Life — September 22, 1904 — page 3: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis This page from *Life* magazine satirizes a widespread labor strike affecting multiple industries and essential services. The cartoon "Where It Will End" depicts escalating strike demands through a dialogue between a man and a waiter at a restaurant. The joke: as various workers strike—butchers, bakers, waterworks employees, cigar makers, brewers, gardeners, and undertakers—the man realizes there's nothing left to eat or consume. The final punchline reveals even undertakers have struck, suggesting the ultimate absurdity: when death itself becomes unavailable due to labor action. This critiques how widespread strikes paralyze society and eliminate basic necessities, reducing the situation to darkly comic extremes. The accompanying editorial comments on the W.C.T.U. (Women's Christian Temperance Union) and Roosevelt, suggesting this addresses early 20th-century labor unrest and political responses to it.