Life, 1916-01-06 · page 45 of 48
Life — January 6, 1916 — page 45: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains a satirical dialogue between a person and what appears to be **personified "1916"** (the year itself, depicted as an elderly man). The joke plays on New Year's tradition: the narrator complains that 1916 treats people unfairly—some face hardship while others are spared. The year responds that it distributes challenges equally to everyone; people simply experience them differently. The satire targets human tendency to blame external forces (fate, the calendar year) for misfortune while ignoring that life's inequities stem from how individuals and society *receive* or *manage* circumstances—not from inherent favoritism. The page also includes period advertisements (Hotel Biltmore, Pine Forest Inn, Nabisco wafers) and a brief moral tale about an overworked servant boy, illustrating class exploitation. A cartoon caption shows someone forced into tennis "to make an athletic appearance"—mocking social pretense. The content reflects 1916 concerns: class disparity, personal responsibility, and social conformity pressures.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
replied softly, “of the great admoni+ tion, ‘Do good to your enemies’? And, besides, you malign us. It is true that a proportion of us treat you very badly, display no regard for you and waste you shamefully, but you forget there are quite a number of us who deal gently with you. Now, sir, can’t you get up a special nineteen-hundred-and-six- teen, just for our particular benefit?” He shook his hoary head. “It wouldn't do,” he said, in a molli- fied voice. “I must chasten every one of you equally. I try to average it all up.” Then I thought I had him, “But, ah!” I cried, “that’s the point! You do discriminate. Some you treat better than others. Your partiality is what I am complaining of. I want—”" He got up and opened the door. 1 saw that the interview was over, so I rose before he might destroy me. “Go,” he said quietly. “ But let me say this to you, my friend. I am the most misunderstood man in Christen- dom. If you knew anything—which you don’t—you would see that every new year I get up for this fault-finding race is the same’for all. It’s only the different ways in which you receive it that make it seem different.” And as I hastened into my biplane I heard him cry: NEW YORK Cs Center of? 3 uses oF ocial Life o the etropolis 1000 OUTSIDE ROOMS hn HEE. Bowman, President | PINE FOREST INN AND COTTAGES Summerville, S. C. 22 Miles from Historic Charleston Always Golf Weather in Srepaibseoe 5. Cc Serr 18-bole Golf a cr Rew ece ae —~ Booklet on Application. F. W. WAGENER & CO. - Chas, A. Weir, Manager. Proprietors. Imagine confections of fairy baking—the sweetest of fla- vored creamy fillings; then you will have a faint idea of the irresistible goodness of NABISCO Sugar Wafers. In ten-cent tins and twenty-five-cent tins. “Here you, 1916, get into training. You'll need all your strength, for by the time all those growlers get through with you you'll look almost as old as I am.” Titere was once a rich but very mean old lady who paid her servants as little as possible, and kept very few. One of her staff was a thin, miserable- looking lad of twelve, who answered the door, did the knives and the windows, waited at table, weeded the garden, washed the poodle, and had the rest of the time to himself. One visitor asked him: “ Well, my boy, and what do you do here?” “TI do a butler and a gardener out of a job!” snapped the lad, sourly. —Tit-Bits. FESTINO—Another dessert sweet. Like an almond in shape, with a filling of sweet cream. NATIONAL BISCUIT COMPANY erm “ WILy, MR. LIGHTLY, I DIDN'T KNow You CARED FOR TENNIS.” “1 DON'T, BUT MOTHER INSISTS ON MY MAKING AN ATHLETIC APPEARANCE.” comicbooks.com