Here’s a quote from the article with that headline:
Public esteem for the Congress is falling, and today it is probably lower than ever before in our history.
I looked in vain for a mention of Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid, but there was none. As far as the author was concerned they didn’t exist.
His ignorance is excusable, however. The article appeared in the October 22, 1942, issue of the Reader’s Digest. At the time, Nancy was two years old and Harry three.
This relic of another age (the Digest, not Nancy or Harry) magically appeared on the bottom shelf of a small library in my home, squirreled between a book about the Three Stooges and the Art of War by Sun Tzu. When, where, or how it got there is a puzzle.
Nevertheless, I thought it interesting and browsed through its list of article titles. The first one my eye caught was the Congress thing. How apropos, I thought. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
All told, there were about 37 articles. The subject of war was paramount. That’s understandable because the Second World War, which had begun in December 1941, was barely three months old. Some representative war titles were:
- Our “Impossible” War. The article was essentially an attack on the naysayers who argued against the war.
- Wanted: Air Assault on Germany Now. The article opened with a reputed complaint from some British that American planes provided to Britain were shoddy. The author proceeded to debunk those claims.
- Sex as a Nazi Weapon. Nazi strategy was essentially birth control among the non-Aryan peoples under Nazi occupation and enhanced fecundity among tall, blonde, blue-eyed Nordics, an odd policy considering that Hitler and most of his henchmen were rather swarthy.
Almost all of the remaining articles related to the conflict. War production and home-front contributions to the war effort were common themes along with the usual Digest features such as quizzes, word meanings, and anecdotes.
The Digest is still around but the only places I’ve seen one has been in a waiting room or at a checkout line in Long’s Drugs. If the thrust and tone of the magazine have changed between 1942 and 2001, it’s mainly in a sophisticated 21st Century layout. Today you can find a large-print edition for the weak of eye. Personally, I’ll take the internet.
Explanatory B.S. This is something I worked on a long time ago and filed on my laptop. It’s as good a memory as most on a very rainy and dreary day.
