Life, 1910-01-27 · page 23 of 36
Life — January 27, 1910 — page 23: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains multiple satirical pieces typical of early 1900s American humor: **"The Irishmen and the Offices"** is the main article, responding to a Philadelphia Irishman's letter urging withdrawal of Irish people from petty office-holding. The author argues Irish immigrants have progressed from manual labor to trades and professions over seventy years, and will naturally abandon low-status work like bartending and minor offices as better opportunities emerge. He notes Mayor Gaynor struggles filling city positions—suggesting office-holding is becoming unattractive without graft opportunities. **The smaller jokes** mock social situations: an embarrassed preacher repeatedly stumbling over the Book of Jonah passage; neighbors billing someone for eggs their hens laid in his garden; and a barber's secure profession. **"How History Repeats Itself"** shows a man noting his grandfather worked the same ground sixty years prior—satirizing cyclical patterns or immigrant labor. The overall theme critiques urban politics, Irish-American assimilation, and municipal corruption while celebrating immigrant upward mobility.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
171 Purely Social MBARRASSED PREACHER (read- ing the first chapter of Jonah, and raking the best of the seventeenth verse): “And the Lord prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the—er—a—and Jonah was in the— er— Ani the Lord prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the society of the fish three dave and three nights.” Assurance Doubly Sure “TJOW do you like your next door neighbors? "* “Well, I have a great admiration for their nerve. They sent me a bill the other day for the eggs they claimed their hens had laid in my garden HOW HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF He (in the background): ves, MY GRANDFATHER CAME OVER THIS VERY GROUND 60 YEARS AGO. HO would not be a barber? No rival need he dread! For he’s sure in his profession . To stand always at the head The Irishmen and the Offices : ee “es HAT Philadelphia Irishman who writes to the New York Evening Post that he wishes that the “ Irish element"? might be withdrawn from all petty office-holding bases his wish on the opinion that the said element is too valuable “to be wasted upon petty politics and petty offices It is about seventy years since Irishmen began to accumulate in considerable numbers in this country, and during all that time they have progressed pretty steadily in dignity of employment. They began —most of them—with rough, hard, manual work, dug, ditched, built railroads, carried hods. The next generation got into the trades and into trading, and the next into the professions. On the way up toward the superior place which awaits irrepressible talent, Irishmen in noticeable numbers have been tending bar and holding office. It is likely enough that we shall see them draw away from both of these employments. Saloon-keeping is not what it was, It has lost in individuality, influence and profitableness. Office-holding, too, is getting to be poor work for the needy and the aspiring. Mayor Gaynor complains of the trouble he has had in inducing fit men to accept the important city offices that he has offered them. Of course he has had trouble. Most men who are competent for employment are already em- ployed, and who wants to give up a reliable job to work for the city? The natural rewards of office-holding are trouble, glory and graft. If graft is eliminated, office-holding becomes an occupation suited only to honest plodders or altruists with private means. The mayoralties of great American cities are rapidly ceasing to be political prizes and becoming duties which competent citizens are besought to undertake. The petty offices, when graft is eliminated, become pretty meagre jobs, and since graft in cities seems to be going out of fashion we agree with the gentleman from Philadelphia that Irishmen, as a rule, being more than average clever, can do better than hold petty offices. The thing that is going to save us from the domination of Irish officeholders is that we are getting so punctilious about municipal expenditeres that it is not going to pay the officcholders to dominate us. It will not save Bos- ton from having John F. Fitzgerald in its Mayor's office for . the next four years, but it should restrain him there. The Visitor: 1t’s a TERRIBLY GooD LIKENESS. comicbooks.com