The Mistranslated Clause (New Outlook Magazine, 1935)This surprising article appeared sixteen years after the Versailles Treaty was signed; it argued that the "War Guilt" clause (article 231) had been deliberately mistranslated by the German Foreign Minister, Count Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau (1869 - 1928):
"Brockdorff-Rantzau, coldly, haughtily, in the best German manner but with trembling legs, carried the thick [treaty] back to his hotel and he and his aides made their own translation into German... Count Brockdorff not only exercised his prerogative there; but he inserted words not synonymous with any that the Allies had written." Notable Flights 1919 - 1931 (Literary Digest, 1935)Attached herein is a printable list of the important record-breaking flights in aviation history that made the world sit up and take notice.
A Near-Death Experience
from the Thirties (Literary Digest, 1935)A short article from 1935 reporting on the near-death experience of a British gardener named John Puckering who insisted that when his heart ceased beating for four and a half minutes during the course of a complicated surgery "his soul slipped away, and joined a heavenly company..."
A second article dealing with the same subject can be read here. Tyranny At Home (New Outlook Magazine, 1935)In the Spring of 1935, as the world slipped deeper and deeper into the muck of the Great Depression, journalist Cedric Fowler noticed that both governments state and Federal were introducing legislation that was designed to muzzle free-speech and make the deportation of foreign radicals far easier. At first he thought it was a result of the spread of Fascism across the globe - and it had finally reached our shores. He also considered the possibility that the elected classes, realizing that they were unable to reduce the destruction of the Depression, felt emasculated and invigorated by picking on the radical minority. Either way, he feared for the nations future.
A Call to Repeal the Japanese Exclusion Act (Literary Digest, 1935)The anonymous journalist opened this 1935 magazine article explaining how the Indian caste system took root and reasoned as to why he believed such a system was an inevitability in the United States as well.
"With the California Council on Oriental Relations waging an eloquent campaign for repeal of the Japanese Exclusion Act, a quota-basis solution is suggested."
Read another article about Asian immigration to California
Click here to read about the 1921 [anti-]Alien Land Bill in California.
You might also be interested in reading about the Yellow Peril in Canada. •Watch a Film Clip About Angel Island• Military Expenditures: 1908 - 1913 (Literary Digest, 1935)A printable chart calculated in millions of U.S. dollars (evaluated prior to the 1934 value), which lays out the military spending as it increased between the years 1908 through 1913. The nations taken into account are Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Japan and the United States.
Numerous articles about military spending prior to W.W. II in this section...
''The Oddest Thing About the Jews'' (Scientific Americans, 1935)When the sun came up in 1935, it found that Jews had been designated a "preferred risk" by the insurance companies of the day. One member of the medical community looked into their reasoning:
"That the Jews are the most nervous of all civilized peoples in the civilized world has been established as almost axiomatic in the medical profession." The 1935 German Economy (New Outlook Magazine, 1935)Within the cozy confines of the attached PDF is a thumbnail report concerning the Third Reich's economy during the first six months of 1935: imports, exports, bartering. They were compiled by Edward H. Collins for the editors at New Outlook magazine.
Germany's chief economist was a remarkable fellow, click here to read about him.
Japan Rejects the Washington Naval Treaty (Literary Digest, 1935)"The first successful attempt in world history to limit armaments was marked for the scrap-heap on December 31, 1936, when Hirosi Saito, the slim and smiling Japanese Ambassador to the United States, bowed himself into the State Department building in Washington last Saturday and handed to Secretary Cordell Hull a document that the world has expecting for many months - Japan's formal denunciation of the Washington Naval Treaty."
Click here to read about FDR's Secretary of State, Cordell Hull.
Amateurs All (Collier's Magazine, 1935)"The Brain Trust's very lack of practical experience was its chief asset. Unhampered by tradition and fairly drunk with the opportunity of translating college dreams into realities, they leapt to the battle, careless of obstacles and without fear of frustration." The Expansion of the Red Army (Literary Digest, 1935)"Premier Vyacheslav M. Molotov (1890 – 1986) pictured the Soviet Union as a lusty young giant strong enough to defend itself from both the East and the West in the keynote speech of the Seventh All Union Congress of Soviets, the Soviet Parliament." "In proof of this claim it was shown that in the last two years the Soviet Government had increased the strength of the Red Army from 562,000 men in 1932 to 940,000 in 1934." ''Extras Are Anybody'' (Rob Wagner's Script, 1935)When the 20th Century Fox executive Joseph Schenk (1876 - 1961) opened his big fat pie hole and blathered-on about what he really thought of Hollywood extras, he soon discovered that this minority had champions in the press corps who would come to their aid when needed. Distributing the Nation's Wealth... (Pathfinder Magazine, 1935)An article about FDR's scheme to create an American Utopia purchased with high taxation. The article closes with an amusing poem about the tyranny of taxation. The Degraded Lives of American Reds (Script Magazine, 1935)This article was written by an anonymous soul who wanted the Script readers to understand that the life of an American Communist during the Great Depression was not a good one. Their lives often involved constant police surveillance and harassment to say nothing of blacklisting.
"What boon can membership in the Communist Party confer upon them in exchange for the martyrdom they almost inevitably suffer? But is any membership card ever printed worth having one's skull fractured for?"
More about American Communists during the Great depression can be read here
Mickey Mouse: Goodwill Ambassador (Stage Magazine, 1935)Seven years after his film debut in Steamboat Willie, Mickey Mouse continued to pack the theaters of the world. Prior to the release of Disney's animated film,"William Tell", STAGE MAGAZINE correspondent Katherine Best was rightfully in awe over the world-wide popularity the rodent was enjoying and at the time this essay appeared in print, he had already been seen in over sixty cartoons.
Shirley Temple Sheds a Baby Tooth! (Stage Magazine, 1935)Child movie star Shirley Temple (1928 - 2014) was by no means at her box-office peak when this article was penned (her most popular period would span the years 1936 through 1938), but the institution that she had become by 1935 had already built many second homes and an assorted number of mansions for more than a few well-placed studio executives and mogul types. When the news hit the palmy, sun-soaked boulevards of Hollywood that she had lost her first baby tooth, there was panic!
"That the end now shows unmistakable signs of beginning. That first baby tooth fell to the studio floor with a crash heard 'round the world....Yet, even as as the nabobs of Fox stood about applauding and cooing, the cold hand of fear must have gripped their kindly hearts."
Click here to read a 1939 profile of Shirley Temple. That Unique Windsor Style (Literary Digest, 1935)During the years the Duke of Windsor has been slandered up hill and down dale by all sorts of cliques and all manner of men; he has been called a cad, a shirker, a traitor, a Nazi, a snob a half-wit. Yet all his detractors can agree on one well-deserved sobriquet: dandy. No matter how you slice it, the man was well-turned out; and while he was busy tending to those matters that would render him deserving of such insults, he always did it as a fop, a beau, a buck or a swell. For as deep as his flaws may have been, he well understood tailoring and fabrics, stripes and plaids, cuffs and collars. His fashion admirers are born anew with each generation and he, more than any other man in the past century, created the definition of the well-dressed man. The following article pertains to his "youthful air" and fashion innovations.
Click here to see the Summer suits
other men wore during the Summer of 1932. Amelia Earhart: Hawaii to California (Literary Digest, 1935)"'All well', Amelia Earhart (1897 – 1937) radioed repeatedly during her 2,400-mile flight from Hawaii to California last week. 'Alls well that ends well,' she might have said as she set her monoplane down at Oakland Airport Saturday afternoon, eighteen hours and sixteen minutes after she took off from Wheeler Field, Honolulu. What she actually said was, 'I'm tired'"
"Thus she has become the first woman to fly the Pacific from Hawaii to California, and the first person of either sex to fly it alone. Her record has been studded with 'firsts' ever since she learned to fly in 1918." The Death of Governor Huey Long (Rob Wagner's Script Magazine, 1935) FDR's Continuing Failures (New Outlook, 1935)When FDR's first term reached the half-way mark the editor of New Outlook, Francis Walton, sat down at his typewriter and summarized the new president's record:
"It is a record of action - mostly ill-considered. It is a record of astounding failures. It is a record of abandoned experiments smilingly excused and apologized for by their perpetrator even before they were undertaken... It is a record against which natural recovery is waging a super-human struggle to reach us." Spies Beheaded in Germany (Literary Digest, 1935)This magazine article was filed during the suspenseful phony war that was waged between Poland and Germany over the Danzig issue. It reported on the beheading of two German women convicted of spying on behalf of a Polish cavalry officer by the name of Baron Georges Von Sosnowski: "In London, THE NEWS CHRONICLE, Liberal Party organ, declared that the beheading of the two women was 'disgusting savagery', and was not the first evidence of 'a strain of sheer barbarism in the Nazi creed..."
 What's Next for Eugene O'Neill? (Stage Magazine, 1935)Stage editor Hiram Motherwell (1888 – 1945) examined the meteoric rise of playwright Eugene O'Neill (1888 – 1953) and asked, "What can he do next?" "Eugene O'Neill is now forty-seven. His plays have just been enshrined in the "definitive edition", handsome, ingratiating, expensive. They are probably more widely discussed than those of any other living playwright. They have been produced in almost every city from Moscow west to Tokyo. They have been translated into more languages. And yet it is evident that O'Neil, standing on the crest of this superb eminence, has completed a cycle; come to a momentous turning in the path his creative genius has followed. Where will the path lead?"
Harold Ickes Wrote the Relief Checks (New Outlook, 1935)When Harold Ickes (1874 – 1952) assumed his post as FDR's Secretary of the Department of the Interior he found himself in charge of three distinct governmental concerns. The first of these elements to be lorded over was the public lands (mines, forests and Indian reservations). His second responsibility was involved with the drilling of oil. "The third and most observed cell in his official asylum was that of Administrator of Public Works Three Billion Dollar Fund. He was under instruction to spend this as rapidly as possible...It would give work to the workless, get money into circulation and encourage business."
Click here to read about President Harry Truman...
''The Forgotten Dollar'' (New Outlook Magazine, 1935)"Along with the host of other forgotten items in this historic age of trouble, to be classed with Sumner's forgotten man and Uncle Sam's forgotten Constitution, is the forgotten dollar."
- so saith Edwin Myers of NEW OUTLOOK MAGAZINE. His gripe was typical of most Americans who struggled to get by during the Great Depression - but FDR was not neglectful of the dollar; one of his first acts was to make American exports more attractive abroad - and he devalued the dollar to this end. Much to his credit, exports did indeed increase - but the decreased purchasing power of the dollar domestically contributed to the misery of the American consumer. The Loss of the Macon and It's Aftermath (Literary Digest, 1935)"Just before dark, the $2,450,000 Macon had lurched crazily and inexplicably skyward, then had settled stern first into the sea. All but the chief radio operator and a Filipino mess-boy among the eighty-three officers and men aboard had taken to rubber life boats and had been picked up by war ships on Maneuvers."
"All Congress needs to do is announce its refusal to condemn more American seamen to death; to declare that no more funds of American taxpayers will be squandered on these useless gas-bags."
Click here to read about a much admired American aviator who was attracted to the fascist way of thinking...
*Watch Newsreel Footage About the Airship MACON* The Dreamland Story Factory (Rob Wagner's Script, 1935)"Motion picture studios manufacture motion pictures. Motion pictures are shot from scripts. Scripts are developed from stories. Stories are written and sent to studios by undertakers, gamekeepers, chocolate dippers, steamfitters, pretzel-makers, judges, dentists, trapeze artists, carpet layers, parachute jumpers, nurses, tea tasters and amateur winders. It is a platitude that everyone owning a pencil fancies themselves a writer." 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." Albert Einstein Magazine Interview (Literary Digest, 1935)A year and a half after departing Germany, Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955) vogued it up for the cameras at a meeting for the scientific community in Pennsylvania where he answered three very basic questions concerning his research.
"A small, sensitive, and slightly naive refugee from Germany stole the show at the winter meeting of the American Association for Advancement of Science, which closed at Pittsburgh last week. Not only the general public and newspapermen, but even the staid scientists forgot their dignity in a scramble to see and hear the little man, Albert Einstein, whose ideas have worked the greatest revolution in modern scientific thought." Italy Condemned (Literary Digest, 1935)Any of us born after 1945 have seen this before: the United Nations condemns a dreadful dictator and sends him a mean email and the dictator deletes it (Sadam Hussein was condemned 17 times by the U.N.) - but this was the first time it happened in the Twenties. The League of Nations condemned Mussolini for the Ethiopia invasion, and Mussolini couldn't have cared less. • Watch a Film Clip on this Subject • When Germany Quit the League of Nations (Literary Digest, 1935)"In October, 1933, Baron Konstantin von Neurath (1873 – 1956), Germany's Foreign Minister, sent a telegram to the Geneva Disarmament Conference announcing Germany's resignation from the Conference and the League of Nations. The resignation will become effective Sunday, October 20, two years after notice of retirement was given... In March, 1935, Chancellor Hitler announced universal military conscription for Germany, thereby making the Treaty of Versailles a 'scrap of paper'".
Italy left the League of Nations in 1937 - click here to read about it. The World Wide Military Expansion (The Literary Digest, 1935)A 1935 magazine article which presented a table of statistics regarding the the European military expansion and then concluded by stating: "It seems fair to offer the opinion that a major war is likely within the next ten years because the pressure of rising armament expenditure promises to be so great as to develop the explosion that bound to come." In 1940 former W.W. I Prime Minister David Lloyd George wrote an editorial in which he condemned the leaders of Europe for procrastinating rather than dealing with Hitler when Germany was still weak.
Click here to read it. Mrs. Il Duce (Pathfinder Magazine, 1935)As you will see by reading the attached article, Mussolini's flack released no information concerning Rachele Mussolini (1890 – 1979), Il Duce's second wife. All that they seem to know about the lass was that she had a waistline that rivaled his.
Soak the Rich States, Too (Pathfinder Magazine, 1935)This is an interesting article that assesses the financial abilities of each of the 48 states in 1935 in an effort to illustrate that the ten "richest" states, as a result of their minority status on Capitol Hill, were in no position to cry out about majority tyranny when the insolvent 38 states rigged a deliberately unfair tax code that would see to it that they alone would pay the nation's bills.
"The 'rich' people may howl and growl and moan at having to foot the bills for everything, but there's no remedy for it... The reason is this: our parade of poor states totals 38, while the rich states number only ten. The figures show that these rich states, which have only one-third the population, have to pay two-thirds of the taxes. The 10 richest states have only 20 Senators in the Senate, while the 38 poor states have 76. The rich are decidedly in the minority and there is no way for them to change the set-up."
T.E. Lawrence and the Literary Coup of 1935 (Literary Digest, 1935)The accidental death of T.E. Lawrence (1888 – 1935) triggered an event within the publishing world that was much discussed in all quarters: "The Saturday Review of Literature, weekly guidepost for the literati, last week scooped the world with an air-tight exclusive story that was scheduled to be front page news fourteen years hence. The editorial coup was a review of Thomas Edward Lawrence's final book, The Mint , which by the terms of his will was not to be made known to the world until 1950." ''Soak the Rich'' (Pathfinder Magazine, 1935)"'SOAK THE RICH!' has been a popular slogan for generations. President Roosevelt knows the people and he knows that this cry is even more popular now than it ever was before. Taxes which increase the cost of living and hang so heavily on the poor cannot be popular... But pick some taxes that bear down on the rich and - and then you have something which everyone will hurrah for. The number of rich are comparatively few, and hence their votes and influence can be disregarded entirely."
President Roosevelt's plan was to tax this minority for 75 percent of their income.
To read about the dwindling good fortune of the rich, click here...
A Socialist Remedy for Nazi-Germany's Labor Questions (Literary Digest, 1935)"A Socialist Workers' Government has achieved a workers revolution in Germany without resorting to, though in some respects it approximates, Communism. Adolf Hitler has done it by wiping out all class privileges and class distinction, but the economics foundation of property rights and private capital has been left almost intact - for the present time."
"The Third Reich, under Hitler, has wiped out corporate trade-unionism by forcing all workers to join one great government union, the National Socialist Union of Employers and Workers..."
Eventually, unions were outlawed under Hitler.
Click here to read about the Nazi assault on the German Protestant churches in 1935. Read an Article About the Socialist Aspects of Hitler's Book, "Mein Kampf".
Hitler's economist admitted the German economy was socialist - more about that can be read here ...
Military Buildup in the USSR (Literary Digest, 1935)"Premier Vyacheslav M. Molotov (1890 – 1986) pictured the Soviet Union as a lusty young giant strong enough to defend itself from both the East and the West in the keynote speech of the Seventh All Union Congress of Soviets, the Soviet Parliament." "In proof of this claim it was shown that in the last two years the Soviet Government had increased the strength of the Red Army from 562,000 men in 1932 to 940,000 in 1934."
Read about all the various international treaties that the Soviet Union violated... ''Voting Strength'' (New Outlook, 1935)As one wise old wag once pointed out:
"When robbing Peter to pay Paul, you can pretty much be guaranteed of Paul's support come election time."
This 1935 opinion piece went into greater detail on this matter believing that this is (and has been for the past 70 years) the campaign strategy of the Democratic Party. DON'T BECOME AN EXTRA (Liberty Magazine, 1935)If you were planning to use your time machine to travel back to the Thirties so you could be an extra in Gone with the Wind - you might want to read this article about what a bad hand was dealt to that crowd back in the day. It was written by Campbell MacCulloch, General Manager of the Central Casting Corporation - and he knew all about it:
"In Hollywood dwell some ten or twelve thousand misguided folk who cling tenaciously to a couple of really fantastic illusions..." The Personal Ads (Rob Wagner's Script, 1935)Before there was social media, there were the personal ads.
"And what, as a general rule, is the personal column used for? To communicate, to sell, to plot, to advertise, to complain, to hope, to invite, to reject, to pray, to love, to hate, to express appreciation - in fact, anything." The Forgotten Child (Literary Digest, 1935)This magazine article from 1935 documented the Federal aid that was made available for America's poorest children. The malnutrition visited upon the boys of America's indigent would render some of them unfit for military service in World War II.
"With nearly one-sixth of the nation's child population in families dependent upon emergency relief, welfare agencies call for a solution of their grave problem." "The problem was laid before the recent National Conference on the 1935 Needs of Children held under the auspices of The Parent's Magazine in New York City. Before them Katherine F. Lenroot, Chief of the United States Children's Bureau, made one of her first public appearances since taking office:"
"...These children have a right to expect that Federal, State, and community relief policies of 1935 will provide more adequately for essential items in the family budget."
Another article about children of the Great Depression can be read here...
Japan's China Poicy (Literary Digest, 1935)"What was called a Japanese 'Monroe Doctrine for Asia' whereby Japan would wield dominance there, especially in Chinese affairs, was announced last April, and drew the immediate attention of the world's press." "In the last days of this January a following-up of this intention was seen in a series of talks at Nanking between Chiang Kai-shek, President and Generalissimo of the Nationalist Government of China, and Lieutenant-General Soshiyuki Suzuki, Japanese military representative at Shanghai; and among Akira Ariyoshi, Japanese Minister to China, and General Chiang and Premiere Wang Ching-wei."
BBC Television Broadcasting Begins (Literary Digest, 1935)The British Broadcasting Corporation announced that they were capable of transmitting television programming as early as 1935:
"The British engineers plan to begin with a single broadcasting tower, capable of transmitting television images to receiving sets within a radius of about thirty miles...British engineers are not the first to try television broadcasting. A station has been operating regularly in Berlin for several months." 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.'" Hollywood and the Game of Bogus Plagiarism Law Suits (Rob Wagner's Script, 1935)A bitter article written by a Hollywood veteran concerning what was at the time recognized as a growing cottage industry: recreational law suits that lay claim to falsified violations of movie plagiarism.
Robert Lord (b. 1902, Best Original Screenplay Oscar in 1932) penned this two page article and outlined it all quite clearly as to how the plagiarism game was played in 1930s Hollywood. The Solar Motor (Pathfinder Magazine, 1935)Pictured herein is Dr. C.W. Hewlett - early proponent of solar energy.
He was employed by the research department at General Electric and can be seen demonstrating his brainchild, the "Solar Electric Motor":
"Four small, round iron plates constitute the cell which converts the light into power. The plates are coated with selenium over which is an extremely thin layer of platinum. Both of the metals are 'light sensitive' and convert certain of the the rays into electricity, but as to just how this is done science is pretty vague".
Immigration Hollywood-Style (Rob Wagner's Script, 1935)Apparently during the pit of the Great Depression there were complaints coming from a few frustrated corners about the number of foreign talents that were being hired to entertain us in the movie business. An old Hollywood salt answered this complaint head-on:
"The average world-fan cares nothing that Chaplin is an Englishman, Garbo a Swede, Novarro a Mexican, Bergner a German or Boyer a Frenchman." 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."
''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..." The Forgotten Men and the NRA (Literary Digest, 1935)"A long program of suggested remedial legislation lies ahead of the 7,500 representatives of the people who gather this year in the halls of Congress and of all but four State Legislatures. The NRA (National Recovery Administration) will come under the closest scrutiny. As the old year waned, the NIRA (National Industrial Recovery Act)was being attacked and defended." Click here to see a chart concerning the U.S. urban murder rate between the years 1926 - 1936.
In 1934, the NRA went to Hollywood and performed a task it was not legally obligated to do; click here to read about it... ''Porgy & Bess'' (Stage Magazine, 1935)Music critic and scholar Isaac Goldberg (1887 - 1938) reviewed the opening performance of George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess for the editors of STAGE MAGAZINE:
"Why the Jew of the North should, in time, take up the song of the Southern Negro and fuse into a typically American product is an involved question. Perhaps, underneath the jazz rhythms and the general unconventionality of musical process lies the common history of an oppressed minority, and an ultimately Oriental origin. In any case, the human focus of this particular type of musical Americanism has been, from the very first notes, George Gershwin." *Listen to a 1935 Recording of Lawrence Tibbett Performing an Aria from PORGY and BESS* The Era of Nationalized Religions (The Literary Digest, 1935)In 1935 the Biennial Congress of the Western Section of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (13,000,000 strong) gathered in Richmond, Virginia in order to discuss their concerns regarding the spread of "nationalized religions" in such nations as Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany:
"As for anti-religious communism, said Doctor Charles S. Cleland, 'In our missionary circles this is more to be feared than nationalism. The latter may be, and oftentimes is, a patriotic movement, while the former aims only at destruction. Communism of the type now referred to seeks not only the suppression of Christianity, but of all religions. Its purpose is to make governments entirely secular, and to free the national life from all forms of faith and worship."
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." Spring Fashions (Rob Wagner's Script Magazine, 1935)Paulette, the fashion critic for the long-defunct Beverly Hills society rag, Rob Wagner's Script, joyfully reported that color had at long-last come to liven-up the drab wardrobe for the Great American male:
"The myriads of color, diversity of design and gamut of styles displayed in men's shops are revolutionary...The new page in fashion history began when daring members of the nations' social elite first braved formal dinners in suits showing decided sheens of blue and red." Women on the Relief Rolls (New Outlook Magazine, 1935)"It is illuminating to realize that more persons are receiving relief in the United States than there are individuals in such well-known countries as Romania (18,000,000), Mexico (16,500,000), Czechoslovakia (14,800,000) and Yugoslavia (14,000,000); over twice as many as Belgium (8,000,000) and Holland (7,920,000); about three times as many as in Sweden (6,140,000) and to cut theses comparisons short - almost seven times as many in all of Norway (2,800,000)... Clearly, it is not in the least inaccurate to speak of the relief population of the United States as a great nation within a nation... Women and children comprise as much as two thirds of the relief population." The Birth of Donald Duck (Stage Magazine, 1935)The introduction of Donald Duck in Silly Symphony Number Thirteen had'em rolling in the isles, to be sure - and if you don't think so, here's proof from STAGE MAGAZINE's Helen G. Thompson: "If you didn't see him in "The Orphan's Benefit", you missed the performance of the generation. Like Bergner's show, it ran for Donald the whole gamut of his emotions. Voted the toughest duck of the season, Long Island included, and now crashing Europe, a breathless American public awaits his acclaim. Will his fare be raspberries or chuckle-berries? Donald says whatever the decision, he'll fight."
*Watch a Clip From This Documentary About Walt Disney's Silly Symphony Series* The China Clipper (Literary Digest, 1935)"When the twenty-five-ton Martin transport-plane successfully passed its preliminary tests at Baltimore a few days ago, preparatory to entering the regular service of Pan American Airways, it was an occasion of world significance. In all likelihood this new member of the famous Clipper series will be the first to establish regular passenger and mail service across the Pacific." *Watch A 1930s Film Clip About The Pan Am China Clipper Air Service* The Invalids Speak (Literary Digest, 1935)Speaking from their hospital wards, disabled American veterans of W.W. I express their bitterness concerning their lot and the general foolishness of the young who unthinkingly dash off to war at the slightest prompting.
Click here to read about the new rules for warfare that were written as a result of the First World War - none of them pertain to the use of poison gas or submarines.
''War Fears in Italo-Ethiopia Rift'' (Literary Digest, 1935)A report on the start of the Italian adventures in Ethiopia:
"The dispute arose over alleged trespasses by Ethiopians on Italian possessions in Eritria and Italian Somaliland, in East Africa."
"A solemn declaration of Abyssinia's peaceful intentions toward Italy was read in broken but emphatic Italian to representatives of the foreign press in Rome by the nervous and impassioned Negradsa Yesus, Abyssinian Charge d' Affaires. In fervent tones he asserted that Abyssinia's intentions were so peaceful 'that if Italy remained without a single soldier and without a single gun in her colonies, Abyssinia would not touch a single stone.'"
Mussolini explained why he invaded Ethiopia in this article...
Liquor Up (New Outlook, 1935)When "The Noble Experiment" ended in 1933 the United Sates was a far less sober nation than it was thirteen years earlier. Organized crime was stronger than ever before, more Americans were in prison then ever before and more Americans than ever before had developed an unfortunate taste for narcotics. If prohibition was undertaken in order to awaken Americans to the glories of sobriety, it was the opposite that came to pass - Americans had become a people that reveled in drink. The writer who penned this column recognized that with the demise of Prohibition arose a culture that was eagerly buying up
"a flood of utensils, mechanisms, gadgets, devices and general accessories [that celebrated the] noble old art of public drinking..." The Benevolent Government... (New Outlook Magazine, 1935)Sadly, this is a story that has been duplicated numerous times throughout the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, Red China, Vietnam, Canada and every other nation where the people have entrusted their health care to a faceless bureaucracy. It was a pathetic anecdote that was adored by FDR's critics.
More about New Deal spending can be read here...
Chicago Vaudeville Remembered (Stage Magazine, 1935)American journalist and radio personality Franklin P. Adams (1881 - 1960) recalled the high-water mark of Chicago's Vaudeville (with some detail) for the editors of STAGE MAGAZINE, a witty and highly glossy magazine that concerned all the goings-on in the American theater of the day: "They were Continuous Variety Shows. They ran - at any rate at the Olympic Theatre, known in Chicago as the Big O - from 12:30 p.m. to 11:00 p.m....While those days are often referred to as the Golden Days of Vaudeville, candor compels the admission that they were brimming with dross; that Vaudeville's standard in 1896 was no more aureate than musical comedy in 1935 is."
Public Murals: the Art of the 1930s (Literary Digest, 1935)A quick read on the subject of that uneasy union that existed between art and industry during the 1930s. References are made to the work of muralists Dunbar D. Beck (1902-1986), Arthur Watkins Crisp (1881 - 1974), Kenneth B. Loomis, Charles S. Dean and Charles Louis Goeller (1901 - 1955). The Lynchings of 1934 (Literary Digest, 1935)Four paragraphs tallying up the number of lynchings that took place throughout the course of 1934. The study was compiled by the Department of Records and Research of the Tuskegee Institute, which also compared the amount to the number of lynchings that took place during the previous four years.
"Fifteen people, all Negroes, were lynched during 1934...Mississippi led in the number of lynchings, six; Florida and Louisiana came next with two each; and one each was recorded for Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Texas."
Lincoln Kirstein and George Balanchine (Delineator Magazine, 1935)Attached is one of the first articles to be written about "balletomanes" Lincoln Kirstein (1907 - 1996) and his efforts with George Balanchine (1904 – 1983) and philanthropist Edward M.M. Warburg (1910 - 1992) to form the first American ballet company (the corps was later called the New York City Ballet). Jewish Americans Boycotted German Products (Literary Digest, 1935)Having suffered from a Jewish-lead boycott of German goods that had been in place for two years, the businessmen of Nazi Germany dispatched Dr. Julius Lippert (1895 – 1956) off to Washington in order soothe hurt feelings and bring an end to it all. Seeing that Lippert was a devoted anti-Semite and the whole dust-up commenced because of the widespread anti-Semitic sensations that made up the very core of Hitler's Germany were still in place and not likely to subside any time soon, Washington functionaries probably yawned and informed him that there was nothing that could be done on the Federal level.
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