Life — January 6, 1916 — page 9: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "An Ancestor" and "May-Happenings in 1916" **"An Ancestor"** is a poem by Clinton Scollard describing an elegant colonial ancestor—a dandy who was "slender" and "tall," wore fine clothes, and was "divine." The satire mocks the narrator's pride in this frivolous forebear, contrasting his fashionable idleness with the ancestor's supposed superiority. The decorative header with cherubs emphasizes the pretentious veneration of aristocratic ancestry. **"May-Happenings in 1916"** presents speculative anxieties about German sabotage during World War I. The cartoon depicts Time as a laborer "always on the job," while the accompanying text voices paranoid concerns: Could Germans capture New York? Infiltrate the White House? Sabotage munitions factories? These fears reflect American anxiety about potential enemy agents and war involvement as 1916 progressed.