Life, 1912-03-07 · page 25 of 60
Life — March 7, 1912 — page 25: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes mandatory typhoid vaccination in the U.S. Navy. The cartoon depicts an early airplane labeled "340" with the caption "Driver, I want to stop at 340, please"—a visual joke about lack of control, suggesting sailors forced into medical procedures have no agency over their own bodies. The main article mocks Navy commanders who forced 200 mutinous sailors on the USS Vermont to submit to vaccination against their will, using irons and threats. Life's editors argue that the sailors were *right* to resist—claiming vaccinations are "filthy" and "dangerous," and that intelligent adults shouldn't be forced to undergo them. They criticize the Navy's "medieval" medical practices. The secondary piece, "Revised," appears unrelated—a humorous riff on Robinson Crusoe that connects his travels to exposure to suffragette speeches and aeroplanes, using similar themes of unexpected journeys. The satire targets military authoritarianism and forced medical procedures as violations of individual liberty.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
One Reward of Patriotism E are told, in a special to the New York Times, that 200 men on the battleship Vermont at Guantanamo, declining to submit to ty- phoid vaccination, mutinied last week, and that the crew of the Minnesota had to be called to assist in quelling the trouble. All of the mutineers were put in irons and forced to submit to the needles of the surgeons. Irons are too good for them. Any American sailor who balks at having another man’s diseases squirted into his system should be severely disci- plined. The same dispatch says: When the order requiring all men to submit to the typhoid vaccination was posted, there was strong objection from “ DRIVER, I WANT TO STOP AT 340, PLEASE” every vessel of the fleet. On the Ver- mont the opposition was so strong that when a few of the bolder men declined to submit, scores joined them. Orders from the Commander failed to get them in line. Although threatened with irons, the men still declined to permit the vaccinations to proceed, fully 200 join- ing the protest. The moral of which is that our sail- ors are wiser than the vaccinators. It does seem a little hard that intelligent, healthy adults should be forced to sub- mit to this filthy rite with all its at- tendant dangers. And we fear the last lines of this dispatch will not encour- age eniistment in our medixvally doc- tored navy. The feeling that their shipmates were more or less in sympathy with them, 3 though they had submitted, is the reason given for the request for the Minnesota men to arrest the mutineers. It is also said that a number of men resisted to the last and had to be put in irons he- fore order was restored. : Do these surgeons really believe in vaccination? Or is this display of au- thority merely a matter of discipline? Revised Poor old Robinson Crusoe, What ever made him do so? had attended suffragette meet- ings. heard after-dinner speeches, y York, and under these H lived in N circumstances took the first aeroplane that came along, which accounts for the reason why . He flew so.