Life, 1915-10-07 · page 24 of 52
Life — October 7, 1915 — page 24: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**Top Cartoon:** "Why Be a Tight-Wad When You Know They'll Get It All Some Day?" depicts a charity collection box, satirizing wartime profiteering and the expectation that wealth will eventually be seized through taxation or redistribution during the conflict. **"He Was Grateful" Story:** A man traps a stranger to vent opinions on current events—the Arabic sinking, Jane Addams's pacifism, Theodore Roosevelt's Plattsburg preparedness speech, militant suffragism, and Mexican policy. The twist: he's a suburban husband whose wife dominates their household through her leadership roles (Women's Club president, choir director, suffrage delegate). Unable to speak at home, he buttonholes strangers for intellectual outlets. **"Doomed to Failure":** The government attempts developing nicotine-free tobacco. The satire dismisses this as futile—people prefer the *real thing*, including its dangers, rather than sanitized substitutes. It's a commentary on Prohibition-era attempts at "safer" alternatives and human nature's resistance to reform. The page reflects pre-WWI American anxieties about war preparedness, women's political activism, and government overreach.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
ARO WAAR, WHY BE A TIGHT-WAD WHEN YOU KNOW THEY'LL GET IT ALL SOME DAY? He Was Grateful HE went up to a quict-looking man who was sitting with folded hands looking off on the water and said: “Pardon, sir. We have never met before, but would you mind listening to a few decided opinions of mine? I am rather an interesting talker. If I bore you, stop me at any moment.” “Go on, sir.” “T thought I hadn't mistaken you. Terrible thing about the Arabic, wasn’t it? Lansing and Wilson mean well, “FROM AN ADMIRER” but as for me, I'd have pitched into the Germans at the start. Only way, sir, we'll get prepared is to get into a war, and now’s the time when they can’t fight us Pity about Jane Addams, wasn’t it?” “What's happened to her?” “Nice girl, Jane; but, like all women and journalists, doesn’t know what she’s talking about. When Jane says they have to feed soldiers on alcohol to make ’em brave, she’s all wrong, If a man isn’t brave naturally, nothing will make him so, not even alcohol. I know it. I'm a very much married man, But to proceed. Wasn't that Plattsburg speech of Teddy's a scream? For years and years that man’s friends have been trying to save him from himself, but it's no use. A mounte- bank, sir, I assure you. But I must hurry on. What think you of our Mexican policy?” “T haven't” “Well, I have. Punk, sir, P assure you. I’m no fetid Republican, but we should have overrun Mexico at once, if only for practice. Me for grim- visaged war. Look at England! Awful, isn't it? Twenty-five thousand Welsh miners, most of ‘em known per- sonally to Lloyd-George, striking at a critical moment. Militant suffrage, sir, is responsible for England’s soggy state. Woman, sir, ought to be cowed down. Kept where she belongs. I—" The quiet-looking man stopped him. “See here, sir,” he ventured; “you may be an interesting talker, but you can keep this up all day. I'm going. But tell me what your object is.” The other man smiled. “Much obliged to you, sir, for your brief attention,” he replied. “The sit- uation is simple. I live in a suburban town and am married to the president of the Wor an’s Club, who is also leader of the Choir Guild, delegate to the State suffrage convention and weekly lecturer on current events. Not having had for fifteen years past the slightest opportunity to express an opinion at home on any living subject, I am forced to depend upon total strangers, and must say the world isn’t so bad as it seems. Much obliged, sir. Hope we'll mect again. Farewell!” Doomed to Failure THRE government has been interest- ing itself in a process whereby tobacco can be grown without any nicotine in it. Nicotineless tobacco is said to taste the same as the old wicked kind. We do not believe, how- ever, that it will be any more popular than substitutes for coffee or antiseptic kissing. Most people do not care to be fooled that way. They prefer to die with their boots on, reasonably full of bad microbes, comicbooks.com