Life, 1888-05-24 · page 11 of 18
Life — May 24, 1888 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "Those Dollars" - Life Magazine Satire This article mocks Mr. Perkins of Rochester's claim that the American dollar lacks the prestige of European currency. Life's editors use the Vanderbilt family to prove him wrong, arguing that American wealth *does* command respect—even in Europe. The satire targets a Vanderbilt (likely "Mr. Cornell," a sarcastic reference to William Vanderbilt's legal claims as a Long Island landowner) who is apparently causing sensation in London by lavishly spending on furniture, clothing, and renting a Belgravia mansion. Life ridicules both European sycophancy toward American money and American pretension in flaunting it abroad. The smaller cartoon jokes about American social climbing: a 19-year-old woman named Arabella in her "second season" (of marriage prospects) receives little encouragement, yet the man pursues her anyway—suggesting Americans desperately seek status however possible. The message: American dollars *do* buy consideration abroad, proving Perkins wrong, though Americans remain socially gauche compared to refined Europeans.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THOSE DOLLARS. CERTAIN ingenious Mr. Perkins, of Rochester, tailed off one of the magazines the other day by a demonstration that the Almighty Dollar was a myth. Mr. Perkins holds that although the dollar is not without influence it is a feeble thing compared with the sovereign or the franc, and to stigmatize it as “almighty” is a gross injustice to the American people who own and use it. The dollar utterly fails, in Mr. Perkins’ opinion, to buy for its possessor in America the consideration, the distinction, or the homage which money brings to people who have it in Europe or anywhere else. * * * F Mr. Perkins will listen at the cable-end and hear the details transmitted by correspondents about the stir alleged to have been produced by Mr. Vander- bilt among the Londoners, he will find a good deal to confirm him in his belief. Which Mr. Vanderbilt it is that is purchasing furniture and spring clothing LIFE disremembers to have heard, but }/ inasmuch as Mr. Willie was lately heard of as suing at law for his feudal rights as a Long Island seigneur, the one in London would seem to be the more judicious Mr. Cornell. * * * OSSIBLY the enthusiasm of a correspondent has led him to exaggerate the peremptory tone of the tradesman who shouts in the crowd “Make way for Mr. Vanderbilt's coats!" but the house at Belgravia at a thousand pounds a month—or a minute, is it?—our own Corneltus, of the bell- punch and coupon-scissors, appearing at court with a sword assumed in lieu of those defenses. Paris, stupid with admir- ation at a bedroom set. London with a subscription paper in one hand and its visiting cards in the other—those are pictures which have some stamp of authenticity to them, and which the above said Mr. Perkins, of Rochester, may con- WE ARE A RAPID PEOPLE. template with glee. * * Veteran of 18 winters: 1 AM GOING TO SPEAK TO ARABELLA TO-NIGHT. E think well of Mr. Vanderbilt in this country, and, of His Friend: Wy, Do YOU THINK SHE WILL ACCEPT you? Has SHE ; rane EVER GIVEN YOU ANY ENCOURAGEMENT ? course, when he tosses up double eagles in the social V. of 18 winters: WetL—ER—NO; BUT I THINK MY CHANCES ARE it, not even McAllister’s four hundred refuse to scramble 5000, THIS Is HER SECOND SEASON, YOU KNOW. for them, but—gracious! we're not so pell-mell-ish in our Note.—Arabella is nineteen. attentions as those English ! ELS. M. comicbooks.com