Life, 1901-03-14 · page 8 of 20
Life — March 14, 1901 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 208 The page contains two distinct pieces: 1. **"Our Foreign Policy"** — A satirical poem-dialogue featuring THE PRESIDENT and a CHORUS, debating Russia. The cartoon illustration shows figures in a confrontational stance. The satire mocks American foreign policy as hypocritical: the U.S. criticizes Russia's aggression and "lying" while the poem suggests America itself engages in similar deceptive practices ("the fact is, we lied!"). 2. **"A New Outbreak"** — Text discussing a bacteriological congress investigating "literary microbes." The accompanying silhouette cartoon shows two figures at a table with scientific equipment, satirizing academic or medical pseudo-science applied to literature. Both pieces mock government dishonesty and intellectual pretension, though the specific historical context—likely 1920s U.S.-Soviet tensions—is unclear without the magazine's date.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
208 all run.down anyway, and a brave man would quake. But summoning up what little courage is left, you tell him what the other doctors have thought was the matter with you, and be shakes his head dubiously. Then he raises his hand warningly, and tells you to desist. He doesn’t want toknow what the other doctors. thonght. . Why should anyone with such a fund of ignorance in himself wish to have it encroached upon? You don’t make this remark to yourself then, but you do about six months later. You are requested to disrobe. You do so, feeling pale all over and hoping he may not notice it, and he pounds you gently with a hammer, peeks in between your ribs, listens at the door of your heart for murmurs, and flashes a dark lantern through youralimentary canal, By this time you are frightened to death. You feel that all hope is lost. You sce a long funeral procession winding its slow way along. You are playing the leading part in it. You can fecl the lavender satin, and that awful stillness, like a reunion of the Metro- politan Club. It is all over. all, what difference does it Suddenly you awake from your v and your friend, the Spec yon on the shoulder and says that if you will stop smoking, drinking, sitting up late nights, leave your business, and come and live in his office for six months or a year and give him all you've got, there is a faint chance that you may get well. And if you don’t? Well, there is that three months’ limit. You leave him cordially and tell him u willlet him know. Then you go to some dark corner and figure out on the back of an old envelope just how much it will cost, with the three months staring you in the face. There is that funeral procession again. ver mind. A short life and a merry one. You resolve to die. Six months later, as you meet your friend, the Specialist, on the avenue unexpectedly, and bow pleasantly, you feel a secret sense of shame to think that he has caught you aliy Tom Masson, + LIE « Our Foreign Policy. YHE PR T (advancing to the footlights from the center of a chorus of Cabinet Ministers and Senators) “Wh we told them we'd make the nation And free them in tim ‘That we looked upon forced As aggression and When we lured them } exation ime,— ery assurance And flattered the The fact is— nd endurance, e one of the great Lying Powers In the days of our youth, and weakness were ours, abbled in truth. And, strong our word to our brothers, The fact is— Cuonvs (chuckling) : “Why, the fact is, we lied!” Tur Prestpent : others, “We have joined the great circle of robbers. It was long, long ago ‘That we criticised grabbers and jobbers And were honest and slow, e laughing from Maine down to At the idiots who cried, ‘But you promised us not to annex us!" For the fact is——” hing): tis, we lied 1” Cones The fa Tur Presivest: “Thus the Tsar swore to Riga and Fin- land . With a lie for an oath, And then from thecoastaway inland Ie trampled on both. Thus the nobles who Britain Jd lies on the N cancelled t written In falsehood and gui govern Great pledge they 1 * And we, are we less than the British Whose word is so glib? Ie must be uncommonly sk’ Who shies at a fib! Shall we yield to the masterful Russian As he perjures his name? It is hardly a thing for discussion ;— We must play the same gam “Thank the Lord, we are not sentimental ! It is dollars and trade ‘That govern the soul governmental ;— ‘That's the way we are made. If we praise up the old Declaration On the Fourth of July, And man’s equal rights by creation, The fact is——" Att Tooetuer (winking): “Why, the fact is, we ure! vest Crosby. A New Outbreak. T is to be hoped that the coming Bac- teriological Congress will take under consideration the subject of literary microbes. The field is unexplored, and fame awaits the successful specialist. We are too often slow to recognize new dangers. ‘The first victim of the mumps was doubtless thought by his neighbors to be putting on flesh, and it was only when he began to ugh at his thinner brethren that he dis- vered the joke was on himself. So when Weyman developed symptoms of 1 Romance he was quite pleased, and his literary friends, instead of estab- lis! e, patted him on the back and asked him how he did it. We all know the result. It is with the hope that were the subject scientifically investigated it ight be possible to check a new disorder The Host; 100 BAD THAT FISHERMAN HASN'T TWO HOOKS. IT'S 80 DISAGREEABLE To WAIT 80 LONG BETWEEN COURSES, ‘ comicbooks.com