The NRA Shows Its Teeth (Pathfinder Magazine, 1933)The National Recovery Administration (1933 - 1935) was just one of the many alphabet agencies that the FDR administration created; his critics at the time, like the historians today, all believed that it was one of the well-meaning Federal efforts that simply prolonged the the Great Depression.
This is 1933 editorial addressed the various violation codes (there were 500 of them) and punishments that the Federal Government was prepared to dish out to all businesses wishing to defy any of the assorted labor laws and price-fixing measures that the NRA was designed to enforce. From Amazon: Nine Honest Men Noël Coward (Stage Magazine, 1933)Noël Coward (1899 – 1973) "was simply the best all-rounder of the theatrical, literary and musical worlds of the 20th century. He invented the concept of celebrity and was the essence of chic in the Jazz Age of the 20s and 30s. His debonair looks and stylishly groomed appearance made him the icon of 'the Bright Young Things' that inhabited the world of The Ivy, The Savoy and The Ritz. No one is totally sure when and why it happened but following his success in the 1930s he was called 'The Master', a nickname of honor that indicated the level of his talent and achievement in so many of the entertainment arts." -so say the old salts at NoelCoward.net, and they should know because they have a good deal more time to think about him than we do.
The attached article was no doubt written by one of his many groupies for a swank American theater magazine following the successful New York premiere of his play "Design for Living":
Click here to read about Cole Porter.
Elsa Maxwell kept the party going during the Great Depression...
The Murder of SA Stormtrooper Herbert Hentsch (Literary Digest, 1933)The Nazis were very adept at eating their young; here is but one of many stories from assorted German and Austrian newspapers that illustrated that point: "The Hitlerites, it alleges, have their own Army, police, and courts functioning independently of the constituted authorities, even defying those authorities, and passing death sentences by secret tribunals."
"In Dresden dwelt a 'shock-troop division' man named Herbert Hentsch whose body was found not so long ago." "Various circumstances suggest that comrades of the dead young man within the Nazi ranks put him out of the way..."
CLICK HERE to read about the beautiful "Blonde Battalions" who spied for the Nazis...
Protestant Churches Forced into Submission (Literary Digest, 1933)Hitler wasted little time in securing control over the Christian churches in Germany: within six months of taking power he began to put the screws to the Protestant churches. This article devotes much column space to the pastors who had no problem with any of Hitler's commands.
"The issue, then, is broader than the Reich. Jews, Protestants and Catholics the world over have seen another scrap of paper torn up in Hitler's repudiation of his pledge on taking office that the Nazi regime would respect the freedom and legal rights of German churches... Hitler modified an order requiring all Protestant pastors on a recent Sunday to display Nazi banners from their church spires.... The Nazis have also suppressed the German branch of International Bible Students' Society, outlawed the Boy Scouts, and, to make their program more effective - given a Nazi cast to the Lord's Prayer."
The 1930s March to the Pews (Literary Digest, 1933)"...since the Depression began one out of every six banks has failed, one out of every forty-five hospitals has closed, one out of every twenty-two business and industrial concerns has become bankrupt..."
- for those living in the digital age, the quote posted above is simply another mildly interesting, stale line from American history - but when those words were written in 1932 it meant for those who read it that there world was falling apart. So much of what they were taught to believe in was collapsing before their very eyes and as a result they felt a need to know God - and know Him they did; half way through 1932 "churches and other religious bodies showed a total net gain of 929,252 members thirteen years of age or over - one of the largest gains ever recorded - and the total membership, thirteen years or more of age, reached the record figure of 50,037,209."
Click here to read about the American South during the Great Depression.
President Hoover's Farewell Address (Literary Digest, 1933)With FDR waiting in the wings, eagerly anticipating the start of his administration, the outgoing president, Herbert Hoover (1874 – 1964), made his farewell address to the cash-strapped nation:
"Warning against the 'rapid degeneration into economic war which threatens to engulf the world' the President said that 'the imperative call to the world today is to prevent that war.' The gold standard, he said 'is the need of the world,' for only by the early reëstablishment of that standard can the barriers to trade be reduced.'"
Read about the Great Depression and the U.S. auto industry during the last year of the Hoover presidency...
Religions at Sing Sing Prison (Literary Digest, 1933)For the stat-minded among us who study the religions of New York City, this short magazine article from 1933 will illustrate how the various faiths were represented numerically in New York's Sing Sing Prison: "One Buddhist and two [Muslims] were received within the gray walls of Sing Sing during the last fiscal year."
"During the same period the doors of the great prison closed behind 855 Catholics, 518 Protestants, 177 Hebrews, twenty Christian Scientists and eight of no religion at all."
Click here to see a 1938 photo essay about life in Sing Sing Prison.
Click here to read more old magazine articles about religion. Public Relief for Young Men (Literary Digest, 1933)During the Spring of 1933 articles like this one began to appear in the magazines and newspapers across the country serving to inform their readers about the creation of an additional Federal agency that was designed to help take some of the sting out of the Great Depression. Roosevelt's New Deal intended to take a hefty percentage of unmarried young men off the streets of 16 American cities, feed them, clothe them and line their pockets with $30.00 a month for their labor. W.W. II created a host of other demands requiring Federal funding, and so Congress voted to dissolve the C.C.C. in 1942.
Click here to read about the end of the Great Depression...
Modern Dance: Spreading the News (Literary Digest, 1933)Quoting the apostles of Modern Dance quite liberally, this article presents for the reader their impassioned defense as to why the era of a new dance form had arrived and why it was deserving of global attention and much needed in America's schools. The column centers on the goings-on at Teacher's College, N.Y.C., where a certain Mary P. O'Donnell once ran the roost at that institution's dance department; it was O'Donnell's plan to send her minions out in all directions like the 12 Apostles of Christ, spreading the good news to all God's creatures that Modern Dance had arrived.
Foreign Artists Barred from Germany (Literary Digest, 1933)Shortly after Adolf Hitler took charge in Germany, a law was passed that forbid the hiring of foreign artists, composers, writers and performers. As the attached article clarifies, there were exceptions, but all concerned recognized that it was a new day in Germany but not necessarily a better one. Writing for the New York-based magazine, MODERN MUSIC, German arts critic Hans Heinsheimer (1900 - 1993) wrote:
"The aim of the National Socialist is to push us back into the Middle Ages. Their politico-culture demands are radical... They set us up as the German Superman against the 'inferior foreigners.'"
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.
Post-Repeal Fears (Liberty Magazine, 1933)What was to be done with all the racketeers who dominated the Twenties once Prohibition was prohibited? Organizing the collective labor of truck drivers seemed to have been the most obvious project for the kingpins, but what of the average foot soldier?
"Even the rank and file have not been driven to the breadline. Current quotations for gunmen have fallen from $300 a week to as low as $100. Plain sluggers command even scantier wages. A fancy pineapple job once cost $250; by 1933 you could get a good workman for $50." Norman Bel Geddes (Creative Art Magazine, 1933)Norman Bel Geddes (1893 – 1958) was one of the prominent industrial designers to practice a style known as "streamline modern". Always mentioned in the same breath as Henry Dreyfuss and Raymond Lowey, Norman Bel Geddes opened his office in 1927 and helped to give the 1930s a defining look. He was the first of his kind to recognize that American manufacturers were sincerely interested in the marketing of modern design.
The sleek, aerodynamic lines of 1930s streamlining can clearly bee seen in the thirteen images illustrating the attached article about his work, which was written by Douglas Haskell, a well-known design critic active throughout much of the period spanning the mid-Twenties through the mid-Sixties; the column was intended to serve as a review for Geddes' 1932 book, Horizons . The Japanese Soldier In China (Literary Digest, 1933)An article that seems remarkable for lacking those politically correct qualities we're all so used to reading in today's magazine columns, this article presents a somewhat slanted, pro-Western vision of the Japanese Army, depicting it as an organized and highly disciplined peasant army: "Some of the finest raw material in the world makes up Japan's infantry...The material is not so adaptable for horsed and mechanized units, as the Japanese possess little natural aptitude for dealing with animals or machines."
Some attention is paid to the strict diet of the Japanese soldier. What is Next for Europe? (Literary Digest, 1933)"'Can we trust him?'"
That is the question asked by some British and French editors as they consider Chancellor Adolf Hitler's speech on the disarmament question in which, while he firmly champions the German case for equality in armaments, 'he broke no diplomatic china'"
The German economist who made the Reich's rearmament possible was named Hjalmar Schacht, click here to read about him...
Edward VIII: As Prince of Wales, His Politics Seemed Radical (Collier's Magazine, 1933)"The Prince of Wales, to quote a conservative peer of the realm, day by day is getting commoner and commoner. There are even those who consider him a dangerous radical. But that doesn't bother the prince. Unperturbed, he continues to fraternize with his unennobled subjects and to defend their interests - hotly and sometimes profanely." Versailles Treaty Conference Spoofed on Stage (Stage Magazine, 1933)One of the summer offerings of 1933 was the stage production of 'Peace Palace' by Emil Ludwig (1881 - 1948). Posted here is a review of the production along with a black and white photograph of the cast in full costume and recognizable make-up. The Japanese Drive on Beijing (The Literary Digest, 1933)"The aggressive ambitions of Japan know no bounds. The occupation of Peiping [Beijing] will lead to further aggression in Shantung and Shansi and other northern provinces, and will result either in the establishment of a new puppet regime in North China."
"The Shanghai SHUN PAO, an independent newspaper, bewails the futility of the uncoordinated resistance which has prevailed among China's forces since the capture of Jehol, and it adds:"
"The only possibilities now are peace by compromise or a continuance of war. Despite the dangers of the latter course it is the only possible solution, but resistance must be coordinated under an able leader, China must fight or become a second Korea." The Flaws of the NRA (Collier's Magazine, 1933)An excerpt from a longer article by Winston Churchill in which he praised the virtues of the Anglo-American alliance and the economic leadership forged by the two nations during the Depression. Four paragraphs are devoted to the confusion he experienced when stopping to consider some of President Roosevelt's economic decisions and the roll played by his National Recovery Administration (NRA).
Like many presidents before and after him, FDR purchased many of his clothes from Brooks Brothers;
click here to read about the history of the store.
A Woman's Place Within the Third Reich (Collier's Magazine, 1933)One of the kindest things you could possibly say about the Nazis is that they were sexists - and if you wanted to back your thesis up with anecdotes, facts and figures, you would read the attached article from 1933: "To say that woman's place is in the home is understatement, so far as Adolf Hitler is concerned. Certainly she's not to be allowed in the library. Intellectual life, as well as all business and legal affairs, is a purely masculine enterprise in the Third Reich. And the women, most of them, in hysterical devotion to their leader, obey. Mr. Quentin Reynolds, in a series of brilliant pictures, presents the women of modern Germany; triumphant and desperate."
CLICK HERE to read about the beautiful "Blonde Battalions" who spied for the Nazis...
Read about Hitler's expert on sex and racial purity... April 7, 1933: 3.2 Beer Returns (Stage Magazine, 1933)This cartoon was created to mark April 7, 1933 - the day real beer was once again permitted to be sold across the country; from sea to shinning sea, one million barrels of the amber liquid was consumed by the citizens of a grateful nation.
Click here to see how weird the first car radios looked.
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."
How Poor Was America? (New Outlook Magazine, 1933)Economist Robert R. Doane (1889 - 1961) presented numerous charts and figures amassed between 1929 through 1932 to argue that America was still a wealthy nation despite the destruction wrought by the Great Depression:
"In 1929 the United States held 44.6 percent of the total wealth of the world. In 1932 that proportion has increased to almost 50 percent. We still have half the banking-power of the world. We still have half the income. In all of the items of economic importance and efficiency, the United States still stands supreme."
Eleanor Roosevelt Was a Very Different First Lady (The Literary Digest, 1933)"Mrs. Roosevelt's governmental activities are approved by those who see in them altruism, sympathy for the downtrodden, and a great desire to serve others. Her activities are opposed by those who feel that she is not properly a public servant because she is not responsible to the American electorate or directly accountable to it at election time." Japan and the Road to War (Literary Digest, 1933)A collection of opinions gathered from the newspapers of the world concerning the belligerency of Imperial Japan and its poor standing in the eyes of the League of Nations: "Feeling grows among the Japanese that events are shaping toward a second world war, with Japan in the position that Germany occupied in 1914...A Canadian Press dispatch from London, in THE NEW YORK TIMES, estimated war supplies sent from England to China and Japan. According to statistics of the British Government for 1932, the largest individual items were 7,735,000 small-arms cartridges for China and 5,361,450 for Japan...Japan also purchased 740 machine guns."
Four years after the Pearl Harbor attack, a Japanese newspaper editorial expressed deep regret for Japan's aggressiveness in the Second World War, click here to read about it...
Click here to read about a 1925 novel that anticipated the war with Imperial Japan. Establishing A Misery Index (New Outlook Magazine, 1933)A great observer of the Washington merry-go-round, columnist Jay Franklin (1897 – 1967) pointed out in this article that there are Federal agencies entrusted with the sorts of information that, when analyzed properly, will serve both as an indicator of prosperity and of misery as they spread or recede across the land. "...if one wished to know whether the people were desperate and suffering there were certain matters which would demonstrate it:"
"the number of evictions, the number of illegitimate births, the number of articles pawned or redeemed, the growth or decline of unnatural vice, the number of suicides. Information on these points, if currently accessible, in compact statistical form, would show whether the people were socially happy or economically satisfied." 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.
From the Beer Hall Putsch and Beyond (Literary Digest, 1933)This article appeared a few weeks after Hitler came to power and it lucidly explains how "Handsome Adolf" had first gained notoriety in Germany.
Click here to read about Ludendorff's association with Hitler.
The Repeal Amendment (Herald & Examiner, 1933)"Now, therefore, I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America,...do hereby proclaim that the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was repealed on the 5th day of December, 1933..." The Terror of the Nazi Stormtroopers (Literary Digest, 1933)This piece reported that the Manchester Guardian journalists who were posted to Nazi Germany were, without a doubt, the most reliable sources on all matters involving the violence committed by those brown shirted thugs during the earliest days of Hitler's reign:
"The 'Brown terror does not exist in Germany, according to the Hitler dictatorship."
"Even to talk about it is a penal offense. But the 'Brown Terror' goes on."
Read about the German POWs who were schooled in virtues of democracy. 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."
Gregor Strasser: the Nazi Rebel (Literary Digest, 1933)Attached is a profile of Hitler's director of the NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers' Party), and their political differences that led to his resignation.
"Hitler was hard hit when Gregor Strasser
(1892 – 1934), one of his ablest and oldest supporters, broke away from him. It happened in one of the fights between rival factions in the Hitlerite movement which followed losses sustained in the November Reichstag elections." "Profound gratitude is due Strasser from Hitler because when Hitler was released from jail, there was at least a nucleus of his party left, so that its reconstruction did not have to begin in a void. Gratitude was expressed on Hitler's part for he made Strasser chief of his propaganda work." He was murdered in his prison cell during the Night of Long Knives (June 30, 1934).
Read about the German POWs who were schooled in virtues of democracy. The Battle at the Great Wall (Literary Digest, 1933)"...Peiping Associated Press dispatches tell of a major battle between Japanese and Chinese armies for possession of Chiumenkow Pass in the Great Wall of China. The Pass is one of the most important gateways leading into the rich province of Jehol which, it is reported, Japan purposes to cut off from China and add to Manchukuo...This collision forms the second chapter in the Shanhaikwan dispute, and it comes quickly."
The Governor Who Threatened Martial Law (Literary Digest, 1933)An article about Governor Floyd B. Olson (1891 - 1936) of Minnesota who allowed his emotions to get the better of him one day in the early Spring of 1933 when he threatened to impose martial law throughout the state in order to confiscate private wealth should his proposed relief legislation fail to pass the Minnesota Senate:
Was former Democratic vice-President Henry Wallace a dirty Red?
The Fascist Blue Shirts of Portugal (Literary Digest, 1933)"Black shirts in Italy, Brown shirts in Hitlerite Germany and now comes a new imitator in Portugal's Blue-Shirt Fascist movement known as National Syndicalism."
Portugal's Fascism is described by a Lisbon correspondent of the London Morning Post as a blend of Hitlerite Fascism and Mussolini Fascism. Because it is called the National Syndicalist movement it must not be confused with the Red Syndicalism of Spain. Its leader is Dr. Roalo Preto, who is said to bear a personal resemblance to Hitler."
"A movement of opinion and ideas toward a more just and equitable social organization...We aim at substituting the principle of liberty of work by a system of 'harmony of direction' under which capital, technical knowledge, and labor will cooperate under the protective care of the State in maximum productive return for the welfare of the nation."
Click here to read about the other Blue Shirts...
The W.W. I Plays of the Post-War Years (Stage Magazine, 1933) A look at What Price Glory? and Journey's End and the new spirit that created these dramas.
"When R.C. Sheriff, nearly ten years after the Armistice, sat down to write an easy play for the amateurs of his boat club, he seems to have had no fixed notion as to what a play ought to be. The script of Journey's End shows a complete absence of strain..."
Click here to read an additional article concerning Journeys End. The Fascist Mojo in Germany (Literary Digest, 1933)Shortly after that infamous day when Hitler was sworn into power in the offices of Paul Von Hindenburg, this article hit the newsstands in North America about the new mood that was creeping across Germany:
"At no time since the war - not even during the occupation of the Ruhr - it is said, has there been so much militarist and nationalist propaganda in Germany as there is now." "Anti-militarist newspapers, it appears, are afraid, in Berlin at least, to raise their voice in protest because of the continual and ruinous suspensions by the authorities..."
During the summer of 1938 the Nazis allowed one of their photo journalists out of the Fatherland to wander the American roads; This is what he saw...
A New Deal for Women (The Literary Digest, 1933)This historic article appeared during the opening weeks of Roosevelt's first term administration announcing that the new president was taking a novel approach in granting various appointments to government positions of leadership by selecting numerous women who had proved their mettle in the fiery furnace of 1920s Democratic party politics.
1924 was a very important year for American women in politics...
The Increased Suicide Rate (Literary Digest, 1933)With the arrival of the Great Depression came an increase in American suicides. When this article appeared on the newsstands the Depression was just three and a half years old - with many more years yet to come. As the Americans saw 1932 come to a close, the records showed that 3,088 more acts of self-immolation had taken place than had been recorded the year before.
Read about the the mood of the Great Depression and how it was reflected in the election of 1932 - click here...
ISAMU NOGUCHI (Creative Art Magazine, 1933)This is an early Thirties profile of a young American sculptor named Isamu Noguchi (1904 – 1988). In the years to come, Noguchi would become well known for his innovative designs for lamps and furniture; but when this article first appeared he was admired for simply having served as an apprentice to Constantin Brancussi. Click here to read a 1946 art review concerning the paintings of French architect Le-Corbusier. The Mobsters (New Outlook Magazine, 1933)This is an informative read that was written during the closing months of "the Noble Experiment" by one of New York's most admired crime reporters, Joseph Driscoll. The article is composed of numerous profiles of mob bosses both famous and forgotten from numerous cities throughout the nation.
"[These] personality sketches constitute a roll-call, a memorial service for the men of direct action, the gentleman of the rackets, who prospered under prohibition and who (we hope) may not be with us much longer, certainly not in the same old style and the same old stand... "
An Al Capone article can be read here...
1933: Hitler Comes to Power (Literary Digest, 1933)This magazine article appeared on American newsstands not too long after Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor in the office of President Hindenburg (Paul von Hindenburg 1847 – 1934), and presents a number of opinions gathered from assorted European countries as they considered just what a Nazi Germany would mean for the continent as a whole: "'Whether or not Hitler turns out to be a clown or a faker, those by his side now, and those who may replace him later, are not figures to be joked with.'" "With this grim thought the semiofficial Paris 'Temps' greets the accession of 'handsome Adolf' Hitler to the Chancellorship in Germany. The event, it ads, is 'of greater importance than any event since the fall of of the Hohenzollererns.'"
Click here to read a similar article from the same period. ''The New Deal Was Not Fascist'' (The Atlantic Monthly, 1933)"In certain quarters it is asserted that Mr. Roosevelt's 'New Deal' is nothing other than the first stage of an American movement toward Fascism. It is said that, although the United States has not yet adopted the political structure of Italy and Germany, the economic structure of the country is rapidly being molded upon the Fascist pattern."
FDR's D-Day prayer can be read here 1933: A Lynchless Year? (Literary Digest, 1933)This article was published during the opening days of 1933 and reported on the deep spirit of optimism that was enjoyed by the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching, and their executive director, Mrs. Jessi Daniel Ames (1883 - 1972). This group of Southerners were hoping that, through their efforts and those of other like-minded Southern organizations, 1933 would be a year without a single lynching:
"If Mississippi can have a lynchless year, a lynchless South is a possible and reasonable goal..."
The reporter dryly noted that a few days after the above remark was recorded, a lynching was committed - one of the twenty-eight that took place throughout the course of 1933. The Great Depression Reduced the Number of Marriages (The Pathfinder, 1933)We were interested to learn that two of the most semi-popular queries on Google are, "1930s wedding theme decorations" and "1930 wedding dress styles" - yet to read the attached article is to learn that the most accurate step that any contemporary wedding planner assigned this theme can recommend is that the happy couple forego the nuptial ceremony entirely and simply move in together. During the Great Depression very few couples could afford to get married, much less divorced.
T.E. Lawrence: Tiresome Literary Celebrity (Literary Digest, 1933)Hannen Swaffer (1879 – 1962), long-time dead British journalist who once presided as the Grand Pooh-Bah of Fleet Street's chattering classes declared in this editorial that one by one the war heroes of the past are being debunked and now it is Lawrence's turn...
Read these various accounts that serve as proof that there is a life after this one.
Germany on the Eve of Hitler (New Outlook Magazine, 1933)The first half of this article succinctly summarizes the German political experience that took place between 1919 through 1933; the second half anticipated a new, "stable" beginning for Germany. The German correspondent seemed not be bothered at all about their incoming chancellor.
A similar article can be read here... Linen and Cotton and the Summer of 1933 (Delineator Magazine, 1933)Attached is printable fashion editorial by a "lifer" in the world of 20th Century American fashion, Marian Corey who stood firm on her belief that the Summer of '33 would stand out as the first season in which the swankiest threads in fashion's offering would be linen and cotton rather than silk:
"Cotton and linen have gone chic on us. Yes we know that you've heard this before. Every year for the last three, stylists have become very sentimental, along about March first, on this subject and each year practically everyone has gone right on wearing silk and more silk, just the same. This time, however, things will be different; this is the summer to believe the stylists."
The article is illustrated by six photographs picturing various assorted well-fed loafers of the Palm Beach set.
Learn about the color trends in men's 1930 suits... Your Graduation Gift: Despair (New Outlook, 1933)This is a graduation commencement speech that was written simply to appear on the printed page of a 1933 magazine - it was far too depressing to have ever been recited before an audience of eager-eared graduates and their doting relatives.
"You know, of course, that 'times are hard'... You know that less than ten percent of the post-graduate professional men from last year's class have found work. And you have heard from home. Allowances have been cut. Classmates have had to drop out of college. Old family friends have had grave misfortunes. Homes have been lost. You know all these things, but you can't realize them fully at this moment. You will, unfortunately, realize them only too well when you yourselves try to find a place in the world." • Watch The Plow That Broke The Plains • 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..." Walter Lippmann: Columnist (Saturday Review of Literature, 1933)Attached is a 1933 interview of Walter Lippmann (1889 - 1974) that covers many of the successes and influences of his career up to that time. Lippmann was, without a doubt, one of the most respected Pulitzer Prize winning American columnists of the Twentieth Century and a sharp critic of FDR's New Deal.
Working as one of the earliest associate editors at The New Republic, he was there at the magazine's birth (1914), and returned to those offices following his service as a captain in army intelligence and aid to the U.S. Secretary of War when the First World War ended. It was at this point that his career as columnist took flight when he assumed the position as lead commentator at The New York World. The article was written by historian James Truslow Adams (1879 - 1940) who wrote of him: "This phenomenon of Walter Lippmann is, it seems to me, a fact of possibly deep significance, and the remainder of his career will teach us not a little as to what sort of world we are living into...his intellectualism is tempered for the ordinary reader by his effort to be fair and by his fearlessness."
The Nazi Book Burnings (Literary Digest, 1933)American columnist Walter Lippmann of the The New York Herald Tribune wrote:
"They symbolize the moral and intellectual character of the Nazi regime. For these bonfires are not the work of schoolboys or mobs but of the present German Government acting through its Minister of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment."
CLICK HERE to read an article from 1923 about the abitious Adolf Hitler.
Read about the American reporter who became a Nazi...
Beer Flowed the Week Prohibition Ended (Literary Digest, 1933)The attached article is composed of numerous newspaper observations that appeared in print throughout April of 1933; these perceptions all pertain to the goings on that followed in the joyous wake of Prohibition's demise:
"'The return of beer has really been a remarkable phenomenon,' says The New York Evening Post.
'Not one of the bad effects predicted for it actually took place'." The Unhappy Constituents (New Outlook Magazine, 1933)"If President Roosevelt were a Caliph in ancient Baghdad, he would disguise himself as a Congressman and wander about the country asking the man at the filling station, the hitch-hiker, the farmer and his wife, the local chairlady of a woman's club - he would ask them what they thought of FDR, the NRA, [General] Hugh Johnson, Brain Trusters, Jim Farley and the entire set-up in Washington... He would be startled. Mr Roosevelt is growing exceedingly unpopular - not so much the President himself as his Administration."
More about New Deal problems can be read here...
Congress Discusses the Repeal of Prohibition (Literary Digest, 1933)During the action-packed opening months of the F.D.R. administration, Congress addressed the option of repealing Prohibition and allowing each state to decide whether it wished to be dry or wet:
"Now the people can decide, after more than thirteen years of Prohibition."
"Surprising the country, the lame-duck Congress, hereto staunchly dry, reverses itself 'in a stampede toward repeal,' to permit the people to decide Prohibition's fate."
The Plummeting Salaries (New Outlook Magazine, 1933)In this article, Dorothy Dunbar Bromley (1896 – 1986) addressed one of the preeminent issue of her day: the rapidly decreasing salaries of the American worker:
"If we are fatuous optimists, it is because we have only the vaguest idea of how appalling the situation is. We have read a great deal about the return of of the garment sweatshop of fifty years ago, with the same abominable conditions and the same exploitation of women and children for a few cents an hour, or for no pay at all..."
More on this exploitation can be read here... The Chain Store Problem (New Outlook Magazine, 1933)"The total amount of retail trade in 1929 was approximately $50,033,850,792 in net sales, but the ten percent of chain stores did $10,771,934,034 of this trade - or twenty-one and a half percent of the total! In the miniature department store field, selling articles for nickles, dime, quarters and dollars, earning charts show an average return on capital invested in 1920 of nearly fourteen percent. In 1925, this percentage rose to twenty-five. In 1930, after trade had begun to suffer, earnings still were in excess of of thirteen percent." The Formerly Rich (New Outlook Magazine, 1933)"The last report of the Bureau of Internal Revenue furnishes conclusive evidence that many of the families who were maintaining our social front during the delirious decade ending in 1930 have been reduced to incomes that are negligible... Well-worn suits, cobbled shoes and re-enforced linen is what the quondam well-dressed man of 1929 is now wearing, even when he appears at such country clubs as have managed to survive by waiving dues rather than close their doors."
The wealthy were targeted for high taxation... The Down-Hill Side of Being a Society Girl (Collier's Magazine, 1933)The attached Collier's article was written by two post-debs of the Boston/Manhattan variety who were both products of what they called "the approval mill" of America's upper-crust. Having been run through the right schools and the right summer camps, they attended the right parties and made charming with all the right people; looking back in their 20s, they were able to see how this long-treasured practice prepared them poorly for life - tending to perpetuate the spiraling vortex of women who were educated and polite, yet unable to think.
''China: The Pity of It'' (Saturday Review of Literature, 1933)The review of J.O.P. Bland's "China: The Pity of It" which was written by Henry Kittredge Norton:
"Mr. Bland (1863 – 1945) has known his China for a third of a century and he is convinced that if that unhappy country has moved at all in the last three decades, it has moved backwards...Without relieving the Chinese of their share of the responsibility in the premises, the half-baked liberalism of the west - by which is meant Great Britain and the United States for the most part -is found to be the chief cause of expanding disaster in China..."
Available at Amazon: China - The Pity Of It
Diplomatic Relations with Japan (The Literary Digest, 1933)This article is about the diplomatic relationship that was maintained between the United States and Imperial Japan during the earliest months of the FDR administration.
Click here to read about the Japanese rejection of the Washington Naval Treaty in 1935. 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."
Read about the Nazis who cried out to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob...
One of the First Katherine Hepburn Interviews (Collier's Magazine, 1933)It was 1933 interviews like this one that made the studio executives at RKO go absolutely bonkers; what were they to do with Katharine Hepburn (1907 – 2003)? She simply refused to take all matters Hollywood with any degree of seriousness; although she hadn't been a movie actress for very long at all, Katherine Hepburn was downright impious and goofy when reporter's questions were put to her: "'Is it true that you have three children?' asked the interviewer." "'I think it's six,' she answered." Such responses served only to frustrate the members of the fourth estate to such a high degree and it seemed only natural that the fan magazine journalists would want to have the final word as to who Katherine Hepburn really was...
-But the Hollywood press did like her future co-star Carry Grant, click here to read it. The Case For Social Studies (New Outlook Magazine, 1933)Although the author of this article, educator Cedric Fowler, does not offer a name for the subject he is proposing, it will not take you very long to recognize it as "social studies". Fowler argued that the text books available at that time were more suited to the Nineteenth Century than the tumultuous Thirties, ignoring all the various hot topics of the day that would have made subjects such as history, geography and civics come alive for those students who were enrolled at the time of the Great Depression.
"Life has become more complex for young Americans since the time of their fathers and grandfathers, and educational method has become more complex and more comprehensive with it... The work of Dewey, Thorndike and a score of other authorities has liberated the schoolroom from its stuffy atmosphere, has made it possible for it to become an ante-room to adult life." ''Company K'' by William March (Saturday Review of Literature, 1933)The New York Times war correspondent Arthur Ruhl (1876 - 1935) reviewed a book that would later be seen as a classic piece of World War One fiction: Company K
by William March (born William Edward Campbell 1893 – 1954). Awarded both the French Croix de Guerre and the Distinguished Service Cross, March gained an understanding of war and the frailties of human character as a member of the Fifth Marines fighting at Belleau Wood and participating in the big push during the San-Mihiel Offensive: "The outstanding virtues of William March's work are those of complete absence of sentimentality and routine romanticism, of a dramatic gift constantly heightened and sharpened by eloquence of understatement."
Lenin, Rockefeller and Diego Rivera (The Literay Digest, 1933)When it was made known to Nelson Rockefeller that the muralist he retained to decorate the lobby of his New York Building (Rockefeller Plaza) had taken the liberty of painting the likeness of Lenin in the work, letters were exchanged between the two men. The attached column is an excerpt from a longer piece that pertains to the dust-up. 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 5"4 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.
•• Civilized Travel on the Northrop Flying Wing•• The Daily Worker (New Outlook, 1933)"The revolution in America today supports about a dozen main propaganda organs. Chief among them is The Daily Worker it makes no pretense at impartiality. It is a revolutionary [newspaper] and nothing else, frankly admitted at every turn. For the genuine Red no such thing as an impartial newspaper exists... No one gets paid very much in the Red press. Salaries of twenty or twenty-five dollars a week are the maximum. One reason is political, we are told. Revolutionaries do not believe in high salaries.
In 1887 the The New York Times reviewed the first English edition of Das Kapital by Karl Marx, click here to read it...
Click here to read more about the American communists of the 1930s.
The Economic Collapse of the World (Literary Digest, 1933)Published in May of 1933, the attached article concerned the much anticipated London Economic Conference which was scheduled to convene the following month in London. The world leaders who agreed to assemble were all of one mind in so much as their shared belief that collectively they would stand a better chance in defeating the economic depression that was bedeviling all their respective countries. It was their intention to meet and review all existing international trade and tariff agreements and to make an effort at stabilizing the currency exchange rates.
Isamu Noguchi (Creative Art Magazine, 1933)A profile of the twenty-eight year old artist Isamu Noguchi (1904 – 1988). The Drive on Undesirables (The Literary Digest, 1933)Some were called "Lishentsi", some were called "land lords", "Romanov lackies", "the rich", "the elite" or simply "the middle class"; no matter what the ruling Soviets labeled their preferred bogeymen, they wanted them out of the way. The attached article goes into some detail as to how this was done.
Child Labor (New Outlook Magazine, 1933)As you can read in this article, you'll find that child labor throughout most of the Thirties had not been eradicated fully and was very much alive in some of the more brutal parts of the nation. That said, you might be surprised to know that the proposed amendment to the constitution concerning the ban on child labor (18 and bellow) has never been ratified by the Congress even to this day. When this column was written the proposed amendment was already nine years old and the politician who penned it held that the legislation was similar Prohibition in that it attempted to impose a moral code upon the American people. He believed that this was matter best left to the states; he further pointed out that the recently passed National Recovery Act had abolished child labor by fiat (and when the NRA was invalidated by the Supreme Court in 1935, child labor abuses increased a small degree).
Child labor was finally brought under control with the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938.
More about Child labor during the Great Depression can be read here.
Atrocity Denials (Literary Digest, 1933)Shortly after Hitler had assumed power came the eyewitness accounts concerning all the assorted government sanctioned murders, public beatings, and confiscations that characterized the Third Reich.
This article appeared on the newsstands just three months after Hitler's coronation and is offers numerous repudiations, abnegation and disavowals all composed by the polished pros of the regime; such as Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, Reichsbank Chairman Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht, newspaper editor Fritz Klein of the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, and the editor from the Nazi organ in Munich, the Voelkischer Beobachter, who opined
"We hereby nail this shameless lie. The accusations remain unexampled in the history of any cultured nation."
Click here to read about the contempt that the Nazis had for Modern Art.
Click here to read about the similarities and differences between communism and fascism.
FDR: The First One Hundred Days (Literary Digest, 1933)Here are the "Chief accomplishments of the special Session of the 73rd Congress, March 9 - June 16, 1933"
These fifteen pieces of legislation were called "the Honeymoon Bills" - his critics pointed out that not one of them originated in Congress and added to their argument that Congress had been marginalized during the earliest period of his presidency.
FDR's critics had a thing or two to say about the first year of "The New Deal"...
Click here to read about FDR and the press.
Secular America on the Rise (Literary Digest, 1933)"The most fundamental change in the intellectual life of the United States is the apparent shift from Biblical authority and religious sanctions to scientific and factual authority and sanctions." "So, at any rate, Professor Hornell Hart, of Bryn Mawr College reads the signs...Two other investigators find evidence of a decline in dogma and a rise in the 'social gospel' as evidence of the humanist form of religion which Professor Hart sees foreshadowed by the morning sun."
In 1900 people wanted to know why men didn't like going to church... The Temper of the Times (New Outlook Magazine, 1933)Columnist George Sokolosky (1893 - 1962), writing from the road, reported that a general uneasiness had fallen across the land as a result of the economic stagnation:
"Wherever I go, I am told of how many families live on the city and country. In Williamsport, Pa., a delightfully intelligent young woman explained to me how this year was different from last in that many of those who contributed to charities are now, rather quietly, taking charity." Arson on the Rise (New Outlook Magazine, 1933)When economic opportunity disappeared from the American landscape during the Great Depression, it was replaced by numerous unheard-of options that would have been judged unthinkable in previous decades. Among these was the scheme to burn your own house down in order to collect the insurance premium check(s).
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 Pinochet
The Bounteous Land (Literary Digest, 1933)The war clouds may have been gathering over Europe in 1933, but in British Palestine the skies were blue and life was good. Just as this 1922 magazine article intimated eleven years earlier, British Palestine was continuing to flourish in ways that neither the resident Zionists or the overseers from the British Colonial Office ever anticipated:
"Two years ago, [British] Palestine's orange crop - its main source of income - filled 2,000,000 cases at most. The forecast for the coming year is 6,000,000. Tel Aviv, a Jewish settlement near Jaffa, had 2,000 inhabitants in 1919. Now it claims 60,000 with 100,000 close ahead..."
The Similarities Between Fascists and Bolsheviks (The Literary Digest, 1933)Here is a brief glance at various observations made by a correspondent for The London Observer who compared the two dominate tribes found in 1933 Moscow and Berlin. The journalist was far more distracted by the similarities in their street hustle and their speechifying rather than their shared visions in governance and culture - for example, both the Nazis and Soviets were attracted to restrictions involving public and private assembly, speech and gun ownership while sharing an equal enthusiasm for May Day parades and the color red. Additionally, both totalitarian governments held religion as suspect and enjoyed persecuting their respective dupes - for the Nazis that was the Jews and for the Communists it was the bourgeoisie.
Read a magazine piece that compares the authoritarian addresses of both Hitler and Stalin - maybe you will see how they differed - we couldn't.
Read an article explaining how the Soviets used early radio...
Nazism and Bolshevism: the Similarities (Literary Digest, 1933)A look at the observations made by a correspondent for The London Observer who compared the two dominate tribes found in 1933 Berlin and Moscow. The writer was far more distracted by the similarities in their street hustle and their sloganeering rather than their shared visions in governance and culture; for example, both Nazis and Communists were attracted to restrictions involving speech, assembly and gun ownership while sharing an equal enthusiasm for May Day parades and the color red. Additionally, both totalitarians had their preferred dupes:
"Absolute ideas invariably demand victims; and the ruthless treatment which is deliberately meted out to Jews in Germany is closely paralleled by the creation in the Soviet Union of a sort of pariah caste of Lishentsi or disenfranchised persons."
Germany never celebrated May Day with public parades until Hitler came to power; May Day was made a national holiday and all employers were given the day off with pay.
Click here to read an article that explains in great detail how the Nazi economic system (with it's wage and price controls) was Marxist in origin.
Read another article that compares Communism and Nazism...
Hitler Gets a Bad Review (Atlantic Monthly, 1933)With Hitler's rise to power in 1933, the German-speaking Alice Hamilton (1869 - 1970; sister to the classics scholar, Edith) was assigned the task of reviewing Mein Kampf
(1925) for The Atlantic Monthly. She didn't like it.
"He loves rough, red-blooded words - 'relentless', 'steely', 'iron-hearted', 'brutal'; his favorite phrase is 'ruthless brutality'. His confidence in himself is unbounded."
The royalties generated by the sales of Mein Kampf made Adolf Hitler a very rich man. To read about this wealth and Hitler's financial adviser, click here.
Read another review of "Mein Kampf". Although Hitler didn't mention it his book, German-Americans drove him crazy. The Churches Resist (Literary Digest, 1933)Here is one of the earliest reports from Hitler's Germany on the the Nazi hierarchy butting-heads with the Christian churches. As the fascists forced the Catholic and Protestant clergies to coerce, the churches reminded the new government of the autonomy they have always enjoyed (more or less). The Good and Bad in Prohibition (Chicago Herald & Examiner, 1933)Writing Prohibition's obituary during the Winter of 1933, Bertrand Russel (1872 - 1970) came away thinking that the best thing that could ever be said about Prohibition was that it served to put an end to that line of Victorian thinking that held up women as morally superior to men. Broadway Costume Design for the Fall (Stage Magazine, 1933)In his review of contemporary Broadway costume design for the Autumn of 1933, the fashion journalist asked the pressing question: "What is the well-dressed play wearing these days?"
There was much talk of Chanel, Schiaparelli and the House of (Elizabeth) Hawes as he heaped the praises high and deep for the the rag-pickers who clothed the ungrateful actresses for such productions as "Men in White", "Undesirable Lady", "Her Master's Voice" and "Heat Lightning". "The fashions in the plays are vivid, authentic, and wearable. They have sprung from the gifted brains and fingers of the cream of the crop of designers, Schiaparelli and Chanel in Paris, and our own industrious Americans who, themselves, are becoming hardy annuals. The silhouette is lengthening into slim height but even in sports clothes corners are rounded and curves are accentuated..." | 
