Life, 1905-04-27 · page 13 of 26
Life — April 27, 1905 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This 1908 page contains three separate satirical pieces mocking wealthy and influential figures: **"A Modern Anecdote"** targets **John D. Rockefeller**, the oil magnate and Standard Oil monopolist. The joke: Rockefeller's piety is exposed as self-serving—he's so profit-obsessed that even in church, he calculates business opportunities (suggesting oil replace baptismal water). The final line mocks his supposed generosity when he drops only a quarter into the collection box despite his vast wealth. **"No Cause of Alarm"** satirizes corruption at the Equitable Life Insurance Company during internal scandals. The humor lies in cynical logic: executives won't kill each other despite feuding because they're financially invested in the company—self-interest prevents actual harm. **"Evidence"** is a brief domestic joke playing on the stereotype that husbands rarely say intelligent things—the wife finds an article about animal thinking and sarcastically wonders if animals think, implying her husband occasionally does. All three pieces reflect early 20th-century American skepticism toward corporate titans and institutional corruption.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
| vsti HARE Copuright, 1908, by Life Pulishing Co. WITHOUT RESERVE A Modern Anecdote. R. JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER was piously looking heavenward from his pew in the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church. ‘Your thoughts seem to be wholly upon things spiritua we remarked in a gentle whisper, quite forgetting the late hundred-thousand-dollar jar he had re ed. They are,” he replicd, rubbing his hands unctiously. ‘+1 was thinking what a boom there would be in the Standard’s business if I could only persuade the great church body, of which I am but an 'umble member, to substitute oil instead of water for baptismal purposes.” Moved by this evidence of the great financier’s spirituality, we wondered how the dickens he had ever been able to accumulate such a plethora of worldly wealth, and dropped. a pewter quarter into the contribution box which happened to be passing at the moment. USBAND VERY CONFIDENTIAL WITH Vou? * {ME TELLS ME EVERYTHING HE SUSPECTS I'VE FOUND OUT AB: Towra. No Cause of Alarm. NXIOUS INQUIRER: Don't worry over the war among the officials of the Equitable Life. They may do a lot of talking, but no y will be done. h of them is heavily in: ny, and an untimely taking off of any one of them would mean a direct loss to the company of from fifty to five hundred thousand dollars, As the scrap now stands, ea ° other with mismanagement, but a fatal result would prove that both sides were incapable of proper business methods. Understand? Evidence. IRST LADY : Here's an article, ** Do Animals Think?"" I wonder if they do? Srconp Lavy: I've noticed that my husband gets off an occasional bright thing. comicbooks.com