David Sarnoff and the Origins of Radio
(Look Magazine, 1938)
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1938
Articles from 1938
”The One Man Depression”
(Liberty Magazine, 1938)
Appearing in a few spots on this site are articles from 1937 written by journalists who were all of the mind that the Great Depression had finally reached an end. We all thought this was terribly odd because we all knew that the Depression lingered into 1940. However, this article showed up and explained it all to us: written by a Republican congressman and published in an anti-Roosevelt magazine, the author explained that since 1936, the economy was slowly getting better – and then it all went south during the late summer of 1937, plunging deeper in 1938.
FDR and his Learning Disabilities
(Liberty Magazine, 1938)
Liberty publisher Bernarr MacFadden (1868 – 1955) was a reliable critic of FDR and his economic policies. In this column MacFadden lambasts the President for making error after error and learning from none of them. He points out that the open market economy of the United States has traditionally provided Americans with the world’s highest standard of living, and yet:
“They would like to ignore precedent… entirely cast aside and forget the extraordinary results of our experiences in following the American system. They hate business and everything connected with it.”
The Duchess and her New Life
(Liberty Magazine, 1938)
The first indication for the Windsors that the life of an abdicator is a tough one came on their wedding day, when none of their friends or family stood in attendance. All the yes-men and royal hangers-on who they believed so loyal, were nowhere in sight. In this article, journalist Adela Rogers St. John (1894 – 1988) looks at the tasks before the newly minted Duchess of Windsor. Seeing that the former king had been snubbed at his own wedding, the most burdensome cross that the Duchess bore was seeing to it that this man never be placed in a position that made him appear as a fool.
The Hollywood Anti-Nazi League
(Click Magazine, 1938)
The Los Angeles of the late Thirties was plagued by a small coterie of Nazis; they were not terribly visible, but they were around, nonetheless. From time-to-time real Fascists from Europe would blow into town and they would be met by such groups as the Jewish Labor Committee, the United Anti-Nazi Conference and the Los Angeles Jewish Community Relations Committee. This article concerns another organization that worked shoulder to shoulder with these groups, but with a little more style: the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League. The League was 5,000 strong (likely an exaggeration) and within its ranks were Hollywood notables such as Herbert Biberman, Robert Rossen, Francis Edward Faragoh, Ring Lardner, Jr. and Dalton Trumbo.
The First Ten Years of Passenger Air Travel
(Click Magazine, 1938)
In the wake of numerous air disasters involving the nascent passenger airlines, this article was produced to show readers that with each crash, steps were taken to make each flight safer. In 1938, the Federl Government stepped in and established the Civil Aeronautics Authority.
‘I Am Not a Dictator”
(Liberty Magazine, 1938)
In 1938, Fulton Oursler (1893 – 1952), editor of Liberty, crossed the Atlantic Ocean in order to ask Benito Mussolini why he invaded Ethiopia and to get his thoughts as to whether there would be peace in Europe. We can’t say that Il Duce gave very thorough answers to those questions, but Oursler did find out what was eating Mussolini:
Why is it that the people of the United States are so against Fascism? What is the matter with them? Why is the whole press so bitter against Fascism? Can you answer me that?
The Passive Resistance of the Native Population
(Literary Digest, 1938)
Recently former Viceroy Graziani cabled Mussolini that ‘my surveys demonstrate that tranquility is absolute. The native population is with Italy.’ But a writer in the Tribuna of Rome admitted that ‘nobody must delude himself with the idea that the former Shoan-Galla ruling caste have resigned themselves to the loss of their privileges and have welcomed our Italian Empire.’
Marijuana in the Thirties
(Literary Digest, 1938)
During the closing days of 1937, Clarence Beck, Attorney General for the State of Kansas made a radio address on the Mutual Broadcasting System concerning the growing popularity of Marijuana:
It Is estimated the Narcotic Bureau of the New York Police Department in 1936 alone destroyed almost 40,000 pounds of marijuana plants, found growing within the city limits. Because of its rapidly increasing use, Marijuana demands a price as high as $60 a pound. (continued)
There was Illegal Immigration from Mexico Back Then, Too
(Ken Magazine, 1938)
This 1938 magazine article can be filed in the the more things change, the more they stay the same folder. It lists all the assorted means by which Mexicans have attempted to illegally cross over the Southern border, whether to smuggle others, import illegal drugs or for their own gratification.
Marijuana was becoming a problem in 1938, too. Read about it here.
Click here to read about the U.S. Border Patrol.
A Veteran Against War
(Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1938)
Writer Paul Gerard Smith (1894 – 1968) was a U.S. Marine in World War I and in 1938, when he saw that another war with Germany was simmering on the the front burner he put a Fresh ribbon of ink in the typewriter and wrote this editorial which he titled, An Open Letter to Boys of Military Age. His column is a cautionary tale advising the young men of his day to make their decisions thoughtfully before committing themselves to such a dangerous undertaking as war. Smith advised youth to examine the causes for the war, verify whose commercial interests will be served in victory and only if –
you find that America and the future of America is threatened – then go and kick Hell of the enemy, and God be with you.
Click here to read an article about the German veterans of W.W. I.
CLICK HERE… to read one man’s account of his struggle with shell shock…
Wanderers No More
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1938)
Here is a pretty middle-of-the-road type of article that explains the creation of British Palestine, the Jewish migration and the Arab unrest:
Writing in his History of Zionism, Nahum Sokalow looked in to the future: ‘The Jews have grown tired of their roll as the homeless Chosen People and would prefer to be a self-supporting small nation with a quiet spot of earth for themselves…’. The spot for which the Jews had yearned proved to be about as quiet as a live volcano.
She Fought in the Trenches
(Liberty Magazine, 1938)
Well, Monsieur, did I ever tell you about the time I was a Doughboy in the Great war?
This is the story of Marie Marvingt (1875 – 1963), an amazing French woman who did indeed serve in the forward trenches disguised as a man during the Summer of 1917.
The Pandemic of 1918
(Scribner’s Magazine, 1938)
The Spanish Influenza (February 1918 – April 1920) struck hard in the U.S. Army camps. Every fourth man came down with the flu, every twenty-fourth man caught pneumonia, every sixth man died.
By the time the virus ran its course in the United States 675,000 Americans would succumb (although this article estimated the loss at 500,000).