Life, 1914-12-31 · page 28 of 41
Life — December 31, 1914 — page 28: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three satirical pieces: **"Poor Alabama"** mocks Alabama's system of convict leasing—arresting Black citizens on trivial or fabricated charges, fining them impossibly, then forcing them to work off debts for pittance wages. The text uses heavy sarcasm to critique this quasi-slavery scheme, presenting Alabama's outrage when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional (peonage) as if the state were being unfairly restricted. **"A Safety Suggestion"** sardonically proposes that since one dangerous dog warrants muzzling all dogs, society should shackle everyone to prevent occasional murders—attacking the illogic of blanket punishment policies. **"Oregon Dry in 1916"** reports Oregon's surprising reversal from voting to legalize alcohol (1910) to prohibition (1916), questioning what caused this dramatic about-face in voter sentiment. The accompanying cartoons humorously illustrate exaggeration: a car salesman's inflated promises of hill-climbing ability, and New Year's Eve revelry likely connected to the prohibition debate.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Poor Alabama ! . THE trouble is that they won't let Alabama alone so that she can properly mobilize her own destiny. Here she had worked out a fine scheme of contract labor for the negro, whom she wishes to uplift by keeping in an inferior position. The scheme permitted a negro to be hauled up for the most trivial offense, or no offense at all except that he was a negro, fined and assessed “costs” to an unlimited amount, and then turned over to an employer at as low as six dollars a month to work it out. At the end of thz period, if the employer still needed help and the court needed “costs”, the negro could be re-arrested, re-fined and re-assessed. And so ad lib. But now the United States Supreme Court comes along and says the whole thing is peonage, which is another way of saying slavery, and therefore unconstitutional. How awkward! If Alabama were only left to work out her own policies, she would soon have many other claims on fame besides being the chief child-labor State in the Union and the most illiterate; she would soon leave the twentieth century far in the rear until every advantage of the medixval dark ages were securely hers. A Safety Suggestion F Doctor Goldwater and other eminent health authori- ties have the correct theory that all dogs everywhere should be muzzled because some dog somewhere, which might possibly have been suspected of being mad, threat- ened to bite some one, why do not our penal authorities learn the obvious lesson therefrom, Let everybody be handcuffed and shackled because some man in a drunken frenzy committed a murder. That’s the only way to be YOUR IMPRESSION OF A CAR'S HILL-CLIMBING CAPACITY absolutely safe. It would bring about a perfect condition AFTER THE SALESMAN GETS THROUGH WITH YOU of peace and save the cost of many penitentiaries. Oregon Dry in 1916 REGON, which went “wet” in 1910 by twenty thousand votes in a total vote of about one hundred thou- sand, has this year gone dry by a substantial majority, The manufac- ture and sale of liquor is to be pro- hibited after July 1, 1916. What has Oregon been drinking since 1910 to make her so repentant? OF course Oregon will still have beverages after July 1, 1916, but, ap- parently, she will have no open. sale of drinks, One could wish that in trying the prohibition experiment she might vary it in some way from the methods so long tried in Maine, so as to try out some new theory. Oregon is not South Carolina. Maybe the Guttenberg plan could be made to work in Oregon. NEW YEAR'S EVE