Life, 1909-08-26 · page 17 of 28
Life — August 26, 1909 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This cartoon satirizes a "Furious Father" discovering his daughter has eloped with an unsuitable suitor (marked "1712," possibly indicating a disreputable character or debt). The father, reading a "chalked notice," pursues them in a car while the couple escapes by jumping a fence—hence the caption's ironic title: love overcomes paternal objections. The accompanying editorial pieces mock American business and gender relations. "Suggestions of an American Shopper" criticizes domestic manufacturers who demand tariff protection yet produce inferior goods (hosiery that dissolves, carpets that shed). The author argues American companies should improve quality rather than lobby Congress. The final snippet mocks consumer habits: men exhaust money at resorts; women exhaust their wardrobes—a period stereotype about female materialism. The overall tone is characteristic of *Life's* early-20th-century satirical stance: pro-consumer, skeptical of protectionism, and lightly misogynistic.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Furious Father (readin Our hearts are too tender for this We couldn't stand it to hear the stories of wrong and injustice that down-trod den husbands would pour in our sym- pathetic ears, We can do better work for you at a distance, brothers, clement doesn’t affect our judgments or where the personal our hearts. No matter what your trouble is, com- municate with us at once. Confidential Some time in his life every husband needs us, and he needs us badly. When this hour comes you will always find us on the job, with all of our immense re- sources at your immediate disposal, at prices within the reach of all. Husnanns’ Corresroxpence Bureau Suggestions of an American Shopper HY should not the American manu- facturers who clamor shamelessly for protection try a new dodge which would make them independent of cil chalked notice): OVERTAKE THE LOVE FINDS A WAY “nRipor nan! UNSAFE MISCREANT THAT STOLE tariff fluctuations ? not turn a fresh le: American industries, and sce what'would happen should they produce an article too good for easy rivalry? If the man- ufacturers of American hosiery, instead of marshaling their factory hands to present a beggar's petition, would make a pair of stockings warranted not to dissolve into holes the first time they were worn, “ And like the baseless fabric of a vision, Leave not a wrack behind,” American women would buy these stock- ings, in defiance of all the looms in manufacturers of Why should they in the history of Germany. If the American carpets would make a floor covering able to withstand the gentle pressure of a broom, and not surrender its surface (a mere heap of red or grecn fuzz) to the embraces of the dust-pan, American housckceprs would buy that carpet in scorn of foreign competition Perhaps, as the tidal wave of excellence rolled over the land, American glove THEN THEY MUM DAUGHTAR-R, YET. WENT STRAIGHT ON, HA-MA! 1°Lt manufacturers might learn how to mak> good gloves, and A printers might achieve the prin picture postal cards, instcad of striving to deny their innocent and educational commodities. It has always been a popular fallacy that we protected our industries for their own sakes—to give them a chance to} erican ng of countrymen these grow up and be good. If they won't grow up and be good, they are unworthy of a nation which to be the best and cleverest A common axiom of statecraft is that stupid people pays a acknowledges itself on earth only a profou great deal for what it doesn't want to pay a great deal for what we know is bad is to prove curselves, as Mr. Dooley gloomily admits, as great patriots as the geese that saved Rome. Agnes Repplier. N stay at resort till their money runs out; women till their dresses run out. a summer comicbooks.com