Life, 1907-03-28 · page 17 of 24
Life — March 28, 1907 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
## The Top Cartoon This satirical sketch mocks women's club fundraising practices. A treasurer is confronted about questionable bookkeeping: the club raised money for charity through a euchre (card game) tournament, collecting $250 in donations but spending $300 on the event itself—leaving the "old ladies' home" actually *owing* $50 rather than benefiting from it. The joke exposes the gap between charitable intentions and actual financial outcomes, suggesting incompetence or self-serving expense management in women's social organizations. ## "Digging Dirt at Panama" The article discusses Chief Engineer John F. Stevens' resignation from the Panama Canal project. The satirical premise: Stevens quit not due to engineering challenges but because Panama's tropical climate saps mental vigor and lacks entertainment for management. The piece mocks this explanation while noting actual progress (600,000+ cubic yards excavated monthly). It mockingly suggests Secretary Taft might retain workers by permitting cockfighting—implying that bored American engineers need vice and sport to stay motivated, a critique of both colonial management and American moral standards.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“MY DEAR, WILL IT BOTHER YOU IF I ASK A QUESTION ABOUT OUR CLUB BOOKKEEPING ? “NO; DELIGHTED, I'M SURE.” “WELL, WE GAVE A CHARITY EUCHRE FOR THE BENEFIT OF TOOK IN $250. Digging Dirt at Panama ‘oy HE latest explanation given of the retirement of Chief Engineer Stevens, of the Panama Canal, is that he was simply dead tired of the job. It is added that no active-minded man who stays in Panama can continue interested in life, or the canal, or anything else for much more than a year. It is healthy enough there now, wonderfully healthy, but the climate is not invigorating yet, and though the mass of the workpeople get along pretty well, the bosses find life cruelly lacking in sport. Muscle and routine energy can be maintained, but enthusiasm and the driving mental energy in the directing spirit that keeps the work going and makes the dirt fly seem not to be renewable in that cli- mate. Once a man has expended what he took there with him, he gets no more. Everything gets tiresome to him, and he ceases after awhile to care whether the canal is built or not. Then he cuts stick and comes home, and a new man goes out. So that is the improved explanation of why Mr. Stevens re- signed. His work is highly praised. They tell us that the dirt is flying at the Isthmus a great deal faster than it ever flew be- ‘OW I FIGURE IT OUT THAT THE OLD LADIES OWE US $50. YOU KNOW I’M TREASURER.” THE OLD LADIFS’ HOME. AMT RIGHT?” IT COST OUR CLUB $300, AND WE ONLY fore, that an effective working organization has gradually been developed and that excavation in the Culebra cut is now going on at a rate which means—if it can be maintained—that the canal may be finished in eight or ten years. In February 600,- coco cubic yards of dirt were excavated from the Culebra and it is hoped that the report for March will show a removal of 800,000 yards, which would be nearly three times as much as the French organization got out at its best. So it seems that if we can only keep the Panama managers amused the canal will go along pretty well. The papers say that Secretary ‘Taft is considering the expediency of allowing cock- fighting in some of his insular colonies and dependencies, on the ground that his charges need sports, and cock-fighting is one of the few amusements suited to their climates. It is possible that if a cargo of game chickens had been sent betimes to Panama, Mr. Stevens might be still at work there. I" IS well not to be too wicked. To be acquainted with every form of sin may leave us too little to live for. comicbooks.com