Life, 1912-03-07 · page 22 of 60
Life — March 7, 1912 — page 22: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page combines social satire with political commentary. The "Society Dame" joke mocks upper-class hypocrisy—the wealthy woman is horrified that an opera house's acoustics allow conversation to be heard, revealing she values exclusivity over quality. The "Magazine Editors" caricatures pair contemporary figures with publications, likely satirizing editorial bias (Theodore Roosevelt with "Scrap Book," William Howard Taft with "Travel," J.P. Morgan with financial interests). The main cartoon "Penalty for Wearing New Clothes" depicts street children mocking someone in new attire—satirizing class consciousness. "An Installment Plan" proposes electing Presidents piecemeal annually rather than wholesale every four years, claiming this would improve governance and reduce business disruption. The reference to "Mr. Aldrich" (likely Republican Senator Nelson Aldrich) sarcastically credits him with "miracle-working" financial manipulation—typical Progressive-era criticism of wealthy political insiders controlling tariffs and currency.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
LIKE ER NEW reo THE MELEN DIDN'T. Mar wit Ir cane MILLINER'S, $0 F IRST SOCIETY DAME: How are the acoustics of the new opera house? Secon Soctery Some people in the family circle said they could hear every word spoken in our box. Dame: Too good! SHAPES IN MEN'S MATS SOME SWELL SME Wort THE HOX Magazine Editors—As They Might Be Scrap Book pia | Theodore Cosmorouitay Roosevelt. Nation at. Srortsstax 1 .Wm, H. Taft, Success (Defunct) } WJ. Bryan “ Our"iNe AW. Morgan Shuster. Au Stony Dr. Cook. Smart Ser...Fred. Townsend Martin. J.P. M. HE struggle between Capital and Labor is a struggle between those who make a business of business and those who make a business of livii THE PENALTY FOR WEARING NEW CLOTHES An Installment Plan USINESS men rightly complain that the Presidential election, coming as it does, all at once, is an undue disturbance to conditions. This could be avoided in a measure if we could find a way to elect our Presi- dents on the installment plan. If we could elect part of a President—one- quarter, to be exact—each year busi- ness could proceed with something like the customary deviosity. And, fur- thermore, this would probably give us better Presidents. If we elected the tariff part one year, the trust part an- other year, the currency part another, and so on, it is plain that each of these parts could casily be better than the whole. At first blush, this might seem to be a difficult scheme to carry out, but we must remember that we still have the miracle-working Mr. Aldrich in our midst. comicbooks.com