Life, 1900-07-12 · page 8 of 20
Life — July 12, 1900 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "A Modest Claim" and "The Civilizer Is At It" The two columns at top satirize Republican claims about prosperity and "civilization." The left column mocks McKinley's party for crediting themselves with natural phenomena (rain, crop growth) while ignoring their responsibility for national problems. The right column appears to mock imperial expansion—specifically, the conquest of the Boers in South Africa—as a supposed form of "civilization." The cartoon suggests the Republicans hypocritically claim credit for good outcomes while presenting military conquest as civilizing progress. **"The Prince of the Masquerade"** below is a poem-illustration featuring a silhouetted devil figure in moonlight. The Devil claims to be a "Moralist" and "Civilizing Force," mocking those who justify harmful actions under noble pretenses—likely referring to imperialist or interventionist policies dressed in moral language.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
‘LIFE A Modest Claim. HE hot weather has come, and anything cool and calm is refreshing. Nothing could be more cool and calm than the Republican party's claim to the responsibility for our national prosperity. The divine forces of nature which cause the rain to fall, the seed to sprout, and the crops to grow on our side of the ocean, and which cause dearth of food in other lands, have nothing to do with it. assume responsibility for wo The placid way in which Mr. McKinley and his advocates the acts of Providence is calculated to ” make cold chills ran down one’s spine on the hottest of July days. The Civilizer Is At It. HE wicked Boers being conquered, the next step is to show them, in as many ways as possible, the moral superiority of the conquerors, This is easy. The following item tells us the good work is well under way : Austenpas, June 22,—The Netherlands Rall Toad Company of South Africa has received oMiclal notification of the expulsion from the Transvaal of fourteen hundred of tts employees, with their families. And yet nations exist with ignorance 80 dense as to entertain a prejudice against the Anglo-Saxon. eTascnanese The Prince of the Masquerade. 1 THE Devil was dying of ennui; So he sauntered forth from his den, me by the Springs of Mundane Things, And gazed on the Sons of Men. u. And he sighed at the Century's ending, For he saw the world at peace; Then he eried, ‘Alack! have I lost my knack ? “These piping times must cease.” And ut So he filehed a Moralist’s mantle, And went on in his jaunty course, In his raiment fine, with the air benign Of a Civilizing Force. lv. First he whispered a word to the Statesman: “ Quick, out with thy idle knife! “Else the People, thy trust, will in harness rust; “Go, preach them the Strenuous Life!” ve Of a people that lived in quict, The Devil demurely spoke : “Go, Benevolent Man, to that Primitive Clan, ** And Assimilate those folk.” Vis And the Statesman sprang, at the summons, ‘And donned his warrior’s coat; Cried the Devil, ‘‘ Hurrah!" as each man he saw With his hand at his neighbor's throat.