The following article and illustration were clipped from the World War Two G.I. magazine, YANK; which we have included in our study of American World War One naval uniforms because we couldn't imagine that the regulations involving the wearing of the lid could have been that much more different from the days when Admiral Simms ran the shop. 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."
"Mesopotamia should be placed in the same file as Gallipoli, along with all the other various assorted fantasies conceived by his Lordship. Mr. Churchill hopes to avert any fresh rising by setting up an Arab Government. The people are to elect a National Assembly this summer, and the Assembly is to choose a ruler...Mr. Churchill admits that that he does not know whether the people of [Iraq], who are rent with tribal, sectarian, racial, and economic feuds, will choose the Emir Feisul."
Click here to read about Churchill's other folly: the Battle of Gallipoli. 
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The attached article briefly recalls the general discomfort that the German government experienced when confronted with a unique social sect called German-Americans. As handsome and affable as they might have been, these "volk" still irked the Kaiser and his administrators to a high degree, although this article points out that the Fatherland was warming to them slowly.
This article makes a number of references to the Bancroft Treaty and how the agreement pertained to a particular German-American family named Meyer. After years spent in the U.S., Meyer the elder returned to Germany along with his wife and children - the story became a news-worthy when it was revealed that his draft-age son, a naturalized Yank, resisted military conscription and was thrown in the hoosegow. It was at that moment when the American embassy stepped forward.
Not surprisngly, Hitler didn't like German-Americans any better than the Kaiser... The attached article from LITERARY DIGEST will give you a clear understanding of all that Britain went through in order to govern Iraq in the early Twenties; Britain's treaties with the Turkish and Angoran Governments in regards to the oil-rich region of Mosul, the selection of an Arab King and the suppression of various Iraqi revolts.
"The Mesopotamian Adventure" required a tremendous amount of treasure and yielded very little excitement for either party: "At the end of the war we found Iraq upon our hands, and our Government agreed to accept a mandate for the administration for this inhospitable territory." Click here to see a Punch Magazine cartoon about the British adventure in Iraq. We were surprised to learn that even in this multicultural era of unenforced immigration laws - the last name Smith still stands as the most common surname in the United States - and as of 2021 there are 2,627,141 people with this last name living today. This article points out that there is always at any given time a Smith serving in Congress (currently that duty falls on the shoulders of Representative Chris Smith, who hails from the 4th District of New Jersey).
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