Life, 1915-05-13 · page 8 of 52
Life — May 13, 1915 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three distinct pieces satirizing early 20th-century social issues: **Top illustration**: Shows a recruitment poster ("Wanted: Able-bodied men and women for the matrimonial legion") alongside women passing by, satirizing marriage as military conscription—a commentary on women viewing matrimony skeptically. **"The Horses" poem** by Katharine Lee Bates: A soldier's lament comparing horses' loyalty to human sacrifice in war, critiquing the treatment of enlisted men. **"A Little Problem"** and **"Pudding and Appreciation"**: Mock the servant problem (domestic labor shortage) and class tensions between employers and working-class household staff, suggesting rivalry over who makes the best pudding represents deeper anxieties about social hierarchy and domestic authority. The page overall reflects pre-WWI anxieties about gender roles, class relations, and military service.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
WANTED ABLE BODIED MEN AND WOMEN TOR THE MATRIMONIAL LEGION The Horses “Thus far eighty thousand horses have been shipped from the United States to the European belligerents.” HAT was our share in the sinning, That we must share the doom? Sweet was our life’s beginning In the spicy meadow-bloom, With children’s hands to pet us And kindly tones to call. To-day the red spurs fret us Against the bayonet wall. What had we done, our masters, That you sold us into hell? Our terrors and disasters Have filled your pockets well. You feast on our starvation; Your laughter is our groan, Have horses, then, no nation, No country of their own? What are we, we your horses, So loyal where we serve, Fashioned of noble fore All sensitive with nerv Torn, agonized, we wallow On the blood-bemired sod; And still the shiploads follow. Have horses, then, no, God? Katharine Lee Bates. NO LONGER A TEMPTATION THE RECRUITING SERGEANT ' A Little Problem F it takes 549 tickets to a charity ball at $10 each to raise $23.87 for charity, in what year and month of the twenty-ninth century will the popu- lation of the slums be reduced to half its present density? CONVERTING THE HEATHEN Pudding and Appreciation ANY forward movements start out backwards. Launching a cam- paign to solve the servant problem, the Housewives’ League of Montclair announces: “Your cook must be made to realize that it is just as great a thing to create a perfect pudding as it is to model a beautiful statue.” The people that need to realize this are not the cooks, but the people who cat the pudding. The cause of unrest among domestics is the tolerant con- tempt in which they are held by the families that pay them wages. If the ladies of Montclair will display half the rivalry to entertain good pudding makers that they feel when the newest sculptor visits their town, an enduring entente cordiale will spring up between themselves and their “help”, and the servant problem will vanish like a lemon meringue pie at a school picnic. IM: You're the only girl I ever loved! Her: That's interesting but imma- terial. What I want to know is, am I the only girl you're ever going to love?” comicbooks.com