Life, 1915-10-07 · page 17 of 52
Life — October 7, 1915 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page attacks eugenics through biting satire. The top cartoon, "The Original White Slave Traffic," depicts exploitation of poor children for labor, with labels showing victims of a corrupt system involving "J.P." (likely J.P. Morgan or financial elites), inspectors, and profiteers. The "Hint to Eugenists" section uses heavy irony to mock eugenicists' claims about "improving" the human race. It sarcastically proposes breeding children who *look* older to circumvent child-labor laws—revealing how eugenics rhetoric masked economic exploitation of the poor. The text ridicules both eugenics advocates and the fictional "National Association of Child Employers." Lower cartoons mock the wealthy: one jokes about making "enemies" while dancing (social climbing), another presents a doctor's dark humor about a poor child's starvation (mocking indifference to child poverty by suggesting a child could eat hay). The page satirizes how pseudoscientific eugenics was weaponized to justify labor exploitation and class inequality, while exposing the hypocrisy of elites claiming racial/biological "improvement."
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
om) a al ea VICTIM VICTIM THE ORIGINAL WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC Hint to Eugenists UGENISTS who would like to make a little extra money should turn their attention to developing, especially among the poorer classes, a race of children who look older than they are. The object of this is to get around the child-labor laws in the different States. In some States the laws have become so strict and the inspectors so alert that it is dangerous to hire children which are more than two or three years younger than the law permits. But if the eugenists would develop a type that would look mature, say, at six, then the inspectors could pass them with a clear conscience, collecting the proper per- quisites from the employer and yet leave a large margin of profit. Eugenists who want to go into this work in earnest should communicate with the National Association of Child Employers. This organization is always ready to help along commendable efforts of this kind, for the business of employing little children is far too remunerative to be left to the destructive onslaughts of maudlin sentimentalists. E, 0.7. “T WONDER if I will ever learn how to dance!” “Oh, yes! If you don't mind how many enemies you make.” Depths “LIE was pretty well ashamed of himself, wasn’t he?” “He was. He couldn't have felt much worse if he'd been a member of the New York baseball team.” “ INDEED, DOCTOR, THE POOR CHILD'S APPETITE 15 THAT FICKLE HE COULD RARELY PUT AWAY A BALE OF HAY FOR BREAKFAST” comicbooks.com