Life, 1914-08-27 · page 14 of 44
Life — August 27, 1914 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes **Posterity** — defined as the collective name for people we borrow money from without consent to pay our debts. The text mockingly explains that Posterity is "the sum total of all the bond issues...coming due the day after to-morrow." The accompanying illustration shows what appears to be **working-class children in an impoverished neighborhood**, likely meant to represent the future generation who will inherit accumulated debt and financial obligations. The satire's target: politicians and financiers who spend money recklessly, deferring costs to future citizens. The "Heroes" heading suggests ironic commentary — those making such decisions present themselves heroically while burdening unborn generations with their fiscal irresponsibility. This reflects Progressive Era criticism of debt-financing policies.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Posterity OSTERITY is the collective name we give to all those people we are borrowing money from without their consent in order that we may fit them for the job of repudiating our debts. When we want to have a good time and don’t want to pay for it we charge it up to Posterity. Posterity at one time belonged to the fature, but it has now been projected into the present. Some day it will belong to the past. Posterity is the sum total of all the bond issues that are coming due the day after to-morrow. Posterity is the process of making all the unborn chil- dren get their tickets from a speculator. Posterity is the difference between to-day and next week, expressed in compound interest, plus commission charges. Posterity is the only creature who ever was held up, searched, rifled, robbed and stripped before he arrived. Bankers will accept Posterity as collateral when all other kinds have been rejected. The only kind that they cannot lock up in their safe-deposit vaults and which has no existence is the kind they like hest because their sublime folly in loaning money upon it will never be exploited while they are here. That is the reason why those who would. ordinarily sympathize with Posterity for its unhappy plight do not do so. How can anyone sympathize with anything which does not exist? And yet it is the one intangible asset which has a permanent value. With Apologies to Everybody H, it’s casy enough to be pleasant When life goes along just right. But the man worth while Is the man who can smile When his wife tangoes morn, noon and night.