Life, 1911-06-22 · page 16 of 44
Life — June 22, 1911 — page 16: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The page contains three opinion pieces from *Life* magazine's editorial section, not political cartoons. **"Supermagazines"**: The author criticizes American magazines and weeklies for becoming dull and insubstantial, possibly due to business managers prioritizing profit over editorial quality or editorial talent being stretched too thin. He sarcastically proposes creating one "superpopular" magazine with consistently excellent content—a utopian fantasy. The caption "We're All Kings Here" (showing well-dressed figures by a carriage) likely mocks the pretentious editorial self-regard he's satirizing. **"Old School Manners"**: A brief philosophical note distinguishing genuine refinement (acquired through age and experience) from youth's inability to achieve it naturally. **"Again Perfected"**: The author skeptically notes Edison's repeated claims about perfecting his storage battery over many years. He expresses hope while acknowledging Edison's "perpetual not-yet-but-soon" status—essentially calling Edison's promises habitually unfulfilled hype, though recent trolley electrification offers slight encouragement.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
X y M4 Supermagazines OW that the newspaper situation has been cleaned up, and the of- fenders have had fastened upon them their full quota of crimes and misde- meanors, why wouldn't it be a good idea to keep right on and do the same to the magazines and weeklies? For some reason or other the maga- zines and weeklies have become insuf- ferably dull and meatless. Whether this is because the editors have been subor- dinated to the business managers, or be- cause they are trying to spread a meager quantity of talent and information over endless reams of paper, or because of some anti-alchemy of the alleged Mor- gan influence, or simply because they have ru» out of material which is not sufficiently interesting to be popular, is not for us to determine, but for some competent investigator with a long head and a longer expense account. It may be that the time has come for a “WE'RE ALL KINGS HERE” sort of supermagazine that will be superpopular. Maybe it will be one of those single nonpareil American Beauty Roses left blooming alone and nourished cither by an editorial Burbank or a liter- ary Edison. Maybe each department thereof will be uniformly scintillant and masterful, each special article magneti- cally and dynamically compelling, each story the very best since Guy de Mau- passant, and finally, cach number fully as good as the one that induced us to send in our subscriptions. Such a consummation would compen- sate us for the vast deal of worry over the efforts to keep many of the present expedients afloat by attractive offers of stock. Ellis O. Jones. HE “manners of the old school” are not a survival of something past. They are an acquirement that comes with age to seasoned natures, and that is no more possible to youth than mellowed tones to a new violin. Again Perfected HE papers quote Mr. Edison as say- ing that his storage battery is per- fected and that you can charge enough power into it in four or five minutes to run a wagon fifty or sixty miles, and that it is a little light thing that can be carried in a suit case. Grand! Let us hope that Mr. Edison did say so and that it is all so. But words to that effect have been quoted as coming from Mr. Edison, for many years past, so that his perfected storage battery has taken its place in the mind as a perpetual not-yet-but-soon. None the less we have faith in that battery and more faith in this latest news, which finds support in the fact that horses were eliminated some months ago from the Twenty-ninth Street Crosstown railway in this place. H°’ unoriginal is Mexico! comicbooks.com