Articles from 1937
Twenty-two years after wrap was called on the set of The Birth of a Nation, leading lady Lillian Gish (1893 – 1993), put pen to paper and wrote this reminiscence about her days on the set with D.W. Griffith.
When FDR saw fit to nominate a Klansman to the Supreme Court, Hugo Black, it prompted the editors at Literary Digest to recall the history of those terrorists and how they came into existence, their customs and practices, etc.
When Edward VIII chose to abdicate, the world’s attention shifted to the new heir, the Duke of York (George VI: 1895 – 1952) and his daughter, Elizabeth (Elizabeth II: b. 1926). This magazine article served to introduce the future queen to American readers – making clear that the princess was something like a British version of the Hollywood child star, Shirley Temple – often imitated and recognized as the gold standard of girlhood. Written during the depression, her lavish, story-book existence seemed unreal to many.
In early March, numerous governors convened and agreed that the WPA was dropping too many dependents from their rolls who were then becoming burdensome to their respective states. The executives then wrote a telegram to the White House insisting that the Federal program stop this practice.
As 1936 came to an end in Tokyo, the aftershocks of the February 26, 1936 failed military coup could still be felt throughout the halls of Japan’s Government. The uprising of the military hardliners resulted in four assassinations and a suicide before the constitutional powers regained control. This article covers a more peaceful dust-up on the Parliament floor – and when it was concluded the Generals had the upper hand.
Still the country’s most privileged class, military leaders – modern equivalent of the Samurai, medieval knights – can exert pressure on the government by reason of a 42-year-old imperial edict: the War and Navy Ministries must be headed by army and navy officers; if either resigns, the Cabinet falls.
Ten years prior to being cast in the roll as George Baily’s guardian angel, Clarence, the actor Henry Travers (1874 – 1965) appeared in the Broadway play You Can’t Take it With You. Playing the part of Grandpa Sycamore, he was singled out for praise by the editors of Stage Magazine; the review is attached herein.
This column concerns a 1937 bill sponsored by New York State Senator Edward Coughlin. The senator’s bill provided for the arrest of any woman who stood at or in front of the bar of any club, hotel or restaurant licensed to sell alcoholic beverages. Coughlin held that any woman found guilty of this pastime should be charged with disorderly conduct. A few other states were also attracted to this legislation; it passed a year later only to be repealed in the early Sixties.
Click here to read about that moment in 1920 when American Women attained the vote.
The kids who are discussed in this article would be called LD today – you don’t want to know how they were referred to in the early Twenties. Back then there were no Federally-funded commissions thronging with sympathetic PhD candidates to ramble on about convergence issues, processing concerns, the-classroom-learning-environment and the Learning Disabled. There were only frustrated kids, frustrated teachers and broken-hearted parents. This 1937 news article reports on the pioneering teachers at Seward Park High School in New York City and the earliest attempts to address the needs of students who suffered from language processing disorders, dyscalculia, dyslexia, dysgraphia and America’s favorite – good ol’ ADHD.
An eyewitness account of the Windsors on their visit through Germany in 1937. The journalist reported that the two seemed nervous – reluctant to sign guest ledgers or photographed with Nazi leaders (except with Hitler, they seem very pleased in that photo).
Even as early as 1937, the dark clouds of war could be seen on the horizon. The U.S. Congress still smarted from the last world war and did not want to be lured in to newest installment. Six months after this article was first read the Neutrality Act of 1937 would be passed – this column explains much of the thought that went into it.
A 1937 news column announced the very generous gift to Washington, D.C. and the nation made by billionaire philanthropist Andrew W. Mellon (1855 — 1937): The National Gallery of Art:
A long, low, classic structure, tailored in lines that harmonize with the neighboring white Beaux-Arts buildings, will house the new National Gallery made possible for the nation’s capital by Andrew W. Mellon. The plans, designed by John Russell Pope
(The cost was actually $10,000,000)
Click here to read additional articles from the Twenties and Thirties about art.
Shortly after Hitler assumed power, he struck a deal with the Catholic Church in Germany allowing their schools to remain open. On May Day, 1937, he ified the agreement, saying:
We made a start with the nation’s youth. They shall not escape us. We will take them when they are 10 years-old and bring them up in the spirit of the community…
An appreciation of Birth of a Nation written 20 years after its opening.
A column that explains Hitler’s alliance with General Erich von Ludendorff (1865 – 1937) during the famous Beer Hall Putsch (1923) and how it all went south from there.
Horace Greeley Hjalmar Schacht (1877 – 1970) was the German economist who is credited with having stabilized that nation’s currency following the Wiemar Republic and made possible the Nazi quest of military rearmament:
Germany lacks the stuff of which tanks and guns and explosives are made . It lacks rubber, cotton, silk, copper, tin and iron ore. It lacks food for its 65,000,000 people and fodder for it cattle. So Dr. Schacht has laced German business and industry into a straight-jacket of rigid control, to conserve materials and exchange.
Although he never became a Nazi Party member, he was highly placed in the Reich. In the attached 1937 profile, you will learn that Schacht cautioned Hitler numerous times to remove the Socialist regulations that restrained the German economy from kicking in to high gear.
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.
With the revelation that Britain’s King George VI was left-handed came this column by an uncredited journalist listing all the various unseemly elements that are associated with with left hand usage (most importantly, Lucifer). In light of the fact that a British king is also assigned the title Defender of the Faith in the Anglican Church; steps had to be taken in his youth to train him how to use his right hand. These lessons came at a cost, and the result was his sad stuttering speech – which also involved additional lessons with a speech therapist.
Attached is a 1937 article from the long-forgotten magazine
Physical Culture (1899 – 1950). The article is a psycho-graphic study by psychologist Lawrence Gould, who believed that the Fuhrer was an odd pervert who’s sexual grief could only trigger a global war.
Here is a 1937 article marking the significance of General Edmund Allenby’s (1861 – 1936) march into the ancient city of Jerusalem in 1917. Written twenty years after the event, the article also marks the twentieth anniversary of the the Balfour Declaration – the British edict that declared British Palestine as the home of world Jewry.
