Life, 1916-03-23 · page 15 of 52
Life — March 23, 1916 — page 15: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two distinct satirical pieces: **Top cartoon** ("Does Advertising Pay?"): Shows a social gathering where a man whispers to others about kissing a woman, illustrating the satirical point that gossip and word-of-mouth spread information effectively—hence "advertising" through personal anecdote rather than paid advertising. **Main article** ("Widespread Suffering Among Millionaires"): Satirizes wealthy industrialists complaining about reduced dividends. The text mocks millionaires who've seen income cut from one million to nine hundred thousand dollars annually, suggesting their "suffering" is absurd and unrelatable. It critiques their anxiety about potential financial loss despite remaining extraordinarily wealthy—a commentary on class disparity and unrealistic expectations among the ultra-rich. **Bottom cartoon**: A separate humorous piece about ocean safety unrelated to the main content.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
il \ i) DOES ADVERTISING PAY? THE MAN WHO KISSED AND TOLD Widespread Suffering Among Millionaires “DON’T you think Russian literature is wonderful? So ists Fae ianae ‘ines, Th sombre, so impressively melancholy!” hasbeen a.hiard ‘winter foriourimillionaires, ‘The “Yes, that’s right. One gets about the same feeling in papers recently called attention to the fact that the reading the humorous column in any religious weekly.” Bethlehem Steel Company declared a dividend of only thirty per cent., leaving the principal stockholders, who had been led to expect much more, in a starving condition. The testimony before the Thompson Committee, which is trying to add to the general ignorance about the New York Subways, shows quite plainly that almost any lawyer who wanted a job working for the Interborough could seldom expect to draw more than fifty thousand a year—and this in prosperous times! Any millionaire who has been enjoying a regular income of, say, a million a year, and has had it cut to nine hun- dred thousand, naturally has a tendency to become social- istic. This is what we ought to guard against. No re- spectable family living on, say, a thousand a year wants to stand the chance of being raided by a mob of Standard Oil Stockholders. This makes for anarchy! OTHER,” asked Ethel suddenly, “did the lady that wrote ‘Little Women’ belong to the same family Uncle Sam: THREE THOUSAND MILES OF OCEAN—I GUESS | that invented Alcott's Borax Plasters?” I'M SAFE ENOUGH comicbooks.com