Life, 1912-02-22 · page 10 of 44
Life — February 22, 1912 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical piece criticizes the hypocrisy of wealthy society's response to a Converse company treasurer's suicide in Connecticut. Mr. Glover, the bank president, expresses concern that the poor will suffer from this "terrible blow," but the text systematically dismantles this false sympathy—noting the actual "terrible blows" would fall on the treasurer's children, stockholders, company directors, and Wall Street brokers who benefited from Converse's operations. The left cartoon shows products labeled with northeastern manufacturing locations (Philadelphia, Brooklyn, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts), satirizing Eastern industrial exploitation. The caption "THE REAL WILD WEST / ALL COMES FROM THE EAST" inverts frontier mythology, suggesting the moral wildness of industrial capitalism occurs in the civilized East, not the frontier West. The satire argues the poor expect hardship, while the wealthy's self-serving concern masks their complicity.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
382 A Terrible Blow P in Windsor Locks, Conn., the other day, a highly respectable gentleman of the name of Converse com- mitted suicide. At about the same time a highly respectable savings bank, the treasurership of which he had but re- cently relinquished after an incumbency of many years, failed for about a quarter million of dollars. In com- menting upon the affair, Mr. Glover, the bank’s president, said: “ This will be a terrible blow to the poor.” Not so. Mr. Glover’s words are more considerate than thoughtful. It will not be a terrible blow to the poor mill and factory hands of that little community who followed the gospel of thrift which Mr. Converse taught his fellow church members. Nothing can be a terrible blow to the poor, They are used to it, Terrible blows are such every- day matters with them that a few more or less are not worth noticing. But it would be a terrible blow to the children of Mr. Converse if they had to give up the property which “ie thoughtfully deeded them before his death. And it would be a terrible blow to the stockholders if they had to give back the dividends which this concern yielded them. And “LSAY, MISTER, YOU'RE A PATCH—EE INDIAN, AIN'T YER?” it would be a terrible blow to the directors if they had to make good the loss and were then punished for their dere- liction of duty in allowing Mr. Converse to have full and uninterrupted swa And it would be a terrible blow to the Connecticut officials if they were compelled to suffer for allowing a semi-public institution of this sort to have such a lax system of bookkeeping as has since been re- vealed. And it would be a terrible blow to those Wall Street brokers in particular, as well as to the financial principles of Wall Street in general, if they were required to return the stolen goods which Mr. Converse deposited with them in the name of speculation. But a terrible blow to the poor? Ah, no! They are accustomed to it, Ellis O. Jones. Help Wanted HOSE politicians in Washington are in rather an un: comfortable position, They won't have private mo- nopoly and they won't have public monopoly, and they can’t get old-fashioned competition. Some other way . ry out THE REAL WILD WEST would be welcomed by them if anyone would care to make ALL COMFS FROM THE EAST a suitable suggestion. comicbooks.com