Life, 1911-10-26 · page 15 of 50
Life — October 26, 1911 — page 15: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two satirical pieces from *Life* magazine: **"Bulls and Bears"** (left) mockingly describes stock market volatility, portraying brokers as confused and reactive. The humor relies on absurdist logic—stocks move "counter to prevailing tendency," mechanics are called to "loosen" tight money, and a $1 million surplus causes chaos. The accompanying cartoon shows a doctor's office scene with working-class Irish dialect, likely satirizing how even ordinary people got caught up in financial speculation. **"Our Grand Fall Opening"** (right) satirizes the Fashion Reform League's self-importance. The text boasts about controlling "the entire metropolitan press" through advertising dominance—a dig at media manipulation and corporate power. Mayor Gaynor's quoted speech, referencing the philosopher Epictetus, absurdly praises women adopting stiff posture as a "patriotic movement." The four fashion illustrations represent different styles being promoted. The satire targets wealthy institutions' ability to dominate public discourse and the grandiose language used to market trivial consumer goods.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
-LIFE-: 707 Bulls and Bears TOCKS sudderfly went down on Monday. This was sur- prising, for Monday is not their regular day for going down The older brokers claimed it was all due to the pass- ing of the idle rich and asserted that as soon as they had passed, stocks would convalesce. On Tuesday the market was oversold until long atter the opening. From then on it was everbought Brokers were overpaid and customers were undermined. In view of this, every stock in the list moved counter to the prevailing ten- dency. Then came the news that the Clearing House showed a cash surplus of $1,000,000. Everybody quit work and started to hunt for the cash, After several false scents, the cash was traced to the door of J. P Morgan & Co. At this point all hope was abandoned. On Wednesday it was scen that money had tightened up during the night. Mechanics were sent for to loosen it. Again and again the mechanics were summoned, until it was so loose it actually wobbled. This, combined with a change of temperature duc to a high pressure arca near Medicine Hat, started the magneto and the ticker was thrown into third speed. On Thursday, with the bank statement still two days off, it was seen that the market was governed by possible future developments, On this basis a caucus was held, They de- cided they could do nothing without the bank statement. This was done. At the end of the hiatus the bank statement put in its appearance and everyone went home happy “4s tue poctor 13 “NO, SIR, BUT WON'T YE PLEASE COME IN? HELL BE RIGHT BACK, ME'S GONE TO SEE WIS OTHER PATIEN Our Grand Fall Opening Fashion Reform League's Display—Speeches by Mayor Gaynor and President Taft—A New Era for American People OR grand fall opening took place last week in Lire Park—formerly Central—but now exclusively occu- pied by Lire’s Fashion Reform League. During the week all other business was suspended in honor of the occasion, and the department stores and ad- vertising columns were closed to all announcements except ours, As our advertising in the daily papers amounts to more than that of any of the big firms, we had no difficulty LA GOLONDRINA” NO, 3—“ FROU FROU” NO. 4—“LA SYLPHIDE” in being able to control the entire metropolitan press. is generally recognized that the business of women with clothes is the most important indust country, and inasmuch as we were the first to establish the idea that all fashions should originate here, the whole af- fair was regarded by everybody in the light of a patriotic movement. Mayor nor gave our employees a private dinner and said in brief: s Epictetus would have remarked had he been here, if our ladies are now walking as if they had swallowed a ramrod, it is not reason that does this, but a great scien- tific movement that has for its motto, ‘America for the Americans.’ This is such an inspiring occasion that I feel so pleasant it is almost an effort to say anything dis- agreeable; therefore I shall make this speech shorter than usual. Here’s to the ladies; may they always make us live beyond our incomes.” Owing to Mr. Morgan’s absence we were obliged to fall back on Mr. Taft, who came on from the West over night and presided at the ceremonies. It is practically impossible to describe all the bewildering comicbooks.com