Life, 1914-09-24 · page 26 of 45
Life — September 24, 1914 — page 26: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This Life magazine page contains three satirical pieces about wartime profiteering and social inequality: **"The Rose of War"** is a poem criticizing warfare's romanticization. It uses flower imagery to describe war's reality: death, widows' grief, and destroyed lives disguised by patriotic "gleaming" language—a direct critique of propaganda. **"Keeping Step"** mocks San Francisco's pension system as corrupt ("honeycomb[ed] with graft"), sarcastically noting that dishonesty is so normalized in pensions that it rivals other major activities. **"A Well-known Firm"** is a short story satirizing war profiteers. A desperate, starving widow—whose husband and sons were conscripted—appeals to a wealthy businessman making fortunes from wartime contracts with European powers and food suppliers. His "grim smile" suggests he'll exploit her further rather than help. The accompanying cartoon shows an examiner testing a worker's productivity with absurdly contradictory hiring terms—mocking employers' exploitation of laborers through confusing contract language. Overall, the page critiques wartime exploitation: both the glorification of combat and the enrichment of those profiting from others' suffering.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
538 The Rose of War TS leaves are bright with the cannon- shine, Its shadow is dark with trembling fears, Its roots reach down to the deadly mine, * It is watered with widows’ tears. Its blood-red petals are beating lives, Anguish-dewed where the blossom parts; Its thorns are the thrusts of angry knives Death-deep into human hearts. How fair it gleams in the lying light, In the flush of the glittering sun how fair! But tarry not by the gallant sight, For the breath of the tomb is there. elmos RB. Wells. Keeping Step R pension roll” says the San Branciaco. olrgonuilt! “is ‘so honcycombed with graft that to those on the inside of things, a place on it carries the imputation of dishonesty.” It is indeed a pleasure to learn that pension affairs are holding up their end with other leading activities. THE DEAD TORE A Well-known Firm I" was a busy office; never before, indeed, in the history of the world had this great firm done such a busi- ness, Messengers were running back and forth, executing orders with the crowned heads of Europe, with the heads of syndicates, with magnates and purveyors of food to the common people. In a room marked “ private so that no one might see them, there was even a small group of sleek-faced philanthropists, A woman had fainted on the street below, and she was brought in and taken up to the office of the head of the firm. He looked her over critically as she came to. “T am starving,” she whispered, as she slowly revived, “ My husband and sons have been taken away from me. The price of food is so high that I ‘miner: NOW, WILLIAM, 1F A MAN CAN DO ONE-FOURTH OF A PIFCE cannot buy it. Yet T am a wife and OF WORK IN TWO DAYS, HOW LONG WILL HE TAKE TO FINISH IT? a mother. Will you help me?” William: 15 17 A CONTRAC’ JOR OR 1S HE WORKIN’ BY THE DAY? . The head of the firm smiled grimly,