Life, 1907-06-13 · page 7 of 24
Life — June 13, 1907 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**The Cartoon:** The ink sketch depicts well-dressed adults and children on a street, with the caption "THE DAILY PRESS—IMPORTANT NEWS: THE LITTLE GOTROX CHILDREN TAKE THE AIR." **The Satire:** This appears to mock sensationalist newspaper coverage of trivial events involving minor celebrities or notable families. The exaggerated formality and crowd gathering around children simply taking a walk suggests newspapers treating mundane activities as significant news. **The Article:** "Animal-Writers' Disputes" critiques Theodore Roosevelt and Jack London for publishing animal stories presented as factual natural history, when they lack genuine zoological expertise. The writer argues such works shouldn't be treated as authoritative records of animal behavior, and defends naturalists like John Burroughs against accusations of fabrication. The piece advocates for accuracy in nature writing.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Animal-Writers’ Disputes IS asserted in the papers that Mr. Roosevelt is correctly quoted by I Edward B. Clark in Everybody's Maga- zine as declaring that the animal stories contributed to various vehicles of public entertainment by W. J. Long, C. G. D. Roberts, Jack London and others are largely works of the imagination and must not be taken seriously as the true records of animal deportment. Of Mr. Long, in particular, Mr. Roosevelt makes grievous complaint, averring that he pub- lishes as true stories, and declares them to be true of his own knowledge or ob- servation, yarns that are quite impossible. What makes Mr. Roosevelt the madder at some of Mr. Long’s yarns are printed in school-books, for the instruc- tion of the young. THE DAILY PRESS—IMPORTANT NEWS. THE LITTLE GOTROX CHICDREN TAKE TUE Mr. Long has retorted at some length, declaring that his animal stories are strictly veracious, and that Mr. Roose- velt is not a naturalist, but a game-killer, who knows nothing about the real habits of animal life. Anumber of observing persons seem to know a good deal about some of the wild animals, but no one knows all about all of them. Naturalists like Mr. Burroughs— and perhaps Mr. Roosevelt, too—who have studied animals a long time, seem overconfident that what they do not know about animals is not knowable, and that stories that donot accord with their expe- rience are not truc. Mr. Burroughs, at times, has made very rash accusations of bad faith and mendacity against other wri- ters who claimed to have observed things that did not accord with his experience. AIR Having no personal acquaintance with bob-cats, wolves or caribou, we dare not say that Mr. Roosevelt is not right in his criticisms of Mr. Long. It is to be noticed, however, that ever since there have been any written records there have been these disputes about animal stories and animal habits. Ever since Jonah’s time, stiff-necked doubters have held that the story that the whale swallowed him was a fake and other realists have denied that Balaam’s ass really talked. ‘The one contemporary observer and animal-writer in whom we have com- plete confidence is Mr. Joel Chandler Harris. We recommend to the authori- ties to drop Mr. Long out of the school- books and put Mr. Harris in. What Uncle Remus says, goes; and nobody disputes it comicbooks.com