Life, 1915-03-11 · page 15 of 48
Life — March 11, 1915 — page 15: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical piece uses a deliberately fractured English-speaking Japanese character to critique American hypocrisy regarding wartime atrocities. The crude illustration shows figures in exaggerated, stereotypical style typical of early 20th-century Life magazine. The satire's central point: A Japanese schoolboy collects money ostensibly for Belgian relief (victims of German WWI atrocities), but the narrator challenges the selective moral outrage. He argues Americans condemn German brutality in Belgium while ignoring comparable American violence—specifically lynching in the South ("Midnight Riders") and workplace deaths in mills and factories. The "atrocity" debate exposes the magazine's critique: calling only Belgian suffering "atrocity" while dismissing American racial violence and industrial deaths as mere "Social Unrest" reveals racist double standards and complicit media silence. The broken English reinforces the satire's bite—the "foreigner" sees American contradictions more clearly than Americans themselves.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“le REE Letters of a Japanese School-boy To Editor “ Life News” who are quite experienced in cruelty and other cartoons, EAREST SIR: My cousin Nogi approach to me of lately and say with voice, “ Togo,” he dictate, “I am sent to you by mercy to collect soc from your hard- ship.” * “Already I have donated so much of my suitery, bootery & hattery to Belgium that I cannot associate with fashionable refugees because of naked- ness.” Thusly I reproof from stinged purse. “Ah!” dictate. my cousin. . Nogi. “This cashed money which I require are not for Belgium.” “Not is?” I make known. “Otherwise,” he narrate “Tt shall be sent to Germany.” “Why should it?” I negotiate with thought. “T am intentional to collect soc each- apiece from all Japanese school-boys. bashly. “ Kindness makes friends, do it not?” Atrocities This will make 1oo$, when collected, and I shall send that to Hon. Pres Wil- son who shall express it by famus S S Dacia to Hon. Emp Wm of Germany.” “To what should that to?” I require snifity. “Kindness makes friends, do it not? It do. Friendship make kindness, not is? Yes. Therefore. If Hon. Emp Wm feel more kindness in Germany he will make less atrocity in Bel- gium.” “He might but would he?” are shorty question for me. “Your mind is full of calluses,” he doggone. “Perhapsly is,” I confiscate. “Yet I should be charm to send $1 cash price to Hon. Mercy if you would con- tribute that to stop atrocities some- where else.” “Where could it?” he ask to know. “In New Jersey among elsewhere,” I dally forth. “You are talking garbage,” dib my ignoramulous cousin. “There are no warfare being shot off in New Jersey.” “Yet something is shooting,” I snag- ger. “Quite recently of yore consider- able armed deputies approach twenty (20) laborers who was armless. Shoots! Twenty laborers die because they spoke disrespect about employment.” “That are not an atrocity,” ollicute Nogi. “An atrocity are something committed in Belgium.” “I must learn new dictionaries!” This from me with iron eyebrows. “ Sippose again. When troop of Death Head Dragoonies drag Belgium family, including lady-peasant and child, from bed and hang same to telegraph be- cause of racial peev, that are called Atrocity, are not?” “Undoubtlessly it are,” Nogi say it. “But when company of Midnight Riders go marching through Georgia and elevate niggero family by similar rope, what you call it then?” “That are christened Social Unrest,” Nogi define, “or perhapsly it are not mentioned at all because nevws- contribute papers is clogged by too much ex- citement from Russian attack on Lake Bjwrrkll, In this morning’s news- print I notice delicious account about how German militia killed 100 prison- ers so to save economical expense of marching them from place to place.” “Perhapsly you were too charmed by that news to read also how Amer- ican factory employer manufactured typhoid fever among children in his mill to save economical expense of plumbers? Maybe your dictionary would call that Social Unrest? Per- hapsly, also, you were too amused by Europe to observe slight horror which occurred when American doctor em- ployed Hon, Janitor to poison soup in Old Folks Home. And could not that murder of sweat-shop ladies by fire insurance scandal give you sifficient indignation for your soc?” “German soldiers has no respect for womanhood, childhood and _ other forms of mankind,” holla Nogi for argue. “Ladyship and infanticide are shot down without ruth when gunfire approach.” “ Perhapsly you have forgotten work of Colorado militia,” I report with so- cialism in my knuckles. “ Removal of female influence by bullets were very nicely observed there by those who looked.” “You are talking Prussian!" dib Nogi with Supreme Court in his eyes. “TI contain no German in my an- cestry. All Japanese are Scottish by nature and my soul is fighting with Gordon Highlanders. Yet we should pay the Kaiser his club dues. Why, I ask to know, should Hon. Emp Wm be considered less respectable than Sergt. Becker? Both have employed gunmen to remove innocent merchants at midnight. When Hon. Rosenthal fell, a marter to science, were not his kill-off an Atrocity also?” Not was!” This from Nogi in- dignally. ‘“ That were not an atrocity— it were N. Y. State Politics.” “That are merely the same word in a different uniform,” I magnify. “ For