Life, 1908-10-01 · page 20 of 44
Life — October 1, 1908 — page 20: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page presents two reader letters responding to recent Life magazine content: **"A Warm Defense"** defends physicians against prior criticism. The letter (signed L. Butterick, Lake Placid, NY) argues doctors sacrifice greatly for minimal pay—especially treating the poor without charge. It attacks Life's implied suggestion they itemize bills "like grocers," arguing surgeons deserve respect comparable to expensive lawyers. The P.S. defends medical vivisection (animal testing) as justified if human lives are saved, challenging Life's apparent animal-rights stance. **"A Disappointed Reader"** criticizes Life for mocking the British Olympic Games in xenophobic terms (appealing to "Ellis Island type sentiment"). The writer, Irving Robertson (Lake Rosseau, Canada), argues this undermines Anglo-American sporting relations and questions why Life—which supposedly doesn't report truth—deserves credibility on such matters. The page includes period illustrations: a sketch of three figures discussing charity, and a rural scene titled "True Hospitality." The cartoons visually complement the earnest debate about professional ethics and patriotic sentiment.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
A Warm Defense O THE EDITOR OF LIFE: Dear Sir—It is with pain that many of your readers noted the malign attacks of two weeks since upon physicians, a class who are the most seli-sacrificing of any in our com munities. The exceptions are few; the majority give, give every day to the poor, time, skill, strength and life. While one acquires a modest fortune, ninety-nine will leave their families with scanty support at death The millionaire who will pay $10,000 or $50,000 to a lawyer to gain some advantage over his fellow men, or to save his petty dollars, will grumble at a fee of $1,000 for a service into which the surgeon has put ten times the amount of thought and skill and time and brains, and yet you would have him itemize his bill at $5, and do as the grocer does—charge the poor the full price, as the nth. There is not a night in our cities when the surgeon fitted to command a large fee in the day does not cheerfully rise from his bed to perform for a pauper the same service without a penny of remuneration, but simply as his help to humanity It certainly does not become a public journal to intrude a petty personal spite upon its readers. With deep regrets, 1 am, Lake Ptacip, N. Y., August 23, 1908. L. Butterick. P. S—If you will study with an unprejudiced mind the benefits that the human race has derived from wise, patient investigation of disease you would cease incessant vicious words I yield to no man in my love for animals, yet if your child's life can be saved by the death of 100 dogs the sacrifice is right and kind It is you who are cruel . Lire respectfully denies that he is cruel. But he would consider the owners cruel if they permitted the cold- “11 IS MORE BLESSED 10 GIVE THAN TO RECEIVE,” ‘TRUE HOSPITALITY blooded vivisection of their 100 dogs for the dubious benefit of another animal—quadruped or biped. A Disappointed Reader © THE EDITOR OF LIF Dear Sir—Whenever the Yankee Doodle ’’ comedian, George M. Cohan, traffics on the flag-waving propensities of the pseudo-patriots who form such a large proportion of musi- cal comedy audiences in the States, Lire has the courage and common sense to protest. Yet the cartoon “ Forecast of the Next British Olympic Games,’? though undeniably clever, is at basis nothing more than an attempt to pander to the same Ellis Island type of sentiment. Though I attended all the sessions at Shepherds Bush, I failed to see that the American athletes were subjected to anything more than petty annoyances which true sportsmen would have accepted in silence. After a month has elapsed it ill be policy for yellow journals to rant and falsify, but ppointing to find a periodical of Lire’s position lend- ing its assistance to an agitation which cannot but work harm for Anglo-American sport. It is a curious coincidence that in the same issue readers of newspapers are cautioned to remember “ that the editor is not engaged in telling the truth, but in presenting such material as will catch the greatest number of readers.” How about the beam in your own eye, Lire? Irving E. Robertson. Lake Rossrav, Canapa, September 3, 1908.