Life, 1916-05-04 · page 16 of 52
Life — May 4, 1916 — page 16: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The top cartoon, "In High Finance," depicts wealthy financiers in an office, with one standing figure appearing to lecture seated men. It illustrates the caption about "the big game" in finance—referring to stock speculation and high-stakes gambling with money. Below, "The Roly-Poly" shows a rotund figure labeled "PEACE" being pulled apart by various hands, with a speech bubble saying "BUT I WANT THAT, TOO!"—satirizing competing interests fighting over the spoils of peace. The accompanying text quotes Thomas Edison's pessimistic prediction that civilization will inevitably "bust up," then argues against his fatalism using Germany as counterexample. The satire is pointed: Germany spent 40 years preparing meticulously for war, yet still "busted up" (lost World War I). The implication is biting—even the most thoroughly prepared nation failed, so Edison's doom-saying about unprepared people seems naive.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
IN HIGH FINANCE WHERE THE BIG GAME IS SELDOM BROUGHT DOWN The Inevitable Bust We never will be prepared. We will reach a certain point and then the whole thing will bust up. —Thomas A. Edison, UT, after all, brother Thomas, how can such a wise man as you be so ready to assume that we are so different from the rest of the world? Nobody is ever quite prepared so much that it wouldn't be better if they were prepared a little more. Germany is a good instance of this. For forty years Germany prepared her- self—the most finished instance of pre- THE ROLY-POLY paredness in the history of the world. “BUT 1 WANT THAT, Too!” And now even Germany is busting up. comicbooks.com