This article tells the tale of a 17 year-old, left-handed girl pitcher from the Volunteer State who swore that all she wanted to do in life was strike-out Babe Ruth – and she did (and Lou Gehrig and Tony Lazzeri).
When Stalin decided to mess with the Finns in 1939 he failed to take into consideration one demographic that was accustomed to blood, and that was the seal hunters of Finland. Upon hearing of the invasion, these men immediately burned their houses and turned their rifles away from the seals, toward the Soviets. Liberty war correspondent Edward Doherty (1890 – 1975) witnessed much of the fighting.
$2,500.00 stockings, anyone? (in today’s currency, that would be $41,519.00) This is the story of Hollywood’s go-to-guy for outrageously priced, beautifully tailored silk hosiery. Unbelievable.
“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.”
This is one of the more enjoyable reads on the site. Published during the Summer of 1945, with the war in Europe over and the Japanese capitulation only six weeks away, the Liberty editors saw fit to run an article that recalled the absolute devotion that so many USO performers displayed again and again in order to guarantee that American military personnel abroad was fully entertained and amused – no matter their proximity to the enemy.
The Los Angeles of the late Thirties was plagued by a small coterie of Nazis; they were not terribly visible, but they were around, nonetheless. From time-to-time real Fascists from Europe would blow into town and they would be met by such groups as the Jewish Labor Committee, the United Anti-Nazi Conference and the Los Angeles Jewish Community Relations Committee. This article concerns another organization that worked shoulder to shoulder with these groups, but with a little more style: the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League. The League was 5,000 strong (likely an exaggeration) and within its ranks were Hollywood notables such as Herbert Biberman, Robert Rossen, Francis Edward Faragoh, Ring Lardner, Jr. and Dalton Trumbo.
In the wake of numerous air disasters involving the nascent passenger airlines, this article was produced to show readers that with each crash, steps were taken to make each flight safer. In 1938, the Federl Government stepped in and established the Civil Aeronautics Authority.
By cleverly borrowing from the state paper, letters and speeches of the Great Emancipator, a journalist from the usually pretty anti-New Deal Liberty Magazine was able to piece together a few paragraphs indicting
what they hoped Lincoln would think of the New Deal.
“The Brain Trust has devised a number of schemes for getting money away from the fellows who accumulated it during the Golden Age of Coolidge, and some of those schemes are working…”
Civil Rights leader Walter White (1893 – 1955) recognized an historic moment when he saw one: during the summer of 1944 he wrote about the first African-American general – Benjamin O. Davis (1912 – 2002; West Point ’36):
“He had endured snubs because of his color and seen less able men promoted over his head without complaint. Some soldiers of his own race charge that he is not as militant as they think he should be in redressing their grievances. Non of this disturbs him.”
“Six-pounder guns are being turned out in large numbers in one of the Royal Ordnance factories in England. Most of the workers who make them are women. The gun is highly mobile and is said to have a high rate of fire and remarkable armor penetration.”
Four years after Pearl Harbor, the editors of the Japanese newspaper Asahi gazed out of the windows from their offices and saw the charred remains of their enemy-occupied homeland and recognized that they’d made a fatal mistake:
We once more refresh our horror at the colossal crime committed and are filled with a solemn sense of reflection and self-reproach…
Somebody said The Lord’s Prayer as the meeting broke up. I walked three blocks to the subway station. Just as I was about to go down the stairs – bang! – It happened! I don’t like the word miracle, but that’s all I can call it. The lights in the street seemed to flared up. My feet seemed to leave the pavement. A kind of shiver went over me and I burst into tears…I haven’t touched a drop in four years and I’ve sent four other fellows on the same road.
