Life, 1902-07-17 · page 12 of 20
Life — July 17, 1902 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Political Commentary on the Tariff Debate This page contains satirical dialogue on American tariffs and protectionism. A father and son debate whether tariffs benefit domestic workers or create problems. The father argues tariffs cause high prices and low wages, while the son counters that tariffs protect American industries—a reference to the actual "tariff debate" that dominated late 19th/early 20th-century American politics. The accompanying sketches mock various social pretensions: "An Essay on Woman" ridicules fashionable ladies, while "The Day of Imitations" satirizes a man boasting about the Panama Canal, suggesting Americans uncritically imitate foreign engineering projects. The photographs below appear to illustrate domestic or social scenes, though their specific reference is unclear from visible text alone.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
An Essay on Woman. (THe LATR ALRXANDER PorR BKOCGNT Ur TO park.) BEHOLD the femate child, by nature's law, Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw ; But she loves best of all her bric-A-brac Jack-in-the-Box—because, you Jack. see, he's Some livelier plaything gives her youth delight, jouder, but as empty quite ; —or Tom—can talk and chew a 'Tis all the evidence he shows of brain, Then, as she treads a loftier social st Titles and millions please her riper ag Nor does the Because t mour of such baubles pale y're humbly offered by some male. “Woman's my plaything,” proudly man avers 5 But he’s mistaken quite, for he is hers. The Day of Imitations. “TAM in favor of this country buy- - ing the Panama Canal,’ asserted the man in the soft straw hat, ‘but I am afraid it will cost us too much."’ “Well,” said the man in the stiff straw hat, with a meaning glance at the headgear of the other, “why not bay an imitation Panama Canal, if we must have one? No doubt it will look the same and wear as long.” * LIFE» Lessons in Politics. “ \ RE all the anarchists father?" 4,iny son, It used to all made abroad, but since the inauguration of the policy of protection to home industries, quite a few are being made in this country. Some predict that we shall presently bo supplying the civilized world with anarchists."? “But has the tariff! anything to do with this?” “It is impossible to say, with cer- tainty, in advance of the National Republican Convention. The laity aro not in a position to decide what the tariff causes and what it does not cause, For example, the laity are likely to jamp to the conclusion that the tariff causes not only the high prices the farmer gets for his prods but as 1 the low wages which the sfor his labor. Only a na- tional convention is competent properly to dissociate these." “Ts not this curious, father?” Whe that cause is simply antec time, and that time has no objective validity further than that it is an « privrt form of the intuition, nothing is curious except discontent with a full dinner pail." made be that they w laborer we reflect “Oh, no, my son, dence in Wt, Hees WHI THE KARLY mann LEFT. AND LUTTLE RORBIE OUTLAIGHT #F: HIM ON HIS WAY HOME IN THE MORNING”? Better Late Than Never. SINCE the Boer war closed a dis- tilling ship has arrived from New York in Bermuda to provide fresh drinking water for the thousands of prisoners there who have had to depend upon water peddled from the cisterns of the main island in The Boers can now have, until they are re- turned, the three gallons of fresh water daily that the British Army regula- tions required for them since last August. boats. A Suggestion. SLLE: He has mone n know, Emma: Yes, I apy jate that fact; but how am I to live happily with a man who is my inferior? “ Don't let him know it." STMEY NOTH LOVE ME DEARLY, PAPA, BUT 1 THINK 1 SHALL AccEIT CLARENCE.” way ie “BECAUSE HR CANNOT PAY HIS BILLS, AND IIs NEEDS ARF MORE URGENT.” comicbooks.com