Life, 1912-03-28 · page 19 of 50
Life — March 28, 1912 — page 19: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**Top Cartoon:** Shows a man in bed being attended to by a woman, while three men in formal dress observe. The caption reads "Darling, it's for your own good"—likely satirizing medical or business exploitation masked as concern. **Main Article "A Case of Specific Gravity":** Criticizes yellow journalism and the press for publishing sensational trivia while ignoring important stories about corporate malfeasance. The author notes that express companies' enormous profits (like $69,000/month from double-collection schemes) barely registered publicly, while corporate lobbyists successfully blocked reform legislation in Washington. The piece argues this editorial negligence prevents citizens from addressing corruption they could easily eliminate. **"The Word of a Gentleman":** Contrasts two presidential quotes—one from November 1904 denying candidacy, another from February 1912 accepting nomination. This likely references Theodore Roosevelt's flip-flopping on running for president, satirizing broken promises as hypocrisy. **Bottom illustration:** "The Alligator Pear and Man-Go" appears to be a separate satirical cartoon, though its specific reference is unclear.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“DARLING, 11's ror{ A Case of Specific Gravity NE of the great arguments used by the yellow jour- nalists is the fact that they are never indecent; that their material can be read in any home, and that its only fault is that they try to make it as interesting as possible. But the real trouble with our press is not that it does not necessarily publish interesting material, but that it publishes so much that is superfluous that when some truth which ought to be known is published it receives no at- tention. Recently there has been some agitation showing the enormous profits of the express companies, one of them, for instance, being in receipt of $69,000 in one month, due to money that was taken in by being collected on packages at both ends of the route. These things made scarcely a sipple in the public mind, whereas the agents of commer- cial corporations are working at Washington night and day to prevent legislation which will interfere with their profits. This is the real danger of our journalistic literature; it prevents us from knowing and understanding fully those things that we could easily eradicate if we had time. YOUR ” OwN coop THEIR The Word of a Gentleman NOVEMBER 8, 1904. “Under no circumstanees 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.” THE ALLIGATOR PEAR AND MAN-CO comicbooks.com