Life, 1903-03-12 · page 10 of 26
Life — March 12, 1903 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Political Context Analysis The left side presents a serialized joke about Irish immigrants ("little millionaires"). The cartoon depicts six figures progressively losing wealth through bad decisions—starting with six alive, then five, four, three, two, and finally one left with no bread. Each panel shows them at a door (marked with what appears to be a pawnbroker sign), suggesting they're pawning possessions. The right side is "A Toast to the Irish Blood," a poem by Mrs. Wilson Woodrow celebrating Irish identity, passion, love, and rebellion against convention. It romanticizes Irish characteristics: "rebels and mockers and dreamers, / Of the open road and the sea." The contrast is stark: the cartoons mock Irish immigrants as poor and financially reckless, while the poem simultaneously celebrates Irish culture as noble and romantic. This reflects period ambivalence toward Irish-American communities—simultaneously caricatured as foolish yet idealized as spirited.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
SIX LITTLE MILLIONAIRES GLAD TO BE ALIV! THIS ONE DID LIKE ALL THE REST, THEN THERE WERE BUT FIVE. FIVE LITTLE MILLIONAIRES TRUTHFUL TO THE CORK (?)? “SUCH A REASTLY SHAME!" SAID ONE. THEN THERE WERE BUT FOUR, POUR LITTLE MILLIONAIRES AS WEARY AS COULD BE; “PM A BANKRUPT.’ ONE DECLARED, THEN THKRE WERE BUT TURER, TWO LITTLE MILLIONAIRES, POR TRUTH THEY “TOOK THE BUN!" GOLDBUG UAD A MORTGAGE. THEN TUERE WAS DUT ONE. A Toast to the Irish Blood. “TILL me a cup with the “ Dew of Killarney,” - Parer than chastity, essence of fire; Ogling a laugh at ye, beaded with blarney Breath of the peat-smoke, and blood of desire! Fill me a cup, ’til I drink to St. Patrick ; Drink to the harp strains, the songs that beguile ; Drink to our emblem, the mystical shamrock ! Up with ye! Down it! The Emerald Isle! Oh, we are the world’s great lovers ; To our hearts Love fled from the skies ; For we know the secret of laughter, And we know the passion of sighs. And your vanity’s fief to our blarney, And your soul to our Irish eyes. We foliow the star of the vision, Whose light to our souls doth stream ; For us swing the ivory portals, Where the pearls of faney gleam, "Mid the coarse, philistine banter : — ‘Tis the mad Celt’s madder dream In the van of the world’s great battles, We have fi Then, to war with our pen’s stilet For th ide, always And, behold the Pharisee, blatant, Impaled on our poignant phrase. From cerements of convention ‘The heart and the brain we free,— Rebels, and mockers, and dreamers, Of the open road and the sea. Our pelf is but love and Jaughter, Lootless and friendiess, we! Though broken our falling rafters, Though our larder shelf be bare, Letter the wit and the music, And the hearts that know not care, And the hand that is free and ready A crust with all to share! Drink to our emblem, the mystical shamrock Up with ye! Down it! The Emerald Is son Woodror, CAR ONE LITTLE MILLIONAIRE LEPT AMONG 80 MANY ; SAID HR HADN'T BREAD TO EAT, THEN THERE WASN'T ANY. comicbooks.com