Life, 1912-07-25 · page 18 of 41
Life — July 25, 1912 — page 18: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satire mocks a fictional "Pessimists' Club" that allegedly screens members for *genuine* pessimism. The joke targets Americans who adopt pessimistic attitudes as a fashionable pose during hard times, then abandon it when circumstances improve—"temporary pessimists" the Club must expel. The cartoon catalogs regional pessimist "types": the dour **New England Pessimist** (backbone of the club), the **New Jersey Pessimist** (who hides despair behind false cheerfulness), and the **Baltimore Pessimist** (melancholy by heredity). The caricatured figures—sad men in period dress—illustrate these regional stereotypes. The satire's target is clear: Americans who adopt pessimism superficially rather than embodying it authentically. The Club's tongue-in-cheek "rule" restricting membership to naturalized citizens adds xenophobic humor typical of the era. The piece satirizes both pessimism-as-fashion and American regional stereotyping.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
All False Pessimists Beware! oe el og You Are not Wanted as Members of the Pessimists’ Club— Various Specimens from Different Localities—The Coming Season, and Its Lack of Promise E have received a great many applications from people who are apparently pessi 's on the sur- face, but after they have become mem- hers of the club they have: indicated signs of such spontancous chcerful- ness as to render their presence ob- noxious, and they have, therefore, been dismissed. Fortunately, the num- ber of these people in this country, in proportion to the total population, is very few, but the fact that they exist makes it necessary for us to deal with them. It frequently happens that people will become temporary pessimists through the stress of outward circum- stances, and when in this condition their enthusiasm carries them away. They get the idea that they were born to the pessimistic purple. Now the genuine pessimist is never disturbed by any sudden burst of luck or any condition which seems to look toward better things. He knows that in a short time everything is going to be just as bad as it ever was. * These “Our relationship with the police has been not only friendly, but intimate and cordial.” are the people that naturally become members of the Pessimists’ Club. And herein lies another problem. Unless all signs fail, we shall have to limit the membership of the club.- Our first tule will probably be that nobody but naturalized American citizens can join. At present we have a very wide variety of membership, extending over the entire country. There is, for ex- ample, the New England Pessimist. We may say that the New England Pessimist is the backbone of the club. “New England Pessimist.” If you have any doubt about the qual- ity or genuineness of your pessimism, consort for a short time with some of our New England members. The New Englard Pessimists are also sub-divided into Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Maine branches, not to mention the pessimists of the grand old State of Vermont. The New Jersey Pessimist has pe- culiar gifts. He differs from the New England Pessimist in many respects. “A temporary pessimist” He goes about with a hypocritical as- sumption of cheerfulness and has even been known to smile upon occasion. This is only his method of concealing his real temperament from the world. At heart he is true blue, and when you catch him in his own home there is no more lachrymose or absolutely despair- ing creature on the face of the earth Proceeding south, we have the Bal- timore Pessimist, whose fine strain of melancholy apparently comes from the fact that he has for so many genera- “Have no heart to attend”