Life, 1909-12-02 · page 37 of 80
Life — December 2, 1909 — page 37: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page presents Christmas-themed editorial and cartoons during World War I. The main text argues that peace requires "liberty and education" and celebrates America's democratic inheritance as a model for struggling peoples worldwide. The cartoons illustrate this message: "Xmas Morning" shows children discovering their stockings were stolen—a commentary on wartime deprivation affecting even innocent civilians. The caption "Did you hang up yer stockings?" / "Yep, can't yer see? An' somebody swiped it" humorously depicts theft as a Christmas casualty. "The Night Before Christmas" parody (bottom) reimagines Clement Clarke Moore's famous poem in this war context, likely referencing scarcity rather than abundance. The "Merry Christmas for the Shop Girl" cartoon emphasizes consumer duty: workers should shop early to support commerce. The moral reflects both patriotic economic participation and concern for working women's circumstances during wartime. The page advocates American exceptionalism and moral responsibility while acknowledging real hardships and social disruptions (suffragettes, labor unrest, military spending) accompanying the war.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
them. The actual war, though distress- ing, is some fun. But now, in Europe, the people are paying for war and not getting any, and that’s enough to make anybody root for peace. So much disturbance of public habits, good and bad, does not come without incidental inconveniences and many fore- bodings. Lots of children need spank- ings that they are not getting; lots of fantastic teaching is being furnished to minds too ill-instructed to reject it all. The suffragettes— My! My! Itis agitat- ing, even at this distance, to think of Europe as a manhole from which the cover may go sailing skyward any mo- ment. But the set of things is toward Peace and Good-will. How can they come except through liberty and education and MERRY CHRISTMAS FOR THE SHOP GIRL MORAL: DO YOUR CHRISTMAS SHOPPING FARLY ! LASSER LUPE Aenaees 2. XMAS MORNING “pID YOU HANG UP YER “YEP. CAN'T VER SEE? some approach to equality of opportunity, and the courage and the faith that comes to high souls? Authority is declining—the authority of dogma and of place. And will order go with it? ‘0! Because the authority of char- acter and of truth and of inevitable law continually increases. No! Because lib- erty is the cure for anarchy. Merry Christmas, friends! Things are going well in our world, ominous as some of them seem; and good-will is in- creasing in it in spite of schoolmasters shot and ministers of state struck down, and upheavals and reprisals, and the scramble for Dreadnoughts and all that. Hard jolts will come, of course—will come, doubtless, even to us in this coun- try, in spite of our enviable inheritance ‘of elbow-room and representative govern- a es TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS sTocktn’?"* AN’ soMEnopyY swirED 1T.’? ment. How remarkable that inheritance is, and how carrying forward the great experiment in popular government which is the example and the hope of all the struggling peoples in the world! It behooves us to be good and honest and kind, to show good-will, fo promote peace; for surely have the best chance in this current world of any people, and if our institutions and our opportunities cannot produce fair fruits of human conduct, where shall the struggling peoples look for hope? As it is, a world, generous to concede our imperfections, still says of us that we are kind of heart. To be that, and wise of heart and head, Christmas éalls to us. In so far as we make real the vision of a free nation that rules itself and loves mankind we give the world the fittest gift we can. E.S.M. great our responsibility in we comicbooks.com