Life, 1914-09-10 · page 16 of 48
Life — September 10, 1914 — page 16: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**"The Contact Mine"** is a World War I-era satirical piece personifying naval contact mines as instruments of death. The mine speaks in grandiose, bitter language about its role destroying ships carrying supplies and innocent sailors to allied nations. The satire critiques the hypocrisy of modern warfare—man creates technology to kill on an industrial scale while claiming moral superiority ("culmination of Christianity"). **The lower cartoon** depicts a wealthy mother reprimanding her child for playing with a foal alongside a peasant child. The caption emphasizes class distinction—the child shouldn't associate with those "not of our own class." Together, these pieces form ironic social commentary: while the mine monologue exposes the brutality governments inflict on each other across vast distances, the cartoon shows how the same societies obsessively police class boundaries at home. The contrast suggests hypocrisy: societies wage mechanized death abroad while enforcing rigid social hierarchies domestically.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
ROUGH WATERS The Contact Mine UPox the surface of the earth man’s brutality to man makes countless millions mourn, Where’er the sun shines on homes and harvests, brother kills brother and the firebrand lights the way to hell's or; All this is done where the winds blow free and the light of countless stars bear witness. It has remained for me to plant death in the silent caverns of the deep. 1 lie in wait at the entrance to blue subterranean passages and beckon to onward-moving prows where innocent men make their way, bearing Sustenance to brothers-in distant lands, I keep my silent vigil, bearing jh my cold bosom the embryo of death to all who court me. I out-monster all the monsters of the deep. I am the soul of patience, the servant of science and the culmination of Christianity. To touch me is to blot out the universe. I was made for man, by.man, to destroy man, “How did you get along playing golf with your wife?” “Well, at the ninth hole she was about twenty-two thousand words ahead,” “CHILD, CHILD! HASN'T MOTHER SUFFICIENTLY IMPRESSED IT ON YOU THAT YOU MUST CHOOSE YOUR PLAYMATES FROM OUR OWN CLASS?”