Life, 1914-08-13 · page 17 of 40
Life — August 13, 1914 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical piece mocks the deliberate obfuscation in congressional legislation. The main cartoon depicts a House Committee interrogating the author of Bill No. 41144, accusing him of the serious offense of writing legislation that is actually *understandable* to ordinary people. The joke: Congress treats clarity as a violation. The committee chairman instructs the bill's author to rewrite it in impenetrable legal language so courts can interpret it multiple ways and "nobody will be the wiser." The satire suggests that deliberately confusing legislation is standard practice—a feature, not a bug—allowing legislators to claim bills mean whatever serves them later. The cartoon criticizes how legislative language obscures rather than clarifies intent, making laws inaccessible to the citizens they govern. This reflects broader Progressive-era frustration with governmental opacity and special interests.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
An Offender OUSE BILL No. 41144 having been introduced into Congress, it was discovered by some of the mem- bers of that August, September and possibly October body that certain phrases in it might be understood by an average person who read them over ten or eleven times in succession, with the aid of Blackstone’s Commen- taries and Murray’s English Diction- ary. The man who drafted the bill was therefore sent for by the House- Committee -of -Inquiry- into -the-Neces- sity-for-Keeping-Things-Dark. The chairman of this committee looked at the offender sternly. “JB E E “You, sir, are the author of bill No. 41144?” “T am.” “T understand there are gleams of human intelligence in the wording of this bill.” “T had a great pressure of other matter, Mr. Chairman, and if in draft- ing that bill I inadvertently worded any part of it so that there was even the possibility of its being understood, I can only plead extenuating circum- stances.” “What is the object of the bill?” “Are we alone? “Oh, yes. Nobody is here from the outside world but a reporter for the Hearst papers, and nobody believes what he writes.” THE PRACTICE HOUR Intended Suicide: wuist! o1've CHANGED ME MOIND! ell, the object of the bill is to get votes.” “Very well. Now you go over the wording of the bill and rewrite those parts which appear to have gleams of intelligence in them, and put them in such acceptable and usual legal lan- guage that nobody can possibly under- stand what they mean, and that therefore any future court can con- strue them in as many ways as it likes, and nobody will be the wiser.” “T will.” “Then we will let you off this time, this being your first offense. But do not forget, sir, that the test of every bill introduced into this Congress must be that it is entirely unintelligible to any person familiar with the ordinary use of the English language.” “TCHERE isn’t an_ original thing about Pottsviller.” “What is he surrounded by?” “Manuscripts, He’s the editor of a modern magazine.” comicbooks.com