Life, 1915-06-17 · page 30 of 52
Life — June 17, 1915 — page 30: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three satirical pieces critiquing American society circa early 20th century: **"How to Succeed"** presents contradictory advice—deliberately pairing opposite statements (get/don't get a college education; save/borrow money; marry/don't marry)—to mock self-help literature's hollow platitudes. The satire suggests such advice is inherently contradictory and useless. **"Efficiency"** jokes about North-South hypocrisy: when a Southerner defends child labor in Southern factories, the Northerner admits the North employs children too—exposing mutual moral failure rather than genuine concern. **The cartoon caption** "Frenzied Teuton" (German) meeting a Scotsman saying "GOTT BUNISH ENGLAND!" appears to reference World War I tensions, likely mocking German-British antagonism. **"The Industrial Circle"** critiques capitalism's cyclical logic as self-perpetuating and ultimately hollow—capital begets labor begets goods begets profit begets more capital, "until the end of the profit system...which is not yet in sight," suggesting the system never truly fulfills its promises.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Frenzied Teuton (meeting a Scotch cap): How to Succeed (Follow These Rules Fatthfully and the World Will Be Yours.) ECOME a college graduate. The acquaintances you make and the standing you get are absolutely necessary. Don’t waste time on college. which ruins every boy’s capacity for work. The three R’s are the only things necessary, Take the first job that’s offered you, no matter what it is. Experience, no mat- ter what it is, will be your biggest asset. Respect yourself and don’t take the first thing that offers. What you value yourself at is what the world values you at. Save your money. It takes nerve to blow in all your cash. But that is the policy, with brains back of it, that produces the biggest results. Never borrow. Be a big borrower, That's the way you make others work for you. Remember, a good wife will do more to make you than any other factor. Don’t marry. The extravagance of women is the curse of the nation. GOTT BUNISH ENGLAND! Efficiency GOUTHERNER: Why are you Northerners always harping on the children employed in Southern factories? NortTHerNer* it detracts people’s attention from the children employed in ours. Well, for one thing, The Most Impudent Thing 'HE most impudent thing in New York is a big advertising board on the left of the Riverside viaduct as you go north. When you pass Grant's Tomb and look up the river there is this audacious Gude sign-board, erected on the top of a building, and stretched right across the throat of one of the most beautiful prospects in the world. The impudence of it is wonderful. It is as though these advertisers had set out to spit in the face of humanity. The crudest intelligence must be shocked by vandalism so gross. The whole bill-board advertising business in New York must be put under control of somebody of intelli- gence. If anyone doubts it, this bill- board by the viaduct is all the argu- ment needed to abate the doubt The Industrial Circle 'HIS, then, is the circle of industry: To invest more capital to give more employment to laborers to manu- facture more goods to make more Profits to give more leisure to stock- holders to invest more capital to give more employment to laborers to manu- facture more goods to make more profits to give more leisure to stock- holders, and so on and on until the end of the profit system, which has often been promised, but which is not yet in sight.