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"attempt to give a rough outline of what the British poets did in the Great War, making every allowance for the fact that they were writing under great difficulty...".

Sassoon gave a thorough going-over of every war poet that he admired, naming at least twenty. It is a wonderful and revealing read for all those who have come to admire the poets of the First World War and Sigfried Sassoon in particular.

Click here to read additional articles about W.W. I poetry.


The Damage of Prohibition (The Smart Set, 1921)

Attached is an editorial that was co-authored by George Jean Nathan and H.L. Mencken from their reoccurring column in The Smart Set: "Répétition Générale". This brief column sought to expose the damages inflicted upon the country by the "guardians of the national virtue" and their bastard children, Prohibition and the Volstead Act, which will primarily serve to promote the wide (though illegal) distribution of all the poorest distilled spirits concocted in the most "remote frontiers of civilization".


Review of Kaiser Welhelm's Memoir (The Spectator, 1922)

Surprisingly, a British magazine published a terribly dry and unsympathetic review of My Memoirs by Kaiser Welhelm II (1859 - 1941).

Click here to read what the Kaiser thought of Adolf Hitler.


Black Racism (Pageant Magazine, 1969)

During the closing months of the tempestuous Sixties, American baseball legend Jackie Robinson (1919 – 1972) wrote about his fears in regards to the racist hatreds that existed within the hearts of a handful of the most vociferous Black radicals.


Berliners Under the Bombs (Liberty Magazine, 1944)

A Turkish diplomat explains all that he saw in the war-weary Berlin of 1944:

"You see children wildly seeking for their mothers, wives wildly seeking for their husbands. Women carry dead children in their arms and children weep beside their dead mothers.


The Border-Jumper Problem
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1952)

Using numerous unkind pejoratives throughout his article, this journalist interviewed plenty of farmers and politicians who had many thoughts and observations concerning this question:

"What to do with the thousands of Mexican farm laborers who illegally enter the U.S. each year to harvest South Texas crops."


A Refugee Looks at America (Liberty Magazine, 1942)

Photographer Herbert Sonnenfeld (1906 - 1972) was able to escape from his native Germany in the winter of 1939, shortly after the Second World war had just begun. After the initiation of the Nuremburg Laws four years earlier, life for him and his fellow Jews had taken a terrible turn for the worse and he was delighted to be able to depart for New York. The attached photo-essay and the accompanying captions reveal his joy and elation for living in a land of plenty, far away from the Nazi boot.


Alternative Lyrics for the National Anthem (Pathfinder, 1941)

Do you fail to recall the words to our national anthem time and again? You're not alone - a quick glance at Google's records indicate that in the silence of their rooms, thousands of your fellow Americans suffer from the same malady (and smirk at others who make their memory loss public). To say that the Americans of today are not as patriotic as they used to be is an understatement to be sure - but some of you will no doubt be relieved to know that the Americans of yore, vintage 1941, didn't know the lyrics to The Star Spangled Banner any better than we do - as you can tell by the attached verses which were penned over seventy years ago about his fellow Americans and their inability to keep the words of Francis Scott Key in their heads.


The Back Story of the Star-Spangled Banner (Coronet Magazine, 1948)

Here is one of the few histories that explain the Star-Spangled Banner that seldom mentions its author. This short column will tell you about Sam Smith, the Militia general who kept the flag at Fort McHenry waving throughout that "perilous fight".


The Lady in the Harbor (Coronet Magazine, 1955)

When this article first appeared, the Statue of Liberty was praised as the tallest statue in the world - today, it doesn't even make the list of the tallest statues; nonetheless, here is a collection of facts about the Ladyy Liberty:

• 200,000 pounds of copper were used in the statue, enough copper for more than 100 stacks of pennies, each as tall as the Empire State Building.

• Trans-Atlantic voyagers do not see Liberty until their ship enters N.Y. Harbor, but her torch can be seen 15 miles out.

• Her index finger is eight feet long.