Life, 1911-12-21 · page 18 of 44
Life — December 21, 1911 — page 18: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**Top Cartoon - "A Young Philanthropist":** A child deposits coins into a poor box labeled with charitable sentiments while ignoring a basket of actual poor people. This satirizes performative, self-congratulatory charity—the hypocrisy of publicizing small donations while ignoring systemic poverty. **"A Leading Question" Article:** Life critiques Senator Aldrich's banking organization (likely the Federal Reserve banking system under discussion), which would receive unprecedented government deposits. The piece mocks experts who demand blind trust rather than transparent explanation of why bankers receive such extraordinary privilege over public funds. **Bottom Section - "Yale Gets Some Nice Books":** Life sardonically questions whether a wealthy donor's $100,000 gift of rare manuscripts truly benefits Yale University. The critique: the university already owns important books; rare editions add prestige and interest but little educational knowledge. Life suggests the donor's generosity, while genuine, addresses vanity rather than actual institutional need. **Overall Theme:** Skepticism toward the wealthy's philanthropic gestures that prioritize appearance over substance or genuine social benefit.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
| PRestitte To! SOME Pook B\ —— A YOUNG PHILANTHROPIST A Leading Question Waiving all other questions for the present—there are several important ones—we should like somebody to explain, what nobody seems to have explained yet, why an organiza- tion “of bankers and for banker: Senator Aldrich called this association in his Chicago speech—perhaps inadvertently —should have so great a privilege granted it by Congress as the one it seeks with reference to Government funds, All the receipts of the United States Government for fifty years to come, must be deposited with this association. Why? —Chicago Public. HE well-meaning editor of the Public does not enter into the spirit of the occasion. This is no time for pointed questions requiring specific and informing answers. The experts have spoken. When experts speak we have naught to do but fall in line with optimistic huzzas, en- thusiastic me-toos and sweet, technical nothings. “FOR THE FEMALE OF THE SPEC THAN THE MALE (With no apologics to Rudyard Kipling.) S MORE DEADLY “EVERY HAIR STOOD ERECT” By our conscientious illustrator. Yale Gets Some Nice Books WEN F. ALDIS of Washington, a Yale graduate, has given to Yale University (the papers say) a large collection of first and notable editions of manuscripts and letters of American authors, containing nearly 6,000 volumes, and valued at $100,000. The books are beautifully bound and the gift is a very handsome one. The colle: tion, it seems, will be kept in a separate room in the uni- versity library, and reserved for qualified students. It sounds nice, but after all, does such a gift really help a university? Here is a collection, interesting and valuable for rarity and completeness, but which, apparently, can add very little to knowledge. Yale must house it and take care of it; and she is doubtless glad to get it, for it adds interest to her library. But she must have had all the important books in it already, and it is conceivable that she would really have been better off if Mr. Aldis had sent his treas- comicbookeom