Life, 1915-10-28 · page 17 of 52
Life — October 28, 1915 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical essay and accompanying cartoons mock the class divide between ordinary depositors and bank presidents in early 20th-century America. **The Text:** The author describes his fantasy of knowing a bank president—someone so elevated and isolated behind "iron railings and a high mahogany balustrade" that he seems almost inhuman. The narrator admits his absurd dream: to someday borrow money *solely* to have an excuse to enter the president's private office and experience proximity to this "august personage." **The Cartoons:** - Left panel: Shows a banker with a money bag and umbrella labeled with complaints about "small favils due to organized efforts"—depicting how common people view bankers as aloof and dismissive. - Right panel: A figure clutching a formal letter, apparently soliciting the banker with desperation. **The Satire:** The humor lies in exposing the ridiculous deference ordinary citizens showed toward wealthy elites, and how bankers were perceived as fundamentally different creatures. The essay's self-aware tone suggests this reverence was both common and absurd—hence the final caption: "at heart we are really goodnatured" (i.e., despite the pretense of class difference).
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
An Anbition HAVE often thought that I should like to know the president of a bank. I do not mean, of course, familiarly, but simply that I'd like to feel that he knew me and would speak to me when we met and possibly say a pleasant word to me. Occasionally I go into the bank where I keep my modest deposit, and take pleasure in seeing the president— or at least a part of him—screened off by iron railings and a high mahogany balustrade. One day I thought that he looked up and noticed me, but doubtless this was only a fancy. I once knew the vice-president of a bank, and he was a jolly fellow. He smiled at me one day and said that my signature was one not easily imitated. This, I thought, showed a delicate ap- preciation of my impoverished condi- tion; the hint that anyone might find it worth while to imitate my signature was extremely courteous and thought- ful on his part. It quite set me up. OF course, us common people just holler like the dickens sometimes, hut —— “LIFE: T have a friend—one of those argu- mentative fellows, who takes the other side invariably just for the love of it— and he declares, when we dispute about the matter, that the president of a bank has human qualiti¢s; that he is in many respects like other men. When he tells me all this I usually let him have his way. I know, of course, that he really doesn’t mean it; at the same time it is an alluring thought. I have a sense of humor—so my friends say —and it is rather amus- ing to think of the president of a bank being like—well, say, some one that I know. I often imagine myself having a little joke with him, and hav- ing him say—for example—that he once forgot his umbrella. or some ridiculous thing like that. Of course I wouldn't have anyone think that Ido this regularly. I have too much respect for the president of a bank for that. The paying teller—with whom I am on astonishingly intimate terms and who grunts at me delightfully when- 797 ever I timidly ask for new bills—was the one who originally told me who the president of the bank was—as he chanced to pass one day. I had, of course, suspected it before. But to know after that that he was the very man, and no other, was a great com- fort, I intend some day to go early and sce the’ president of the bank come in. It must be an inspiring sight. But I am quite sure of one thing. If I ever make my fortune—as I hope to—I shall make a loan at the bank some day. I shall be ushered superbly into his private office. I shall explain my mission and produce my collateral. This precipitate borrowing of moncy, I have no doubt, will lower me hope- lessly in his eyes. No further juxta- position will, of course, be possible. I shall have to bear that. He will never know that I am borrowing the money only because T wish, for once in my life, to feel the inspiration of such an august personage. at heart we are really goodnatured. comicbooks.com