Life, 1915-08-12 · page 23 of 40
Life — August 12, 1915 — page 23: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This editorial satirizes American hypocrisy regarding Mexican-American relations. A Chicago Tribune correspondent dismisses Mexican resistance to U.S. intervention as mere "provincial pride," but the writer exposes the double standard: when Americans defend their own interests, it's called patriotism; when Mexicans do the same, it's branded as petty regional sentiment. The top illustration depicts a crowd in rain—likely representing Mexican citizens facing American pressure. The accompanying text mocks the semantic gymnastics that allow Americans to justify territorial ambitions and military threats while dismissing legitimate Mexican nationalism as inferior emotion. The "Hare and Tortoise" illustration below suggests America (the hare) is trying to "even up old scores" through superior force, while Mexico (the tortoise) represents slower, steadier resistance. The satire argues that patriotism cannot be a true principle if it only applies selectively—legitimizing one nation's self-interest while delegitimizing another's identical defense.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Patriotism and Provincial Pride CORRESPONDENT in the Chicago Tribune says the Mexicans hate the United States. But how can that be? All we have done is to go down there and try to get hold of all their valuable possessions and to threaten them with war-ships if they offered too strenuous objections. According to the Tribune correspondent, this hatred is “founded on that provincial pride, sometimes miscalled patriotism, that makes the people of one geographical partition feel they have reason to despise those of another.” Thus once again do different points of view encumber our vocabularies and confuse our sentiments, Patriotism is a beautiful thing until you have crossed an imaginary line and look back at it. Then, presto! it is suddenly converted into an unworthy sentiment called provincial pride. So long as that is the case patriotism will never be the exact science that it ought to be. THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE. EVENING UP OLD SCORES : comicbooks.com .