1922 – Page 17 – Old Magazine Articles

Napoleon Takes Charge
(Literary Digest, 1922)

The Napoleon who plays the Monday-morning-quarterback in these columns was created by the tireless researcher Walter Noble Burns (1872 – 1932); his version of Bonaparte explains what went wrong on the Western Front and how he would have beat the Kaiser – but not before he dishes out liberal amounts of defamation for the senior commands on both sides of No Man’s Land.

The war’s stupendous blunders and stupendous, useless tragedies made me turn over in my sarcophagus beneath the dome of the Invalides. I can not conceive how military men of even mediocre intelligence could have permitted the Allied Army to waste its time by idly lobbing over shells during a three-years’ insanity of deadlocked trench warfare.

Click here to read an article about life in a W.W. I German listening post…

Replacing American Combat Uniforms
(The Official Record, 1922)

The World War I American uniform data attached herein answers the question as to how often Doughboy uniforms would wear out and need replacing. This information was all transcribed by U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps and published in a book titled THE OFFICIAL RECORD OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE WORLD WAR (1922).

The Klan Influence Within the Protestant Churches
(Literary Digest, 1922)

The zeal of the Ku Klux Klan to ‘support the Church’ has been displayed by many signs, and intimations multiply, we are told, that certain Protestant ministers are in its confidence and would seem on occasion to be directing it’s activities. But to some ministers the Klan’s mark of approval appears to be embarrassing, a favor which they would much prefer to do without. Scarcely a Sunday passes without the publication of the news that a Klan has visited a church in a body, simply to signify approval, or to remain decorously through the service.

Klan Victories in Oregon and Texas
(The Literary Digest, 1922)

The Ku Klux Klan victories in Texas and Oregon, where the influence of the hooded organization is said to have elected a United States Senator in one instance and a Governor in the other, indicates to The Nation that

the Ku Klux Klan has now passed out of the amusing stage and has entered the domain of practical politics to challenge our existing parties.

The KKK in Oklahoma
(The Outlook, 1922)

An article by one of the KKK‘s most outspoken enemies in the press, Stanley Frost (author of Challenge of the Klan), who reported on the political dust-up that took place in the Oklahoma state government when the Klan made serious attempts to be a dominate factor in Oklahoma politics.

THE OUTLOOK sent Stanley Frost to Oklahoma to study the amazing political conflict which has taken place in the state. The forces at odds in the state may have a far-reaching influence upon national politics.

‘Progressive Monogamy”
(The English Review, 1922)

In her 1922 essay, Marriage, Jane Burr (né Rosalind Mae Guggenheim, 1882 – 1958) refers to the modern marriage as progressive monogamy. She writes knowingly about the blessings and damnation of matrimony and believed that the institution has only improved since we entered an age where unions between man and woman can be so easily dissolved.

Over the civilized globe there hangs this tragedy of women and this tragedy of men – those who are free longing for bondage, those who are in bondage longing for freedom, everybody searching for the pure white flame, yet everybody compromising with sordidness that could be avoided, if only a new attitude could be legitimized.

Jew – Gentile Relations 1922
(Literary Digest, 1922)

This article appeared at a time when Eastern European immigration levels had been drastically curtailed, Klan membership was at it’s peak, antisemitism in college admissions had been exposed, and the memory Leo Frank’s murder was in it’s seventh year. The article is about the chasm between the two groups and building the necessary bridges; Dr. Stephen S. Wise (1874 – 1949), columnist Walter Lippmann (1889 – 1974) and a cadre of others address the topic with the needed perspective. Dr. Wise remarked:

Whatever Christians may have taught…their duty in the present is clear as are the heavens in the noon hour; the duty of affirming that incalculable and eternal is the debt of Christians to Israel, of whose gifts Jesus is treasured as the chiefest.

Charlie Chaplin Wanted to be Taken Seriously
(Current Opinion, 1922)

We have all seen it many times before: the well-loved, widely accepted comedian who decides that being adored by the masses is simply not enough. For too many comic talents, sadly, there comes a time when they slip on one banana peel too many and it occurs to them that they want the world to appreciate them for their ability to think. Comics who fill this description might be Al Frankin, Woody Allen or Steve Martin.

This article tries to understand why Chaplin wanted to play a tragic part in a 1921 London stage adaptation of William Thackeray’s ‘Vanity Fair’.
We have seen such behavior in comics many times before, they hadn’t.

Dirigible Accident: ROMA
(The Literary Digest, 1922)

Two LITERARY DIGEST articles, printed seven days a part, addressing the topic of the destruction of the U.S. military’s semi-rigid airship, ROMA; much attention is paid as to where the blame for the disaster must be placed. The journalists concur that the U.S. Congress was answerable for the loss due to that body’s unwillingness to pay for the necessary helium, rather than the less expensive, and highly flamable, hydrogen gas. Thirty-four lives were lost.

The Water-Colors of John Marin
(VanityFair, 1922)

When Fifth Avenue’s Montross Gallery launched an exhibit featuring over one hundred creations by the American painter John Marin (1870 – 1953) in the winter of 1922, art voyager and all-around well-respected critic Paul Rosenfeld (1890 – 1946) was present, and very shortly put pen to paper in order to heap many bon-mots upon the man and his work:

He applies his wash with the directness of impulse that is supposed to be discoverable only in the work of small children. One racks one’s brain for memory of a water-color painter who reveals in every stroke of his brush a more uninhibited urge outward.