Life, 1896-11-12 · page 12 of 18
Life — November 12, 1896 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 362 This satirical piece mocks the American impulse to erect public monuments to living politicians and minor officials. The text sarcastically praises President McKinley as worthy of commemoration, then attacks the broader practice of creating statues to mediocre public figures—"Kansas congressmen" and "New York State assemblymen"—whose only distinction is appearing in *Munsey's Magazine*. The cartoons illustrate the absurdity: one shows a comically shrunken figure (labeled "Shrunk, by Gosh!"), another depicts a mummy-like wrapped figure, and a third shows street vendors selling clothes. These visual gags suggest such monuments are ridiculous, preserving the trivial and forgettable rather than genuine heroism. The piece critiques both the vanity of minor politicians and the wasteful labor of sculptors who could be doing meaningful work instead of immortalizing the forgettable in bronze. It's satire about misplaced reverence and institutional mediocrity in America.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
*LIFE: dwell on the Washington of the past, when we have the McKinley of to-day, alive and pliant, whose far-seeing eyes can even gaze beyond the staked-out pension districts of the present, into the protected and trust-laden horizon of the future—one who is allowed to play in the back yard every day; a good boy, whois never kept in at recess, who faithfully studies the text books provided for the pur- pose, and learns his lessons by heart? We need to have the heroes who are now doing their life work among us perpetuated in bronze or other base metals, and their counterfeit presentments placed on lofty pedestals in full view of all, where they may inspire and be an incentive to the weak and fal- tering. We need to have in perpetual “SHRUNK, BY GosH I” A NEW SOURCE OF POWER. MONG all the defects which must necessarily creep into the body politic of a great and glorious republic, there is, perhaps, none so apparent to the compassionate stu- dent of our institutions at the present time as the lack of public spirit shown in erecting statues to our prominent living citizens. Hundreds of hungry sculptors are even now walking the side streets of our prince’ with rare patience and inimitable grace, ex! ing the substance of to-morrow's cart de jour from the ubiquitous ash barrel with an iron hook, or expending all the sponta- neous art of their natures in wielding into fanciful formsthe dainty spaghetti that serves to bind us more closely to the Italian renascence, when they might be doing better work by moulding into perpetual remembrance the wind-swept whiskers of a Kansas congressman or the solemn grandeur of a New York State assemblyman. This is what we need, It is painful to have to record it, but as a nation we sadly lack the proper reverence for those great ones among us who, toiling and striving all their lives, by dint of their native ability finally arrive at such prom- inence that their names appear almost constantly in J/wasey’s Magazine, and they are asked to write hymns for Zhe Ladies’ Home Journal. It is true that a few hundred crude specimens of the handiwork of our more industrious stone-masons, all properly labelled, so that recognition is instant to those who can read, now render Central Park uninhabitable to all except the unwarned stranger and the innocent child. But these, alas! are but the warped, weather-beaten and time-worn exponents of past glories, long since faded from the mind of man, They awake no sentiments. They arouse to vibration no chords of chilled ambition. They inspire us not. Why should we pal cities, AND THERE 1S CONVERSATION WITH THE SELLER. “SURE, BEEN IN HOUR.” A SAFE RORRER. SUR, YOUR CLOTHES HAVE THE HOUSE DRY THIS HALF comicbooks.com