Life, 1914-07-16 · page 23 of 40
Life — July 16, 1914 — page 23: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**The Cartoon:** A domestic scene shows a child (Freddie) asking his aunt about visiting town with Uncle George. Freddie hasn't asked yet because Uncle George is absorbed reading about "Wall Street" and "saying damn"—the joke being that the child is waiting for the adult to finish reading scandalous financial news before interrupting. **The Articles:** The page discusses two topics: 1. **Yale Club Life Membership:** Life defends the Yale Club's practice of offering lifetime memberships for $500, dismissing accusations of snobbery. The argument: such schemes simply raise construction funds; college clubs are actually *less* exclusive than other clubs. 2. **"Dangerous Doctrine":** Life satirizes conservative contemporaries warning against radical speech regarding Colorado (likely the labor conflicts/Ludlow Massacre era). Life mockingly suggests these conservatives are advocating "public ownership of State governments" and sarcastically questions whether the public could manage government better than private interests—implying the absurdity of such radical ideas. The page reflects Progressive Era debates about labor, class, and governmental control.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“LIFE: ‘ | | ill Aunt Mary: DIR YOU ASK UNCLE GEORGE IF YOU MIGHT Go TO TOWN WITH Hin? Freddie. STREET AN’ SAYIN DAMN”. Life Membership in Clubs TH Yale Club, of New York, which is building a new clubhouse over the tracks of the railrozd that leads to New Haven, is scolded by the New Haven Journal- Courier because it has provided that members of fifteen years’ standing to the number of one hundred may be- come life members on payment of five hundred dollars apiece, and be exempt ever after from annual dues. “To say the least,” says the New Haven contemporary, “ this life-membership proposition has a snobbish side to it.” Tut, tut! Any kind of a club has a snobbish side to it. Life-membership propositions in clubs are simply a device for getting in ready money, to be used, usually, for build- ing purposes or to reduce the club's bonded indebtedness. It takes a great deal of money to house and run a big college club in New York. Life membership is a gamble. The cost is put at whatever seems a fair price. Members pay it partly to help the club, partly to be quit of paying dues and make a provision for the future. There is no snobbery about it at all, except so much as is involved in NOT YET, AUNTIE, I GUESS ILL WAIT TILL HE'S FINISHED READIN’ ABOUT WALL: being a member of any exclusive organization, and as to that, the college clubs are the least snobbish clubs of all, since they are the least exclusive. Dangerous Doctrine WE hereby warn some of our more conservative con- temporaries that they are going too far—much too far—in their radical utterances. We notice this particu- larly with respect to their comments upon the Colorado situation. The logical result of what they are advocating would be nothing short of public ownership of State governments. Such tendencies must be nipped in the bud. We ask any fair-minded man what a public would do with a State government if it did own one? Can there be any doubt after all the experience we have had that private ownership of government is more efficient and practical? It is all very well to have the public associate as a minority stockholder or a silent partner, but to let it have complete control—preposterous! comicbooks.com