Life, 1909-08-26 · page 10 of 28
Life — August 26, 1909 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The page features a "Politics" essay by Elis O. Jones defining politics as redistributing public money without disrupting the status quo. The accompanying cartoon depicts a figure labeled "MELLOWED BY EIGHTEEN YEARS IN THE WOOD"—a man with a large belly holding bottles and produce, caricatured as someone who has become complacent and self-interested. The satire suggests that politicians, like fine spirits that age in wooden barrels, become corrupted over time in office. The figure's bloated appearance and possessive clutching of goods implies that long-serving politicians prioritize personal gain over public service—the very hypocrisy the essay describes about politics claiming patriotism while actually serving self-interest. The joke: political experience breeds moral decay.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
266 Politics OLITICS is the art of separating one set of politicians from the public treasury and installing another set, without disturbing the status quo of the public. The best thing about politics is the opportunity it affords otherwise modest, grasping and commonplace individuals to come forward and proclaim their sateness, sanity and respectability, their love of the people, their penetrating in- sight into public affairs, their lifelong adherence to the broad principles of lib: erty, justice, equity and so forth. Hardly less important is the oppor- tunity it affords the plain man to show how much noise he can make over a matter he doesn’t understand, to exer cise his prerogative by kicking out Tam many and putting in something else just as bad, to take 2 couple of days off from business and ccngratulate himself that if everybody was as patriotic as he the price of everything would be low except what he sells himself. There is also that beautiful oppor tunity for the magnate, in a kindly, but firm, way, to urge everybody to do his duty, meaning to leave him and his children and his children’s children in control of all those commodities which we need in daily use. Ellis O. Jones MELLOWED BY [IGHTEEN YEARS IN THE wooo “MEY, BOYS, ROUND UP THAT FLOCK KILL’S RANCH—HE’S ORDERED RAIN FOR Cause DON'T sce why you are dismissing me,"” said his chauffeur, angrily “Didn't I take you out in your car twice last month? "" “ Yes," answered the owner, but you wouldn't take me where I wanted to £0. HE best way to break an idol is to get an introduction to it T may be all right for a man to wear padded shoulders, if he doesn’t for- ind pick a quarrel with a man who was born that way "EM OVER FIVE O'CLOCK THIS AFTERNOON’? Delphic was a Delphic utterance that the newspapers quote Mr. Harri- man as offering to certain inhabitants of Bad Gastein, who held stock in one of his railroads: “You'd better keep it You will be to happen.” The tip is good either way. A profit is suggested, but all that is promised is a surprise. OF CLOUDS AND DRIVE MAS I's all right. surprised at what is go PPORTUNITY knocks very timidly when it gets to the slums. comicbooks.com