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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 8, No. 11. August 8, 1945

"Biography" and Politics

"Biography" and Politics

From even the "slick" magazines habitually digested, by no means the best articles were taken. Most popular were stock effusions rich in "human interest," and "dramas of everyday life." Snappy biographical sketches, especially of the "Poor Boy Becomes Millionaire" type, which haven't a fact in them, came next on the list. Popular science was still further simplified and thrust into a stereotyped mould of optimism and wonder. All the romantic or sensational elements in scientific research were played up at the expense of facts. Those who obtained their scientific fare in this way began by thinking that all things are possible to science and ended by believing in magic.

In industrial relations and politics, the "Reader's Digest" is an intransigeantly reactionary journal which claims impartiality. Jobbery and corruption are commonly exposed in trade unions, though not in big business. Renegades from Communism such as Max Eastman and Jan Valtin, are employed to give "Inside Evidence" of the "horrors of the Left." Fascism is only seldom touched on, especially before the United States entered the war.

Mr. Scott instanced as an example of the 'Reader's Digest's" political tactics a very subtle combination of two ideas expressed in different articles in the issue of October, 1944—just before the Presidential elections. The inference one would gain from the oblique emotive suggestion of the two articles was that the American way of life was endangered because Communism (!) controlled the CIO and the CIO was a major force in the Democratic party. Moral—vote Dewey!