

Attached herein is a photographic study of the British golf champion Cecil Leitch (1891 – 1977) snapped with a high-speed, stop-motion camera. In nine black and white images depicting her drive from start to finish, we are able to gain an understand as to how she was able to win three British driving championships up until that time. She left the game after having won a total of twelve national titles; at the time of this printing, she was writing her first book: Golf (1922).

Winston Churchill and the Mesopotamia Occupation
(The Spectator, 1921)

Mesopotamia should be placed in the same file as Gallipoli, along with all the other various assorted fantasies conceived by his Lordship. Mr. Churchill hopes to avert any fresh rising by setting up an Arab Government. The people are to elect a National Assembly this summer, and the Assembly is to choose a ruler…Mr. Churchill admits that that he does not know whether the people of [Iraq], who are rent with tribal, sectarian, racial, and economic feuds, will choose the Emir Feisul.

Click here to read about Churchill’s other folly: the Battle of Gallipoli.

As Europe Saw America in the War’s Aftermath
(The Smart Set, 1921)

H.L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan, editors of The Smart Set, surmised that as the Europeans bury their many dead among the damp, depressing ruins of 1920s Europe, America is neither admired or liked very much:

…the English owe us money, the Germans smart under their defeat, the French lament that they are no longer able to rob and debauch our infantry.

Conrad Reviewed by H.L. Mencken
(The Smart Set, 1921)

H.L. Mencken’s (1880 – 1956) short review of Joseph Conrad’s (1882 – 1941) collection of essays, entitled Notes on Life and Letters . The book contained Conrad’s thoughts on such subjects as the sinking of ‘Titanic’ to the writings of Henry James, Guy de Maupassant, Daudet and Ivan Turgenev were all touched upon in this collection of essays.