Life, 1915-12-16 · page 25 of 44
Life — December 16, 1915 — page 25: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three satirical pieces from WWI-era Life magazine: **Main Cartoon (top):** A police sergeant interrogates a suspect about an attempted choking, instructing him not to wash fingerprints. This appears to be a straightforward detective/crime joke with no political reference. **"Hopeful Prospect":** Satire on German wartime food substitutes. The joke: Germans might eventually manufacture fake Germans "just as good and not subject to delusions of grandeur"—mocking German militarism and superiority complex as pathological "delusion." **"Involved Us in Expense":** Henry Ford donated $10,000 for peace telegrams to the president, but the government had to supply wastebaskets to receive them. The satire: mocking both Ford's peace activism as futile and the government's waste during wartime. **"Progressive":** Ridicules a children's biography of Robert Louis Stevenson, sarcastically suggesting similar books should exist for other professions (manicurists, librarians), implying the concept of specialized children's literature is absurd.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Sergeant: TRIED TO CHOKE YE, DID HE? WELL, WE'LL GET RIGHT ON HIS TRAIL, AND, IN THE MEANTIME, DON’T WASH OFF THEM FINGER-PRINTS Hopeful Prospect E read that the Germans are now making imitations of food that answer all the purposes of the real thing. That is very interesting. They may come, in the course of the war, to make imitation Germans, just as good and not subject to delusions of grandeur. Involved Us in Expense M®: HENRY FORD provided $10,000 to pay for peace tele- grams to the president, but the waste- baskets to receive them had to be sup- plied by the United States government. Thus do burdens increase on our al- ready overtaxed country. the baby-stare, My boy, bew fecause, if it’s a bluff, She knows too much,—and if it’s not, She doesn’t know enough! Progressive The Life of Robert Louis Steven- son for Boys and Girls, by Jacqueline M. Overton. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. $1.00. —From an advertisement. wry not have one for maiden aunts, for neglected grandpar- ents, for indigent cousins, one for music teachers, chauffeurs, head wait- ers, manicurists and, say, assistant li- brarians? Perhaps this biography of Steven- son may usher in an entirely new epoch in literature. Conceive, for ex- ample, the story of Jack the Giant Killer done over for grown-ups, with maps, explanatory texts and preface by some distinguished anthropologist.