Life, 1912-11-07 · page 18 of 60
Life — November 7, 1912 — page 18: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes **George Perkins**, a wealthy financier who became a major political donor, likely during the 1912 Progressive ("Bull Moose") campaign. The satire compares Perkins's political spending to gambling—a modern vice replacing older stock-market speculation. The text argues Perkins represents something new: using vast wealth to influence presidential candidates and entire nations, rather than merely manipulating markets or financing traditional philanthropy (like Carnegie's libraries). The illustration shows a man juggling a baby carriage, symbolizing the reckless stakes involved. The section "His Virtue" mockingly portrays Perkins as morally compromised—drinking, smoking excessively, yet claiming virtue through political "philanthropy." The caption "I feel two natures struggling within me" (referencing Jekyll and Hyde) suggests his moral hypocrisy: he presents himself as a public benefactor while engaging in what Life considers corrupt influence-peddling. The satire's point: wealthy individuals bankrolling candidates represents gambling with national destiny.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
2138 Perkins Hs the Perkins idea come to stay? Its significance is more important than it seems at first blush, Cesar had no Perkins, so far as we know. Neither did Napoleon. Is Perkins peculiar to our advanced civiliza- tion? Certainly Rome and France had to finance their cam- paigns. Rome had its Crassus. France had its Necker, but a Crassus is not a Perkins, Neither is a Necker. The Perkins idea, indeed, seems to be an advance over all previous forms of gambling. The big stock speculation, buying and selling millions of shares, creating panics and upsetting the markets generally, is now no more. The Fiskes, Goulds and Keenes have gone out. The Perkinses have come in, It is certainly a larger sport to put your money into a Presidential candidate. By the old scheme, the most you could do was to finish up a number of widows and orphans. Now you can set an entire country by the cars and raise particular hob with mil- lions. It's more immoral, of course, but much more interesting. Most men prefer to gamble with commonplace things—with wives, babies and their own sense of independence. Perkins has been through all this. He seeks to be, not an at of the Lord, but an angel of Armaged- don, What, indeed, is ordi- nary Philanthropy com- pared with the Perkins idea? How Andrew Car- negie’s Lilliputian figure shrinks, with ite string of toy libraries dangling in the air! To put a couple of mil- lion or so on a Bull Moose and see him run —Well, it beats horse “racing. Especially when the odds are so much against you. His Virtue “H E’S quite regular in his habits, isn’t he?” “Oh, yes! He drinks a quart of whiskey a day, smokes eighteen cigars regularly, and has a reg- ular habit of never get- ting to bed before two a.m.” “LIFE: ly oe “1 PEEL TWO NATURES STRUGGLING WITHIN ME” comicboohedl