Life, 1888-07-05 · page 11 of 14
Life — July 5, 1888 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "An Offensive Campaign" - Life Magazine Cartoon Analysis **The Cartoon:** This sketch depicts street children persuading a boy named Tom to skip Sunday school by claiming it won't meet that day. They plan to tie the teacher "hand and legs, to the stove"—depicting children plotting mischief against an authority figure. The satire mocks how children devise schemes to avoid religious instruction, presenting this as an "offensive campaign" against moral education. **The "Reflections" Section:** This commentary discusses Colonel Robert Ingersoll (a famous 19th-century orator and freethinker) and disputes over his speeches at notable funerals. It contrasts Ingersoll's claim he finished eloquently versus newspaper accounts showing he was "angered and beaten" into retreat. The piece satirizes disagreement over historical accounts and oratorical skill. The final section discusses Tippecanoe Jr. (likely William Henry Harrison Jr.) as a Republican presidential candidate, suggesting he's expendable compared to Vice President Chauncey Depew, whom the writer argues is irreplaceable for his political and social skills.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
AN OFFENSIVE NE . a) 4. eg P CAMPAIGN. Billy: ToM, ais'T YoU COMIN’ OUT WID DER BOYS TO HAVE A GAME OF BALL? Tom: Can't, I's GOT TO GO TO SUNDAY-SCHOOL. Billy; ON, THERE Wos'T BE NO SUNDAY-SCHOOL TO-DAY. THE TEACHER, HAND AND LEGS, TO THE STOVE! Tom goes with them.) REFLECTIONS. T is curious what Fame will miss and where it will hit. Edward Everett's oration at Gettysburg was buried there, but Lincoln’s little speech bids fair to live forever, Colonel Ingersoll’s elaborate eulogy on Conkling is hardly likely to find its way into the school readers, but the remarks. with which he buried Judge Gresham at Chicago seem to have crystallized into history as they left his lips. Colonel Ingersoll says he finished those remarks before he sat down. Colonel Shepard, of the Maz/ and Express, who seems to have been present, appears to have gathered a different impression. Colonel Ingersoll told a reporter : “Thad said all that I intended and all that I cesired.” But Colonel Shepard's paper said : “*His- overthrow was complete. He has ‘abused audiences by blaspheming God, and the divine wrath fell upon him in the sight of as splendid an audience as ever gratified an orator's ambition ; WE'VE BIN DOWN TO THE CHURCH AND TIED and, angered and beaten, he retired from the field desolate and broken,” So it seems that the Colonels disagree on this as on many other subjects, Po * . T HE selection of Tippecanoe, Jr., to lead the Republican hosts this summer is an unqualified gain to the State of New York. It shifts the burden and the heat of an exhaust- ing canvass, with all the future possibilities it involves upon an Indiana man, and leaves Chauncey Depew to facilitate transportation between the extremes of this State, and to corruscate between whiles at the festive board. If there is any American who cannot be spared to be President, or even to run for that office, it is Depew. There are other men (notably the present incumbent) who can wield the veto power, and withstand the climate of Washington, and make judges and postmasters, and do the ten thousand other things that a President is there for—but who is there that could be Depew if Depew should become President ? E.S.M. comicbooks.com