Life, 1909-12-09 · page 19 of 32
Life — December 9, 1909 — page 19: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two satirical pieces: **"Politics Does Pay"** critiques a recent mayoral candidate (likely NYC, given references to Broad Street). The dialogue mocks the candidate's public virtue-signaling—claiming he wouldn't run for Governor—while the author suggests wealthy, idle men should actually engage in politics rather than leisure pursuits. The piece sarcastically praises political campaigns as character-building, contrasting the candidate's dignified retreat with the "robust sport" of public service. It's social commentary on wealthy Americans avoiding civic duty. **"At the Dark-Town Culture Club"** uses racist dialect humor (common in 1910s publications) featuring a Black chairman introducing a professor who will explain "de indefinable" and "unscrew the unscrewable"—mocking pseudo-intellectual pretension through exaggerated language and malapropism. The bottom section humorously proposes New York street names after publications (Police Gazette Boulevard, Puck Driveway), satirizing commercialism and media culture.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
©. Clyde Squires. Calvert Smith. C. J. Taylor. W. L. Jacobs. Contributors Politics Does Pay ym glad to. be back once more at my old desk. delightful to me than being mixed up with politics —Mr, Bannard. ND easier, sir, and, pecuniarily speaking, doubtless more profitable. But, -Candidate, did you ever have a better run for your money than when you ran for Mayor? Did you ever, in three weeks, work harder, learn more, develop more, get so near to so many people, do more and feel more, gen at and half a crally, to justify the pains you have taken to eat alive all day and day for more than stay every century If a man is in politics for his living it's awful. If he is in politics for his health—his soul's health more particularly- it is a wonderfully healthy place for him to be in. To be dragged away from an office and from being something to a Board of Directors and some stockholders, and dropped out ‘on the open sawdust to be all things to all men—Wholesome? y, Sir, it's like mud baths to an invalid. There’s nothing , unless it might be to turn street preacher for a month t's Muldoon-like treatment, and not every man has the human substance in him to profit by it. Waldorf Astor, poor soul, once for Congress against Roswell THE “ YALE CLASsics ”” W. D. Nesbitt W. H. Walker. F, G. Cooper. Flower, and forthwith cut stick and moved to England, where rich gentlemen were at that time still respected and could count on being nicely tucked in when they went to bed. Such a pity he hadn't the entrails to keep right on in his home school! But it is a great treatment, if a man is game for it, and immensely fruitful of having played in a big ga having responded when called for, there are the amusing re sults of an amplified notoriety and the cheering consequences of having made thousands of new friends. Hope you kept a file of the Evening Journal, Candidate, especially the pictorial part! And they quote you as saying that you wouldn't run for reward. Besides the sense of ¢ and some grateful emotion at Mr. Recent Governor, not even if you were asked! Well, of course, that’s a proper thing to say in public, but in private, sir, tell those business persons down in Broad Strect the truth: that there is hardly anything that does a good man more good than to run hard with disinterested fervor for a big office, and that if any of them gets a chance to do it, he should by all means drop his muck-rake, shed his jacket and go in It makes one sigh to see competent American men who have means of independent support, put in their spare time on yachts and polo and Europe, and abandon the robust sport and duty of politics to the professionals and the poor. Be Soa. At the Dark-Town Culture Club HAIRMAN (concluding an address of. introductio now, ladies and gentlemen, I hab de honor of presen| to dis audience de speaker of de ebening—Professor John sing, of de Westville Seminary—who will proceed to define de indefinable, depict de indepictable and unscrew the un- screwtable ! OME suggested names for streets in New York (a la Times Square, Gimbel Square, Herald Square, etc.) : Police Gazette Boulevard, Town Topics Alley, Klaw & Er- langer Circle, Puck Driveway, Churchman Avenue, ete., etc. Henry Hutt comicbooks.com