Life, 1909-07-15 · page 17 of 28
Life — July 15, 1909 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three satirical pieces targeting American institutions: **"College Supremacy"** mocks Yale University's prestige, arguing its advantage derives not from faculty or athletics but merely from its name's superior rhyming qualities in college songs. The satire critiques how institutional reputation can rest on superficialities rather than genuine merit. **The cartoon "Under Perfect Control"** depicts a figure in a pot-boiler (cheap commercial artwork) being presented as the "next Praxiteles"—comparing hack work to the famous ancient Greek sculptor. It satirizes art world pretension and the marketing of mediocre art. **"Insurance vs. Insurance"** attacks the insurance industry's opacity and bad-faith practices. The piece argues that insurance policies are incomprehensibly complex, claims processes deliberately obstructive, and appraisals systematically undervalued. It proposes satirically that customers need "insurance against insurance" itself—a sharp critique of corporate deception targeting ordinary citizens. The "Absent Minded Professor" cartoon offers lighter humor about forgetfulness.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
College Supremacy N reckoning the relative standing of colleges and the reasons therefor, it strange that no one ever thought of the decided advantage Yale has in its name. Just how great this advantage is remains for future psychologists to de- termine, and they may yet find that it was not Yale faculty or Yale curriculum or Yale athletics or Yale pluck that gave it a foremost place, but merely Yale, the name only. When you want to sing the “ Here’s- to-Good-Old "" song, you always sing to Yale, because she is the only one that UNDER PERFECT CONTROL can be “so hearty and so hale.” If you want to “pledge a cup of nut- brown ale," you must do it to Yale, if you have any sense of rhyme. And so on. A hundred rhymes spring to the lips for Yale, where Harvard, Princeton, Pennsylvania and Columbia have such a paucity of rhyming quality that we have to go to frog hair or hen’s teeth for a fitting simile. Ellis O. Jones N EWSPAPER contents may be divid- ed into four headings. 1. Ama- tory. 2. Inflammatory. 3. Defamatory. 4. Foreign News. TAnwacnee “WHAT'S THIS YOU'RE WORKING ON NOW? A POT-BOILER. “1 BELIEVE IT’S THE NEXT PRAXITELES “0; TO BE FOUND AT MELOS,’” Absent Minded Professor: 11's rortu- NATE 1 BROUGHT MY UMBRELLA, Insurance vs. Insurance A NEW insurance company is badly needed—one that will insure us against insurance, one that will guar- antee, when we take out an insurance policy, to collect the amount we expect to get, in case of accident, fire or death. At present, no human being has ever _ been able to unravel the intricacies of an ordina urance policy; it is as dense as a tariff schedule. As for the insurance laws and customs, they have as many ins and outs as a crystalline maze. The only thing that we are rea- sonably sure of is that if anything hap- pens, trouble about collecting the amount, which we have been glibly told by the agent we will get, begins at once. If something has been stolen from the house, we have to make affidavits as to who the party was, when he came, how long he stayed, and who was present when he took the goods. If there is a fire we are never entitled to the full amount of the goods destroyed, but only to as much as they are “ appraised '" and as they are invariably “ appraised” by people employed, or semi-employed, by the insurance companies themselves, we are not very likely to get any more than as little as possible y int ROTECTION will never be objec- tionable to those whom it protects. comicbooks.com