Life, 1916-03-09 · page 9 of 44
Life — March 9, 1916 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This cartoon depicts a man ice-skating attempting to help a woman maintain balance. The caption reads: "Now, Isabel, if you don't promise to be more economical in future and to cut out the suffrage talk, I'll leave you there." **The Satire:** This is anti-suffrage propaganda. The man uses the pretense of helping the woman on ice as leverage to demand she abandon both financial independence and women's suffrage advocacy. The cartoon frames women's rights and economic autonomy as burdensome "talk" that men must suppress through control. **Context:** This appears from Life magazine's early 20th-century period, when suffrage was actively debated in America. The joke relies on portraying women's political engagement as a personal annoyance to be bargained away, rather than a legitimate rights movement—a common anti-suffrage rhetorical strategy of the era.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“ NOW, ISABEL, IF YOU DON'T PROMISE TO BE MORE ECONOMICAL IN FUTURE AND TO CUT OUT THE An Inevitable Result F the war lasts another year we may expect to find some of the war cor- respondents so impressed by their im- portance that their daily despatches will read somewhat as follows: Somewhere in France, March 1.— 1 caught a bad cold last night. Red- nose, of the Chicago Misrepresenter, and Legpull, of the San Francisco Bunkum, were with me. The former borrowed a gallon of whiskey from General Noncomprong for me, while the latter kept going out to the firing line and bringing in pieces of hot shrapnel to keep my feet warm. Dear chaps! We are a great help to one another! Last week we were taken on a tour of the first line of trenches by Major SUFFRAGE TALK, I'LL LEAVE YOU THERE” Brie and Lieutenant Bar-le-Duc. At lunch-time we enjoyed a game of auc- tion in a comfortably furnished, bomb- proof shelter. The cretonne on the windows of the bomb-proof was rather garish, from my point of view, and I should have chosen a thicker rug for the floor if the matter had been left in my hands, But the tout ensemble was quite je ne sais quoi. Indirect lighting was used, and the grass-cloth on the walls was elsiedewolfish in its subjugated simplicity. The French still use the extra-spade bid in playing auction. This proved very annoying to me, as well as to Elmer B. Skipjack, of the Washington Torchlight, who had accompanied me. We lost eighty cents in less than an hour. We had no sooner paid our losses than a shell exploded just out- side the bomb-proof, cracked my dia- mond stickpin and splintered the face of Skipjack’s watch. It was a day of disasters. Through the influence of Skipjack and myself, the use of the extra-spade bid in the French army may soon be discontinued. K. L. Roberts. Part of the Price HEY say the young boys in Ger- many (and girls too) are getting very unruly while their fathers are off in the war. That happens in long wars. Part of the cost of our Civil War was the ruin of boys who came to the dangerous years of boyhood while their fathers were away. comicbooks.com