Life, 1913-09-04 · page 12 of 40
Life — September 4, 1913 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This *Life* magazine page satirizes labor exploitation and child labor. The article "That Terrible Undercurrent" discusses Georgia's decision not to immediately help child laborers. It references a proposed bill to gradually raise the working age limit, opposed by manufacturers. The cartoon "Oliver Twist Asks for More" depicts a starving child (evoking Dickens's famous orphan) requesting additional food from an overseer labeled "SOUP." This visual pun mocks the inadequacy of relief efforts for exploited children. The text hints at Colonel Mulhall's involvement in blocking child labor protections through legislative influence, though the specific details remain vague—typical of period satire exposing corporate lobbying against worker protections.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Shade of Capt. Kidd: iF THEY’b ONLY DIG RIGHT WHERE THEY'RE SITTING, THEY WOULDN'T HAVE TO WAIT TILL. HE GETS THAT RAISE IN SALARY, That Terrible Undercurrent EORGIA has decided not to do anything just now towards help- ing out her child laborers. We learn this in a special dispatch to the New York Times. A bill had been proposed gradually raising the age limit of working children, but, according to the dispatch, “such an undercurrent of opposition developed on the part of the manufacturers that the measure was shelved.” That same old undercurrent! Per- haps we shall know some day just what particular Colonel Mulhall was at work down there in Atlanta, what particular legislators he worked with, and how much he paid them, or rather how little he paid them, for recent revelations have shown that the market price of lawmakers is not at all exorbi- tant. All this information, however, if it ever comes out, will be of slight interest to the little children who are, in the meantime, being carried out with the undertow. If these children only knew what was good for them they would organize a highly paid lobby in their own interest and put a good man like Colonel Mulhall in charge of it. QLIVER TWIST ASKS FOR MORE comicbooks.com