Articles from 1934
Illustrated by a photograph depicting the cold weather uniforms worn by each of the six Allied armies that served time in Siberia(North Russia), this article is a reminiscence told by one of the American veterans of that cold, uncomfortable and long-forgotten campaign.
– from Amazon:
Why did we go to Russia? by Harry J. Costello
A columnist writing for the magazine New Outlook following the first nine months of the New Deal, weighed carefully all the assorted alphabet agencies and edicts that President Roosevelt created in hopes that the U.S. economy would once more spring to life. He concluded that there was nothing to look forward to and compared FDR to the con-men on the street corners who scam the passersby into playing their shell games; difference being that FDR’s shells were both empty.
Click here to read about the first 100 days of the Roosevelt administration.
Scrip (sometimes called chit) is a term for any substitute for legal tender and is often a form of credit – so reads the Wikipedia definition for those items that served as currency in those portions of the U.S. where the bucks were scarce.
The attached news column tells a scrip story from the Great Depression – the sort of story that was probably most common on the old frontier.
Will fascism come in the wake of the New Deal? The writer surveys its rapid post-war spread through Europe, reviews its origins in the writings of Pareto and Sorel and indicates steps that lead to its establishment.
An article about FDR’s Alphabet Agencies can be read here…
An article that refutes the argument as to whether FDR was a fascist can be read here…
In 1934, the members of the U.S. Congress were able to see how ugly the world was becoming – and with this forethought they approved the Vinson Act. This legislation did not violate any of the restrictions agreed to under the Washington Naval Treaty and provided funds for 102 additional ships to be added to the American fleet by 1942.
Attached herein are thumbnail reports on how the Third Reich economy was faring during the last six months of 1934. For the month of October a report begins –
The developments in the German trade situation in recent weeks are best summed up in the following newspaper headline of recent date:
REICH TO GLORIFY HUNGER AS VIRTUE
New Yorker theater critic, columnist, actor and Algonquin wit Robert Benchley (1889 – 1945) was interviewed for Stage Magazine and photographed by theater shutter-bug Ben Pinchot:
Sometimes he writes digests of the news which The New Yorker calls ‘The Wayward Press’ and signs them Guy Fawkes for some quaint reason…
Click here to read more about the The New Yorker.
This article attempted to explain to that portion of the reading public fortunate enough to have jobs, just how the county relief programs worked and what was provided to the subscribers. The journalist did not weigh-in as to whether she approved or disapproved of the program but sought to explain that in places like the Mid-West, where houses outnumbered apartment buildings, allowances for such possessions were made. In the congested cities of the East it might be expected that the family car be sold prior to receiving relief funds, but in the states where distances were greater subscribers were permitted to hold on to their cars.
This article reported on a phenomenon that is common in our own day as well as the era of the Great Depression. It exists in any locale that fosters a lousy environment for business – for when the entrepreneurial classes loose their daring for investing in commercial ventures and when bankers refuse to loan money for fear that they will never be paid back, it leads to the creation of what is called dormant capital – money that should be working, but isn’t.
There is now piled up in banks some $46,000,000,000. As opposed to $39,000,000,000 at the low point of 1933, and the idle capital is on the increase. World trade has virtually broken down.
As one editorial makes clear, FDR had a tough time freeing up private capital for investments, click here to read it.
This article starts out discussing that during the Great Depression communism was beginning to appeal to a small number of unlikely Americans of the country club variety; by the fifth page, however, it heats up considerably when the subject turns to the number of communists who are charged with the instruction of American youth:
Although no accurate statistics on the subject are available, surveys and various reports indicate that there are 150,000 enthusiastic, thinking young Communists in the public schools and state universities of the United States today. Not nearly that many men are enrolled in the American Army. And the figure is a minimum – some estimates place the scholastic communists at 250,000.
The favorite newspaper among American communists was THE DAILY WORKER – read about it here…
The Versailles Treaty insisted that Germany must have no W.W. I veterans organizations or conventions of any kind; 18 years later the Nazi leadership in Germany thought that was all a bunch of blarney and so the War Veterans Associations was formed. This article tells about their first convention (July 30, 1934).
Appearing in a 1934 magazine for American war veterans (who by that year were well into their middle years and very much looking the part) was this curious column recalling the summer of 1914 and all the various goings-on that had taken place in the world and in American popular culture.
The figure pictured in the far left of this image is one of the biggest spenders in FDR’s cabinet and
Read an article about the 1935 dolar … Click here to read about the end of the Great Depression…Read more
Here is a short article that appeared a year and a half into the administration of President Roosevelt and it lays the nation’s economic short comings right upon the doorstep of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The writer articulated how unrecognizable the nation had become in such a very short span of time. The president’s anti-competition policies were wreaking havoc on an already damaged economy.
This is excerpt from a longer article about the goings-on in 1914 presented an interesting (if incomplete) list of Hollywood’s offerings for 1914:
• The most popular screen performers were Mary Pickford, John Bunny, Ethel Barrymore and May Irwin.
• The most popular films were The Peril’s of Pauline and an Italian film titled Cabiria (directed by Giovanni Pastrone, aka: Piero Fosco).
This reminiscence pays tribute to a stand-up comedian named Jack Gardner and his skit, Curse You Jack Dalton, in which he interacted with the performers on a movie screen, ordering them about, cracking wise and even having the audience believe that he had shot one of them.
The attached 1933 and 1934 photos will give some indication as to what golf clothes looked like during the early Thirties. Depicted in the first image are four actors of the Hollywood tribe: Adolphe Menjou (clad in plus-fours), a slovenly Johnny Weismuller, Bruce Cabot and Richard Arlen.
Full-cut trousers were the rule of the day, as can clearly be seen in the second photo that was indifferently ripped from the browning pages of Delineator Magazine, which also shows a smashing linen shirtwaist dress that was worn on the Bermuda links.
