Life, 1914-01-01 · page 16 of 44
Life — January 1, 1914 — page 16: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two distinct satirical pieces critiquing British suffragettes and American government spending. **"King George's Example"** attacks militant British women suffragists (like Edna Kenton's mother) who broke windows and burned houses to protest lack of voting rights. The author argues that English law's actual power is minimal—citing Queen Mary as proof that women already exercise domestic authority regardless of legal status. The cartoon shows a woman militant throwing a brick. The satire's point: destructive protest is unnecessary when women already wield real influence through personality and character rather than law. **"The Next Step Or Two"** shifts to American fiscal policy, criticizing government spending inefficiency. It references recent income tax and tariff reforms, then sarcastically suggests fixing currency next—while questioning whether anyone actually knows how collected taxes are being spent. Senator Aldrich claimed he could save $300 million annually; the author mocks that this wasn't pursued when he had power. The "Vacuum Cleaner" joke (right illustration) appears unrelated—likely advertising humor about a new household appliance.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
King George's Example DNA KENTON in The Century re- lates how an English mother, when she dis- covered quite by ac- cident, that a mother under the English-law has no legal standing gasa “parent,” got mad at the whole fabric of British civilization, and registered as a mili- tant, and went out to break windows. Practically the law did not affect her at all. She merely thought it was insulting. So it was. Why under Heavens don't the sane people in England change such laws? They must; they will. But mean- while why break windows and burn houses? Laws are only laws. They get out of date just as creeds and ar- ticles of religion get out of date. But they don’t pinch merely by existing as laws any more than creeds pinch merely by being in the prayer-book. English women have their way or don’t have it, not as the laws read, but according to their individual charac- ters. The present Queen “of England, cn: SEE HERE! YOU HAVE KEPT US AWA YOU MUST COAST WHERE YOU'LL NOT DISTURB US. THREE DAYS, “LP E * for example, is the complete boss of the present King (so the papers say) in all domestic matters. She is the parent of the royal children, says where the boys shall go to school, and how they shall conduct themselves in college, and settles everything about them. The King does not mind. He has other jobs, and it saves trouble. It is a pity that Miss Kenton’s mili- tant mother could not take lessons of King George in patience and philoso- phy. If there is one thing that more than another the English militants are demonstrating, it is that the laws of England have little or no power to govern their conduct. Why then should they fly out and break windows and burn houses to get new laws? The laws—some of them—should be changed, but the militants need a change far more than the laws do. Bad laws are vexatious, but bad women are the very devil. The Next Step Or Two Now that we have taken two im- portant steps, the income tax and tariff revision, pertaining to the raising of taxes, perhaps the next step is to fix up the currency so as to provide a convenient medium with which to FOR THE LAST “wHy, POLLY! WHAT HAPPENED TO you?” “ COT UP AGAINST A VACUUM CLEANER,” pay the said and other taxes. But after that, the next step might well be to look a little into what we are to do with these taxes after they are col- lected. Indeed there is no absolutely convincing proof that we haven't al- ready put the cart before the horse. One of the parting remarks of Sen- ator Aldrich was that he could save $300,000,000 a year in running our gov- ernment. Let us not upbraid him for not doing it while he had control. Let us rather wheedle him into specifying, for surely those now in control at Washington seem ready to listen. A million a day (exclusive of Sundays, for no one wants to save anything on Sundays) is not to be sneezed at even by a nation as opulent as ours. Maybe we can find a way to get rid altogether of some of our tax-gatherers. The mere fact that somebody has compared the inevitability of taxes with that of death is no reason why we shouldn't at least look into the matter. E.0.J. comicbooks.com