Despair

NATIONAL AFFAIRS

MAN OF THE YEAR

In Chapter 1934 of the great visitors book which men call History many a potent human being scrawled his name the twelvemonth past. But no man, however long his arm, could write his name so big as the name written by the longer arm of mankind. Neither micrometer nor yardstick was necessary to determine that the name of Franklin Delano Roosevelt was written bigger, blacker, bolder than all the rest.

While other men in other lands were making 1934 history, the voters of the U.S. took pencil & paper on Nov. 6 and wrote their own ticket for Man of the Year. It was not a new ticket because they had picked Franklin Roosevelt as their Man of 1932 by electing him to the Presidency, but it was a different one. Two years ago a hundred million people looked to this cheerful, charming gentleman to do something in the greatest industrial crisis on record. This year they used their ballots again, not as a desperate hope but as a grateful reward for services rendered. President Roosevelt might not have done all the things he promised to do and all the things he did do might not be for the country's good in the long run--but what he did do seemed so much better than the deeds of any other single citizen in the land that only the narrowest partisan could cavil at his popular selection as The Man of 1934.

What made the name of Franklin Roosevelt so big, so black, so bold, was the fact that the wealthiest single nation of the modern world had committed itself as never before to one man in a do-or-die attempt to pull itself out of a deep, dark economic hole.

Jan. 7, 1935

FARMERS

Drought, Dust, Disaster

From Saskatchewan to Texas, from Montana to Ohio hardly any rain had fallen for a month. As dry day followed dry day crop estimators lopped 2,000,000 bu. from their wheat prediction every morning. Before the week was out the winter wheat estimate had fallen to 442,000,000 bu.

In Washington these were dry statistics, but in the Midwest, disastrous facts. In North Dakota, which had barely an inch of rain in four months, there was no grass for cattle. Farmers tramped their dusty fields watching their dwarfed grain shrivel and perish. A baking sun raised temperatures to 90[degrees], to 100[degrees]. And still no rain fell. Water was carted for miles for livestock. In Nebraska the State University agronomist gloomily predicted that many fields would not yield over 5 bu. of wheat per acre (normal average: 15 to 20 bu.). In Minnesota they mocked Washington's crop predictions as gross overestimates. Farmers planting corn raised clouds of dust like columns of marching troops.

Then came the wind, great gusty blasts out of the Northwest. It lifted the dust from the parched fields and swirled it across the land. It tore the powdery soil from the roots of the wheat and deposited it like snowdrifts miles away. Concrete highways were buried under six inches of dust. The rich fertility of a million farms took to the air: 300,000,000 tons of soil billowing through the sky. Housewives in Des Moines could write their names in grime upon their table tops. Aviators had to climb 15,000 ft. to get above the pall.

In dust-darkened Chicago excited Board of Trade brokers bid up wheat prices 5[cents] in one day (the maximum), raised the price to 93[cents] a bu.--up 17[cents] in two weeks. That day 6,000 tons of finely divided wheat fields fell on Chicago's roofs and sidewalks. And the dust swept on, until its thick haze could be seen from the windows of the Department of Agriculture in Washington. It hung for five hours like a fog over Manhattan--the greatest dust storm in U.S. history, proof to the East of an unbelievably successful crop reduction in the Midwest.

May 21, 1934

FOREIGN NEWS

SPAIN The Republic v. The Republic

Spain's atrocity-spangled Civil War burned and butchered into its second month this week. At least 25,000 Spaniards had been killed, and less than half of these had died on any battlefield. Night after night all over Spain men were torn from their weeping families, lined up and shot for what were supposed to be their political opinions. Scores of cities, towns and villages had been bombarded and burned. More than 200 churches had gone up in flames and over $40,000,000 in cash and Spanish Government bonds stripped from clericals.

Atrocity of the week occurred in the village of Buitrago in the Guadarrama Mountains which form the chief bulwark of Madrid on the north. There some 80 children too young to have any political opinions were discovered hiding in a church. Out they were dragged, to be lined up, dispatched by firing squads and left to rot on the ground.

Aug. 24, 1936

GERMANY Vegetarian Superman

Adolf Hitler in repose can look as flaccid as a circus fat lady, but so far as the German people know he never rests, dashes constantly up and down the Fatherland, never smokes and subsists wholly on fruit, vegetables and dairy products. Last week the Vegetarian Superman flew to Prussia. There he gripped hands with that hearty eater of tenderloin steaks, pork sausages, pigs-knuckles and chopped raw beef & onions, President Paul von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg.

The meeting marked a knife line between the original Hitler Cabinet containing "Safeguard Ministers" and a new Hitler Cabinet. In flying to Prussia Herr Hitler had not come to report. He had come to tell Hindenburg to put his mighty autograph on a state paper accepting the resignation of the first "Safeguard Minister" to be forced out by Nazi pressure. (Modest in other respects, Der Reichsprasident carries a monster fountain pen with a nib three sixteenths of an inch wide. With this weapon of vanity he signs municipal gold books in such heroic style that the thirteen letters v o n H i n d e n b u r g sprawl a full nine inches long.) July 10, 1933

GREAT BRITAIN Prince Edward

Dignity, like the Imperial mantle which is placed upon England's King at his Coronation, clothed Edward VIII and his every act last week after the decision of His Majesty to abdicate. Scarcely anyone failed to tune in on Edward VIII as he took leave of his country or to read within a few hours the simple words with which His Royal Highness said good-by to very nearly all except "the woman I love."

Prince Edward was scrupulous not to betray his class, and to do and say all he could to uphold the Kingdom and the Empire, giving no opportunity to irresponsible groups of the masses to harm Britain.

Neither as King Edward, nor later last week as Prince Edward, did the eldest son of the Royal House enter London. This idol of the British masses vanished, and after a little space other idols (for such King George VI, Queen Elizabeth and crown princess Elizabeth will soon be) were substituted. The basic English truth which emerged is that the Kingdom long ago became and is today neither a democracy nor a monarchy but an efficient oligarchy. Its symbol is the Crown, but the really effective British crowns are the top hats worn by Stanley Baldwin and a few hundred others. They rule over millions of British soft hats, tens of millions of caps and hundreds of millions of Indian noddles. Members of the British Royal Family have long had this reality embedded in their natures, and last week in King Edward VIII's hour of sorest indecision it tipped the scales. He left England as the eldest son who has locked a rattling skeleton in the Empire's closet and thrown away the key.

Dec. 21, 1936

CINEMA

Colossal Enterprise

To the cinema world there came the announcement, last week, that henceforth William Fox, head of Fox Film Corp., would produce only talking pictures. Inasmuch as Talker Fox, through his recent acquisition of Loew's, Inc., had become possibly Greatest Film Man (succeeding Adolph Zukor, head of Paramount-Famous Players-Lasky Corp.) his announcement was widely interpreted as "dooming" the silent picture. Furthermore, as Mr. Fox also announced that he had secured the services of some 200 "legitimate" actors, stage-directors, dialog writers and dramatists, singers, dancers and musical comedy producers and composers, it was also felt that the entire theatrical world was about to undertake a Hollywood migration. Given tongue, the cinema appeared also to have been given teeth. It had seemingly cast itself for the role of the Wolf, with the silent cinema as the Old Grandmother and the speaking stage as Little Red Riding Hood.

April 8, 1929

City Lights (United Artists). It is almost a law in publicity-loving Southern California that the two greatest personalities there present shall hobnob while the press & public loudly cheer or jeer. Usually this means William Randolph Hearst and whatever foreign personage happens to be visiting. But last week it meant Charles Spencer Chaplin and Albert Einstein. All of Hollywood's police reserves turned out to make tunnels through the populace so that Mr. Chaplin could escort Dr. Einstein to see the first new Chaplin film in two years.

Hollywood is volatile and jealous. But it is loyal to the little man it calls Charlie. Had City Lights been a failure, Hollywood would have been bitterly depressed. But Hollywood was not depressed. Though City Lights is a successful silent challenge to the talkies, its success derives from the little man with the hat and mustache. Critics agree that he, whose posterior would be recognized by more people throughout the world than would recognize any other man's face, will be doing business after talkies have been traded in for television.

Feb. 9, 1931

DANCE

Death of a Swan

Like the great actress Eleonora Duse, the great dancer Anna Pavlova last week died in a hotel, in a strange country. In France, near Dijon, a railroad accident kept her waiting for hours in an unheated train. She caught cold and by the time she reached The Hague, planning to dance there, influenza had developed, also pleurisy. Death came swiftly, in three days. On the third day she roused from a coma and spoke to Victor Dandre, her husband and accompanist. She thought she was herself again, high on her toes, poised for dancing. "Play that last measure softly," she said.

Feb. 2, 1931