Life, 1896-08-06 · page 5 of 18
Life — August 6, 1896 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 97 This page presents "Life's Ticket" — a satirical political platform for the 1884 presidential election, nominating **John W. Goff for President and Anthony Comstock for Vice-President**. The platform mockingly proposes absurd policies: a leather dollar currency, windmill-powered money-making machines, statue erections at every railroad crossing, and tariff changes every six months. It ridicules pension policies and architectural oversight. The accompanying cartoon "Turning the Tables" depicts a woman confronting a man, with dialogue about his face "growing on" her — likely satirizing social hypocrisy or relationship dynamics of the era. **Context:** This appears to be satirizing actual political candidates or movements from the 1880s through exaggerated, impossible policy proposals—a common Life magazine tactic for political commentary.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
*>LIFE- 97 LIFE’S TICKET. and cross roads throughout this broad land. And if we FOR PRESIDENT FOR VICE-PRESIDENT run short of a home supply we will go abroad, This industry alone will keep 50,000 men employed. PUBLIC BUILDINGS. We have felt for some time that our public buildings were sadly lacking in architectural effect, and we shall hasten to remedy thi Immediately upon our accession to power ¥ all hasten to appoint a commission of the most prominent plumbers we can gather together and entrust them with all architectural designs. The occa- sional habit of employing real architects, even if their advice has never been taken, cannot be too severely condemned. We believe in avoiding the very appearance of evil. TURNING THE TABLES. H E (bitterly): Well, there are others. SHE (quietly): You are taking my side now. JOHN W. GOFF. ANTHONY COMSTOCK. ——- WE are glad to announce that the publication of : Life's Ticket has been hailed with universal joy. We felt this must be so,as the well-known claims of our candidates are too important to be longer ignored. OUR PLATFORM. If we are sufficiently graced with the suffrages of a glad people, we shall insist upon the universal coinage of a leathern dollar at a ratio of s’teen tonothing. Silver is all very well, but it falls far short of the ideal. What we want is money so cheap that we can strip our horses and cows of their raiments, put these through a dollar- maker machine worked by a windmill, and send the discs on to Washington to be rubber stamped by a $4.00 aweek Government clerk. We shall then beable to live in Parian marble houses, have boiled pearls for dessert and breathe imported a THE TARIFF, We believe in revising the tariff once every six months at least, in order that everybody may have a chance, and to show the business world generally that variety is the spice of life. Incidentally we shall insist that every statue imported into this country shall wear canvas “' pants.” (This clause is specially inserted at the request of the second on our ticket.) PENSIONS, The shameful policy of the preceding parties in power in granting pensions only to able bodied men we utterly repudiate. There has been altogether too much dis- crimination shown, and if our ticket is ratified by the suffrages of the people, which we confidently expect, we shall see that pensions are granted to all, without dis- tinction as to age, sex or nationality, with special refer- ence to cable car and trolley victims. STATU. We heartily condemn the lack of enterprise shown by our opponents, in failing to give honor where it is not CAUSE “FOR REJOICING, due, and we hereby promise to erect a cast-iron statue “AFTER ALL, I DON'T THINK SHE IS SO AWFULLY HOMELY. - ) dhs ‘ SHE HAS ONE OF THOSE FACES THAT GROW ON You.” of prominent American citizens on every railroad ‘crossing ‘(TM GLAD IT DIDN'T GROW ON ME.” comicbooks.com