Life, 1911-12-28 · page 23 of 41
Life — December 28, 1911 — page 23: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**"Hands Across the Sea"** shows various hands holding foreign objects—a fan, vegetables, tools, a plant—representing different nationalities. Readers are invited to guess which country each hand represents. This is a visual guessing game playing on national stereotypes and characteristics recognizable through everyday objects. **"Progress"** features Thomas Edison's pessimistic quote about needing better statesmen for industrial progress. The article counters Edison, arguing that progress happens independently of politicians—who are merely "flies on the wheel." The tone is skeptical of political leadership. **"Pulled Him Through"** is a brief joke: a doctor "cured" a patient by treating his "small bank account"—implying financial stress caused the illness, not actual disease. **"Another Argument for Seeing America First"** cartoon shows Americans boarding a train in Germany with only high school German knowledge—satirizing inadequate travel preparation and promoting domestic tourism as superior to foreign travel.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
HANDS FROM ACROSS THE SEA (Guess WHO THEY ARE) old one. The theme has the double advantage of being unhackneyed and of touching the common experience of all who have ever endured the too close and too much prolonged companionship of travel, committee work or camp. And the author's unilluded but sympathetic under- standing of his chosen types brings impartially before us the humor of their misery and the tragedy of their gro- tesqueness. J. B. Kerfoot. Progress R, EDISON is always interesting and usually optimis- tic, but the following is a little off his regular k “In fifty years from now I hope that we will have evolved a class of men who are capable of grasping t great tangled mass of basic principles upon which our in- dustrial life is founded. Until this class of men appears on the national horizon 1 expect little real progress.” It is statesmen that Mr. Edison feels the need of. Very good! They would be nice to have around, but we can’t agree that progress without them is impossible, and no one ought to know that better than Mr, Edison, He has lived his own progressive life quite independently of cither statesman or politician. After all, a statesman is merely a politician with whom we agree. Neither is necessarily a leader of progress. Both are flies on the wheel, and we honor them in direct proportion to their riding ability. Pulled Him Through Y= , the doctor has pronounced me cured.” “What did he treat you for?” A small bank account.” ANOTHER ARGUMENT FOR SEEING AMERICA FIRST FIFTFEN SECONDS TILL THE TRAIN STARTS AND ALL THE GERMAN YOU KNOW WAS LEARNED IN HIGH SCHOOL! comicbooks.com