Life, 1905-12-21 · page 7 of 30
Life — December 21, 1905 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The illustration titled "Partners" depicts two figures seated at a desk in what appears to be an office setting, with papers and a lamp visible. Based on the accompanying text, this cartoon satirizes **Miss Roosevelt's tariff and taxation policies**. The piece critiques a woman (likely Eleanor Roosevelt, though not explicitly named) attempting to navigate customs duties and tax law. The satire suggests she wants to smuggle goods through customs while claiming they're duty-free, then outwit inspectors by invoking her own conscience. The joke targets the apparent hypocrisy of using privilege and personal moral authority to circumvent laws meant for ordinary citizens—a classic Progressive-era critique of political elites operating under different rules.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
rd Sing a Song. ING a song of Christmas, \ Pocket full of bills, Four and twenty relatives, Janes, and Johns, and Bills. When the thing is over ‘The creditors will sing Isn't that a pretty mess To set before a king ? The Value of Precedent. Miss Roosevelt be really permitted I to enter upon the peaceful posse sion of her untaxed packing-cases, there isn’t a woman in the United States who will not rejoice in the concession, In the first place, feminine mind regards all ta the light of a grievous tyranny; second, every woman is naturally dis- posed to sympathize with the accumu- lation of frippery; and, in the third, she recognizes the value of the proced- a basis for her own future oper- in the ure a ations, PARTNERS, What an abstract principle is to a man, a conerete example is toa wom- an; what argument is to a man, illus- tration is to a woman wants to smuggle her own finery through the Custom House, and say it can't be any harm, because Miss Roosevelt's boxes came in free of duties. She wants to evade the law, and say it must be all right, because the law was softened for the President's daughter he wants to answer her husband's reasonable pro- tests by saying: “But, Tom dear, look at all Miss Roosevelt's presents.” he wants to outwit the inspectors wita the approbation of her own conscience. And when she is told that the out- witting can be accomplished, only at the price of a good round lie (the one thing at which th ‘erage man balks), she wants to be able to say that it can’t er all, hecause she hasn't a fifth of the things that Miss Roosevelt brought from China. It's a sort of justification by faith that really count as a lie, 769 she is after, and her hopes center in the White House packing cases. With their help she sees her way to a full pocket ful heart Agnes Repplter nda pe Time Works Wonders. APA, what is the tw thropist ? “Merely one of years, my son. A man is a grafter before he is sixty and en a grafter and a philan- a philanthropist afterwards.” OTTO for the Tramps’ Pa All ye who enter here leave soap behind. adise > Necessity. ODD: Why did you have your telephone changed from a direct wire to a party line? Toop: My wife complained she couldn't hear a thing the neighbors said. comicbooks.com