Life, 1914-08-20 · page 27 of 40
Life — August 20, 1914 — page 27: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The top cartoon satirizes youthful idealism about poetry's financial prospects. A young person stands on a beach, gazing at the ocean, wondering aloud if poetry can make money—a naive question the image suggests is answered by the barren, solitary setting. The lower section contains satirical editorial commentary about the hypocrisy of medical professionals. Doctors and psychiatrists at a Chicago conference formally condemned alcohol as a brain poison and urged legislative bans on alcoholic beverages. The satire's point: these same professionals then proceeded to dinner where they drank cocktails, champagne, scotch, and other spirits—directly contradicting their official resolution. The text notes that teetotalers are rare among accomplished professionals, except clergy who have been "dragooned into abstinence" through social pressure. The satire exposes the gap between professional proclamations and actual behavior. The lower photograph showing a "neophyte" and instructor appears to illustrate something separately; its connection to the text is unclear.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“GEE! 1 WONDER IF THERE'S ANY MONEY IN POETRY!” help to make talk, and talk is valuable, especially with meals. They belong chiefly to the social and recreative side of life, and to prove that they don’t increase efficiency is nothing to the point. The experts help us very little with the rum problem, The alienists and neurologists met at Chicago in July and resolved that, “ Whereas, alcohol acts as a definite poison to the brain and other tissues . . . we unqualifiedly condemn the use of alcoholic beverages and recommend State legislatures to eliminate such use.” And having so resolved, they went out, no doubt, to dinner and proceeded, presumably, to poison their brains and other tissues with cocktails, claret, champagne, rye, Scotch and whatever else doctors drink when they get together. There may be alienists who are teetotalers, but they are rare. Teetotalers are scarce among the abler practitioners in all the professions except the ministry, The ministers have been in great measure dragooned into abstinence, but (Continued on page 318.) Neophyte (to instructor): DID 1 DO THAT CORRECTLY?