Life, 1913-06-26 · page 11 of 45
Life — June 26, 1913 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes newspaper accusations against American armor manufacturers. The cartoon shows animals in human dress reading newspapers, with a grotesque creature sprawled below—likely representing a malicious libel or false accusation. The article defends manufacturers against charges of wartime profiteering and fraud. It acknowledges America's commercial dishonesty in various industries (food adulteration, false weights, credit fraud) but argues that ammunition and armor-plate manufacturers maintain ethical standards—they wouldn't dare compromise military equipment. The cartoon's beast represents the "base libel" itself: unfounded accusations. The animals reading newspapers suggest public consumption of these potentially false charges. The satire criticizes both reckless newspaper accusations *and* implicitly acknowledges why such accusations seem plausible given America's documented commercial corruption in other sectors.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
A Base Libel a is good to sce that some of our newspapers have had the temerity to criticise Mr. Bryan roundly for his charge that American armorers and armor-platers have conspired, from commercial motives, to foment war scares. How Mr. Bryan could possibly acquired such a notion is beyond our most fertile imagination. True it is we have done some pretty low things in our onward commercial march. True it is we have cut each other's commercial throats with exceeding ruthlessness. True we have borne false witness against our neighbor’s goods and against his credit. True we have adulterated food products, lied about weights, measures and quality, gam- “HERE'S A WRITER WHO CONDEMNS HUMAN RUGS WITH THE HEADS. ROB A SKIN OF HALF ITS BEAUTY, I MOUNTING WHY, ’TWOULD say” bled in stocks, juggled finances, grafted in politics and committed fraud in every way that the postal regulations allowed and in many ways that the postal regulations did not allow. But never, in our most degraded moments, would we or could we sink so low as to be anything but com- mercially upright and ethically punctilious when it comes to selling ammunition, armor-plate or other martial requi- sites. Perish the thought, Mr. Bryan. How could you? £.0.4. Bw Is he a man of plebian habits: Barker: Yes. He is willing to be seen in a New York church during the summer months. comicbooks.com