1922 – Page 15 – Old Magazine Articles

The American Death Record
(American Legion Weekly, 1922)

Statistics of the World War prove, however, that war was, from the standpoint of mortality, not vastly different from other wars. In spite of the improvements in methods of killing by machinery,Nature managed to runup a higher score than the enemy’s bullets and shells. The Surgeon General of the Army, at the request of The American Legion Weekly, has prepared the following figures for the period of the war, from April 1, 1917 to December 31, 1919.

One German’s Opinion
(The Nation, 1922)

A few choice words concerning the Treaty of Versailles by the German anti-socialist author S. Miles Bouton (born 1876):

Such a treaty could not bring real peace to the world even if the conditions were less critical and complex. As they are, it will hasten and aggravate what the world will soon discover to be the most serious, vital, and revolutionary consequences of the war.

The quote above is an excerpt from THE NATION’s review of Bouton’s 1922 book, And The Kaiser Abdicates: The German Revolution, November, 1918.

German Post-War Thinking
(American Legion Weekly, 1922)

Thus any traveler in Germany feels that the future grows darker and darker for both Germany and Europe. There is no doubt that the German people have learned little from their war experiences and that it would require only a spark to set them off in another wild rush down through Europe behind Russian guns. It is a dismal prospect, and it is a terrible one, for it would mean, in the final analysis, the utter destruction of European civilization.

A Post-War Study of British Conscientious Objectors
(The Spectator, 1922)

Conscription and Conscience by John W. Graham is very briefly reviewed here; the summation provides some fast facts on the history of British conscientious objectors during World War One, yet tactfully fails to mention that during the course of the war, the British Army ordered 306 conscientious objectors be shot at dawn. In 2006 the British government pardoned them; just in time.

Bertrand Russell on American Idealism
(The Literary Digest, 1922)

British thinker Bertrand Russell (1872-1970; Nobel Prize for Literature, 1950) used to get mighty hot under the collar when the topic of 1922 American society came up and this report is just one example. On a speaking tour in the United States, the Cambridge Professor opined that

love of truth [is] obscured in America by commercialism of which pragmatism is the philosophical expression; and love of our neighbor kept in fetters by Puritan morality.

He would have none of the thinking that America’s main concern for jumping into the meat grinder of 1914-1918 was entirely inspired by wounded France and poor little Belgium but was rather an exercise in American self-interest.

Tailored Golf Fashions
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1922)

With the 1922 American economy as strong as it was, questions regarding what to wear on the links were seen as important queries and were not easily tossed aside. The following article illustrate the best golf jackets offered by the master-tailors at Cohen-Rissman, Fashion Park and The House of Kuppenheimer.

Are We Our Bathrooms?
(Harper’s Bazaar, 1922)

Most people, and you might very likely be one of them, tend to believe the old adage, Show me your friends, and I’ll tell you what you are; but fashion diva Lady Duff Gordon (aka: ‘Lucile’) was of the mind, Show me your bathroom, and I’ll tell you who and what you are and in 1922 she went out to prove it by scampering all over Paris in search of the finest bathrooms. Upon reading of the expedition, the editors of HARPER’S BAZAAR remarked:

It makes one realize that many of us who fatuously remarked, ‘So this is Paris’, were really not at the party at all.

Click here to read a 1937 article about feminine conversations overheard in the best New York nightclub bathrooms.

Baron Adolf de Meyer and the Paris Collections of 1922
(Harper’s Bazaar, 1922)

A Paris fashion review written by pioneering fashion photographer Adolph de Meyer
(1868 – 1949). His column is illustrated by six of his photographs illustrating the autumnal offerings from the houses Worth and Chanel. The collections generated by Maria Guy, Jean Lanvin, Marthe Collot, Doucet, Cheruit, Poiret and Patout were also addressed at some length.

Of course ‘collections’ must be seen by me. The round of all the big maisons de couture must be made. I must know what is worn and what I shall decide to present to the readers of HARPER’S BAZAAR.

A Prohibition Cartoon by James Montgommery Flagg
(Life Magazine, 1922)

James Montgomery Flagg (1877 – 1960) was one of the most celebrated illustrators of this era. He had been a contributing cartoonist for the old LIFE MAGAZINE since he was fourteen years old and he, like many of his colleagues, had a grand old time with the subject of Prohibition.

To read a satirical essay written and illustrated by James Montgomery Flagg, click here..

‘RETREAT? HELL!”
(The American Legion Weekly, 1922)

This four page history of the Battle of Belleau Wood is primarily concerned with the fighting that took place at Les Mares Farm; it was written in 1921 by William E. Moore, formerly a U.S. Army captain who was attached to the Historical Branch, General Headquarters of the A.E.F.. Throughout his article, Moore compared the fight at Les Mares Farm to the Battle of Gettysburg, and believed it to have been just as decisive:

That was the last effort the Germans made to force their way to Paris… It is is truly at Les Mares Farm where the Gettysburg of the A.E.F. lies, and there some day a monument should rise to inform the world what deeds were done upon that field.

German historians have long maintained that the Battle of Belleau Wood was not as significant as the Americans have liked to think that it was.