Life, 1914-06-04 · page 28 of 52
Life — June 4, 1914 — page 28: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical piece mocks the early 20th-century feminist/suffrage movement through the voice of a deliberately obtuse Japanese observer—a common comic device of the era to create cultural distance and exaggerate absurdity. **The Satire:** The "school-boy" writer expresses alarm that women have "discovered" they are female and now demand political recognition, presenting feminism as dangerous hysteria requiring government intervention ("call out Gen. Wood"). He treats women's suffrage as threatening social chaos comparable to Mexican political violence. **The Romance Subplot:** His attempted courtship with "Miss Daisy Obi" (a stereotyped Japanese name) illustrates his confusion: he mistakes feminist consciousness for a dance craze, conflates French dances with revolutionary thought, and reduces women's intelligence demands to romantic flattery. **The Cartoon Caption:** "Where has bricks done so much harm as kisses?" references suffragettes' actual property destruction while suggesting women's true power lies in seduction—a typical anti-feminist jab dismissing political activism as emotional rather than rational. The piece ridicules both suffragists and male resistance to women's equality.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“‘LIPE- Letters of a Japanese School-boy The Feminist Movement To Editor “ Life Comical News” who can oftenly trip up movements by getting ahead of them, EAREST SIR:— Maybe when this letter comes out it won't be printed, because U. S. Government will be overspilled by great Lady Plot which is standing everywheres gossipping about it with voices peculiar to a poison tea-party. But if this correspondence reaches your printer's ink, kindly to ask your dear printer please send it to Pres Wilson so he can call out Gen. Wood before everything explodes. Truth of that information is this: Ladies, after remain- ing perfectly silent for 200,000,000 years, has suddenly wakened upward with horid screech from what they have dishcovered with help of Professors—they are Females! Who can stop them now after knowing that much? Jail cannot silent them and even if they are shot with bullets peculiar to Mexican politics, yet they will not die like gen- tlemen. Something must be done, now that it is too late. Why I know so much about this great importance is because I accom- panied myself to Sakurai Sisterhood of Japanese Feminist social turkey- hopping dance at Steinmetz Hall last Wedsday p.m. Such soprano aigrettes, minuet skirts, shoulder blades and Japanese excellence of ladies distrib- uted among dress suits! Everything seemed so lacking in militant peev that Hon. Primer Asquith could arrive there without bricks. Yet who can tell what by looking at it? Setting there amidst considerable yellow beauty I observe Hon. Miss Daisy Obi, sweethearted Japanese lady who I should wish to marry at times. Her clothing look so 5th Ave and her hairs so Vogue that I approached with carelessness of death and report, “Will you Turk trot me around somewhat?” “Utterly!” she argue chivalrously while making social clasp upon me, and next thing we were making musical toes, “Miss Obi,” I report while breathing amidst square steps, “I should feel much obliged to obtain you in mar- riage.” “Nobody shall obtain me hence- forth,” she holla sweetishly. “Why for?” I narrate. “Because I am a Woman!" She said that. “T could forgive that if you love me,” is bright repara- tion I make. “You could not expect to marry me unless you learn Feminist Movement,” she divludge. “T cannot learn all new French dances,” I romp forth. “Yet I might take lessons from Hon, Vermon Castle.” “Feminist Movement are not a dance,” she dib. “It are a revolution.” “T should like to join quick while you are still in it,” I devote. “Feminism are a form of intelligence. To get it you must think about ladies continuously.” Thusly she said. “So ha! Then I am one already! I have been thinking that intelligence since early youth of cigarettes,” I tell. “Explan more to me about these cubist Suffragettes!” “Where has bricks done so much harm as kisses?” comicbooks.com