Life, 1915-08-05 · page 27 of 44
Life — August 5, 1915 — page 27: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The page contains a small illustration titled "The Riding Master" showing a woman on horseback receiving instruction from a male riding instructor—a conventional social scene about proper equestrian form. This appears unrelated to the main article. The substantive content is an essay titled "An Old Man's War, With Due Infusion Of Alcohol," referencing statements by Jane Addams (the Progressive reformer). The piece argues that World War I is fundamentally controlled by older men—the Kaiser, generals, and war leaders—while young men do the actual fighting and dying ("Kanonenfutter," German slang for cannon fodder). The article also addresses Addams's claim that soldiers were given alcohol before bayonet charges to boost courage. The author notes this is disputed by other war correspondents but suggests alcohol *was* systematically supplied to troops, more generously to German soldiers. The satire's point: despite propaganda claiming wartime demanded military efficiency and sobriety, soldiers were actually fortified with liquor—an ironic contradiction revealing the war's true nature as an old men's enterprise using young men's bodies.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Gitte: Nr ce HEARD IN THE PARK The Riding Master: THE TROT, MADAM, WHEN RIDDEN IN GOOD FOR} Is THE GAIT AT WHICH BOTH HORSE AND RIDER SECURE THE MAXIMUM OF COMFORT AND EASE An Old Man’s War, With Due Infusion Of Alcohol ISS ADDAMS says she heard everywhere that the war was an old man's war, not popular with the young men who are doing the fighting. That is comprehensible. Average young men, unless mat- ters have gone very wrong with them, prefer to live. It is not supposable that young Germans in the mass, for example, should be ambitious to be turned into Kanonenfutter. The war is primarily the war of the Kaiser, the professors, the German General Staff and the German war-leaders, nearly all of them of a suitable age to go to the front in motor cars. The young men are in it, some because they must, the Test out of pure patriotism. But the direction of the affairs of the world is in the control of the mature men, and all government is as much old man’s govern- ment as this war is an old man’s war. So peace, when it comes, will be an old man’s peace, except so far as it is due to women, whose years are not for publication. Addams also said that the soldiers of all the armies were systematically replenished with Dutch courage before bayonet charges, but that is denied fervently by other re- porters, such as R. H. Davis, who have been to the front and think they know. Miss Addams’s information was probably mixed too strong. Nevertheless, one gets the impression that the war has not been so rigidly sep- arated from alcoholic stimulation as has been advertised. There have been published details (untrue, perhaps) the soldiers’ allowances of wine and spirits, according to which all got some and the Germans got the most That is a sad thought for persons who supposed that the war-demand for efficiency had completely discom- fited alcohol, but nearly all the war-thoughts are sad thoughts. comicbooks.com