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Life, 1913-09-25 · page 5 of 43

Life — September 25, 1913 — page 5: what you’re looking at

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Life — September 25, 1913 — page 5: Life, 1913-09-25

What you’re looking at

This page is **primarily advertising** (Phoenix Silk Hose, Old Overholt Rye) with limited editorial content. The main satirical piece is "Who Killed Simplicity?" featuring a portrait of **Hall Caine** (prominent 1915 novelist). Various figures—a Banker, Poet, Post-Impressionist, Pragmatist, and Newspaper Editor—each humorously claim responsibility for killing "Simplicity" through their respective professions' excesses: financial manipulation, vague generalities, artistic obscurity, and journalistic chaos. The satire mocks **early 20th-century intellectual and cultural trends** that the magazine viewed as overwrought and pretentious. The joke suggests that modern society (banking, art, philosophy, journalism) had abandoned straightforward simplicity for needless complexity. The "Proof Positive" story about workers on a building is a brief humorous anecdote about mistaking a corpse for a living coworker.

📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Greatest Novet TheWoman Thou Gavest Me Being the story of Mary O'Neill CAUGHT ON A FLOOD OF SUCCESS NOW IN ITS THIRD LARGE PRINTING HIS wonderful romance is now being read and discussed in every community of consequence. It is the Book of the Year,—one of those rare novels which ap- peals to people in every walk of life. The startling revelations of Mary O'Neill form a love story for all the world and for all time, in which Hall Caine has presented a remarkable analysis of the modern mar- riage. It reveals the relation of Man to Woman from the Cradle to the Grave, AT ALL BOOK STORES Price $1.35 Net. Postpaid $1.50 _J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY Proof Positive Two Irishmen were working on the roof of a building one day when one made a misstep and fell to the ground ; the other leaned over and called: “ Are ye dead or alive, Mike?” “I'm alive,” said Mike, feebly. “Sure, yer such a liar I don't know whether to believe ye or not.” “Well, then, I must be dead,” said Mike, “for ye would never dare to call me a liar if I were alive.”—Tit-Bits. Who Killed Simplicity ? (Simplicity was dead, and all the low brows and other distant friends had gath- ered to do him honor) ‘I " SAID the Banker, “with my 9 masses of figures and my politi- cal wire pulling, and my throwing of dust into the faces of the newspaper editors. I killed Simpli “Tr” said the New Thoughtist, “with my vague generalities and my mysterious mumblings, and my appeal to the multitude to give something for nothing. I killed Simplicity.” “We did it,” said the Post-Impres- sionist, the Futurist and the Cubist, “with our psychologically subjective idea which prevents us from calling a spade a spade, drawing a spade a spade, or writing a spade a spade; i stead of which we convey the idea in a manner which nobody can under- stand. We killed Simplicity.” “T did it,” said Pragmatist, “ with my pragmatic prognostications and my transcendental musings, not to mention my teleological tergiversations. 1 killed Simplicity. “I did said the Newspaper, “with my interminable column, contin- ued from one page to another, and my chaotic mass of heterogenous and in- choate rottenness, so that nobody could wade through it without getting all tangled up and inextricably shackled ‘Around the old oak table the choice of sturdy pioneers always was smooth, mellow Old Overholt Rye “Same for 100 Yean™ Today this gand old whiskey holds pride of place because the honest quality and excellence enjoyed by our grandfathers always has been (ff maintained since those early days.\ps Distilled and bottled in bond. @ A. OVERHOLT & CO. Pisburgh, Pa, provides the quality that good judgment | demands, the economy e that prudent a finest pur ses Made of the very exact Silk Hote ponenses the perfect shapeliness, exquisite lustre and soft, clinging tex- ture that is so much desired, yet its cost is low and its ser- vice wonderlul. In distinetive 4-pair_ boxes. All colors and weights. There longer a alk f hose season’’— = twelve months in the year well- dressed people enjoy the loxury of silk hose—and no single factor has contributed more to make this condi- tion possible than Phoenix Silk Hose, Men's 50c, 75c, $1.00 Pair Women’s, 75c, $1, $1.50, $2 Pair Phoenix Double-Knit Silk Hove for and omen, an exclusive Phoenix idea for cold weather —pure all with late lining for warmth. At the best shops everywhere. “Made in America” by PHOENIX KNITTING WORKS 234 Broadway, Milwaukee with typography, I killed Sim- plicity.” Fe. “ Whoever did it,” 1 Sim- plicity, “one thing is certain—I am dead all right.” Turk are some men who are for- tune’s favorites, and who, like cats, light forever upon their legs; didappers, whom, if you had stripped naked and thrown over Westminster bridge, you might meet on the very next day, with bag-wigs on their heads, swords by their sides, laced coats upon their backs, and money in their pockets.—C. C. Colton. comicbooks.com