Life, 1913-11-13 · page 10 of 40
Life — November 13, 1913 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes banking regulation and government control during what appears to be early 20th-century financial debates. The top cartoon, "The Perambulator Still Has Its Uses," depicts a woman pushing a baby carriage filled with banking materials—suggesting bankers are being treated like infants requiring oversight. The main article, "Distressing Spinelessness," mocks bankers' representatives who testified before Congress's Currency Committee, claiming they eagerly accepted government control. The text suggests the bankers lacked conviction, accepting regulation without the principled resistance one might expect. The bottom cartoon, "The Militant's Daughter," shows a child claiming "I bet my mother can lick your mother"—likely contrasting with serious political matters above, offering light comic relief typical of Life's format.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE PERAMBULATOR STILL HAS ITS USES Distressing Spinelessness IX an account of the appearance of the bankers’ repre- sentatives before the Currency Committee in Wash- ington the other day we notice this: “Mr, Forgan and Mr. Wexler left no doubt that the bankers had come to the conclusion that government control was inevitable and that they were now prepared to embrace it. Both declared strongly for government control.” It may, indeed, have been the better part of valor for the bankers thus to embrace the inevitable so zealously, but we must admit we thought they were made of sterner stuff. It is such a short time ago that the bankers were telling us in academically accurate, if unmeaning, terms of the fundamental soundness of the Aldrich plan, which couldn’t have had less government control if it had been written by a post-graduate anarchist. Alas for the decay of science! We knew the time when scientists would not falter or forsake the truth no matter how inevitable error loomed or how forbidding its mien. “ ARE you quite sure this suit won't shrink if it gets wet?” " Mine frendt, every fire company in New ‘York, but two. has squirted water on dot suit!” The Militant’s Daughter: CAN LICK YOUR MOTHER I BET MY MOTHER comicbooks.com