Life, 1910-02-17 · page 27 of 44
Life — February 17, 1910 — page 27: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**The Cartoon:** The top illustration depicts "Colonel Wayte" in an automobile passing an "endurance test" while a horse-drawn vehicle struggles beside it—satirizing early automotive reliability versus traditional transportation. **"A Necessary Evil"** (left column): This essay mocks marriage as women's inevitable lot, referencing Mrs. Pankhurst and English suffragettes who committed acid attacks during elections. The author argues that despite women's mistreatment by husbands, marriage remains preferable to spinsterhoood because men provide necessary "completion" to women's incomplete existence. The piece drips with sarcasm—praising marriage as a "necessary evil" while describing domestic violence ("blackened eyes") as inevitable. **"Capitalism Will Prevail"** (right): A brief poem lamenting workers' acceptance of exploitation and false consciousness. **"To a Chemist"**: A businessman seeks a formula to cut corners on pumpkin pie ingredients—satirizing capitalist corner-cutting and fraud. **The lower cartoon** jokes about bald men facing cold weather if men must match women's hair fashions—trivial gendered humor. The page reflects pre-1920s anxieties about women's suffrage, labor, and modernity.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
essere i aut COLONEL WAYTE PASSED THE ENDURANCE TEST WITHOUT TURNING A HAIR A Necessary Evil OME one has said that marriage for a woman means giv- ing up the attentions of several men for the inattention of one. Mrs. Pankhurst, when asked to give her opinion of acid throwing by the suffragettes during the recent clection in England, said it was “inevitable.” Following that line of reasoning no suffragette will ever suffer from the inattention of her husbund; it may not be a very pleasing kind of atten- tion that he will bestow upon her, but it will be at least alert Man’s sphere, woman's sphere; considered alone, each is only a hemi-sphere, at least so we have been taught, and anything hemi or demi is always so incomplete, isn’t it? Without women any nation would be a Stag-Nation, but without men we would become Carrie Nations. Why is it that although a crowd of men may be rough, boisterous or annoying they are never ridiculous, whereas a feminine crowd “per se"? always is? : Have you, O! gentle reader, ever wandered into that New York cloister, that shelter for the feminine unattached, the Martha Washington Hotel? It is a blessed sanctuary for the manless in times of trouble and shopping, but who would choose to live in a female hemispherical atmosphere always? No, it is better to be plural than singular. Not that we agree with the much quoted woman of the slums, who, push- ing aside the bandages from her swollen face and opening her Dlackened eyes (sad souvenirs of her husband’s attentions), pittyingly said to the sympathetic settlement visitor, “ Gee, it st be orful to be a old maid.” But we do say that if for nothing else but to make a com- plete background, a proper mise en scéne, as it were. Whether for Suffragette or Mollusk, Spinster or Spender, Widow or Wife, Man, Mere Man, is a necessary evil Helen Thornton Higbie. Capitalism Wilt Prevail HILE labor's contented with just what it’s got, While few sons of toil want to better their lot, While the masses Lelieve to be good what is rot, Then some will be happy, but most of us not. To a Chemist “J WANT you to prepare for me a formula for making the best pumpkin pic that can be made,” said the pic manu facturer to the chemist. “I’ve used turnips and ochre and potato flour and all the things my rivals use, and have beaten them a little bit at their own game, but now I want to put out a pumpkin pie that will simply outclass all other brands. 1 will pay you whatever fee is right for the work.” “IT SAYS WERE THAT MEN ARE GOIN’ TER MATCH TH’ MAIR, THIS WINTER”? “THAT'S GON ER MAKE IT KINDER COLD PUR TH’ BALD-HEADED FELLERS, AIN'T IT TER WEAR CLOTHES comicbooks.com