Life, 1913-05-15 · page 49 of 52
Life — May 15, 1913 — page 49: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains satirical editorial commentary and period advertisements rather than traditional cartoons. **"The Woman Question"** essay mocks anti-suffrage arguments through ironic praise. It claims the "woman question" is safely permanent—that women will never gain equality because the question itself is too valuable to society. The satire suggests that those opposing women's rights use circular logic: they argue women's issues should remain perpetually unresolved rather than settled through reform. **Context**: This appears from the early 1910s, during intense suffrage activism. Life magazine was known for satirizing social conservatives and political hypocrites. By pretending to celebrate women's permanent powerlessness, the author ridicules those who genuinely held such views. The advertisements (Dixon's Graphite, Rápid Cooker, Europe tours) are typical period commercial content, unrelated to the editorial message. The photograph showing a crowded stock exchange introduces the **Bell Telephone advertisement**, which uses visual contrast—silent communication versus noisy chaos—to promote telephone technology's efficiency.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
ughter, CTP ES in the manipulating, but which, ac- cording to Mr. B: he holds merely as a non-particip: “dummy.” Isn't it interesting? Some fine ethi- cal distinctions involved there which our honorable courts no doubt. will earnestly struggle with and work out to thoroughly moral conclusions. Has a shady transaction any rights which a dummy is bound to respect? Is a man who grabs from a_ franchise- grabber any worse than a man who grabs from a municipality? Is a “dummy” after all merely a man who is willing to act like a dummy? Was this hundred thousand dollars earned by Mr. Brady any more than by Mr. Kelly? These are but a few of the questions. If for no other reason than that this young man has brought them to our attention, we are justified in shouting, “ Hurrah for Kelly!” SPECIAL ue Price Offer Fireless Cooker 30 Days Free Trial Complete outfit aluminum utensils free. Covers and cooking compart- ments lined with pure aluminum, Dust-proof, odorless. — Write for factory Attractive Tours by All Routes, escorted or inde . lependent Metered. Wiest choice: Inclusive fares. Best tour- aders 8 oups. Uni tad poeta Mall EroUpS. Uniformed Interpreters at stations The Woman Question It is in no danger of being solved. This O not worry over the woman question. is authoritative and final. Many timid people have expressed the fear recently that, owing to the unwonted and excessive agitation due to the unpre nted analysis and scrutiny which the woman question has had to undergo, it could not hope to remain much longer in a coy and unanswered state. To all such be it said: the woman question is made of sterner stuff. The woman question is the summum bonum. The happiness of the entire human race depends on the woman question's remaining a question as long as this reeling world treads its weary orbit. We are confident that the woman question will never forsake poor us. If the crowd onthe stock exchange kept quiet and let one man talk, that man could be heard in every corner of the room. But the shouting mem- bers produce a composite of sound, so that no one trader is understood except by a small group around a particular trading post. If everyone were able to shout twiceas loud, the result would be only a greater noise, and less intelligible. For communication to be universal there must be silenttransmission. In a noisy stock exchange where the voice, unaided, cannot be understood across the room, there are hundreds of telephones which carry speech half way across the continent. e Service The telephone converts the spoken words into silent electrical impulses. In a single Bell telephone cable, a hundred conversations can be carried side by side without interference, and then distributed to as many different cities and towns throughout the land. Each conversation is led through a system of wire pathways to its proper destination, and whispers its message into a waiting ear. Silent transmission and the inter- connecting lines of the Bell System are indispensable for universal tele- phone service. Without such service, our cities would beslowof speech and theStates would be less closely knit together. AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH COMPANY AND ASSOCIATED COMPANIES Every Bell Telephone is the Centre of the System comicbooks.com