Life, 1913-05-22 · page 20 of 48
Life — May 22, 1913 — page 20: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**"The Tarif" Cartoon (top left):** A visual joke mocking the Simplified Spelling movement, which advocated removing letters from English words. Life sarcastically proposes dropping the "f" from "tariff" during heated tariff debates. The humor lies in exaggerating the absurdity: they claim the saved letters, if laid end-to-end, would stretch from Alabama to West Virginia—an obvious hyperbolic nonsense. This satirizes both spelling reformers and the contentious, seemingly endless tariff discussion dominating politics. **"A Threatened Danger" (right side):** This article darkly jokes that doctors profit by inventing new diseases to replace old ones people have become immune to. It cynically suggests physicians maintain relevance by creating novel ailments rather than curing familiar ones. The piece mocks Americans' fascination with fashionable new diseases while lampooning the medical profession's apparent self-interest over patient welfare. **Bottom Dialogue (vaudeville sketch):** A simple romantic joke: an actor invites his wife to a show; the manager welcomes her warmly, saying "any wife of yours is always welcome"—a flirtatious double entendre.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
‘LJ ae The Tarif BrHoLP the tari See it is spelt with one f. It is simplified. We cannot hope to simplify tarif, the schedules; nor tarif, the arguments; nor tarif, the conflicting inter- at least we can simplify tarif, the ests; but word. This we suggest on our own initiative without knoing whether the Simplified Spel- ing Board concurs or not. If it concurs, it will write us a letter and then we shall kno. It is especially important that this be done immediately, while the tarif discussion is at its height. It is almost impossible to esti- mate how much this would save. One of our office statisticians declares that the f's saved in this year algne, if placed side by side, would reach from Alabama to West Virginia. Another figures that, if placed end to end and bent in the form of a rain- bow, one end would be in Lawrence, Mass., and the other in Little Falls, New York No objections being heard, it is so ordered. AMBITION A Threatened Danger The reduced vitality of Americans is the chief cause for the increase of the diseases in latter part of the century passed.—Dr. Allen G. Rice, as quoted by the Springfield Republican. UT, doctor, is not the number of new diseases which have been discovered also a large factor? Human beings wear out old-fashioned diseases. His- 4 tory proves this. After a disease has had a protracted run people become immune to it Possibly this is why the serum inventors, in order to maintain their existence, are constantly obliged to invent new diseases. That ingenious enthusia succeed in inventing a new disease is in time of trouble—to his own profession. He also suc- ceeds in permitting his ients to die of something new and original, rather than in the old stereotyped ways which i might otherwise prevail. It is so much more interesting F| to die of some up-to-date malady which is being adver- tised. Such is our moving interest in anything new, that to die of a commonplace and familiar ailment which the doctors have long given up is not only annoying, but argues a distressing lack of distinction. - Heaven help us, therefore, if the doctors go back on us and become incapable of supplying new diseases. st among the doctors who can never present help Actor: AWFULLY GooD OF YOU TO SEND ME A PASS FOR THAT MATINEE. DO YOU MIND IF [ BRING MY WIFE? A™ Manager: My vEAR BOY, WHAT A QUESTION! You MUST KNOW THAT ANY WIFE OF YOURS IS ALWAYS WELCOME N trying to win one woman and following the advice of another seldom fails to win—the other woman, comicbooks.com