Life, 1913-08-21 · page 24 of 40
Life — August 21, 1913 — page 24: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**The Cartoons and Satire:** The page contains three distinct satirical pieces: 1. **"O Woman in Our Hour of Ease"** (top illustration): Shows a woman standing while a man relaxes, captioned with Mrs. Trotter telling John to hurry and dress for dinner. This appears to satirize gender roles and domestic expectations. 2. **"The Limit"**: Mocks the naming of ocean liners. It jokes that as ships grow larger, names escalate from "Titanic" and "Gigantic" to "Imperator," and soon we'll exhaust grand titles, resorting absurdly to "Czar, Satrap, Chief of Police and Postoffice Inspector." The satire targets excessive naval ambition and naming conventions. 3. **"Tax Wanted"**: A mock advertisement seeking a tax that can be collected "without anyone finding it out," providing government funds while sparing "confiding consumers" and "senators." This satirizes government hypocrisy about taxation and spending. 4. **"Sailors or Serum?"**: Criticizes forced military vaccinations, arguing that compulsory medical procedures antagonize enlisted men and damage military morale. The page overall reflects early 20th-century American anxieties about government overreach, taxation, militarism, and medical authority.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“O WOMAN IN OUR HOUR OF EASE” Mrs. Trotter: The Limit HE Imperator, the very latest and biggest. thing in ocean liners, is already thoroughly assimilated by our transportation system, Such is the celerity of our assimilatory powers. As we look forward to the next record- breaker, however, we venture to won- der what the limit will be; not the limit of size, speed, or splendor, or appointment of these lavish and lux- urious leviathans, but the limit in the matter of appropriate names. This we are in danger of reaching soon. Having exhausted all the august and overpowering references to the Kaiser and the words denoting mere bigness, such as Titanic, Gigantic, etc., we now come to Imperator, easily the most potential reference that Roman history can ler. There are but a few left. When we shall have used a half dozen or so more, such as Czar, Satrap, Chief of Police and Postoffice Inspector, we shall find ourselves confronted with a pretty knotty problem. COME, JOUN, HURRY AND DRESS FOR THE BLAYER'S DIN Tax Wanted ANTED—A Tax. Need urgent. Must have a tax right away to take the place of reduced customs duties. Income tax has been sug- gested, but it is not all that could be desired. What is needed is a tax which can be assessed and collected without anyone’s finding it out. Should be a tax which will in no way Lear harshly upon the confiding con- sumer, the willing worker or the humble householder, but which will at the same time provide as much money as ever for extravagant government expenditures and curtailing in no way the opulent opportunities of office- holders, the sybaritic serenity of senators or the profitable peregrina- tions of patriotic politicians. This tax must be thoroughly practical, although a tax which could be supported tem- porarily by a sophistical theory might prove a welcome transitional boon. Address U. S. Government. On-The- Potdmac. Sailors or Serum? The Open Door has told of the shameful practices perpetrated upon men in the navy by ignorant physi- cians who can invoke military dis- cipline. Men are degraded in the service and subjected to the hor- rors of military prisons when they refuse to have their blood polluted through injections by surgical maniacs, The Federal doctors cn- force vaccination inoculation with anti-typhoid scrum and now with anti-meningitis serum, disregarding the protests or objections of their hapless victims—The Open Door. W hope Uncle Sam is not laying up trouble for himself, When anti-vaccin. forming in every city, and men have begun to think for themselves, jt re- quires a reckless spirit to enlist under a flag that waves for serum. Don’t antagonize the boys, Uncle— and for a passing fad. ion societies are “ FROM GI S TO REVELATIONS " ONE who wishes to discover for himself the artistic value of a roof garden performance in New York during the summer months should attend it alone. He will dis- cover that its effect is invariably de- pressing. But in the case of the Scott pictures, for example, by going alone he will reap a positive gain, “In brief, in order to stand artificial and decadent pleasures, we should stand them alone; genuine pleasure needs no divi- sion of the intellectual spoils.