Life, 1913-06-26 · page 19 of 45
Life — June 26, 1913 — page 19: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two satirical pieces targeting prominent figures of the era: **"Letters to the Literati: To George Ade"** criticizes the Indiana writer for his neologisms and slang, which the author argues debases proper English. The poem mocks Ade's invented words ("Bazoosh," "Magoozalum") and predicts future scholars will puzzle over his legacy—a humorous attack on his literary style and influence. **"Query" section** discusses a "New Thought" healer convicted in New York for fraud. The satire's point: the judge ruled she acted within her rights accepting money while promising cures. The author notes this principle logically applies to doctors too—if both take payment without delivering results, what's the moral difference? This exposes potential hypocrisy in how society treats dubious practitioners. **Bottom cartoon** depicts three men discussing marriage on fifteen dollars weekly—apparently absurd economics for the time, treating matrimony as a commodity priced beyond working-class means.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
oh bl a Light is your pencil and playful, yet shrewd it ii Flouting our vanities, mocking our crudities, Narrowness, snobbishness, petty vulgarities, Avarice—all of our varnished barbarities. Sometimes you pall (for my palate is finical), Sometimes I find you a trifle too cynical; Yet, as a rule, I discern your ostensible Laughter-voiced moral of, “ Oh, let’s be sensible!” Bright are your plays, and your “Sultan of Sulu,” sir, Wherein that lyric, “ Remor: is a loo-loo, sir. Yes, though a surfeit of cocktails may smother one, Farmer of Hazelden, come, have another on Arthur Guiterman, Query NEW THOUGHT" healer in New York was recently convicted upon the testimony of two women detectives and sentenced to pay a fine of twenty-five dol- lars or ten days in jail. The detectives testified that she had promised to cure them, “She was within her rights,” Letters to the Literati sald the judge, “in accepting money, but not in promising To G Ad If this is a solid principle it seems to us that it might o George “Ade also be applied to many doctors. If a doctor takes your money after promising to cure you, and you don’t get well, just what is the exact difference between him and this new thought healer? EORGEST OF ADES, Indiana’s Palladium, Glory of Hoosierdom's Ink-bottle Stadium, Artist in Argot, Relentless Neologist, What lexicographer, what etymologist Ever may sanction your awful, spectacular, Strong-arm assaults on our Noble Vernacular! Say! have you wholly forgotten your mother tongue? Slinger of Slang, do you know any other tongue? When, in the future, the wise antiquarian Ponders the tomes of the modern librarian Found in the wreck of some Hoosier metropolis— (Goshen, in ruins like vast Heliopolis, Muncie, in ashes like old Herculaneum)— How he will puzzle his erudite cranium Over the works you'll have left to Posterity! What will he make of them?—aye, of a verity! ffany Water?” he'll cry.— Oh, Kafoozalum! What are the roots of “ Bazoosh” and “ Magoozalum "? What are “ Belshazzars"?—the word is historical ; “Swozzie” and “Gimp” one may deem allegorical.— inter this Note to American History: “ Ade was a Yogi, his Book is a Myster; While you're a slightly eccentric vocabulist, sop himself was no livelier fabulist. (Granting his tales have the humorous tang in them, Still he neglected to put any slang in them.) Deftly you vivisect folks we're acquainted with, Scoring the follies our epoch is tainted with, Sketching suburbanites, city folk, villagers, NATURALLY Laborers, college boys, gold-grabbing pillagers, “YOU WANT TO GET MARRIED ON FIFTEEN DOLLARS A WEEK! Revelers, travelers, gay men and harried men, WHAT ARE YOU THINKING OF? Maidens and bachelors, matrons and married men. “THE GIRL.” comicbooks.com