Life, 1911-03-02 · page 19 of 52
Life — March 2, 1911 — page 19: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is satirical commentary on corporate corruption and financial manipulation in the early 1900s. "Boy Grafters" is Life's mock organization parodying how wealthy financiers and politicians systematize unethical business practices. The satire targets: **Key figures**: J.P. Morgan, Senator Guggenheim, and Theodore Shonts—real power brokers accused of manipulating government and markets. "Mr. Ryan" (likely Thomas Fortune Ryan, a railroad magnate) leads this fictional "organization." **The joke**: Life ridicules how magazines uncritically celebrate this corruption, and how the scheme now has official Washington support—a company of senators' sons is formed. The "rules" mock stock-market manipulation disguised as moral instruction (memorizing bonds alongside the Lord's Prayer). **Political point**: The cartoon exposes how Eastern capitalists controlled American finance and politics, positioning it as an accepted institutional practice rather than criminality. The satire suggests this corruption is so normalized that it can be openly organized and celebrated.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“LER E® The Boy Grafters The Movement Spreading—Perfecting the Organizat‘on—Help From Washington HANKS to our neighbors, the Boy Grafters are growing stronger by the hour. We felt in the beginning that we must look to the magazines for help. Practically all of them this month con- tain leading articles about the Boy Grafters and Mr. Ryan's picture graces the page in the majority of cases. “The happy idea of getting Mr. Ryan to head the Boy Grafters’ movement,” says Everybody's, “is an inspiration. Under Ryan's leadership everything can be accomplished. We may say that hith- erto we have been somewhat bitter about the way our financial system has been run; but with a company of Boy Grafters in every community, preparing for the future, we take back all we have said.” “ We shall publish soon,” says the Cen- tury, “a splendid article from the pen of a noted writer entitled * Boy Grafters of the Past.” Harper's has a short story in which a Boy Grafter is the hero, and captures a railrcad from the hands of a too scrupu- lous band of commuters who had pre- viously becn rash enough to buy up the stock. The Ladies’ Home Journal announces a new series entitled “Letters of a Boy Grafter to His Mother-in-Law.” But the greatest help comes from Washington. While official recognition is necessarily slow, until Mr. Ryan can go over the matter with President Taft, a company has already been organized there composed exclusively of the sons of Senators. I (il GRAFTER'S. "WEEKLY iM Price$d MR. RYAN'’S PICTURE GRACES THE PAGE “GROWING STRONGER BY THY Mr. Ryan, with the help of J. P. Mor- gan, who knows whet the government is doing better than anyone else; Sena- tor Guggenheim, Theodore Shonts, and others, announces the following rules for promot Every Boy Gra‘ter, to ente twelve years of age, and be able to read and write and repeat alphabetica'ly the stock and bonds listed on the Exchange. “Every Boy Grafter must be able to repeat the Lord's Prayer, the Te Deum and the rules of the Stock Exchange. He is then entitled to enter the first grade. When one Boy Grafter meets another he must raise his right hand to the sign of the Almighty Dollar engraved on his silk hat. “A Boy Grafter who succeeds in per- fecting himself in the higher moralities by the age of sixteen shall be given a special medal. These moralities shall be determined by a Board of Examiners, presided over by Dr. Abbott.” Reports from the West are most en- couraging. “No longer,” says the Kansas City Star, “shall the Eastern capitalists con- trol the situation at Washington. It is time for the young West to take arms. This is now happily afforded by the Poy nour” Grafters. It is true that this is not ex- clusively a Western idea, and that it is, indeed, presided over by Mr. Ryan, who “WITH THE MELP OF SENATOR GUGGEN- averse.”