1922 – Page 9 – Old Magazine Articles

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.

Paris Dada and Jazz
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1922)

VANITY FAIR’s Edmund Wilson (1895 – 1972), reported his view on Dada as it existed in Paris, the influence of Jazz and the art of Jean Cocteau (1889 – 1963). The article is subtitled:

The Influence of Jazz and Americanization of French Literature and Art

Compensation for Soldiers: How Much During the War? How Much After?( The Congressional Digest, 1922)

While debating the 1922 issue of benefits to be paid to the American W.W. I veterans, this record of salary and the post-war benefits paid by the other combatant nations was distributed to members of Congress.

Compensation for Soldiers: How Much During the War? How Much After?( The Congressional Digest, 1922)

The Rise of Islamic Outrage
(Current Opinion, 1922)

I predict increasing ferment and unrest throughout all Islam; a continued awakening to self-consciousness; an increasing dislike for Western domination.

So wrote Lothrop Stoddard (1883 – 1950), an author who was very much a man of his time and tended to gaze outside the borders of Western Civilization with much the same vision as his contemporary Rudyard Kipling, seeing the majority of the world’s inhabitants as the white man’s burden. Yet, for all his concern on the matter of Anglo-Saxon hegemony, he seemed to recognize the growing discontent in Islam, even if he was some sixty years early.

More Nasty Criticism About Silent Films
(English Review, 1922)

This new form of illusion cannot be called an art. Without the magic of the human voice, without the reality of the human form, lacking in color sound and poetry the film is purely an ocular illusion, an effect of light.

Another anti-silent film article can be read here…

Click here to read a 1939 article about an alumni organization for the pioneers of silent films.

To Outlaw War
(Literary Digest, 1922)

Not pacifists, but soldiers, have signed what several editors term one of the most striking and remarkable appeals for peace that have come to their tables.

Veterans of the 1914-1918 slaughter called for their respective governments to oppose territorial aggrandizement and demanded that an international court be established to outlaw war; following the establishment of said court, the immediate effort to disarm and disband sea and air forces and destroy the implements of warfare should begin. The American Legion Commander-in-Chief, Alvin Owsley (1888 – 1967), was among the signators.

Click here to read an article about the German veterans of W.W. I.

Protestant Churches Condemn the KKK
(The Literary Digest, 1922)

A couple of years after the membership lists of the Ku Klux Klan had swelled to record levels, and just seven years after a chic Hollywood film director made a movie that ennobled their crimes,the Administrative Committee of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America issued a statement which served to distance the Protestant churches from that hate-filled organization.

From Amazon: Gospel According to the Klan: The KKK’s Appeal to Protestant America, 1915-1930

Harold Lloyd: The Man, The Cornball
(The American Magazine, 1922)

An in-depth interview with the great silent film comedian Harold Lloyd (1893 – 1971) accompanied by a seldom seen picture of the man WITHOUT his glasses (he didn’t really need them).

One blogger read the attached article and wrote the following:

I’ve never read this before – it’s great. It’s always good to hear Harold’s own thoughts on his films; I enjoyed his description of the stunt he did in on top of the locomotive at the mouth of an approaching tunnel in the film Now or Never. It’s a spectacularly funny gag, but we sometimes forget the effort that went into these scenes; Harold was one comedy star who was prepared to suffer for his art!

Helena Rubenstein on Youth, Beauty and Commerce
(The American Magazine, 1922)

Prior to the creation of cosmetic surgery, with odd procedures like tummy tucks and butt lifts, there was Helena Rubenstein (1871 – 1965), who had a long and stunning career in the cosmetic business and who is remembered for once having said:

There are no ugly women, only lazy ones.

In this interesting 1922 interview, the matron saint of cosmetics made some very bright remarks on the issue of beauty, glamor and vanity.

Silent Movie Caricatures
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1922)

When the Five O’Clock Whistle Blows in Hollywood is attached;
it appeared in VANITY FAIR eight years after Hollywood was declared the film capital of the world.

This single page cartoon was created by one of the great American caricaturists of the Twenties: Ralph Barton, and all the kingpins of the young empire are depicted (among others): Douglas Fairbanks, Marry Pickford, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Bebe Daniels, Bill Hart, Wallace Reed, Gloria Swanson, Nazimova, Charlie Chaplin, Jackie Coogan, Fatty Arbuckle and the writer Rupert Hughes.
Lording above them all, and represented simply by jodhpurs and riding boots, stands the founder of the feast – Cecil B. DeMille (and his brother).

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).