Life, 1912-03-21 · page 20 of 52
Life — March 21, 1912 — page 20: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The cartoon titled "Getting Even" depicts a figure on the left (appearing to be a political leader, likely President Theodore Roosevelt based on the 1904-1912 dates) balanced precariously on a seesaw or plank. On the right side, a group of people push down with a sign reading "VOTES FOR WOMEN." The satire targets **political flip-flopping**. The accompanying text juxtaposes two contradictory statements: Roosevelt's 1904 declaration that he would never accept another nomination versus his 1912 statement accepting the presidential nomination. The subtitle "Anything to Get There" emphasizes his supposed hypocrisy. The "Getting Even" caption suggests the cartoon blames women voters (or suffragists) for "evening the score"—using their voting power to expose or punish his inconsistency. This reflects early-1910s debates over women's suffrage and its potential political consequences.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
GETTING EVEN California ALIFORNIA, with its head in the Rockies and its fect in the Pacific, is the one genuinely picturesque and romantic State in the Union; it gave new wealth to the Republic, a new note to literature, a new door to the East, a new lure to the West and a host of new terrors and new shibboleths to politics. It is the one State in the Union decorated with ruins, tempered by earthquakes, permeated by romance, and whose climate, glorious and variegated, takes precedence to State pride. It was conquered, captured, divided, settled, cultivated and excavated by a population whose exodus from home was applauded everywhere, and who proved that progress and prosperity were as certain in the hands of sinners as of saints. These pioncers of the Golden Fleece were pugna- cious Pilgrims and not praying Puritans; and while they believed in the virtue of law and order and the grace of religion, they still had faith in the tonic influence of the rope, the gun and the unwritten law, judiciously admin- istered at psychological moments. The olden days, the golden days, when California was joyous, unconventional, shirt-sleeved and self-sufficient are gone; the placer is played out; the color line has moved from the ore to the Oriental; the people that feared noth- ing on two legs or four now suffer from Asiatic insomnia; the State that once fed the mints with yellow meta: now feeds the mind of America with yellow perils and its belly with fish and fruit and wheat and wine; and that California which once boasted of its hospitality to-day brags of the lemons it hands the world. The halcyon days are gone. ‘The soul of California is big, its mind is broad, its heart is warm, its hand is open; but its eye teeth are cut. Though the California of the poet and the adventurer has passed into history, the Slope is still the Land of Hope, the Mecca of Men sick of convention and claptrap, who seek its mountains and valleys for tone and tonic; they come back cured and contented—to die at home. The Sierras and the Sea of Peace call eternally to the souls of men; but the lvre of the Atlantic and the yell of the dollar turn the feet and soul of the poet and dreamer to the trail of the effete East, where Mammon rules and Momus grins. Joseph Smith. His Word and Honor NOVEMBER 8, 1904. “Under no circumstances will I be a candidate for or ac- cept another nomination.” FEBRUARY 25, 1912. “T will accept the nomination for President if it is ten- dered to me.” AnyTHinG To Get THERE. comicbooks.com