Life, 1908-03-26 · page 15 of 22
Life — March 26, 1908 — page 15: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two distinct pieces. The main illustration, titled "Little Episodes: Leaves from Her Diary," satirizes excessive moral reformism. It depicts a woman surrounded by photographs and documents, apparently cataloging evidence of societal misconduct. The accompanying text directly addresses **Governor Folk** and **Colonel-President Roosevelt**, prominent Progressive Era reformers known for anti-corruption campaigns. The author sarcastically challenges their crusades against stock trading and graft, arguing that if reformers truly believed in eliminating all risky or morally compromising activities, they should also ban politics itself—which is equally "full of ruined reputations, crimes, temptations and hazards." The joke is that the reformers are hypocrites: they condemn certain vices while participating in an equally corrupt system. The diary/photograph motif mocks the obsessive documentation of others' moral failings while ignoring systemic problems in politics itself. The smaller anecdotes below provide humorous counterpoints about moral hypocrisy in everyday life.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
325 mind or time than it is worth, it is an exceptionally instructive detail of human experience. It is the excess that makes the mis- chief—a great mischief, too, that de- grades the mind and disfigures the con- science. But is any excess so certain of its punishment? Why are you so ur- gent, Governor Folk, and other honorable reformers, to extirpate an of- fense of which the punishment is so sure and so nearly automatic? Do you hope for a condition of society where it will make no great difference whether folks are wise or foolish? Stock trading is not wicked, per se, but it is extremely risky. So is politics. You, Mr. Folk, and Colonel-President Roose- velt, are politicians. Politics is full of ruined reputations, crimes, temptations and hazards. It is enor- mously difficult to keep clean in politics, as you know. Should politics also come “under the ban of this era of conscience,” Governor Folk? “T SEE oneof our Senators has written an article on graft.” “ Autobiographical A Rebuke “OND mother, anxious that her two. boys, aged five and seven respective- ly, should not become contaminated by contact with the world, used to sit in the next room tothe boys, reading, while they went to sleep.» One night she overheard this: “Tommy?” No reply. “Tommy?” Noreply. Then a punch of a fist sound- ed, when she heard: “Go to hell; I’m saying my prayers!” >” If you refuse me I shall go out and hang myself to the lamp-post in front of your house: Sue: Now, George, you know father said he wouldn't have you hanging around here. “DR EMEMBER, my boy, always give UTTLE EPISODES your seat to a lady.” LEAVES. FROM HER DIARY “But how are you going to know?” comicbooks.com