Life, 1909-10-21 · page 7 of 32
Life — October 21, 1909 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This two-panel cartoon compares past and present versions of "success" or ambition. The left panel shows a figure in formal 18th-century dress, apparently confident and established. The right panel depicts a modern (early 20th-century) businessman in a suit, similarly posed but now juggling multiple burdens—a crying baby, a woman, and other obligations—while still maintaining his top hat and cane. The satire critiques how "progress" has complicated rather than simplified life. While both figures aspire to respectability and status, the modern man carries far more domestic and social pressures. The cartoon suggests that advancement brings not freedom but accumulated responsibilities, mocking the era's notion that contemporary life represented genuine improvement.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Returning Confidence HE re-estab&shment of Charles W Morse in his old positions of trust is encouraging news in more ways than It sets new ideals for the oncoming generation, Instead of beginning at the bottom, the place to begin is in jail Before one can safely be trusted to man age great business enterprises one must Mrs. B: wwerr ane we Now? Mr, Be vW1s 18 THe GREAT WHITE WAY THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS THEN AND Now be convicted by a jury of one’s peers of being able to override not only the ethical but the legal code, He that loseth his life for business’ sake shall find it A man must be proved competent to create panics before he can be appointed engineer on the prosperity railroad. Advertisement by Usurpation IMBEL BROTHERS, on Sixth Ave- nue near Thirty-third Street, in New York, sre putting up a block- long building out of which they mean to sell something or other, and they have a big sign up to say that the site of their concern is Gimbel Square This amusing piece of assurance riles our neighbor, Collier's Weekly and it intimates that the papers are slow to rebuke it because the Gim- bels are advertisers of enormous liberality on whose’ toes no news- paper wants to tread. Greeley Square is the name of that locality, and Collier’s wants it to remain so and doesn’t want it to “Gimbel Square"? by usury We like Collier's spunk The situation is become ation. in this matter. rather The Gimbels will their“ Gimbel pers will put up with their impu for the sake of their advertise The Times is housed on a ludicrous probably advertise Square." and the p dence ments. that it calls “Times Herald on one that Square,’ neither title being based, so far as we know, on anythi npudence One can either laugh or sw incidents like this, and it is more inn just ar over as ef cent to laugh and probably fectual, Ballinger, Too RESIDENT TAFT has Secretary Ballinger and pronounced him pure and good. And yet there are folks who can’t seem to be satisfied about him and want the searchlight to be kept on him all the while Keep it on him by all meanwhile perhaps when Dr. berg has spied out the inwardness of Dr. Cook he will take a look into Mr. Bal- linger. examined means, and Minster HE. business of business should be only incidental to the business of life. comicbooks.com