Life, 1915-06-24 · page 16 of 45
Life — June 24, 1915 — page 16: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This piece satirizes pro-war propaganda and the hypocrisy of its advocates. A small, nervous man passionately argues *for* war to a reluctant stranger, using logic-twisting arguments: that war deaths are statistically acceptable compared to civilian deaths from poverty and accidents, and that war is a "purifier" that rejuvenates supposedly degenerate modern society. The satire targets his invocation of post-Civil War "awakening" while condemning contemporary society's "signs of decay"—eugenics, dancing, feminism, youth irresponsibility. The joke culminates when a large woman interrupts him mid-rant, grabbing his collar, suggesting his sanctimonious moralizing has consequences in real life. The accompanying fish-and-fishing-themed comic strips ("Visions," "Morning," "Noon," "Night") appear to provide visual contrast to the earnest debate, offering escapist humor about simple pleasures versus the grim war rhetoric above.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
1140 Not Quite His Own “ME for wart” The rather small, nervous, bright-eyed man fixed his luminous orbs on the gentleman in the next seat. “Yes, sir,” he continued, “I’m for grim-visaged war in all its horrid aspects, and if you have a few mo- ments I think I can convince you that I am right.” The other man edged about uneasily. “Make it short,” he said. “T'll put it in a nutshell, In the first place, we mortals have no imagi- nation—no vision. We talk of the horror and savagery of war, not realiz- ing, in its broader aspects, that every man has to die, that his death is usu- ally a tragedy, and that if his death takes place in battle he is but antici- pating it a few years; also, that the total number of deaths thus far in this great cataclysm is only one-sixth of the birth rate, and that we kill many more by civilization, such as railroad accidents, child labor and many forms of poverty. Do you fol- low me?” “T do.” “Well, then, that’s all that can pos- sibly be said against war, except the destruction of property and some suf- fering on the part of non-combatants. Now, sir, let me give the other side. War is the great purifier.” “How do you make that out?” “It is Nature’s way of putting the race on its feet again. Before our Civil War we were a supine race. Out of the great conflict that en- sued came a great awakening—came courage, came a new spirit. But that was a generation ago. Once more the pendulum has swung back. Again we are supine, commercialized, de- generate. Witness the signs of the times—cugenics, sex mania, dancing, feminism, the irresponsible attitude of the young, the decadence of the homes and—” At this moment a large, benevolent- looking lady, whose velvet step, as she came down the aisle, he had not heard, leaned over and grabbed him by the coat collar. “Excuse me,” she said, “but did I MORNING comicbooks.com