Life, 1916-02-24 · page 31 of 48
Life — February 24, 1916 — page 31: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**Top Cartoon:** A gambler punished for his vice has a vision of the New York Stock Exchange transformed into a desert wasteland—satirizing the precarious nature of financial speculation and gambling culture on Wall Street. **"Differences and Indifferences" Article:** Life mocks the *New York Tribune's* contradictory editorial logic regarding government shipping. The Tribune claims there's "no difference" between private subsidies and government monopolies both costing taxpayers money, yet still advocates for private subsidies. Life ridicules this as plutocratic hypocrisy—arguing that if results are identical, self-help (government operation benefiting all) is preferable to subsidizing private interests (helping "some of us"). **"Der Chellyfish" Cartoon:** Three figures appear to be rescuing or helping someone from water, likely a political cartoon addressing tensions around German-American integration ("spoiling the melting-pot"), though the specific reference remains unclear from the image alone.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Early New Yorker (punished for gambling, has a vision of the future): JusT MY LUCK, I WAS BORN TOO SOON Differences and Indifferences “SPHERE is no difference in results,” says the New York Tribune, discussing a government-owned merchant marine, “between taking money out of the treasury to aid private shipping ventures and running government vessels at a loss and then charging the deficit to the taxpayers.” Therefore. inasmuch as there is no difference, it is better, the Tribune thinks, to stick to the good old pluto- cratic “theory of government aid, not government mo- nopoly.” That is to say, having no choice in the matter, the Tribune prefers subsidies to self-help, believing it to be much better for all of us to help some of us than for all of us to help all of us. T° many German-Americans spoil the melting-pot. DER CHELLYFISH comicbooks.com