Life, 1890-07-03 · page 8 of 16
Life — July 3, 1890 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Fourth of July Oration Satire This page presents a satirical Fourth of July speech mocking American politics and society. The text criticizes contemporary leaders ("hoodie in the Senate, ignorance in the House"), attacks wealthy industrialists (Goulds and Rockefellers), and mocks the privileged classes who intermarry with foreign nobility while their sons adopt aristocratic manners. The three-panel cartoon below depicts MacBurleigh executing a "novel plan for securing safety and freedom of motion while shaving on shipboard"—a physical comedy routine showing a man attempting to shave while the ship rocks, with increasingly absurd results. The overall message satirizes American pretension, corruption, and the gap between democratic ideals and actual behavior among the wealthy elite.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
- LIFE: OUR FOURTH OF JULY ORATION. ES, fellow citizens, this is our National birth-day. Who were we a hundred and fourteen years ago to-day? Nobody. A mere handful of hungry patriots, badly-dressed, disgustingly honest, and ridiculously patriotic. ‘To-day let us look about us. What do we behold ? Boodle in the Senate, ignorance in the House, Harrison rattling around in the Presidential chair, and not rattling very loud either. We are a free people, self-made, self-governed. Our rulers are of our own selection, and good enough for the people who select them, Yes, fellow citizens, ours is a glorious country. We don’t care much for Free Art or Inter- national Copyright, but we are very strong on pensions and silver money. Our daughters are rapidly improving the American race by intermarriage with the foreign nobility, and our sons by aping the manners and morals of their brothers-in-law. Mark our advance! Not one signer of the Declaration of Independence could have told the difference between an absinthe cocktail and a créme de menthe, Then George Washington would have been considered as great aman as Ward McAllister. Then Alexander Hamilton and the Federalist would have been held in as great esteem as Elliot F. Shepard and the Mas and Express. No one knows what would have been thought of John Wanamaker in those days. No other time than ours could have produced him. What did those poor fools know of the science of finance as practiced to-day by our Goulds and Rockefellers? Confined to the crude code of paying their debts, and keeping their hands out of other people's pockets, they could not even dream of the beauties of trusts and stock-watering. Our progress is a miracle, fellow citizens, yes, a miracle, and ere long the vice of Patriotism will have disap- peared, and those twin virtues, Indifference and Greed, rule in its stead. MACBURLEIGH IITS UPON A NOVEL VLAN FOR SECURING SAFETY AND FREEDOM OF XOTION WHILE SHAVING ON SHIPROARD. comicbooks.com