Life, 1914-09-24 · page 30 of 45
Life — September 24, 1914 — page 30: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The top cartoon satirizes reckless wartime behavior among the wealthy. Six figures with halos (suggesting false virtue) boast of dangerous stunts: speeding at sixty miles per hour with a hairpin turn, loop-the-loops in airplanes, and drunk driving. The satire targets the hypocrisy of privileged people engaging in frivolous, dangerous activities while others sacrifice in wartime. Below, "Our Primer of Celebrities" mocks government censors during World War I. The text portrays censors as perpetually working to suppress information and maintain mystery around the war effort—keeping the public "guessing." It suggests censorship exists to artificially sustain interest in an otherwise unpopular war. The final cartoon shows a crowded air-raid shelter with Mrs. Roach asking if all children are accounted for, highlighting civilian vulnerability to air attacks. Together, the page critiques wartime excess among elites, government information control, and civilian danger.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
I TRIED TO LOOP ™LOoP sa IN MY I DIDN'T KNow IT TWAS WITH MY CHAUFFEUR WHEN HE TOOK THE HAIR PIK TURK AT SIXTY MILES HAIR PIN ( TURN AT SIXTY MILES \ N %e| AN HOUR N SW SAT? Si ‘AN HOUR Vat (i) tH! OZ) Nee CHESTER T GARDE DOWN-AND-OUTERS Our Primer of Celebrities EE the Censor. He censors all the time—morning, noon and night. When others are tak- ing their much-needed rest he keeps on censoring just the same. His heart is in his work. War was becoming so well known that there was grave danger of its get- ting to be unpopular. When we have discovered all there is to know about a thing we generally lose interest in it. The censor was therefore called in to fan the mystery. He loves to keep everybody guessing. Every censor has probably once been an editor, The main business of edi- tors is to cut out everything interesting. To be a first-class censor one must be able to keep a secret. There are no women censors. Censors owe their existence to war. Will they die out or become obsolete? We cannot answer this question per- fectly, but, judging from present indi- cations, we have an idea that there will always be censors. Mrs. Roach: JouN, DEAR, ARE YOU SURE WE HAVE ALL THE CHILDREN?