Life, 1901-02-28 · page 5 of 20
Life — February 28, 1901 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 165 This page satirizes **Wall Street financial terminology and practices**. The main article, "The Wall Street Point of View," explains jargon to uninitiated readers—terms like "operator," "bull," "bear," "margin," "going short," "blind pool," "rigging," and "tip." The large illustration captioned "A Surprise All Around" appears to depict a domestic scene, likely satirizing how Wall Street speculation affects home life—the caption suggests romantic disappointment ("I can't get over his kissing me"). The smaller cartoon "Wild Animals That Have Known He" shows creatures in a natural setting, likely satirizing Wall Street operators as dangerous predators or wild animals. The overall thrust: Life ridicules Wall Street's opaque language and predatory financial culture, making it comprehensible (and contemptible) to ordinary Americans.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
165 you become a looker-on. who has seen better days. rgin is the money you put up when you S Increasing your margin is what you do after you have bought any stock “Going short” is selling out something you haven't got, with the idea that if you should ever have to get it, you will lose what you have got. A “blind pool” is an organized band of rob- bers, who usually get together on Sunday, having found out that you have been buying a certain stock, and agree to keep on selling it until you haven't a cent left in the world. When you are one of a blind pool, however, it is then a solid array of the ablest financiers in the country. “Rigging” a stock up is what happens to it immediately after you have sold it out at a loss. A tip is something given to you by an insider as a guide. It is the evidence of things unseen, the substance of things hoped for, and it always turns out the opposite from what you expected. An insider is anyone who has acquired a certain amount of ignorance about a particular stock. A “giltedged” security is anything which some other fellow has more than he wants of, and wishes to sell it to you. ‘There area great many more terms used in Wall Street, but these are all I learned. At this point my collateral gave out. Collateral, by the way, is what you leave behind you when you leave the Street Tom Masson. A looker-on is anyone «*7 CONFESS I was greatly disappointed in your friend; you told me he was 80 witty.’” ‘Ah, my dear madam, but you gave us only Apollinaris at dinner!" A SURPRISE ALL AROUND. The Plain One: 1 CAN'T GET OVER IIA KISSING ME. “ yertuen caN 1." you are then a “financier.” We will therefore plunge at once into the heart of the subject. It is dis- tressing enough to have lost your moncy, but not to be able to define Your transactions in fitting language is extremely humiliating. Wall Street is made up, first, of operators. An operator is a man whose business it is to make money out of other people, or to lose money that other people make. When you begin to speculate you imme- y ache and burn to impart diately become an operator. it to the world. Operators are divided into two One of the first things classes —bulls and bears. When to learn in the Street is the you first go into the Street you are terms that are used. When abull. After you have been there you have mastered all the terms, The Wall Street Point of View. FLAVISG been down in Wall Street for several weeks, and being obliged now to - write for a living, I am prepared to giv to all the result of my experience. Tam of those philanthropic souls who, when they have a real good thing, a little while you areca bear, Then WILD ANIMALS THAT HAVE KNOWN ME, — Teddy. comicbooks.com