Life, 1908-05-28 · page 16 of 24
Life — May 28, 1908 — page 16: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three distinct satirical pieces: **"Wanted: An International Naval License Board"** argues that naval arms racing is wasteful. The editorial proposes an international licensing system at The Hague to regulate battleship construction, comparing it to liquor licensing. The underlying critique: nations compete in destructive military spending they acknowledge as wasteful—a paradox the author finds absurd. **"The Two Mumm Children"** (champagne bottle illustrations) is an advertisement disguised as satire, playing on the product name. **"Concerning a Friend"** attacks vivisection (animal experimentation), particularly at research institutions like Rockefeller's. Life expresses sympathy for dogs used in painful experiments, citing Dr. Ed. Haughton's criticism that such tests are "inconclusive" and "cruel." **"Economy Begins at Home"** includes three brief comic dialogues about teaching children gambling, aging gracefully through avoiding trouble, and etiquette absurdities—light humor on domestic themes. The page reflects early 20th-century Progressive Era concerns: military expenditure, animal welfare, and social hypocrisy.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
576 *-LIFE: Wanted: An International Naval License Board HE President asked this year for four new battle- ships, and got two. The Washington gossips said he was satisfied, and that it had seemed to him wiser to ask for four and get two than to ask for two and get one. All right. If we must have two new battleships a year, we must; and, happily, we can better afford to build them than some other nations that feel constrained to make the same expenditure. Con- gress has no mind to spend more money on the navy than conservative judgment finds necessary. But abstractly speaking, this putting of good moncy into battleships is a shocking waste, and so every nation that docs it feels it to be. If the nations cannot agree to stop it altogether, they should at least be able to unite on a license system. It is at least as absurd that any nation should be free to build all the battleships it will, as that any man should be free to sell rum to all comers. It ought to be possible to establish, by general con- sent, at the Hague, an International Naval License Board, em- powered to receive applications from countries that want a license to build battleships, and to issue or refuse such licenses according to the merits of cach case. The present system of letting every country build what it thinks it can afford, or, as usually happens, what it can’t afford, is absolutely senseless, and is pretty generally admitted to be so. Civilization will hardly endure it much longer It is too ridiculously wasteful, and the money it costs is too much needed for other things. THE TWO MUMM CHILDREN MAXIE MUMM AND MINNIE MUSO Concerning a Friend The poor dog, in life the firmest friend, The first 16 welcome, foremost to defend; Whose honest heart is stil! his master’s own; Who labors, fights, lives, breathes for him alone. —Byron ‘S, that is all true. But woe betide him if he wanders from home in these days. The Physical Researchers are on the lookout for dogs. If they once get him in John Rockefeller’s Halls of Agony he will find that being cut up alive is a long process. Lire’s sympathies are with you, good friend. As Halleck said: And all we know or dream or fear Of agony are thine, My indictment against vivisection (implying painful experiments such as are daily used upon dumb animals) is: ‘That they are inconclusive, that they are cruel beyond all reasonable excuse, and shameless in their savage brutality.—Dr. Ed. Haughton Hepsy Firejly: 1 TELL YOU WHAT, HIRAM, THEY CAN TALK ALL THEY WANT TO ABOUT THESE NEW-FANGLED LIGHTING CONTRAP- TIONS, BUT I WOULDN'T SWAP YOU FOR THE WHOLE PESKY LOT OF THEM. Economy Begins at Home “ | HEAR you're teaching your son to play draw-poker. think that’s wise?” “Certainly. He's bound to learn from some one. from me it keeps the moncy in the family.”” Do you If he learns “ SE EMS to me you look younger than ever.” “Why not? As I grow older, I become more and more expert in avoiding trouble.” RATE PEDESTRIAN: Take off them glasses, you scoundrel, and I'll punch yer face fer you. “But, my dear sir, that is quite against the custom. Who ever heard of ordering off the glasses before the punch is served ?” comicbooks.com