Life, 1914-02-05 · page 11 of 44
Life — February 5, 1914 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The top cartoon satirizes modern life's frantic pace—a figure sprints frantically down a road between a cemetery and city, dodging scattered debris. The caption quotes an "Eminent Expert" claiming "the crazy rate is growing faster than the birth rate," suggesting society's speed and chaos are outpacing human reproduction. Below, an "Open International Letter" from "Uncle Sam" sarcastically proposes that world powers invade New Zealand, portrayed as foolishly peaceful and undefended. The letter mocks nations that neglect military buildup, rhetorically asking why world powers shouldn't exploit such vulnerability. It's satire critiquing American and global militarism and colonial attitudes. The bottom sketch shows an absent-minded man who forgot his wife's instructions—standard domestic humor.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Se en tt ‘WHY SHOULDN'T IT? “THE CRAZY RATE 15 GROWING FASTER THAN THE BIRTH RATE” Open International Letter 'ELLOW World Powers: I have a proposition to make to you. 1 have discovered that down in the South Pacific there are -a couple of islands which compose New Zealand. These are very foolish islands. They haven't any navy and they have practically no army and they have spent next to nothing on coast defenses. They have simply gone along attending to their farming and their mining and their manufacturing, etc., without fear of attack and, strange to say, they seem to be prosper- ous and contented. Now what do you think of that? Don't you hate to see anybody indulging in such foolish experiments? Isn't it a sort of veiled insult to us world powers? And isn’t our course clear? Shouldn’t we immediately get to- gether, land a few forces down there and let them march up the principal streets so that they can see what a real world power is? What is the use of having the name of world power if we are not going to have the gain of it? Up, World Powers, to your guns! Yours forever, UNcLE Sam. Ree Eminent Expert Absent-minded Man: ER—1 CAN'T THINK FoR THE MOMENT WHAT MY WIFE TOLD ME TO GET HER, WOULD YOU MIND—ER—NAMING OVER A FEW THINGS? comichooks, FcOom