American Illiteracy in 1920 (Time Magazine, 1923)
The census-takers of 1920 to the people of America:
Can you read and write?
Five million men and women of America responded:
We cannot!
Articles from 1923
The census-takers of 1920 to the people of America:
Can you read and write?
Five million men and women of America responded:
We cannot!
Fresh from his trip through post-war Europe, U.S. Senator Robert La Follette (1855 – 1925) declared:
The Germans have been underfed for seven years. They are suffering for want of food, fuel and clothing. Young children and old people are dying from hunger and disease induced by hunger. Emaciated, despairing, they are waiting the end.
These articles makes it clear that Clemanceau and Churchill were not the only ones who feared German duplicty in regards to the rearmament clause. Written a year apart are these two columns from Time and Punch insisting that the German Reichswehr had numerous weapons that were banned under the Versailles Treaty:
My attention had often been called to persistent rumors regarding Germany’s secret army. Whispers had reached me from quite reliable sources of over a million Teuton soldiers, well-officered and disciplined…
Click here if you would like to read about the 1936 Versailles Treaty violations.
A dictatorship can last forever, if properly managed. It is my task to provide a mechanism that will endure and to have the various parts of this mechanism running without friction; then after I am gone it will be able to run itself. A dictatorship must answer the purpose for which it was introduced. Certainly the Fascist regime will last a very long time… Socialism works on the principle that all are equal, but Fascism knows we are far from equal. Take the great masses of human beings. They like rule by the few.
This article was written shortly after the French occupation of the Ruhr and at a time when Adolf Hitler did not have much of a following -he was something of a curiosity to the Western press:
A principal reason why Hitler’s followers have begun to doubt him, it appears, is that the ‘dreaded gathering’ of the National Socialists in Munich came and went without ‘accomplishment.’
Read about the earliest post-war sightings of Hitler: 1945-1955
The Time Magazine review of Charlie Chaplin’s film, A Woman of Paris, fell in line with many other reviews of the work: they all believed that Chaplin, as director, had moved the ball forward insofar as the development of film – and Time hoped that they had seen the end of Chaplin the clown. However, the 82 minute film was a commercial flop, primarily because he wasn’t in it (they chose not to publicize that he played an extra’s roll for one quick scene).
The first film Chaplin had directed was The Kid (1922) – and you can read about that here…
Here is a column that appeared in the October 15, 1923 issue of Time that reported on the amount of devastation that was inflicted upon the German-occupied areas of Northern France between 1914 through 1918.
More on this topic can be read here
Alabama native John Purifoy was a regular contributor to Confederate Veteran Magazine and he wrote most often about the Battle of Gettysburg; one of his most often sited articles concerned the roll artillery played throughout the course of that decisive contest. In the attached article Purifoy summarized some of the key events from a rebel perspective. In the last paragraph he pointed out the one crucial error Lee soon came to regret- take a look.
A report that anticipated a hefty load of European immigrants for 1923.