Life, 1904-06-09 · page 5 of 20
Life — June 9, 1904 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a satirical piece featuring John D. Rockefeller (identifiable by the caption "Keep out of jail, little boys and girls") addressing young people. The satire works through ironic contrast: Rockefeller—America's richest man and a controversial industrialist—lectures children about saving money and virtue while holding a massive oil can (referencing Standard Oil Company). The humor lies in Rockefeller's hypocrisy: he advises avoiding jail while his own business practices faced legal scrutiny. His recommendation to join the Baptist Church appears darkly comic given Standard Oil's notorious labor practices and monopolistic tactics. The cartoon mocks both Rockefeller's self-righteousness and the era's wealthy industrialists who presented themselves as moral exemplars to the public.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
ni FeE Heart to Heart Talks. By Joun D, Foxyrriier. L ear Little Boys and Girls: 1 wish I could tell you how it makes me feel to see so many bright, fresh, young faces gathered before me. It takes me back to the time when I, too, was young ; yes, not only young, but poor. I hope it does not make you feel badly to think that I, whom you all know the richest man in the world, was at one time poor. Because, you know, it good thing to be poor once in your lives. Why, if I hadn't been poor once, I wouldn't have learned how to save my money. Now it is easy for me to do this, and saving your money is the greatest thing in the world. = There may be other things greater than this, but if there are, I have never run across them in the course of a long and checkered career. Does any little boy know what a checkered career means? No, I thought not. There are, of course, different kinds of checkered careers, but the one I mean is where you collect as much money as possible without getting into jail. Keep out of jail, little boys and girls, if you possibly can. The ventilation is poor, and your power of contributing to the church is too limited. I want to take you into my confidence to-day, and I want to do it in such a way that you will reap the benefit. If you were older, I should not feel so much like doing this, because older people sometimes have money of their own, and this always secretly annoys me, so that I cannot act as natural with them as I can with you. But I want you all to grow up and be useful men and women, like me. You cannot, of course, hope to do as much as I, or as many, or be as pious about it. But you can try. And perhaps the best way I can help you is to show you a few of the things that are really important for you to know. In the first place, do not neglect your Bible. It is not only a good book to read, but it is amusing, and you will need innocent amusements to take your mind off your work. My little boy, John, has a Bible class all of his own, and he gets a lot of amusement out of it. S do other people. The main point is, not to take your Bible too seriously. And learn to discriminate in it between what is true and what is merely amusing. When you read about the faithful steward, who not only saved his master’s money, but got a good respectable rake-off for himself, that’s true. But when you read about the difficulty of a rich man getting into heaven, that’s only amusing. Oh, yes, little boys and girls, the Bible is full of jokes, if only you know where to find them. Then again, don't be afraid to be scorned by the world, As long as you have money enough, it's all right. A lot of people scorn me and think I'm a pretty tough proposition, but the Baptist Church and the Standard Oil Company compen- sate me for everything. And while I am on this subject, let_ me advise you to belong to the Baptist Church as early as ps mn 3 3 € a < a 2 3 ry 3 2 2 z my “ Keep out of jail, little boys and girls.” comicbooks.com