Life, 1913-07-17 · page 41 of 44
Life — July 17, 1913 — page 41: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page combines corporate advertising with satirical commentary typical of early 20th-century Life magazine. **The Main Content:** AT&T's "Coral Builders and the Bell System" is a corporate advertisement using a natural-growth metaphor. It compares coral polyps building islands to the telephone system's "irresistible" expansion, justifying AT&T's dominance and massive investment (7.5 million phones connected) as inevitable progress driven by public demand. **The Satire:** The adjacent piece, "Would You Like to Be Liquidated?" mocks this corporate language. "Liquidation" was a real 1920s business term (shutting down companies, settling accounts), but Life sarcastically offers to liquidate various social types—bachelors, suffragettes, "impossible conservatives," radicals—presenting elimination as a service. **The Point:** Life attacks AT&T's self-justifying rhetoric about unstoppable growth while satirizing broader social anxieties about corporate power and which groups society deemed expendable. The pairing suggests skepticism toward monopolistic claims of inevitability. The page also includes a book list and a Heublein cocktail advertisement.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Books Received Calling the Tune, by Justin Huntley McCarthy, (Hodder & Stoughton Co.) By the Brown Bog, by Owen Roe and Honor Urse. (Longmans & Co. $1.35.) The Ambassadress, by Wm. Wriothes- ley. (Geo. H. Doran Co. $1.25.) Harlette, by Marion Polk Angelotti (The Century Co. 75¢.) The Temple of the Living Christ. (soc.) Believest Thou This? ($1.00.) Toya the Unlike, by Eleanor Mercein Kelly. (Small, Maynard Co. $1.00.) Marxism versus Socialism, by Vladimir G. Simkhovitch. (Henry Holt & Co. $1.50.) The Southerner, by Thomas Dixon. (D. Appleton & Co. $1.35.) Between Eras from Capitalism to Democracy, by Albion W. Small. (Inter- collegiate Press, Kansas City, Mo.} My Adventures with Your Money, by George Graham Rice. (Richard G. Badger. $1.50.) The Adventures of Dr. Whitty, by G. A. Birmingham. (Hodder & Stoughton Co. $1.20.) Reminiscences, Sermons and Corre- spondence, 1884-1913, by Augusta’ E. Stetson. (G. P. Putnam's Sons.) El Dorado, by Baroness Orczy. (Hod- der & Stoughton Co. $1.35.) Try One of Our Dry Varieties Martini—Regu! Martini—Dry (medium) Martini—Brut (very dry) Manhattan—Regular hattan—Dry At all dealers G.F.Heublein & Bro. De ag Coral Builders and the Bell System In the depths of tropical seas the coral polyps are at work. They are nourished by the ocean, and they | grow and multiply because they cannot help it. Finally a coral island emerges from the ocean. It collects sand and seeds, until it becomes a fit home for birds, beasts and men. In the same way the telephone system has grown, gradually at first, but steadily and irresistibly. It could not stop growing. To stop would mean disaster. The BellSystem, starting with afew scattered exchanges, was carried for- ward byan increasing publicdemand. Each new connection disclosed a need for other new connections, and millions of dollars had to be poured into the business to provide the 7,500,000 telephones now connected. And the end is not yet, for the growth of the Bell System is still irresistible, because the needs of the people will not be satisfied except by universalcommunication. Thesystem is large because the country is large. | AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH COMPANY AND ASSOCIATED COMPANIES One Policy One System Universal Service Would You Like to Be Liquidated? IQUIDATION is rife. He who runs may read that many, many things are being L liquidated these days. Liquidation is here and there, in the air, everywhere. Yet it has come to our painful notice that a great many estimable people have been overlooked; people who have lived upright, abstemious and mammon-fearing lives, but who, through some unfortunate concatenation of circumstances and no fault of their own, have been forced to sit idly by while the liquidation process marches gaily past them. To all such be it hereby announced that arrangements have been made to liquidate all comers, with special facilities for bachelors, husbands, fathers, suffragettes, cubists, politicians, suburbanites, hypocrites, demagogues, snivellers, impractical radicals, impossible conserv: amount of liquidation desired. s, and hair-splitters. Apply without hesitation, stating the exact comicbooks.com