Life, 1914-01-22 · page 15 of 40
Life — January 22, 1914 — page 15: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains four separate satirical pieces: **"Military Progression"** (Amos R. Wells): A sardonic critique of escalating naval arms spending. The text absurdly proposes an endless cycle—building ever-more-expensive battleships solely to destroy slightly-cheaper ones—mocking the logic of competitive militarism and unlimited defense budgets. **"Boston Morning Papers"**: A correction to an earlier Life article about Boston newspapers, clarifying which papers compete in the morning market (the Herald being praised). **"Hope"**: Brief commentary suggesting Americans' short attention span prevents moral decay from becoming entrenched—indecency can't sustain permanence because Americans constantly chase new fads. **"Wanted; For Mexico"**: A joke about Mexico's shortage of "exemplary statesmen," using a boss-and-manager dialogue. It sardonically suggests finding a leader who avoids smoking, drinking, stealing, swearing, and murdering wives—implying Mexican politicians were stereotyped as corrupt. The accompanying illustration (bottom) shows a stock-broker hawking diamonds as safer investments than volatile stocks.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
143 Military Progression L us shoot to pieces our $6,000,000 battle-ships with our $12,000,000 battle-ships, and improve our marks- manship so that we can knock to flinders a $15,000,000 battle-ship. Let us then build $15,000,000 battle-ships, with which to shoot to pieces our present $12,000,000 battle- ships, thus improving our marksmanship so that we.can reduce to junk a $20,000,000 battle-ship. Let us next build $20,000,000 battle-ships, wherewith to pulverize our $15,- 000,000 .battle-ships, educating our gunners up to a $25,- 000,000 battle-ship. Let us then build $25,000,000 battle- ships, which will smash the $20,000,000 battle-ships, and so on, till the limit of public patience, credulity, and folly has been reached. Amos R, Wells. Boston Morning Papers A PIECE about Boston newspapers in Lire two weeks ago was not as accurate as it will be when our kind Boston correspondents get through mending it. Mr. Hearst’s Boston paper and the Christian Scientists’ paper are both afternoon papers and not in the morning paper competition. For the Herald, the handsomest of the morning galaxy, it is claimed that it has climbed out of the experimental stage and has more habitual readers than any paper of its group except the Post. E.S.M. ae Real Poison Needle—The doctor’s vaccine point. HOSE critics who appear to be fearful over the permanency of J st the present flood of indecency, should : . STOCK GILT DG! not be too despondent. They should re- f “SECURY member that above all things America J must have variety. If a new fad doesn’t spring into our ken every few weeks we become genuinely uneasy. Nothing in America could succeed for any length of time. There is nothing so monotonous as indecency. In the na- ture of things it is bound to have only a brief day. Wanted; For Mexico 'HE present shortage of exemplary statesmen in Mexico in the face of brisk demand, recalls a certain con- ference between a boss of the works and his manager. “Sire, we need an engineer.” “Very well; go out and hire one. If possible, hire a man who does not smoke, drink, steal, swear or kill his wives, but be sure to hire a man who “DON'T PUT YER MONEY IN STOCKS, WOT'S ALWAYS FLUCTUATIN’, LADIES knows how to run the engine.” AND GENTS. INVEST IT IN DI’MON: WOT DON'T DEPRECIATE IN VALUE” cnorce comicbooks.com