Life, 1914-08-06 · page 27 of 40
Life — August 6, 1914 — page 27: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**"Make It General"** is a satirical essay by Ellis O. Jones mocking the principle of variable pricing based on ability to pay. The author proposes extending doctors' practice of sliding fees to all services—postmen charging millionaires more, schools charging by parents' wealth, grocers selling spinach at $40 per half-ounce to the wealthy. The circular diagram labeled "Going South, Eh?" appears to show microscopic organisms, humorously illustrating how absurd such pricing schemes would become. The satire critiques wealth-based pricing as economically illogical. **"Wilson Did It"** references President Woodrow Wilson's Mexican policies (likely the 1914 Veracruz intervention or ongoing Mexican Revolution instability). The headline about a "Trade Bad; Undertaker Blames Divorce Case" is reinterpreted—Republicans are apparently blaming Wilson's Mexico policy for postponing American funerals by disrupting trade, thus reducing undertakers' business. It's a cynical jab at political opportunism: opposition figures weaponizing any negative economic consequence against the administration.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“ GUESS I'LL THROW JONAH UP HERE, THERE SEEMS TO BE A SCARCITY OF MEN” Make It General IF it is such a good idea for doctors to fix their fces in accordance with the paying abilities of their patients, why not extend the principle to other domains of human activity? Before delivering a letter to a gentleman, why not look him up in Bradstreet’s and, if he is a millionaire, charge him a good round sum, which would then enable us to deliver letters to the poor without charge? Or, in our public schools, for the operation of inserting a given amount of knowledge into a child’s cranium, we should not charge according to the amount or quality of the knowledge or the thickness of the child’s cranium, but solely according to the acquisitory powers of the parent Or at the greengrocer’s, we should be able to hear the following dialogue occasionally : “How much is your spinach?” “Fifteen cents a bushel, Mrs. Have- little.” r! I'm not Mrs. Havelittle, if you please. I’m Mrs, Spenderby, of Dividend Terrace.” “A thousand pardons, madam, In that case I could let you have the same TH “ NO—ALIMENTARY, | grade of spinach at forty dollars a half-ounce.” “That's more like it. You may send me about two thousand dollars’ worth.” Ellis O. Jones. 231 Wilson Did It Bap; Unvertaxer Divorce Case —Newspaper Headline. OT up-to-date, Mr. Undertaker. Blame Wilson and have the Op- position with you! The administra- tion’s course in Mexico has undoubt- edly postponed a great many profitable American funcrals, TRADE Biames ICTOGRAPHS rush in wives may fear to tread. where comicbooks.com