Life, 1914-10-15 · page 30 of 48
Life — October 15, 1914 — page 30: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**Top cartoon ("The Dictagraph in Utah"):** This depicts a dictaphone or recording device being used in Utah—likely referencing contemporary concerns about surveillance or eavesdropping technology in that state, though the specific context is unclear. **"Those State Debts" section:** This editorial argues for standardizing state fiscal policy. It questions why states have vastly different per-capita debts (Pennsylvania zero, Massachusetts $80 million, New York $9 per capita versus Massachusetts $23), advocating that the better fiscal approach should be adopted uniformly across all states. **"Balanced" section:** A philosophical aside suggesting that mutual indifference between the saved and damned in the afterlife is perfectly symmetrical. **Bottom cartoon:** A domestic humor strip where a child brings in a cat, planning to make it spit at a guest—a simple sight gag about childhood mischief, unrelated to the state debt discussion above.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE DICTAGRAPH IN UTAH Those State Debts wr should a great big State like Pennsylvania owe nothing at all and a little bit of a State like Massa- chusetts owe eighty millions of dollars? Why should Oregon, away out there on the Pacific Coast, owe no dollars per capita, New York nine dollars per capita and Massachusetts twenty-three dollars per capita? Of course questions like these shouldn't be answered hurriedly, but, nevertheless, they have to be answered some time. Two diametrically opposite policies are represented here, and one of them must be better than the other. The better one ought to be adopted by all the good little and big States. Balanced ACCURATE and exhaustive statistics will likely show that the pity felt by those on the way to heaven for those on the way to hell is exactly equal in amount and intensity to that felt by those on the way to hell for those on the way to heaven. “WHY, WILLIE, WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY BRINGING THAT IN HERE?” “\ THOUGHT MAYBE THE CAT MIGHT WANT TO SPIT.” comicbooks.com