The Literary Digest – Page 14 – Old Magazine Articles

No Citizenship for Japanese Immigrants
(Literary Digest, 1922)

An article that marks the date of November 13, 1922 as a poor one for the assembled masses who happened to have been of Japanese ancestry in the United States. On that date Justice George Sutherland (1862-1942), of the United States Supreme Court, handed down the ruling that the Japanese can not be citizens of this country. The opinions of many American Newspapers are presented herein, among them an excerpt from the St. Louis Star which summed up the opinion just so:

The law which prevents the naturalization of Japanese is plainly intended to exclude the Japanese because they are racially unassimlable and their presence creates economic difficulties.

You can read more about Justice Sutherland HERE…

Citizenship Denied
(Literary Digest, 1922)

This article reported that as of 1922, the United States Government saw fit to deny 19,000 immigrants U.S. citizenship. This number, when added to the other repatriated applicants of the previous ten years, totals up to 760,000 people; which was, at that time, more than the entire population of North Dakota. The Ellis Island based naturalization service classified all rejected immigrants in fifteen different categories, this reporter preferred to name just two: Ignorance and Immoral Character. Immoral Character speaks for itself. And Ignorance covers those who didn’t appear to know enough to exercise the rights of citizenship intelligently. Oddly, there seemed to have been no talk of amnesty.

Citizenship Denied
(Literary Digest, 1922)

FDR Takes On the Great Depression
(The Literary Digest, 1933)

All the editorial writers quoted in this 1933 article agreed that FDR was the first U.S. President to ever have faced a genuine economic calamity as that which was created by the Great Depression:

Look at the picture flung into the face of Franklin Roosevelt:

Ships are tied up in harbors and their hulls are rotting; freight trains are idle; passenger trains are empty; 11,000,000 people are without work; business is at a standstill; the treasury building is bursting with gold, yet Congress wrestles with a deficit mounting into the billions, the result of wild and extravagant spending; granaries are overflowing with wheat and corn; cotton is a drag on the market, food crops are gigantic and unsalable, yet millions beg for food; mines are shut down; oil industries are engaged in cutthroat competition; farmers are desperate, taking the law into their own hands to prevent foreclosures; factories are idle; industry is paralyzed…

He Spied on the Bolsheviks
(Literary Digest, 1921)

‘The Wreck of the Word’s Largest Plane”
(Literary Digest, 1921)

Click here to read about the China Clipper.Read more …

Fracture in Moscow
(Literary Digest, 1921)

Sharp encounters between Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev, Dzerzhinsky and other Bolshevik leaders took place when Trotsky tried to take Warsaw in 1920 and the majority of the committee antagonized his policy, we learn from a letter written by a Bolshevik adherents in Russia, who is ‘presumably‘ high up in the Soviet hierarchy and a partisan of Trotsky.

Israel’s Alarm at Hitler’s Rise
(Literary Digest, 1933)

This is an article that gathered Jewish opinions about the rise of Nazi Germany from many parts of the globe:

There have been European Premiers before this who were surrounded with an anti-Semite atmosphere, but never has such a Jew-baiter as Hitler sat at the helm of the Ship-of-State among Modern civilized people.

This bitter climax is the reward given to the Jews of Germany who poured out their blood for the ‘Fatherland’ during the Great War. Not less than 100,000 Jews took part in the war, which was more than a sixth of the Jewish population of the country including women and children. Twelve thousand fell on the battlefields, and thousands returned home crippled.

Soviet-Approved Poetry
(Literary Digest, 1921)

No liberty of the press exists in Russia and so none but a poet recognized by the Government can get his verses published… In justice to Russian letters it must be said that all talented Russian authors have abstained from writing, or at any rate, from publishing their works during the rule of the proletariat, so that only the official poets, the literati hired by the Government, have their say.

The only Soviet-approved poet they single out for derision is Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893 – 1930), who is quoted liberally.

Harry Hawker
(The Literary Digest, 1919)

An article on the pioneer aviator Harry Hawker (1889 – 1921), written on the heels of his his failed attempt to beat the Yankees in crossing the Atlantic. Australian by birth, Hawker came to Britain specifically to seek a career in the infant aviation industry. His wish was answered in 1912 when he was hired by Tommy Sopwith. Hawker saved his wages to afford flying lessons and acquired his flying permit in the September of that same year. The following month he won the British Michelin Cup with a grueling endurance flight of 8 hr, 23 min. Sopwith was impressed and Hawker was promoted to chief test pilot. The rest is told herein…

from Amazon: Hawker: Aviator, Designer, Test Pilot

Mouillard: Aviation Pioneer
(The Literary Digest, 1912)

The attached 1912 Literary Digest article addresses the debt that past and future aviators owe to Louis Pierre Mouillard (1834 – 1897); an aviation visionary whose relentless study of bird flight throughout the last half of the Nineteenth Century paved the way for aviators yet unborn.

A Diagram of Lindbergh’s Plane
(Literary Digest, 1927)

Originally created for the editors of the now defunct Aero Digest, the diagram depicted the interior of The Spirit of St. Louis (also referred to to as The Ryan Transatlantic Monoplane) shows the layout of the famous craft, and the placement of the water supply, air vent, earth inductor compass and more. The Spirit of St. Louis weighed 5,000 pounds, could travel at the speed of 135 miles per hour and had a wing span measuring 46 feet.

The China Clipper
(Literary Digest, 1935)

When the twenty-five-ton Martin transport-plane successfully passed its preliminary tests at Baltimore a few days ago, preparatory to entering the regular service of Pan American Airways, it was an occasion of world significance. In all likelihood this new member of the famous Clipper series will be the first to establish regular passenger and mail service across the Pacific.

The Earliest Airline Stewardesses
(The Literary Digest, 1933)

By the time this article hit the newsstands, the airline stewardess job was no longer a novelty and there were twenty-five women working in relays on the trans-continental run between Chicago and Oakland. The woman who held the record as the first airline stewardess, Ellen Church (1904 – 1965), was hired two and a half years earlier.

In addition to other restrictions, the earliest flight attendants of the Thirties were all required to be no older than 26, weigh no more than 118 pounds, stand no taller than 54 and hold nursing degrees in order that they be prepared to soothe the frayed nerves of the flight-fearing passengers.

With the birth of passenger airlines came the need for those who had particular set of culinary skills: read about them here.

Hitler Rejects Old Treaty Obligations
(Literary Digest, 1937)

This magazine article covered a speech made by Hitler four years into his rule:

In his efforts to wipe out the country’s status as a pariah among the nations, Hitler boasted Saturday, he had rearmed the Reich and seized the disarmed Rhineland. Still denouncing Versailles, he last week erased one of the most painful of the treaty’s blots on German honor with a few words:

‘I hereby and above all annul the signature extorted from a weak and impotent Government against its better knowledge, confessing Germany’s responsibility for the late war.’

Click here to read about Germany’s treaty violations…

Roosevelt Takes Charge…
(The Literary Digest, 1933)

This 1933 magazine article anticipating the reign of FDR appeared on the newsstands on the same day as the man’s first inauguration. The article is composed of various musings that had been published in numerous papers across the economically depressed nation as to what manner of leadership might the Americans expect from their new President.

No President has ever inherited such a load of problems and responsibilities as Roosevelt.

Click here to read President Hoover’s
farewell warning to the nation.

The King of Italy Smiles on the Fascists
(The Literary Digest, 1922)

This 1922 news column reported that Benito Mussolini had been granted power by the Italian King:

King Victor Emanuel of Italy has invited the leader of Fascisti, Benito Mussolini, to form a cabinet to replace the Facta Ministry.

The Lynchings of 1916
(Literary Digest, 1917)

An end of the year round-up of the 1916 lynchings concentrating on the state of Georgia as the lynching champion for the second year in a row (Louisiana, Mississippi and Missouri were all tied for the 1914 title).