Life, 1911-05-11 · page 19 of 44
Life — May 11, 1911 — page 19: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes the "muckraking" journalism movement of the early 1900s, which exposed corporate abuses. **The situation:** John A. Fitch published an article in *American Magazine* claiming U.S. Steel workers aged prematurely from brutal twelve-hour shifts. At Steel's April 17 stockholders meeting, shareholder Charles Cabot proposed investigating Fitch's claims. Chairman Elbert Gary dismissed the article as "partisan, unfair and unreasonable" but paradoxically voted for the investigation anyway. **The satire:** The large cartoon depicts a corrupt figure—likely representing Gary or corporate interests—holding a money bag ($) while a skeletal Death/Old Age figure looms overhead. The caption "But you've got to wear it! This is a commercial age" mocks the hypocrisy: corporations exploit workers ruthlessly while claiming business necessity. **The broader point:** The article proposes a "Muckrakers' Court" for objective investigation. Life notes even Mormons and President Roosevelt disputed muckraking claims, suggesting sensationalism. Yet the visual argument—that capitalism prematurely destroys workers—remains the underlying critique.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
With the Muckrakers See of the current muckrake stories are getting attention from the per- sons most concerned. In the March number of the Ameri- can Magazine there was a piece by John A. Fitch, whereof the title runs, “ Old Age at Forty; An Exact Account of the errible Strain Put on Workers in the Steel Industry; A Twelve-Hour Day for ‘Thousands. At the annual meeting of the United States Steel Corporation on April 17 this happened : Chasles A. Cabot, of Boston, a stockholder, introduced a resolution calling upon the chairman to appoint a committee of five per- sons to investigate and report to the Finance Committee not later than October 1 next as to the, truth of statements made in a recent magazine article that the work of the steel employees in the Pittsburg mill is so ardu- ous that they become old men at forty. Mr. Cabot said that if the published state- ments aze true the conditions so revealed con- stitute a serious menace to the continued suc- cess of the corporation and to its reputation as an organization, Mr. Gary, chairman of the Board of Directors, said that the writer of the piece had been given every chance to investigate the mills, but that his article was “partisan, unfair and unreason- able.” The directors had not thought the motives for publication were good and had refused to furnish a list of stockholders so that the article could TUE NAKED EVE “put you've cor To WEAR IT! be mailed to them. Nevertheless, rep- resenting a majority of the stockholders, Mr. Gary voted for the resolution to investigate and it was carried. We don’t suppose Mr. Gary will ap- point a committee of muckrakers to vestigate conditions of life in the Pittsburg mills, but he will probably ap- point a committee whose findings will carry weight and not a mere committee of whitewashers, If there is another side to Mr. Fitch's story it will be told, and doubtless the Steel Company's stock- holders and the newspapers, too, will sec their report, which to anyone who has TINS 1S A COMMERCIAL AGE.” read Mr. Fitch's story, will be intercsting The Mormons are lifting up the voice to say that MeClure’s and Everybody's have painted them blacker, more devious and much more polygamous than they are, Colonel Roosevelt has proclaimed that the statement in one of these con- temporaries that he played improper politics with Senator Smoot is a dis- tinet digression from veracity—but he expressed it more impetuously than that. Can't we have a Muckrakers’ Court, where public accusations can be sifted by expert investigators? comicbooks.com