Life, 1911-09-28 · page 17 of 42
Life — September 28, 1911 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three satirical pieces critiquing American institutions and society: **"A Law-Destroying Body"** attacks Congress for legislative overproduction. The cartoon shows Lady Justice (holding "Suffrage") weighed down by three figures, illustrating how excessive laws burden society. The satire argues that too many laws create such complexity that ignorance becomes universal and lawyers become unnecessarily wealthy. A modified Lincoln quote suggests government now serves lawyers rather than the people. **"A Strange Doctrine"** questions a doctor's advice that people ignore restrictive diets and eat naturally instead. The satire implies this revolutionary medical opinion—if taken seriously by the public rather than just professionals—would economically devastate the medical profession. **"A Hopeless Failure"** is a brief Jewish-dialect joke about a son so incompetent he even fails at bankruptcy, playing on stereotypical humor common to the era. The overall theme critiques institutional excess, professional self-interest, and social complexity.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
| *LIPFE* 523 A Law-Destroying Body ONGRESS needs a complement. All legislatures need | complements. We have reduced law-making to a fine art. We can turn off laws while you wait. We can turn them off so fast that we have piled up our laws mountain- high. When laws were few, ignorance of the law excused no one and lawyers did not need to be millionaires in order to have a representative library. Now we have so many ° laws that ignorance of the law excuses anyone. Many are passed, but none repealed. With a decade of good, intelligent and systematic law- | destroying this country would be almost modern. | I* Abraham — Lincoln had it to say over again, as things are to- day, he might have mod- ified it to “a govern- ment of the people, by lawyers, for lawyers.” > “HEAVY, HEAVY, HANGS O'ER TITY FAD” The world is so full of a number of things I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings. RL. S. A Strange Doctrine DR CHARLES Suan FISCHER of New York said recently: Under normal general conditions the average stomach is able to withstand the ordinary ui avoidable assaults of daily life. The specif monotonous, scientifically considered dietary of the books does more harm than good. It is folly to expect benefit from a régime that makes life more miserable than it was before. This seems to be revolutionary, coming from a doctor in good standing. The idea that we should go about our business and eat what we please, on the principle that Nature knows some- thing about dietetics, persisted in, would put all the doctors out of business. But perhaps Dr. Fischer’s statement —which appears only in the Medical Record—is intended for the profession only and not for ordinary lay consump- tion, A Hopeless Failure s OUR son iss not a business man, is he, Mr. Isaacstein?" asks Mr. Mosestein, “Gott! Louie? Business man? In business he failed yet und into bank- ruptcy vent—undt even his bankruptcy vas a failure, too.” comicbooks.com