Word: direful
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1930-1939
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Italy's war of nerves seemed settling to a state of siege as slow as the siege of Vicksburg. Now and then a stray shell-a blackout, rumors of French-British pressure (see p. 21), whispers of a dire Axis plot- sailed over and rolled along the streets. >Nobody paid much attention when the Russian Ambassador to Berlin was suddenly jerked home, replaced with a diplomatic greenhorn who had been Premier Molotov's assistant in the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs in Moscow. But in the Balkans there was a tremor of fright like those involuntary shudders people...
Frightened Dudley Gilbert passed the dire information on to two men of action: James Erwin Campbell, Army reserve captain and V. F. W. official of Owensboro, Ky., and George E. Deatherage, a St. Albans, W. Va., house painter with a Hitleresque mustache who calls himself "national commander of the Knights of the White Camellia." Messrs. Campbell and Deatherage decided to set up a sort of Hitler to whom they would play Göring and Goebbels. For their Führer they chose sympathetic Major General George Van Horn Moseley, who retired as commander of the U. S. Army...
...need for "guidance" is very great, but Mr. Wolff's solicitude, if not suspect, is at least superficial. His attempt to muscle in on an educational policy already started by the University would amount to impertinence, were not his profession in such dire need of an apologist...
...five hundred dollar horn, and otherwise makes himself knows is a really large headache, Nobody has any kick about the so-called "jitterbug" or shag dancing. A swing musician would have an awfully hard time justifying the sort of thing he plays and at the same time muttering dire things about the last moving shaggers. They have just reviewer prefers to do his track work outdoors, but that is pure laziness, son, pure laziness. I have but one criticism of the dancing "bugs" whom I have seen: they all ought to go up to the Savoy in New York...
...exiles want to return to Spain. Stories of dire reprisals awaiting them in Spain have reached the refugee camps by grapevine. Typical of how news travels among the refugees was the method adopted by a recent fugitive from Catalonia. Forbidden by French authorities to make a speech in the camp, he drew a map of Spain in the sand. Inside the outline he sketched a firing squad pointing their rifles at a group of civilians. No refugee misunderstood the man's meaning...