New Outlook Magazine – Page 3 – Old Magazine Articles

The Chain Store Problem
(New Outlook Magazine, 1933)

The total amount of retail trade in 1929 was approximately $50,033,850,792 in net sales, but the ten percent of chain stores did $10,771,934,034 of this trade – or twenty-one and a half percent of the total! In the miniature department store field, selling articles for nickles, dime, quarters and dollars, earning charts show an average return on capital invested in 1920 of nearly fourteen percent. In 1925, this percentage rose to twenty-five. In 1930, after trade had begun to suffer, earnings still were in excess of of thirteen percent.

Unlikely Communists & Red Teachers
(New Outlook Magazine, 1934)

This article starts out discussing that during the Great Depression communism was beginning to appeal to a small number of unlikely Americans of the country club variety; by the fifth page, however, it heats up considerably when the subject turns to the number of communists who are charged with the instruction of American youth:

Although no accurate statistics on the subject are available, surveys and various reports indicate that there are 150,000 enthusiastic, thinking young Communists in the public schools and state universities of the United States today. Not nearly that many men are enrolled in the American Army. And the figure is a minimum – some estimates place the scholastic communists at 250,000.

The favorite newspaper among American communists was THE DAILY WORKER – read about it here…

Establishing A Misery Index
(New Outlook Magazine, 1933)

A great observer of the Washington merry-go-round, columnist Jay Franklin (1897 – 1967) pointed out in this article that there are Federal agencies entrusted with the sorts of information that, when analyzed properly, will serve both as an indicator of prosperity and of misery as they spread or recede across the land. …if one wished to know whether the people were desperate and suffering there were certain matters which would demonstrate it:

the number of evictions, the number of illegitimate births, the number of articles pawned or redeemed, the growth or decline of unnatural vice, the number of suicides. Information on these points, if currently accessible, in compact statistical form, would show whether the people were socially happy or economically satisfied.

The Formerly Rich
(New Outlook Magazine, 1933)

The last report of the Bureau of Internal Revenue furnishes conclusive evidence that many of the families who were maintaining our social front during the delirious decade ending in 1930 have been reduced to incomes that are negligible… Well-worn suits, cobbled shoes and re-enforced linen is what the quondam well-dressed man of 1929 is now wearing, even when he appears at such country clubs as have managed to survive by waiving dues rather than close their doors.

The wealthy were targeted for high taxation…

The Temper of the Times
(New Outlook Magazine, 1933)

Columnist George Sokolosky (1893 – 1962), writing from the road, reported that a general uneasiness had fallen across the land as a result of the economic stagnation:

Wherever I go, I am told of how many families live on the city and country. In Williamsport, Pa., a delightfully intelligent young woman explained to me how this year was different from last in that many of those who contributed to charities are now, rather quietly, taking charity.

The ”Chief Woman-Elect”
(New Outlook Magazine, 1932)

Half a dozen women who have known Eleanor Roosevelt in the past twenty years all agree that this is the first president’s wife in not a few presidential terms who might have achieved election to something in her own right; who might give ear to the women of the country. And although just listening to other people’s troubles isn’t enough, it is conceivably something.

The Big Spenders in Washington
(New Outlook Magazine, 1934)

The figure pictured in the far left of this image is one of the biggest spenders in FDR’s cabinet and

Private Charity During The Great Depression
(New Outlook Magazine, 1932)

The obligation for giving this year does not fall on the shoulders of the rich and powerful business concerns alone! It is an obligation which rests upon all who are gainfully employed…They should give, not because it is good policy, but because they have at heart the preservation of the human interests of the country.

– so wrote Newton D. Baker in this editorial from 1932 in which he promoted the effectiveness of the private charity that he was chairing: the Committee for Welfare Relief Mobilization. When President Hoover stepped-up and advocated for public donations to private charity organizations America answered the call in various forms.

Bankrolling Economic Stagnation
(New Outlook Magazine, 1934)

Read an article about the 1935 dolar … Click here to read about the end of the Great Depression…Read more

Women on the Relief Rolls
(New Outlook Magazine, 1935)

It is illuminating to realize that more persons are receiving relief in the United States than there are individuals in such well-known countries as Romania (18,000,000), Mexico (16,500,000), Czechoslovakia (14,800,000) and Yugoslavia (14,000,000); over twice as many as Belgium (8,000,000) and Holland (7,920,000); about three times as many as in Sweden (6,140,000) and to cut theses comparisons short – almost seven times as many in all of Norway (2,800,000)… Clearly, it is not in the least inaccurate to speak of the relief population of the United States as a great nation within a nation… Women and children comprise as much as two thirds of the relief population.

‘The House the New Deal Built”
(New Outlook, 1934)

Here is a short article that appeared a year and a half into the administration of President Roosevelt and it lays the nation’s economic short comings right upon the doorstep of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The writer articulated how unrecognizable the nation had become in such a very short span of time. The president’s anti-competition policies were reeking havoc on an already damaged economy:

The New Deal plan for cotton is destroying nothing less than the principal industry of the South… There is freshly disclosed evidence that the Public Works Administration works directly toward the retardation of private enterprise.

The Mistranslated Clause
(New Outlook Magazine, 1935)

This surprising article appeared sixteen years after the Versailles Treaty was signed; it argued that the War Guilt clause (article 231) had been deliberately mistranslated by the German Foreign Minister, Count Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau (1869 – 1928):

Brockdorff-Rantzau, coldly, haughtily, in the best German manner but with trembling legs, carried the thick [treaty] back to his hotel and he and his aides made their own translation into German… Count Brockdorff not only exercised his prerogative there; but he inserted words not synonymous with any that the Allies had written.

‘Voting Strength”
(New Outlook, 1935)

As one wise old wag once pointed out:

When robbing Peter to pay Paul, you can pretty much be guaranteed of Paul’s support come election time.

This 1935 opinion piece went into greater detail on this matter believing that this is (and has been for the past 70 years) the campaign strategy of the Democratic Party.