Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Happy New Year! ...Now Quit Doing That!

To mark the middle of the 20th Century, Coronet magazine had a New Year's Resolution suggestion for every American...


"Stop criticizing America!"


As if to drive home the point, the inside cover of that issue held this message from President Dwight D. Eisenhower: that Capitalism was the "economic support of every human right [Americans] possessed."


A year later, the editors of Coronet seem to have abandoned such lofty ambitions. There's not even a New Year's theme on the cover of the January 1951 issue. Inside, and only on the second-to-last page, is the one reference to anything New Year's Resolution-ish: a directive, illustrated by regular Coronet contributor Douglas Gorsline, to put back that second (or third?) helping of mashed potatoes. But hey, that's pretty good advice too!


Happy New Year!

2 comments:

  1. "Don't criticize America?!?"

    The more things change, the more they change the same. Ugh. I was alternately horrified and stupefied and I tried to smile -- but couldn't.

    Thanks for this posting.

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  2. I'm always amazed as I scan these old articles, Mike, how relevant so many of them are today. Often you just need to substitute "al-Qaeda" for"Russia". The more things change, indeed. C'est la vie! ;-)

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