Life, 1915-09-02 · page 12 of 48
Life — September 2, 1915 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two separate pieces of social commentary: **"Cruelty to a Wife"** (left) shows a husband reading aloud from his newspaper—reciting increasingly catastrophic war and disaster headlines to his wife at breakfast. The joke satirizes insensitive husbands who inflict depressing news upon their spouses during intimate family moments, treating her as a captive audience for his reading practice rather than considering her feelings. **"The Man Who Steals a Loaf"** (right) is a serious editorial critique of corporate crime versus petty crime. It argues that while poor people go to jail for stealing bread out of hunger, wealthy directors and stock manipulators—who steal millions—escape justice through legal loopholes. The piece specifically references the Rock Island railroad scandal, demanding equal justice application.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“sy! AREN'T THE ROADS DELIGHTFULLY $3 Cruelty to a Wife man at the suburban breakfast table looked up his morning paper and said to his wife: “Seven hundred people killed yesterday in a steamboat accident.” “Indeed!” “Latest accounts of the battle in East Galicia show that one hundred thousand have been destroyed and fifty thou- sand taken prisoners.” “Well!” “Strikers’ riots threaten destruction of property all over the country. Million-dollar fire yesterday caused by bombs.’ “Um!” “Germany declares war on the United States.” “Dear me!" “Here's your name in the sporting column, winner of second prize in yesterday’s putting contest.” Snatching the paper from his hand, she exclaimed: “If that isn’t like you! To keep the only important thing for the last!” Er The Aviator: pan, The Man Who Steals a Loaf E all know Justice as she works; how the man who steals a loaf because he’s hungry goes to jail, and how the man who steals a million or millions goes free and offends us with his display of what he buys with his ill-gotten. sw Now we are promised a change. For once Justice is going after some of the big fellows. These have managed to keep criminal liability of directors out of the statutes, and it is impossible to get them when they do their stealing with their faces concealed by a director’s mask. Now, though, the Department of Justice is promising us some real pun’shment for the men who robbed the defe: less widows and orphans whose money was in the securities of the Rock Island. It seems that there is evidence in existence to indict for conspiracy the men who threw that solvent corporation into the hands of a receiver. One director claims he didn’t know that it was to be done, but it has been testified that his holdings of ten thousand shares were reduced to one thousand during the period that the stock market was rigged to enable those on the inside to unlgad. Their lawyer has admitted that Messrs. Daniel G. Reid and Judge Moore, always prominent in Rock Island, were aware three weeks in advance that a receiver was to be applied for, although apparently every one else was kept in ignorance of the assault planned on the credit of the com- pany. It was in that three weeks that Rock Island stock did its spectacular stunt in Wall Street. Does the Department of Justice really mean business? It seems too good to be true. If it does, we may possibly see that hitherto unknown combination—the man who stole the loaf and the men who stole millions all in the same prison. M0770 for gern theorists—Be sure you fright, then go ahead. ¥ comicbooks.com