Life, 1913-01-23 · page 11 of 40
Life — January 23, 1913 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains a satirical illustration and two opinion pieces critiquing the U.S. postal system. **The Cartoon:** Shows a woman and man in an elegant interior. The woman exclaims "She! That sounds like my husband's step!" while the man responds "Hang it, he's getting so he leaves us at all." The humor targets marital infidelity—the man appears to be a lover whose visits are becoming less frequent because the husband is increasingly absent from home. **"The Flaw":** Criticizes the post office's lack of securities or stock listings, arguing this prevents it from being traded on exchanges like other institutions. The author contends the post office's value and pricing power remain perpetually uncertain. **"When Wisdom Lingers":** A brief anecdote about a successful but lengthy surgical operation on a poor patient, commenting on medical outcomes and class differences. The page reflects early-20th-century American concerns about institutional reform and social commentary.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
-LIFE- 195 “su! THAT SOUNDS LIKE MY HUSBAND'S STEP!” “HANG IT, HE’S GETTING SO HE LEAVES US NO TIME TO OURSELVES AT ALL.” The Flaw HE great fundamental, damnatory weakness in our Post office system is that it has no securities, no common stock, no preferred stock, no watered stock; noth- ing that can be listed on a respectacle stock exchange and bought and sold and rebought and resold and rere- bought and reresold. If there were only securities, beauti- fully engraved certificates of negotiable assets, the post office could change hands every few days and its price be raised and lowered along with those other vacillatory flora and fauna. Its ownership would be perennially in doubt, long and futile investigations could be held about it and the price of postage stamps could have as low a specific gravity as that of eggs, coal and meat. As it is, the post office is of use only to the people, and no use whatsoever to the commission brokers or the captains of industry or the master minds of Wall street When Wisdom Lingers HE operation was successful; also the patient was dead The doctor spoke kindly to the mourning widow: “Marvelous that the poor man lived through so many years of so much disease and suffering!" “Yes, doctor,” the widow replied, “we had tried our best to make him have the operation long, long before this.” comicbooks.com