Recent Articles – Page 67 – Old Magazine Articles

Benito Mussolini And His Followers (American Legion Weekly, 1923)

A 1923 article about the earliest days of Mussolini and the Italian Black Shirts; their discomfort with neighboring Yugoslavia, their love of the Italian poet Gabriele D’Annunzio (1863 – 1938) and their post-war struggle against the Italian Communists:

When the Communists virtually ruled over Italy in 1920 and 1921, they set up a detestable tyranny. Railways could not carry troops. Officers were forbidden wear sidearms, and men with war medals were spat on and beaten.

Mussolini changed all that.

You can read about his violent death here…

The 1920s Craze for Flagpole Sitting (Literary Digest, 1929)

Here is a 1929 magazine article that makes clear for us in the digital age just how appealing the fad of flag pole sitting was to the YouTube-starved teenagers of the Twenties. This article tells the tale of Avon Azie Foreman and Jimmy Jones, two courageous flag pole sitting sons of Baltimore who inspired their feminine Maryland counterparts, Ruth McCruden and Dorthy Staylor, to ascend to perch. This journalist was probably not alone in believing that anyone who was capable of placing their keister where the flag should be was a rare and distinct breed of individual – possessing a faultless character and was destined for great things in the future.

Good; they will need such sturdy souls in two months – when the bottom falls out of the N.Y. Stock Exchange and the Great Depression begins – you can read about that here…

Forty Years of Women Voting (Pageant Magazine, 1960)

In the fourth decade of women’s suffrage, researchers had discovered that there were more women than men listed on the voting registries. Republican Party executive Clare Williams noted:

Women now hold the balance of power.

New Rules of Warfare (Time Magazine, 1923)

The International Commission of Jurists of the World Court under the Presidency of Professor John Bassett Moore of Columbia University, New York, drew up at The Hague new ‘rules of warfare’… Chief among the rules for aircraft in warfare are provisions against bombing private property not of a military character and against attacking non-combatants.

The World Navies Expand (The Literary Digest, 1937)

Here is a concise report illustrated by a chart that indicates the size and tonnage of the leading naval powers in 1937.

In 1922, when a halt was called on the vicious race for bigger and better battleships by conclusion of the Washington Naval Treaty, later supplemented by the London Pact of 1930, there were but five major sea powers: America, Britain, Japan, France and Italy. Today, the world picture has changed and two new faces are on the list, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.

All in all, as the treaties end, the United States Fleet stands on par, if not superior to, the armada of the British Empire…

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

Click here to read another article about the pre-WW II expansion of the world’s Naval powers.

Click here to read more about the demise of the Washington Naval Treaty.

A Review of the Whole Show (The Commonweal, 1947)

It seems so odd that that the House Un-American Activities Committee that convened to examine the communist influence in the Hollywood motion picture industry lasted only nine days – yet it is one of the most well-known of all the Congressional committees in the history of the republic. That said, we have posted one journalist’s summary of all the hearings:

Former investigations of this kind were mainly concerned with what people had done or not done; this investigation set a precedent by being concerned about what people thought.

‘Some Aspects of War Poetry by Siegfried Sassoon (Vanity Fair Magazine, 1920)

The following five page article was written by the World War One poet Siegfried Sassoon (1886 – 1967), in an attempt to give a rough outline of what the British poets did in the Great War, making every allowance for the fact that they were writing under great difficulty….

The Tiger Tank at the Aberdeen Proving Ground (Yank Magazine, 1944)

The American army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground rests on 72,962 acres in Aberdeen, Maryland. Since 1917 it has been the one spot where the U.S. Army puts to the test both American and foreign ordnance and in 1944 the gang at Aberdeen got a hold of a 61 1/2 ton German battle-wagon, popularly known as the Tiger Tank (PZKW-VI). This is a nicely illustrated single page article that explains what they learned.

For further reading about the Tiger Tank, click here.

German Anti-Semitism in 1915 (Harper’s Weekly, 1915)

A two column item on anti-Semitism as it existed in Germany during World War I:

In the calamity of war we act now as if we were one heart and one soul with the Jews. However, and I am pained to say it, I must declare that the Jewish question remains and will perhaps, just because of the war, become still more acute. The Jews are a foreign people and are our opponents in France, Russia and England, together with the enormous means at their disposal.

Click here to read an article about the Warsaw Ghetto.

American Spelling Rejected by Canadians (Pathfinder Magazine, 1931)

Heaven knows that the average American had it tough during 1931. The Great Depression was coming down hard on them – but the harshest blow came from our neighbor to the North who rejected our manner of spelling!