Life, 1911-11-23 · page 11 of 44
Life — November 23, 1911 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two elements: a serious editorial and a humorous cartoon. **The Editorial** discusses Fourth of July fireworks safety, noting deaths and injuries from fireworks. It celebrates efforts to reduce casualties—Massachusetts reduced deaths by 51%, Pennsylvania by 41%—crediting press coverage and local ordinances against "the silly and dangerous custom." **The Cartoon** ("Our Illustrated Songs: After the Ball Was Over") depicts a baseball scene. A player swings and appears to have hit another person instead of the ball, shown crouching injured. The joke plays on the song title "After the Ball Was Over"—suggesting literal consequences of a wild swing. It's gentle sports humor, likely satirizing either careless play or overzealous batting.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
NATIONAL VAUDEVILLE Aldrich to Taft: WACKERSHAM ALWAYS BRINGS DOWN THE MOUSE WITH THAT PLAY Concerning the Fourth of July ATHER out of season to talk about the Fourth of July when Christmas is looming up in the near fu- ture, but certain figures just published by the Journal of the American Medical Association are timely for those who are interested in Lire’s crusade against celebrating our national birthday by a slaughter of the innocents. It is grateful to learn that the movement in behalf of a sane Fourth has shown such speedy results, although there are still many communities where the barbaric use of noise and fire to express patriotism is not prohibited by the authorities. According to the figures before us, the deaths from Fourth of July fireworks and explosives in 1911 were fifty-seven, In 1909 there were 215 and in 1910 there were 131. The main influence in bringing about this reduction in the death rate is the attitude of the press and the more intelligent public in urging the enforcement of local ordinances against the silly and dangerous custom. Others among these figures are interesting, for instance, 39,219 persons have been killed or injured during the past nine years in celebrating the Fourth of July. Massachusetts, whose John Adams is often quoted in support of the fireworks idea, makes reparation by reduc- ing its death list to only six per cent. of what it was two years ago. Pennsylvania’ has an unenviable precedence over New York, recording 442 casualties this year to the latter’s 237. Among Western States, Illinois heads the rec- ord with only 217 injuries, but Indiana, Iowa and Michi- gan still show a marked lack of enlightenment. Besides the fifty-seven deaths in 1911, eight persons lost both eyes, twenty-six one eye cach, and thirty are minus a leg, an arm or a hand. It will be scen that there is still need of agitation for a proper and reasonable way of cele- brating the national holiday and against useless killing and maiming OUR ILLUSTRATED SONGS AFTER THE BALL WAS OVER comicbooks.com