Life, 1911-02-23 · page 14 of 44
Life — February 23, 1911 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**Main Cartoon: "The Billionaire's Way Out"** This satire depicts a wealthy industrialist unable to spend his vast fortune fast enough, despite giving away money in "chunks" and erecting expensive monuments to himself. His stated ambition is to "die poor"—a absurd inversion of normal wealth-seeking. **The Satire's Point:** The piece mocks gilded-age billionaires' self-serving philanthropy and monument-building. When a "Comforter" suggests practical solutions—letting workers keep wages or maintaining monuments without public expense—the billionaire refuses each, claiming it would either harm workers or deprive the public of "elevating pleasure." This exposes the hypocrisy: wealthy industrialists justify extracting labor while claiming their monuments benefit the common people. **Secondary Cartoon: "Seeing New York"** A visitor mistakes urban crowding for a riot. The punchline equates the crowd with the "social ladder"—suggesting New York society is chaotic, climbing-focused, and indistinguishable from actual disorder. Both satirize capitalist excess and class inequality circa early 1900s.
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390 The Billionaire’s Way Out HE billionaire sighed as he looked at the clouds obscuring the links, and yet no such sigh ever was born of missing a game. His trouble was deeper. Despite all he could do the billionaire knew that his stock of gold ing at a rate little short of scandalo He had given it away in chunks, sometimes for a good purpose, and occasionally for a purpose beyond being concerned. He had erected to himself a string of expensive monu- ments, each one costing him a_ pretty penny. Nevertheless, money poured in upon him as fast as an army of men could carn it, until he could have wept at impending disgrace, for his ambition was to die poor. AIS wauKer SEEING NEW YORK Westerner: Gos, wat 18 THAT, A’ Riot? New Yorker: aw xo, ONLY THE SOCIAL LADDER. “ Perhaps it would be a good idea so to arrange affairs that the men earning the money that burdens you be per- mitted to retain a portion of it for them- selves,” suggested a Comforter who had been called in to assuage the grief of the billionaire. “Never!” exclaimed the billionaire. “While that might case me a little, it would put these worthy men in peril of contumely, for some of them are thrifty, and, saving their money, ultimately stag- gering under a burden of wealth, might die possessed of a wocful abundance.” “Then,” said the Comforter, “ why not maintain without expense to the peo- ple the monuments set up to your per- sonal modesty? The cost to you would be immense and soothing, yet the sav- ing by the public would not make any individual dangerously rich.” “You are asking me again to be sel- fish,” complained the billionaire, pet- tishly. “The people love to pay tribute to the quality you mention. The upkeep of the monuments affords them a cheap, appropriate and elevating pleasure of which I have not the heart to deprive them.” “Here's something practical,” the Comforter went on. “‘ Official sta! CAPITALISM disclose that the board bill of the rats comicbooks.com