The Literary Digest

Articles from The Literary Digest

Helmets Along the Western Front
(Literary Digest, 1915)

The tremendous advances in artillery that took place during the years leading up to the war helped to reintroduce an old, time-tested element to the uniforms of the 20th Century soldier: the helmet.


So numerous were head injuries from high-explosive shells during the first year of the war that it compelled the doctors on both sides to beg their respective generals to issue some measure of cranium protection in order to reduce the casualty figures. As you will read in the attached article, the French began to wear helmets in the fall of 1915; the British and Germans a year later.

General John Rawlins: General Grant’s Chief of Staff
(The Literary Digest, 1917)

Attached is a review of a biography covering the life and times of Brigadier General John Rawlins (1831 – 1869). Rawlins distinguished himself as the Chief of Staff to General Ulysses S. Grant during the American Civil War. It is explained that the two met while Grant was engaged as a sales clerk at a leather shop which was owned by Rawlin’s brother; at the outbreak of the war, in 1861, Grant’s skill as an officer became clear to many and with each promotion he was able to secure Rawlins’ certain advancements in grade. By 1863 Rawlins was promoted to Brigadier General. During Grant’s term in the White House, Rawlins served as Secretary of War.
The author of the book, Major-General James Harrison Wilson, is remembered as the man who captured Confederate President Jefferson Davis in flight; the review of his autobiography can be read here.

‘Lady Macbeth of Mzensk” by Dmitri Shostakovich
(Literary Digest, 1935)

The Cleveland Orchestra, on February 5 [1935], with Arthur Rodzinski conducting, will introduce to New York ‘Lady Macbeth of Mzensk’, an opera by twenty-eight year-old Soviet composer, Dmitri Shostakovich.

Shostakovich completed the work in December, 1932. It is the first of a projected cycle of four operas in which the composer plans to trace the condition of women in Russia…

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The First Five Year Plan
(The Literary Digest, 1933)

A 1933 magazine article that reported on the success of the Soviet Union’s first (of many) Five Year Plans.


The myriad five year economic development plans dreamed-up by the assorted butchers of the dear dead Soviet Union all had one thing in common that was never lost on the Russian people: they always involved the construction of new factories, but never the construction of new housing.


Additional magazine and newspaper articles about the Cold War may be read on this page.

Are the Indians of Jewish Origin?
(The Literary Digest, 1912)

The earliest encounters with the Native American had left the brain trust of Europe entirely baffled. The persistent matter as to who these people were remained an unanswered question well into the Nineteenth Century, for in order to qualify as a member of enlightened classes, a fellow had to show some sufficiency in at least two fields: classical literature and the Bible. Therefore, it stood to their reasoning that the inhabitants of the Americas had their story told in one of those two fields of study. Some of Europe’s elite were convinced that these people were descendants of the survivors of Troy, who, fearing the Greeks, caught a strong wind which allowed them to sail both the Mediterranean as well as the Atlantic and arrive on that far distant shore. Others tended to believe that the Native American could only have descended from the lost tribes of Israel, which is the topic of this one page article.

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Fascists in Chile
(Literary Digest, 1933)

Cabled from Santiago, Chile came this report that on May 7, 1933 the broad-belted boulevards of that grand city were filled with 15,000 Chilean fascists, cheered on by a crowed that was estimated at a number higher than 400,000 – a throng composed almost entirely of citizens who had all come to see the first parade of the Nacional Milicia Republicana:

Along the lines of the march there were many demonstrations for the Fascists, and a few against them. Women tossed flowers from flag-bedecked windows. Domingo Duran, Minister of Education and Justice, a regimental commander of the militia, received almost continual applause.

A squadron of Fascist planes flew overhead as the units, unarmed, and marching to airs played by two dozen bands and fife corps, moved through the spacious Boulevard Alamada, past the Presidential Palace to the Plaza des Aramas.


From Amazon: Chile and the Nazis: From Hitler to Pinochetstyle=border:none

The Truce of Tangku
(The Literary Digest, 1933)

This 1933 news piece concerned the cessation of hostilities that was agreed upon by both the Imperial Empire of Japan and China in the campaign that began two years earlier with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.

When the withdrawal of Chinese troops is completed, the Japanese agree that their own troops will retire to the Great Wall, which the Japanese claim is the boundary of the state of Manchukuo.

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FDR on Wage Reduction
(Literary Digest, 1938)

I am opposed to wage reductions – a statement made by President Roosevelt at a February press conference in 1938, compelled both economists and industrialists to ejaculate numerous multisyllabic words on the matter. In light of the fact that magazine editors are wage earners, the majority of selected quotes side with FDR.


Click here to read about the end of the Great Depression…

British Praise for General Grant
(Literary Digest, 1897)

When the Grant Memorial in New York City was first presented to the public during the Spring of 1897, few could have guessed that one of the places most excited about the monument would be Great Britain. An American journalist posted to that distant isle filed the attached article, quoting from as many as eight British newspapers that saw fit to liberally sprinkle their pages with a variety of laudatory adjectives in praise of General Grant:

He sprang from the people, he was the son of a plain farmer, and had ‘driven team’ in his day. Yet he was also a trained soldier. But, from first to last, he was merely the citizen in arms, and with the mighty array he commanded, he resumed his position in civil life as soon as his work was done…The giants of the Civil War were probably the last of a great race.


Click here to read Grant’s recollection of the first time he met President Lincoln.

Japan’s Puppet
(Literary Digest, 1936)

A brief notice reporting on Prince Teh Wang (Prince Demchugdongrub 1902 – 1966), ruler of Inner Mongolia, who, in an attempt to create an independent Mongolia, simply ruled as an appeaser of Imperial Japan:

While Prince Teh’s position, as a Japanese puppet, can scarcely be less comfortable than it was before , Japan has a grip on the bottle-neck controlling a vast, ill-defined hinterland of North China; and has as well a buffer State between her own influence and that of the Soviets.

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Mussolini and the Four-Power Pact
(The Literary Digest, 1933)

The brain child of Il Duce, the Four-Power Pact was a diplomatic treaty that was intended to guarantee a greater voice to the four strongest powers in Europe: Italy, Germany, France and Britain.

The chief value of the Mussolini pact is (1) it induces collaboration in Europe and (2) it pledges the disarmament regardless of what the disarmament conference does.

The Military Buildup in France and Britain
(Literary Digest, 1936)

This 1936 magazine article reported that Germany had spent a considerable sum on munitions and armaments throughout much of the previous year and was not likely to stop anytime soon. In light of this fact, the French and British governments were moved to do the same:

Winston Churchill, a cherubic reddish-haired Cassandra, bobbed up in the House of Commons again last week to warn his countrymen of the ‘remorseless hammers’ of the world.

The Military Buildup in France and Britain

(Literary Digest, 1936)

This 1936 magazine article reported that Germany had spent a considerable sum on munitions and armaments throughout much of the previous year and was not likely to stop anytime soon. In light of this fact, the French and British governments were moved to do the same:

Winston Churchill, a cherubic reddish-haired Cassandra, bobbed up in the House of Commons again last week to warn his countrymen of the ‘remorseless hammers’ of the world.

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The German Rebellion Against the Treaty
(Literary Digest, 1923)

This 1923 German editorial by Professor Rudolf Euken (coincidentally published in THE EUKEN REVIEW) was accompanied by an anti-Versailles Treaty cartoon which attempted to rally the German working classes to join together in rebellion against the treaty.

The so-called Peace of Versailles subjects the German people to unheard-of treatment; has injured and crippled Germany; has, with refined cruelty, deprived her of fertile territories; robbed her of sources indispensable to her existence; has heaped upon her huge burdens, and this for an indenite time – the intention being, if possible, to reduce her people to serfdom.


Click here to read another one of Rudolf Euken’s post-war efforts.


Click here if you would like to read about the 1936 Versailles Treaty violations.

Military Buildup in the United States
(Literary Digest, 1936)

At midnight, December 31, the Naval Limitations Treaty of 1930 will expire and, tho a treaty of a sort was negotiated last April, apparently it will not be ratified and put into effect by the end of the year.

With this in mind, Congress authorized the construction of two battleships at the cost of $50,000,000 each.

And is it worth it, in these days of fleet and deadly torpedo planes or great diving bombers clutching demolition bombs weighing a ton apiece? Naval experts think so. The Battleship, they say, is still the backbone of the battle-fleet. In the phrase of the street, the battleship can dish it out.

The Navy would soon learn that they were actually living in the age of the aircraft carrier.


Click here to read more about the expansion of the U.S. Navy.

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