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Life Magazine

Table of Contents

Letter to the Editor................................................................................................................4

The New Negro......................................................................................................................5

Racial Prejudice: Fair or Foul? ..............................................................................................5-6

Or so the President Says........................................................................................................6-7

The Scare that Never Was......................................................................................................7-8

Sacco and Vanzetti Trial Comes to an End……………………………………………………………………9-10

The New Breed of Women......................................................................................................10-11

The Rise of Babe Ruth………………………………………………………………………………….……….…11-13

Are Fundamentalists Here to Stay?.……………………………………………………………..………..….13-15

Figure 1 Ad for movie

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Dear Editor,

I’ve just recently read the article that you wrote last year about Prohibition. Although I agree with some of what you said, I have a problem with the way that you set up the article. It was very biased towards the activists that helped to get alcohol banned in the first place. With this type of article in such a popular magazine, it is hard for people to see why alcohol should be made legal again and how alcohol is actually not that bad for people or the economy. I am writing this letter to you so that I can add my opinion and compare it to the opinion of the article that you had written on the Prohibition of Alcohol.

In your article, you stated that the accusations made by social groups, which were mostly women, are true and that alcohol really does ruin families and cause husbands to beat their wives. Although some people get aggressive after drinking too much alcohol, this is not the cause of families falling apart. While alcoholism is a big problem for some people, alcohol use should not be prohibited completely. One glass of wine a day is actually healthy for your heart. Prohibition does not stop the consumption of alcohol; it only makes it illegal and causes unnecessary legal problems. As Jello Biafra once said, “For every prohibition you make, you also make an underground.” This is where American gangsters such as I come into play. If alcohol was legal, the people that illegally sell and buy alcohol would not be going against the law, but would actually help the economy with the tax collected on the sales of said alcohol. In fact, many great people think that alcohol prohibition is unnecessary. Abraham Lincoln said, “Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes crimes out of things that are not crimes.” If Abraham Lincoln, the man who helped stop slavery, thinks that it is okay to consume alcohol, then why do so many of us blame it for the things that go wrong in our life?

Last but not least, I have a question. Why should the things that a man does be left up to another man? If a person wants to consume alcohol until they are intoxicated, why should it matter to anyone else? Of course, if this man tries to get behind the steering wheel of a car, action should be taken, but if he is just at his house, why should it matter if he is drinking alcohol? After all, the people of the bible drank alcohol, so why is it now suddenly so bad that America’s citizens want to continue to do so?

Thank you for your time,

Al Capone

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THE NEW NEGRO By Janvi Agrawal

The past decade, Harlem, the city with the highest concentration of blacks in the entire world, has been ebbing with art, dance, music, and new literature. It has been an extension of Marcus Garvey’s New Negro Movement down in Harlem, and so much so, that an entirely new style of music has emerged. It is jazz music. Perhaps the most important voice and poet of Harlem is Langston Hughes.

He captures the common experiences of people in a bold new rhythm that is known as jazz. Hughes actually began writing when he was extremely young and was voted class poet in the eighth grade. Later, he moved to Harlem and found the rhythm his words needed. Hughes loves to write while sitting in clubs, listening to blues and jazz. Just three years ago, he published his first poetry book, and his second only two years ago. Although critics have hailed his poems for their distinctive voice and lyricism, he has not been as well accepted by the public. This is why he remains focused on his vision:

“We younger Negro artists," he wrote in 1926, "now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased, we are glad. If they aren't, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. If colored people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow...."

RACIAL PREJUDICE: FAIL OR FOUL? By Hailey Rush

When someone says the words ‘Racial Prejudice’, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? For many, racist organizations such as the KKK and the Anti-Immigration groups come to mind. Since immigration began and different races started to inhabit the same country, there has been racial prejudice. There is no telling why there is tension between races, but there is no escaping what goes on between people that are so different. Who is to say that the white people are better than the black people? Just because someone lives, walks, or talks differently from you does not mean that they are any worse or better than you.

During the beginning of the decade, Anti-Immigrant Organizations began to receive a much larger and influential following. Racial prejudice was not only towards African Americans, but towards anything “Un-American”. This means that any Catholics, Jews, or immigrants were targeted by these racial organizations. This brings up the question that we all

Figure 2 Immigrants waiting for the verdict to whether they get deported or not

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ask ourselves: Is racial prejudice fair to anyone? Of course, we are all allowed to have our own opinion, but where do we draw the line? Just because you personally don’t like the Catholic religion, does that give you the right to treat all Catholics like they are lower or

lesser than you, or should

everyone be treated equally?

In 1921,

the National

Origins Act was passed. This limited immigration to 3% of the number of foreign-born members of a nationality group as shown in the 1910 census. This means that if there were 50 immigrants in 1910, the immigrants from that country would be limited to only one person. This act was passed because more than one million immigrants had come to the United States before World War I and they brought their languages, food, and culture with them. The Americans wanted to keep the American Dream alive, and thought that immigrants would bring in their culture and risk what Americans were making for themselves.

With all the racism between different races, there were groups made to strengthen the hopes of those being prejudiced against. With the racism of this decade came groups such as NAACP and other groups with leaders such as W.E.B. Du Bois. While racism will

probably never completely come to an end, these groups help to bring hope and strength to each of the racial groups that are involved in racial prejudice. Hopefully in the near future, racism will become less of a problem, and people will start to get along and treat each other equally. After all, we should live and let live, right?

OR SO THE PRESIDENT SAYS By Anthony Losole

As communists and immigrants increasingly came over, America started to have a rise in labor unions. Americans started to show increased hostility towards all other immigrants that have recently arrived due to lack of jobs and labor union strikes. It seems that a turning point in our country was almost upon us, and labor unions were most definitely affecting it.

The economy is taking a turn for the worst, and it looks like a lot of the blame is put on labor unions. Labor unions consist mostly of immigrants from eastern European countries and communists from Russia. Labor unions have become increasingly hated more and more for their deadly “strikes” that

Figure 3 KKK gathering

Figure 4 Burning of cross

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they use. Strikes are a method of getting what the workers want from their employers; some examples are better wages, better hours, or treated better. What the workers do is just stop working halting all production or business in that area until they get what they want. This is led by and organized by their specific labor union. Many people hate these unions because they say they are damaging America’s economy by not working. No matter which labor union that organizes a strike it can jeopardize the whole country because it affects every single branch one way or another. That is why these labor unions have become so hated these past few years.

Because labor unions consist of “Reds” and immigrants, Americans are starting to show hatred and even hostility to these people. When radicals starting bombing public buildings, a big one being Wall Street, Attorney General Palmer acted violently and swiftly. Palmer arrested hundreds of communists and immigrants for no reason, and began to deport immigrants back to their home countries. This attack happened because of the fear of communists and how they could take over our country, and has been dubbed the “Red Scare”. The reason for this is that the Reds in the labor unions provoked strikes, which led to the downfall of what America stands for. Americans became scared of these Reds, and Palmer attempted to get rid of them.

Since then socialists and communists have become quiet and

Palmer has had a hard time in finding them. The government, along with its citizens is trying to keep labor unions under control and some laws have already been made to suppress strikes. Also two laws have been put in place to limit immigration to only as low as 2% of the past immigration from previous year allowed in to America. This seems to have greatly increased the positive outlook on immigrants although there is still that quiet hostility between true Americans and immigrants because of the need of jobs. Due to increasingly strict control over labor unions, it seems as though our country might be able to climb back up the economic ladder – or so the president says.

THE SCARE THAT NEVER WAS By: V Karri

Gripping America by its strings, the Red Scare ended as swiftly as it started. After World War 1 and the Bolshevik Revolution that occurred in Russia, a strong sense of nationalism pervaded the countries. As heaps of Eastern Europeans immigrated to America, Americans grew suspicious of them as they joined labor unions. Labeling them as “Reds” and quickly assuming them to be communists, any person who took a sympathizing or non patriotic view was accused. This ridiculous view caused many to worry about nonexistent threats. The government had a very strong part taking in this. Growing suspicion led to

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rampant accusation and society was in a disorder.

Several labor strikes and bombings of government officials and industrialists contributed to this scare. Although the strikes had an opposite effect of what the immigrants expected, the point was made.

Newspapers exaggerated the truth and unjustly blamed immigrants as radicals who were seeking a communist government. This exasperated the condition of the public even more. Urging the government to take action, the people succumbed to the Red Scare and made themselves vulnerable to more destruction.

After U.S Attorney General Palmer‘s house was bombed, the Palmer Raids were put in effect. Law officials went berserk and arrested people who even slightly had a connection based on the presumption that they were immigrants. President Wilson, as part of the Sedition Act of 1918, ordered for immigrants to be deported in order to protect wartime patriotism. Several professors and citizens spoke against the media and government, proclaiming that they were being unjust to these people and wrongly accusing the whole of them. The government took unjust

action and created such a mess of matters that many innocents were sent

back with a hopeless future. Opinion changed gradually as a loss of immigrants was causing a disruption within the economy due to profit loss and rise in pay.

As more accusations against the government grew, Newspapers such as the Washington Post and The York times advocated the immigrants and said the

rights given were being seriously violated. Palmer was

abased justly and ridiculed for his predictions involving immigrants and slowly the Red Scare passed, leaving the American Public to more leisurely pursuits.

Figure 5 Political cartoon of Red Scare

Figure 6 Ad for Ford

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SACCO AND VANZETTI TRIAL COMES TO AN END By Jake Durso

Not too long ago, in the month of April, a robbery occurred at a factory. The result was the killing of two men, a paymaster and a guard. Three weeks after the robbery the suspected robbers, Nicola Sacco and Bartolommeo Vanzetti (both of whom are Italian and known anarchists) were caught and were put on trial. Both men were sentenced to death by electric chair and we will now share with you the details of the trial and all of the controversy that comes along with it.

We will start by taking a look at the evidence presented by the prosecution and the response provided by the defense. The first piece of evidence given by the prosecution was that there were seven eyewitnesses that placed Sacco and Vanzetti around the scene, at about the time of the crime. The defense then responded by saying that none of the witnesses were able to make a positive identification. Several

witnesses, who have asked for their names to remain private, said that they were unsure who they saw or that they were so far away from whom they saw that making a positive identification would not be possible. None of the witnesses were allowed to choose suspects from lineup. The next bit of evidence from the prosecutor is that one of the bullets recovered from the scene matched Sacco’s gun. The Defense shot this down by proving, with the help of ballistics experts, that the bullet was not in fact from Sacco’s weapon. Prosecution also used the fact that Sacco was absent from his job on the day of the crime to pin it on him. Sacco responded by saying that he was in Boston trying to get a passport and that afterwards he went for lunch. Seven witnesses were able to testify to the fact that he was actually at the restaurant. Vanzetti was also caught lying about information concerning his gun. There was not much he could say in his defense although he did find somebody to testify that he was telling the truth about where he purchased the gun.

Based on the evidence the court has deemed the two men guilty or murder and they have been sentenced to death by electric chair. With this trial there has been much controversy. Many people believe that Sacco and Vanzetti are actually innocent. Some people are concerned that these two men have not been given a fair trial because “the evidence against them is very weak” said one man. And even more people speculate that the judge had already

Figure 7 Sacco and Vanzetti

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made up his mind about the fate of these two men before the trial even started. People believe that with the new found hatred towards immigrants and the recent Red Scare the judging of these two men was very biased. Although there are differing opinions among the public, the court has come to decision and that decision will stand.

THE NEW BREED OF WOMEN By Janvi Agrawal

She smokes, drinks, dances, and votes. She bobs her hair, wears make-up, goes to petting parties and listens to jazz. She takes risks; she is

independent;

she is a

flapper. This past decade, young women, popularly known as flappers, have embraced a lifestyle that would be unacceptable and foreign to their predecessors.

It is interesting to note that these flappers had not existed only nine years earlier! Before the 1920s, women never worked outside of their home. Instead, they performed domestic responsibilities, including conserving food and fuel resources. It was the

World War that sparked their first flame of hope for social recognition. While men were away at war, women adopted jobs in the industrial plants. With the amount of support needed for the war weighing heavily upon their shoulders, women even joined the military as nurses. And while they were providing services equal to men, they were again left out of the world of men once the war ended. The Constitution gave Negroes the right to vote, yet not the women who had risked their lives by joining those men on the battlefield!

Reasons for this injustice were unmistakably farfetched. Many thought that women did not have it within their intellectual capacity to be able to make wise judgments, and therefore, were not able to vote righteously. There was the

argument that if women were to become more politically involved, they would stop getting married, stop having children, and the human race would die out. Known as the Race Suicide Argument, it is obvious that it was simply an excuse to not let women carry the same status as do men.

Figure 9 The "New Breed of Women"

Figure 8 Women protesting

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Finally, after decades of suffering to receive the right to vote, women were granted their wish through the 19th amendment. The World War showed them how high they could aim, but it was the amendment which gave them the platform to achieve their height. The rest of the country, bent upon accepting a woman’s newfangled power, could not deny them vocations as easily anymore. Therefore, more women, mostly unmarried, were to be found working alongside men. After conquering traditional male jobs, women even started to protest for higher wages and more political rights.

However, instead of staying politically engaged, women have shifted to focus on their social lives. The 1920s have brought new and exciting cultural innovations to distract their attention from politics to self-image. Their lives now consist of new fashion trends, products, and risqué images. However, this focus on self-image did not mean women are politically unsuccessful. It is a combination of political success and newfound leisure time, now that the war was over, that challenges the traditional ideas of women’s role in society. Unmarried women now have their own money to spend and they have greater access to mobility.

One of the biggest changes in the role of women today is the flapper. She consists of drastic, some even shocking changes. Almost all of the clothing is cut down and lightened to make it easier to move in. The flappers take many risks and are uncontrolled. They are also

known for drinking, smoking and being more sexually active. This is a truly exciting decade in American history. The new breed of women lives every moment to the fullest. It doesn’t care what people on the outside think.

THE RISE OF BABE RUTH

By Jake Durso

George Herman Ruth, Jr., more commonly known as the famous Babe Ruth, the Bambino or the Sultan of Swat, was born February 6, 1895 in to a not so easy life. Ruth was born in Baltimore, Maryland in the neighborhood of Pigtown, and its name very much so reflected the style of living there. He was brought into this world by parents Schamberger-Ruth and George Herman Ruth, both of whom were of German decent. Ruth also had seven siblings but only one of them, his sister, lived past infancy. When Ruth was a child his mother was constantly sick, she would later die of tuberculosis in Ruth’s teenage years. At the age seven Ruth’s life got even “rougher” when his father sent him off to St. Mary’s

Figure 10 Babe Ruth

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Industrial School for Boys. This was a reformatory and an orphanage. His father even signed over custody to the people who ran the school. Ruth would

spend the next twelve years of his life at St. Mary’s. While at St. Mary’s Ruth looked up to one person in particular, Brother Matthias Boutlier. “He was like a father to me” said Ruth, “He was the one who introduced me to baseball. He thought me how to hit, field the ball and pitch”.

Ruth’s baseball career began in 1913 when he caught the eye of Jack Dunn, the owner and manager of the minor-league Baltimore Orioles. After watching Ruth’s performance, as a pitcher, in a college ball game Dunn signed Ruth for two hundred and fifty dollars a month. Just a side note, it was at this time that George Ruth adopted the name Babe Ruth when other players began to refer to him as “Jack’s newest babe” because Ruth was so young in comparison to the other players.

On July 9, 1914 Ruth’s baseball career took another step forward when he was sold to the Boston Red Sox, a major league team. But, after winning on only one out of the first five games he pitched in, Ruth optioned to play the rest of that season for a minor league team, the Providence Grays. In 1915 Ruth once again proved his worth and secured himself a spot back on the Red Sox. Ruth had what he described as an “okay” season. He won eighteen games and lost eight but helped himself stay useful with his batting skills, which included his first four home runs. 1916 was the year in which his average career really took off. He ended the season with a record of twenty-three and twelve. During that season he accomplish many great things which included: nine shut outs (a league record for left hander’s), striking out ten Philadelphia A’s (a career high), and helping win the World Series against the Brooklyn Robins.

It was in 1918 that Ruth’s Career again shifted. This was the year when he started veering away from pitching and more towards batting. In 1918 alone Ruth made 75 hitting only appearances. Many thought that this would shorten his career but they were proven wrong when he hit eleven homeruns, a number which led the American League. Last year, 1919, Ruth only pitched seventeen out of one hundred and thirty games but set his first record for having twenty-nine home runs in a single season.

Rumor has it that Sox owner, Frazee, will soon be trading Ruth to the New York Yankees. Many people are

Figure 11 Babe Ruth batting

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speculating about reasons why but when asked about the situation Ruth had this to say, “I love my team but I also want my raise, if the Yankees is where the money is at, then that’s where I will need to be.”

ARE FUNDAMENTALISTS HERE TO STAY?

By Janvi Agrawal

It was the summer of 1925 when households gathered around and turned a careful ear towards their radios all over the country. Quietness rested in a thick layer upon cities. All were awestruck as they listened to the audio of what seemed to be events happening within immediate proximity, but were actually taking place many miles away. The WGN Radio rented AT&T cables that stretched all the way from Chicago to Daytona, TN to provide the rest of the country with front row seats to the Trial of the Century.

The first case to be broadcasted directly into American homes, the Scopes Trial became a part of the daily life of the American. It started when the state of Tennessee passed the Butler Act, which declared that it was illegal "... to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals" in any state-funded educational institution. The ACLU

(American Civil Liberties Union) was already aware that the Act was likely to become law and in order to test the law and challenge the constitutionality of the act, they announced that they would provide legal assistance, etc. for a school teacher in Tennessee who would be willing to stand trial for having taught evolution in a public school.

Soon, on May 4th, John Scopes - on the basis that he had taught from the section on evolution in the State-approved textbook – was recruited by the group. The Grand Jury indicted that Scopes was to present himself to trial on July 10th. Hearing about the trial from the leaders of the WCFA (World's Christian Fundamentals Association), William Jennings Bryan volunteered to serve with the prosecution. By the end of that same week, Clarence Darrow had contacted Scopes with an offer to appear for the defense. Darrow soon became the leading defense counsel, whereas Bryan was only one of several assistant prosecutors under the leadership of Tom Stewart, who was the Attorney General.

Figure 12 During the Scopes Trial

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The trial went for a totality of 8 days, from July 10th to July 18th and was covered by more than 200 reporters. Darrow put forth that Scopes was ready to admit his violation of the Tennessee statute, but argued that the law violated the constitutional principle of the separation of church and state as well as Scopes’ freedom to express his professional views as a teacher. Bryan, who also wished to argue on constitutional grounds, was overruled by his colleagues who wanted to approach the trial by arguing science and religion. During the trial, Bryan made a mistake in letting Darrow refer to him as an expert witness on the Bible. He was questioned relentlessly based upon this assertion and came across as foolish. Christian Fundamentalists, whom Bryan represented, believed in a literal interpretation of Bible and that God created the world in six days. Therefore, Darrow caught Bryan in a contradiction where he admitted that not all biblical events should be taken

literally.

The outcome of the trial was never in doubt. The judge made it clear to the jury that the law’s constitutionality or efforts to support the validity of Darwin’s theory were not relevant and that the only issue in question was whether or not Scopes had

presented evolution as fact. Because Scopes had already admitted that he had in fact taught evolution at the school, he was found guilty and fined $100. During the last days of the trial, Scopes said:

“There’s something I must tell you. It’s worried me. I didn’t violate the law … I never taught that evolution lesson. I skipped it. I was doing something else the day I should have taught it, and I missed the whole lesson about Darwin and never did teach it. Those kids they put on the stand couldn’t remember what I taught them three months ago. They were coached by the lawyers.”

Later, on appeal, the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the law, but reversed

Scopes’ sentence saying that the fine had been too great. This way, Scopes did not have to pay the fine. The Scopes trial by no means ended the debate over the teaching of evolution, but it did represent a

significant setback for the

anti-evolution forces. Of the fifteen states with anti- evolution legislation pending in 1925, only two states (Arkansas and Mississippi) enacted laws restricting teaching of Darwin's theory.

Figure 13 Cartoon depicting Scopes Trial

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Today, the immediate effects of the trial are evident in the high school biology texts. Amongst most of the textbooks that are widely used, there is only one which lists evolution in the index, and if followed to the pages where

evolution is apparently written about, the entry is countered with biblical quotations. Clearly, the Fundamentalists have, and will continue to have, a great amount of influence on our education system.

Figure 14 Political cartoon depicting Teapot Dome Scandal