About 630 American-born Japanese over the age of 17, now at the Poston (AZ.) relocation center, were found to be openly disloyal or of questionable loyalty to the United States, the Dies subcommittee learned at its hearing yesterday in the Federal Building…Among the 630 there were 606 men and 24 women.
Attached is an account by a learned traveler who journeyed to that one piece of ground on the isle of Skyros that will forever be England – the grave of the English poet Rupert Brooke (1887 – 1915). The literati who wrote the attached article went to great lengths imparting the significance of Skyros throughout all antiquity and it’s meaning to the world of letters – credited only as S. Casson, he informed his readers that he arrived on the island five years after the 1915 internment in order to erect the headstone that is currently in place, describing the shepherds and other assorted rustics in some detail while alluding tirelessly to the works of Homer.
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…
A black and white diagram depicting the interior and exterior of the German A7V heavy tank. Manufactured in the spring of 1918, only twenty were ever known to have existed. Although the illustration depicts only two men, it is said that the tank had a crew of 18 and measured 26 feet, three inches in length and 10.5 feet in width. The A7V had two heavy Maxim machine guns placed within it’s turret, while the tank’s primary weapon was a 57mm gun mounted at the very front (these guns were believed to have been of Russian or Belgian origin). The tank could travel an estimated fifty miles at the top speed of 6 mph; it weighed 32 tons and sported armor plating that was 30mm thick at the bow and 20mm thick all around. The tank’s two 150 horse-power, 4-cylinder water cooled engines were made by Daimler.
It was not beyond the editors of THE STARS and STRIPES to indulge in ethnic stereotyping from time to time and, no doubt, they exercised that privilege here as well, however the performance of the American Indian soldier got high marks for a number of valued skills from many Allied officers on the Western Front. It was not simply their ability to shoot well which invited these compliments, but also their instincts while patrolling No-Man’s Land in the dark in addition to a common sense of bravery shared by all. The article is rich with a number of factoids that the Western Front reader will no doubt enjoy; among them, mention is made of German women serving in combat.
Read some magazine articles about one of the great failed inventions of the Twentieth Century: the Soviet Union.
In respect to their economic status, it has been estimated that one-half to two-thirds of the city children of America are in homes where annual income is too low to permit the family to buy items called for in an ordinary ‘maintenance’ budget – a budget of about $1,261 to meet the normal needs of living in a family of four.
CLICK HERE to read about African-Americans during the Great Depression.
An uncredited column by an American journalist who seemed to hold that the British Empire could do no wrong in their rule over the colony of India, and that the man who most vociferously opposed this governance, Gandhi, was an old-fashioned, eccentric monk with Bolshevik leanings…
This article is essentially an indictment of French General Charles Nogues (1876 – 1971), once the reigning governor-general of French Morocco – who was accused of beating the rush and selling-out early to the fascists before France had even collapsed:
More primary source articles about W.W. II France can be read here…
Here is a film review from DIRECTION MAGAZINE that discussed many of the forthcoming movies of 1941 and how they so rarely depict American culture in an accurate light:
In bringing back the usual revelations from a trip through the Middle West, I want to repeat the oft-declared amazement that American films… reflect the barest minimum of the American scene in these United States. The rare attempts of the Grapes of Wrath and Primrose Path to seek and show new dramatic settings, are the exceptions that prove the rule of formula.
Many of the American films of 1941 are listed herein and the article can be printed.
Neither the prosecution nor the defense wanted Henri Philippe Petain’s oily accomplice to testify in the trial of the old marshal. Both sides feared his slanderous tongue and his slimy skill for wriggling out of blame.
The Nazis quickly extended the dread Nuremberg laws to the occupied territory. Jews lost jobs, businesses, property, liberty, even their lives. They were flung into primitive concentration camps and deported to Polish ghettos. And with them the Nazis brought the usual wave of Jewish suicides.
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.
A confidant cashed-in on his chum Babe Ruth and provided numerous factoids regarding the baseball legend’s habits, manias and obsessions that are not likely to be added to the Baseball Hall of Fame archives.
Sammy Sosa in our day may use steroids, but unlike Babe Ruth, at least he wears underwear…
The testimony given in this column from the early Twenties is as true today as it was then. It was written by a 1905 immigrant who observed that the first word immigrants learn when arriving in America is BUY. When presented at every corner with products they’d never seen before in tandem with the smiling and encouraging face of the sales staff, the immigrant can’t help but feel an inner drive to join the American society:
And when he succumbs, why wonder that he grows more aggressive, demanding higher wages and striking when the demand is denied?
Here is an expose that revealed the hypocrisy of Stalin and the Soviet party members – who spoke of the inherit nobility of the laboring classes and the triumph of the worker’s paradise while they lived like the czars of old:
The children of the country’s rulers already regard themselves as the hereditary aristocracy… The absence of a free press and consequently, of public criticism, allows them to retain this psychology even beyond their adolescence.
New York’s Cardinal Francis Joseph Spellman (1889 – 1967) wrote the attached editorial explaining why Marxism was the polar opposite of everything Americans holds dear:
My sole objective in writing is to help save America from the godless governings of totalitarianism…if you believe with me that freedom is the birthright of the great and the small, the strong and the weak, the poor and the afflicted, then you would be convicted as I that [Socialism] is the antithesis of American Democracy.
Click here to read another argument opposed to socialism.
Dale Carnegie (1888 – 1955) was a phenomenon unique to American shores; he was a publishing marvel whose book How To Win Friends and Influence People has sold over fifty million copies since it’s first appearance in 1937.
Similar to his contemporary Napoleon Hill
(1883 – 1970), Carnegie was one the preeminent self-help authors of the last century who recognized that success can be found within all of us if we simply know how to harness those elements properly. He had a strong belief that the powers of self-determination can be mastered in one’s ability to communicate clearly, and his followers are legion.
This article coincided with the printing of his second book, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1948), and explains the author’s philosophy –
… be a good listener, talk in terms of the other man’s interests, and make the other person feel important.
Some of our music critics look askance at the Russian Ballet, and apparently, only deign to notice it at all because the music employed is such as falls within their province to review. Having the task forced upon them, they relieve their feelings by deploring the forced association of, for example, Schumann and patterning feet…
