Life, 1914-10-15 · page 19 of 48
Life — October 15, 1914 — page 19: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This Life magazine page contains three satirical cartoons critiquing American institutions: **Top left:** References "the gentleman from Kansas" and the Speaker of the House—likely mocking a specific Kansas congressman's prominent role or speaking style in Congress. **Top right:** "Hand Me That Sign, Son" depicts ambition and deception. A figure holds an enormous globe while standing on tree stumps, with someone below offering a "THIS WAY TO HELL" sign. This satirizes social climbers or false prophets promising impossible rewards. **Bottom:** "Next Year's Hats" shows women at hat-making machines producing identical bonnets with bell-shaped forms. This mocks either the fashion industry's repetitive standardization or women's perceived conformity in fashion choices. The page also includes dictionary-style definitions lampooning "COURT" (justice as arbitrary prejudice) and professors (as title-carriers who merely repeat formulas rather than teach genuinely). The overall tone criticizes institutional hypocrisy, conformity, and false authority.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
AS MR. SPEAKER WOULD SAY, “THE GENTLEMAN FROM KANSAS HAS THE FLOOR” “HAND ME THAT SIGN, SON” OURT—A place where justice is dispensed with in ac- OST professors do not really profess. They are cordance with laws which nobody knows, by judges content to repeat the formulas they have learned, who have all the narrowness and prejudice of other men, carry around their titles and draw a meagre stipend. NEXT YEAR'S HATS comicbooks.com