Life, 1916-07-27 · page 19 of 32
Life — July 27, 1916 — page 19: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical piece mocks corrupt municipal governance and empty political reform promises. The Mayor character—identifiable by his tin halo and golden wings—represents a hypocritical "reform" politician who claims twelve consecutive terms while the city remains filthy and dysfunctional. The satire targets: **Political corruption**: The Mayor protects contractor Grafton McGrabb's refuse pile, renaming it a "foundation" to avoid removal—exposing how political machines shelter corrupt contractors. **False reform**: Despite pledging to make the city "cleanest, most honest," the Mayor oversees crumbling infrastructure (a fallen Justice statue kills a horse) and an ineffective, "expensive" Board of Health. **Citizen naïveté**: The character "Malice" represents the innocent public, easily confused by bureaucratic doublespeak and institutional inertia. The illustration shows the Mayor and a small girl amid scattered trash, barrels, and debris—visual evidence contradicting his rhetoric about the "City Beautiful." The piece satirizes turn-of-century American municipal politics, where reform candidates often proved as corrupt as their predecessors once elected.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
LITTLE bird told Malice that she was going to sce the Ideal Amer- ican City when she arrived at a cer- tain metropolis. But when, after wan- dering in that municipality for less than fifteen minutes, she became inextricably entangled in a barricade of ash-cans, old newspapers, discarded clothing, etc., piled mountains high between the Palace of Fine Arts and the City Hall, she lost her nerve and entertained a suspicion that the conductor had let her off at the wrong station. “Where is the City Beautiful?” she found herself asking a dignified gen- tleman with a tin halo and a pair of golden wings, who, himself scrambling forth from the rubbish heap and try- ing to rub the dust from his eyes, bumped roughly into her. “Why, here—right here, to be sure,” he replied absent-mindedly. “ But you bumped into me, didn't you? Of course you can sue the city for your injuries.” “T'm not injured the least bit,” she reassured him cheerfully. “Don't admit it!" he hissed. “ You'll never get damages if you do that. You've broken your-leg or something by hitting a public obstruction.” “What public obstruction?” she en- quired, dazed. “Me,” said the gentleman in the wings. “I'm the Mayor.” Oh.” “And I'ma Reform Mayor,” he fur- ther explained, twiddling his golden wings at their rather rusty hinges. “1 was elected to the executive chair un- der a pledge to make the city the clean- est, most honest, free-est and most gen- erally livable-in one in the world. Thus you sce me going about my daily round of inspection.” “Of course you haven't been in of- fice long,” Malice politely intimated, trying to overlook the fact that the statue of Justice in front of the City Hall had just fallen down and killed a horse. “Twelve consecutive terms,” replied the Mayor proudly. “Our ticket al- ways wins, and I am, quite naturally, “LIFE: Malice in Blunderland The City Beautiful re-elected as a pledge of public con- fidence in my good intentions.” “Tf you are a reformer,” said Malice with asperity, “ I should think you would have this mound of rubbish removed.” “You would think so, because you are a mere child and know nothing— positively nothing —about munici management,” he explained patiently. “This pile belongs to the celebrated contractor, Grafton McGrabb. To his genius our organization owes every- thing for its existence. This refuse has stood here so long that it has be- come, in a way, a sort of public monu- ment, and is known to our grateful people as the MeGrabb Foundation. Sentiment, my child, is the very heart and soul of a commonwealth.” The Mayor wiped his left eye. “Why don't you complain to the Board of Health?” the unsophisticated maiden asked. “The Board of Health is nothing to complain of.” The Mayor looked in- dignant. “They're a very expensive Board, 1 tell you.” “In what other way does your mu- nicipality excel all others?” Malice persisted. “Where is the City Beautiful?”