Life, 1915-04-29 · page 29 of 44
Life — April 29, 1915 — page 29: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**The main cartoon** depicts a soldier standing triumphantly amid a devastated WWI battlefield, holding a telescope and a fist aloft. This illustrates the accompanying article's satirical proposal: if fox-trotting (the modern dance craze of the 1920s) can cure insanity in Pennsylvania asylums, why not use it on Albany politicians to restore "sanity and probity"? The cartoon suggests the battlefield carnage results from the moral insanity of corrupt New York legislators. **"After the Honeymoon"** is a comedic dialogue satirizing intrusive mothers-in-law. The unseen speaker makes patronizing observations about a newlywed couple's choices—their sparse wedding gifts, living independently rather than boarding elsewhere, missing parents—before promising daily visits. It mocks the overbearing maternal figure and newlyweds' loss of privacy. Both pieces target contemporary social anxieties: political corruption and generational family dynamics.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE HYMN OF HATE Any Remedy Is Worth Trying A SOORPING to a report from an insane asylum in Pennsylvania, fox-trotting introduced among the patients of this institution has had marked curative proper- ties. Insane people who are given doses of the modern dances find their insanity considerably neutralized. If this is true, and good results are thus to be obtained in asylums, why not try it in the Albany capitol? Could the Albany politicians, who are now flirting with the des- tinies of New York, be reduced to a condition of partial sanity and probity, who could then say that the fox-trot had lived in vain? After- the Honeymoon “C)F course you didn’t see anything.” “T had no idea you were going to keep house— thought you were going to board.” “How perfectly lovely your wedding presents all look. I hadn't the slightest idea your friends were so good to you.” “Of course you'll miss your parents terribly at first, but it’s so sensible to start alone. By and bye it won't make so much difference who you have.” “Yes, it’s always the first year that’s so hard.” “Promise me if you want anything you'll let me know. T'll be over every day, anyway, until you're settled.”