Life, 1908-02-13 · page 5 of 20
Life — February 13, 1908 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The main cartoon depicts **unemployed workers literally overflowing from a trash bin or disposal container**, suggesting they're being treated as human waste. This satirizes how society discards jobless people during economic hardship. The accompanying text attacks **wealthy newspaper owners** (Times, Tribune, Sun) for distributing free pro-capitalist propaganda to the unemployed, telling them socialism is foolish while offering no actual solutions. The author mocks this as "creates class feeling." The smaller comic snippets below offer social commentary: Frost living in restaurants to quit smoking, and a professor admitting he's too busy for anything. The overall message: **the unemployed are being manipulated by the wealthy press rather than genuinely helped**, during what appears to be a Depression-era economic crisis.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
171 How Shall the Answer Come ? THESE parades of the unemployed are full of promise. Promise of what? Not of trouble, because the unemployed, being a highly educated and philo- sophical class, are always contented. They may be doing some thinking, how- ever, and too much thinking is dangerous. It might be well to send to the countless army of unemployed free copies of the New York Times, Tribune, Sun and other papers controlled by trusted millionaires who assure us that socialism is folly because the goose hangs high. By the way, if a man with a family cannot get work because the capitalist sees no profit in employing him, what shall he do—he with the starving family? But this sort of talk “creates class feeling.” Besides, dinner may be ready. From an Editor i eee opinion I hold is one shared in by my associates, that Lirr is the cleverest publication in the country. — Bruce Rogers. COMMON AND PREFERRED “TROST and his wife are living in restaurants now.” “How’s that ?”” “He wants to break her of the habit of smoking.” “PAVE you had the grip et, professor?” Tue Proressor: Really, you must excuse me, I have been so busy I’ve had no time for anything. Te young like to be told what they don’t know; the old, what they do know. comicbooks.com