The Literary Digest – Page 6 – Old Magazine Articles

America Vilified in the European Press
(Literary Digest, 1928)

Envy and admiration as well as ridicule and praise are found in the many articles the European press devoted to this country. Our big business astonishes them, our so-called lack of culture inspires thinly veiled contempt, while our homicide records lead some rather irascible English critics to speak of the United States as ‘the Land of Liberty – for the murderer.’

Yet for all their contempt there was one thing they couldn’t live without: click here to read an article about how much the Europeans loved American silent comedies.

More Laws for the Germans
(Literary Digest, 1936)

With no check of legislative body or court, the Nazi triumvirate had decreed that smuggling money or shares out of Germany, and failure to bring into Germany money from goods sold abroad, should be punishable by death.Today shadows have fallen upon the once-proud German universities. The professors have been forced out of the temples of learning or driven into exile or subjected to a subtle pressure which has changed their academic detachment into clumsy conformity with Hitler’s ideals.

Click here to read Hitler’s plan for German youth.

The Universities Under Hitler
(Literary Digest, 1935)

Today shadows have fallen upon the once-proud German universities. The professors have been forced out of the temples of learning or driven into exile or subjected to a subtle pressure which has changed their academic detachment into clumsy conformity with Hitler’s ideals.

Click here to read Hitler’s plan for German youth.

Martin Niemöller
(Literary Digest, 1935)

Remembered as the poetic soul who penned the famous Holocaust verse, First they came for…, Martin Niemöller (Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller 1892 – 1984) is characterized in this 1935 article as a remarkably brave theologian who was challenging the Nazi Reichsbishop Ludwig Mueller and Dr. Alfred Rosenberg for their assault on the Protestant Churches in Germany:

Now Niemöller is resisting the attack of the German Christian Party, a neopaganistic movement, on the old Protestant faith, in fact. He was not molested when he read to his congregation the manifesto of the Confessional Synod’ Brotherhood Council.All most know that there is a bitter propaganda campaign against the Church under way. We must fight against this and for active, not passive, Christianity.

Martin Niemöller
(Literary Digest, 1935)

High Culture in World War One Prison Camps
(Literary Digest, 1917)

This two page article is about P.O.W.s and the plays and concerts that they launched while in captivity; it is illustrated by numerous images of the prisoner/performers in costume.

If you are looking for an article that spells out how much more educated people used to be as compared to now, you might have found it.

Click here to read about the W.W. II Canadian POWs who collaborated with the Nazis.

Click here to read about American POWs during the Vietnam War.

Her Divorces
(Literary Digest, 1936)

An interesting article that reported on the the successful filing of Mrs. Simpson’s second divorce (a photo of the document is attached) with a few words mentioned regarding the stigma of divorce within court circles and how ruthlessly she was treated by the American press corps:

Nobody mentioned the King. For that matter, no British newspaper mentioned that Mrs. Simpson was his friend.
But minutes before the Baltimore belle slipped out of Ipswich Assizes with her second divorce in her pocket, a million conversations were being launched around the world with the phrase:

‘Now that she’s free-‘

Can Mrs. Simpson Marry the King?
(Literary Digest, 1936)

Once the cat was out of the bag and the whole world had learned of the whirlwind romance between the King of England and the twice-divorced American social-climber Wallis Simpson (1896 – 1986), one of the favorite social pastimes soon involved musing aloud as to whether British laws would permit him to marry such a woman. Constitutionally, the King cannot marry a Roman Catholic, which she was (although this journalist erroneously stated that she wasn’t); recognizing he couldn’t get around this law, he abdicated.

This article can be printed.

The End of the British Press Black-Out
(Literary Digest, 1936)

Attached is a 1936 article that addressed the issue of self-imposed censorship that the British press corps practiced during much of the Wallis Simpson scandal:

Innuendo about King Edward’s friend Mrs. Wallis Simpson, previously barred from London newspapers, crept in last week and even colored the august columns of the London Times.

What was Known About Her
(Literary Digest, 1936)

This article can be divided into two parts: the first half addresses King Edward VIII and his concern for the impoverished souls of his realm who languished daily in squalor, while the second half was devoted to gossip and innuendo as to who Wallis Simpson was, what was her Baltimore life like and when did she first see the king.

(She first saw him in 1920).

Edward VIII and the British Youth at Risk
(Literary Digest, 1935)

In 1935 Edward VIII, while still a prince, wished to launch a national thank-you offering to the younger generation:

‘The Prince’, said The News Chronicle of London, ‘has put his finger on the weakest point in our present social structure. The State shows at least some concern for infancy and childhood, for the blind and defective, for the widow and the aged. The task of helping youth at the most critical age has been abandoned almost entirely to voluntary agencies, and the Prince wisely does not seek to supersede, but to reinforce and extend them.’

Some Character Traits of Prince Edward
(Literary Digest, 1935)

Written a year and a half prior to his abdication, it was written to serve as a profile of the royal and it lays out for the reader the man’s personal preferences as well as his training.

Often reluctant to accept conservative advice, the Prince is aggravated when would-be mentors say something he wants to do ‘really shouldn’t be done, you know’. Thus, long before the problem of kingship are his in fact, the Prince has turned serious.

The Living Expenses of the Duke of Windsor
(Literary Digest,1936)

With the news that he was now dependent on checks from his family
the newly minted Duke of Windsor had to learn to cut coupons and bargain:

In the Vienna hotel where he gets a private haircut, he protested that $1.26 seemed a little steep for the brief use of an empty hotel room. The manager sliced the fee in half.

The Boyhood of the Duke of Windsor
(Literary Digest, 1936)

With an odd sense of foreboding, the very young Edward VIII wrote these words at the age of nine:

…And here he was, at the end of twenty months, a king out of a berth…sent away from his kingdom almost without a single protest from those who he had tried to aid.

I find great pleasure in my talks with the woman who first aroused me to a sense of my kingly duties.

She jokingly refers to herself as the instigator of my downfall.

The primary topic of the article pertains to some hot water that the Duke was stewing in at the time for having attended Catholic services; even as the ‘Former Defender of the Faith’, this was seen as very bad form.

Her Unpopularity
(Literary Digest, 1937)

Over the weekend Mrs Simpson received a letter that could not be dismissed with a shrug. It was from the Scotland Yard detail that guarded her at Cannes during the first weeks of exile, and it strongly advised her to heed the threats and stay out of England.

The Empire-Shaking Romance
(Literary Digest, 1936)

Attached is an article from the pages of a 1936 issue of THE LITERARY DIGEST that reported on the concerns of British Prime Minister Baldwin in regards to the scandalous love affair between King Edward VIII and Mrs. Simpson:

Tradition vs. Love, Tory vs. Commoner, Baldwin vs. Nature