Life, 1915-05-13 · page 10 of 52
Life — May 13, 1915 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two distinct items from a WWI-era *Life* magazine: **Left cartoon ("Coast Defense")**: Shows a figure on a beach cliff confronting coyotes—a satirical commentary on methods used to control prairie wolves by inoculating them with disease. The text criticizes this as excessively cruel, even by agricultural standards. **Right section**: An interview with "Dr. A. Killem von Bernberg," a German diplomat. The name itself is satirical ("Killem" being a pun). He defends German submarine attacks that killed civilians, claiming exaggerated casualty figures originate from English propaganda. The figure depicted appears to be mocking German justifications for wartime atrocities. The accompanying illustration of a woman with the caption about "her hair" likely references German brutality narratives circulating during the war.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
COAST DEFENSE A Cruel Way With Prairie Wolves HE Louisville Courier-Journal re- bukes the agricultural papers in the West for their exultations over the success of certain cruel methods used to destroy the coyotes. The trick has been to inoculate young coyotes with a virulent type of mange and them The evidences of success appear in “coyotes almost en- tirely hairless, weak from hunger and disease, seen shivering in the wind”, Coyotes—prairie wolves—are unde- sirable animals that cat mice and prairie dogs and sometimes kill sheep. But mange is a distracting itch caused by an itch-mite that burrows into the skin, The Courier-Journal considers it too bad even for coyotes, and de- clares that “no extensive campaign against animals taking the form of great cruelty to them has ever before been launched”, Rat poison kills promptly, but mange means suffering long drawn out. Authorized and systematic cruelty is worse for Western agriculture than coyotes. But, stars above, this is a savage year! turn loose. Interview D® A. KILLEM VON BERN- BERG, the eminent German diplomatist, expressed great surprise yesterday when informed that general indignation had been expressed in * this country over the last murder of a couple of hundred defenseless women and children by the captain and crew of German submarines. “In the first place,” said Dr. von Bernberg, “you must remember that all the news reports originate in Eng- land and are, therefore, colored; it being the policy of our noble, patriotic pressmen in Berlin to remain silent, especially when necessary reprisals are going on. For instance, in this par- ticular case, the number of killed is given as two hundred Women and children, whereas the number was ac- tually one hundred and ninety-cight. It is this dastardly exaggeration on the part of our enemies which so in- spires us with fury.” The eminent man then had a hate spasm, which lasted about fifteen minutes, after which he resumed: “The blame for this lies, of course, with our hated enemies, England has announced her intention of subjugat- Mouse’ Now, 1 SuPPOSE TMUAT IF SHE LOOKS UP AND SEES THAT SPIDER, SHE'LL START TO TAKE DOWN HER MAIR ing the German Empire. This is lése- maj of the most pronounced type. By killing off all the innocent non- combatants and women and children who come into our power, and by destroying all the historic buildings, we hope in time to convince everybody that we are innocent of bringing on the war.” comicbooks.com