Life, 1914-10-08 · page 14 of 44
Life — October 8, 1914 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This Life magazine page contains two distinct elements: **"Maeterlinck Sees Red"** is an article about Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck's bitter post-WWI views on Germans. The text quotes him arguing Germans are inherently destructive and must be permanently eliminated—a view the author finds extreme but understandable given Belgian suffering during the war. **"Everybody's Next Friend"** is a brief article about Uncle Sam's diplomatic efforts, humorously noting he's accumulating embassies and legations while trying to balance commercial interests with maintaining small foreign offices. Below are two cartoons showing help-wanted signs for "Man Wanted to Dresse Window" and "Man Wanted to Dress Wedows"—a visual pun where "widows" is misspelled as "wedows," with the joke playing on war-created widows needing assistance.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
618 Meeterlinck Sees Red AURICE MAETERLINCK, a Belgian, says the Bel- gians must not forget their terrible experiences nor feel presently that, after all, the mass of Germans may not be so bad. “We must be pitiless,” he says; “the Germans are guilty tin the mass; they did what it was in them, and always will be in them, to do; they must be destroyed like wasps. Let there come a thousand years of civilization, of peace, with all refinements, the German spirit will re- inain absolutely the same as to-day, and, given opportunity, would declare itself under the same aspect and with the same infamy.” Maurice seems to be a good deal stirred up. Probably he has been to Louvain. But to destroy the Germans is too large a contract. Moreover, this idea that a whole race of men is incurably impossible, though excusable in Maeterlinck for the mo- ment, is a very mischievous idea. It is cousin to the idea the Germans seem to have cultivated about the Slav, and to their further notion that the Teuton is the Only Hope. But “Teuton” in the German mind includes all the races of Northern Europe—British, French, Belgian, Dutch, Scandinavian, Celt and even Slav itself, unless it The Ger- mans have not professed a pious purpose to destroy even the Slavs “like Wasps”, and as to the Belgians, All the Germans want of the Belgians is complete control of their country and their great port. They have not professed yet to see a need to exterminate the Belgians. Germanized and subjected to the direction and discipline of the German military caste, the Belgians might look pretty good to Germany. Of course that is what gives intensity to Maeterlinck’s wrath and gives extension to the sentiment that when the final settlement comes Belgium ought to have Berlin. is too much mixed with infusions from Asia. their professions about them. were most polite. “TAPE:E * The Moralist: vox’t b& MAKIN’ FUN UV HIM, TOMMY? YOU MIGHT BE LIKE DAT YERSELF SOME Day! Everybody's Next Friend UR Uncle Samuel has now on hand very much the largest stock of embassies and legations ever carried hy one.dealer. He had to ask for a million dollars the other day just to use as small change in the transaction of his borrowed business. Uncle prides himself a little on keeping in the amateur class in diplomacy, but perhaps his experience this year may help to persuade him to branch out a little and get permanent premises in the foreign cities. They seem to think of him over there as permanently in the business, and he might as well recognize that he is. tll —— MAN WANTED TO DRESS