Articles from Collier’s Magazine
Having learned a good deal from two world wars concerning the fragile nature of soldiers and Marines who suffered from battle fatigue, the U.S. Army Medical Department sent hastily trained psychiatrists to the forward positions during the Korean War in order to better serve these men – and get them back to battle. The Atomic Age name for battle fatigue is neurotic psychiatric casualty
This article explains those heady days spanning the years 1900 through 1910 when the apostles of the automobile were given
In 1939, “Canada wisely decided that she could become an ideal training center for pilots and airmen generally. Canada could
Fashion writer Henry Jackson had a few words to say concerning the importance of Glen Plaid in men’s fashions during the Fall of 1940.
“From businesslike German schools come the professional spy and the saboteur – cunning, ruthless, superbly trained for their specific tasks. They’ll be hard to stop, says Mr. Hoover, and catching them – in time – is a job in which every American can give the FBI a hand.”
With the Korean War in full-swing, Major General Edward E. MacMorland (U.S.A.) recalled his experiences some forty years earlier when he was a field grade officer fighting the nascent Soviet Army on their own turf:
It was a tough and surprisingly well-equipped enemy that our soldiers faced in this region…
This article lays out the many responsibilities and challenges that made up the day of a U.S. Border Patrol officer stationed along the Rio Grande in 1940:
In one month these rookies must try to absorb French and Spanish, immigration law, criminal law, naturalization, citizenship and expatriation law, fingerprinting, criminal investigation, first aid, firearms and the laws of the open country through which refugees are tracked down in the desert and forest.
It is not an interview with the Prime Minister. He is too busy to give interviews and his sense of fairness long ago forced him to make the rule of ‘no interviews’. If he couldn’t give an interview to all, he wouldn’t give an interview to one. But I spent two days with him and this story is of the Winston Churchill I got to know well in forty-eight hours.
Attached is an excerpt from a longer article about the U.S. Border Patrol’s adventures in Texas; it tells of one patrolman’s shocking discovery as to how abusive the growers were to their hired hands – how dreadful were their living conditions.
Few Times Square tourists recognize Johnny Broderick, but New York mobsters cringe at the mention of his name. Meet Broadway’s one-man riot squad in his own bailiwick, where the lights are brightest.
The words and deeds of Johnny Broderick were so widely known that visiting politicians would request that he take charge of their security details and the broadcasting moguls wanted to make radio shows celebrating his daring-do. His round-house punch was known far and wide; cops like this one do not come along too often.
Attached is an article by James A. Farley (1888 – 1976), who in 1933 was appointed by F.D.R. to serve as both the Postmaster General as well as the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. During the Thirties, Farley was also FDR’s go-to-guy in all matters involving politics on Capitol Hill, and he wrote the attached article two years after Roosevelt’s death in order to explain how the Court-packing scheme was received in Congress and how his relationship with FDR soon soured.
Boss, I asked him, why didn’t you advise the senators in advance that you were sending them the Court bill?
Jim, I just couldn’t, he answered earnestly. I didn’t want to have it get to the press prematurely…
This is a peculiar article about FDR’s Secretary of State, Cordell Hull (1871 – 1955); the man who penned the piece was so obsessed with Hull’s hillbilly upbringing that he didn’t get around to writing about the man himself until page six.
A 1942 article about Mexican film comedian Mario Moreno (1911 – 1993) who was widely known and loved throughout Latin America and parts of the West as Cantinflas, the bumbling cargador character of his own creation. Born in the poorest circumstances Mexico could dish-out, Mario Moreno achieved glorious heights in the entertainment industry; by the time he assumed room temperature in the early Nineties he had appeared in well over fifty films.
In 1940, when a defense plant moved into the Gulfport town of Freeport, Texas, the Great Depression came to a screeching halt. Within three months their population shot up from 3,100 to a whopping 7,500, and the economic blessing was not simply confined to that one region:
In Corpus Christi they have a nice little plum in the form of a $25,000,000 naval air base. Houston is getting a $2,000,000 refurbishing of Ellington Field. Randolph Field at San Antonio is getting a costly going over.
Life in Freeport was good. When a local shoeshine lad had found that his pockets were flush with cash after three day’s labor, he exclaimed –
We’re in high cotton now!
In light of the fact that all Army personnel would be issued $300 with their honorable discharge papers, the fashion editor for Esquire Magazine, Henry Jackson, decided to moonlight at Collier’s in order to provide some solid fashion-tips on how best to spend that hard-earned cash.
The Collier’s Magazine obituary for Wilbur Wright (1867 – 1912) was written by the aviator and journalist Henry Woodhouse (born Mario Terenzio Casalengo, 1884 – 1970).
The Brothers Wright gave flying instructions to a young boy who would later become one of the first U.S. Air Force generals – you can read about him here…
Click here to read about a much admired American aviator who was attracted to the fascist way of thinking…
H.G. Wells and Winston Churchill first met in 1901. Churchill was a deep admirer of Well’s fiction, and he eagerly pursued a friendship. The two enjoyed a spirited exchange of letters that went on for decades – although it seemed to have taken a hit in the Twenties when the two disagreed on the nascent USSR – but their friendship was not seriously shaken. In this 1940 article, Wells stepped up to tell American readers how fortunate Britons are to have such a man of discernment standing at the helm:
I will confess I have never felt so disposed to stand by a man through thick and thin as I do now in regard to him. And I think that, in writing that, I write for a very great number of my fellow countrymen who have hitherto felt frustrated and fragmentary amidst the rush of events.
The present war has fanned the abortion racket from a flame to a blaze. Now it’s a nation-wide problem… Apparently every type of woman and girl, from every occupational group and every social level, was represented among women arrested or question in New York [on the matter of abortion].
