Life, 1912-12-05 · page 36 of 116
Life — December 5, 1912 — page 36: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical poem by Clinton Scollard nostalgically contrasts old and new wealth in New York City. **Battery Park** (lower Manhattan) was once the prestigious address for the wealthy elite, where residents commanded social influence and respect simply by their address and casual remarks. The satire critiques modern materialism: today's status-obsessed society now requires **automobiles** ("motors") to maintain relevance—without one, you're practically worthless ("de trop"). The poem laments this shift from inherited gentility to consumer-driven status symbols. The illustration caption, "IF WE HAD A LITTLE MORE SENSE," reinforces the joke: accumulating possessions and chasing fashionable addresses represents foolish priorities. The opening cartoon shows six childish figures dancing with various objects, suggesting how eagerly people pursue trivial happiness through material goods—the visual joke matching the poem's critique of modern consumer culture and status anxiety replacing genuine aristocratic standing.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“IF HAPPINESS CAME AS READILY A Ballade of Battery Park D EAD are the days of postilions and chaises; Soon we shall wish to like meteors go; Sooth, in this age of contentions and crazes, If you've no motor you're greatly de trop! You might as well be a “man with a hoe”; You might as well be a dog with no bark! Once your position was weightier, though, Had you a dwelling on Battery Park! That was a station where “ pishes” or praises Had no more force than the light thistle-blow; Conscious your portion was cast among daisies, Fast you might fare, or move sauntering slow; How you were quoted, your con or your pro, If you but dropped just the slightest remark! Folk, sotto voce, said, “ That’s so and so,” Had you a dwelling on Battery Park! Ah, but the picture that retrospect raises Out of the past with its glamour and glow!— Shimmer of lights on the minuet’s mazes, Curtsy of belle and the bowing of beau; Flourish of snuff-box and fine furbelow; Surely it seems long ago as the ark! Yet there were pleasures and triumphs, I trow, Once ‘twas a dwelling on Battery Park. Envoi Friend, of our foibles this life is a show, From our first breath to the fall of the dark! Now ’tis a house upon Millionaire’s Row; Once ’twas a dwelling on Battery Park. Clinton Scollard. IF WE HAD A LITTLE MORE SENSE comicbooktee 4