Life, 1916-08-17 · page 11 of 38
Life — August 17, 1916 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two satirical cartoons by Otis Cushing commenting on wartime conditions (indicated by "Field Day in the Navy"). **Top cartoon**: Shows a woman (identified as "Aunt Josie Daniels") instructing naval sailors. The caption mocks her suggestion that throwing overboard decanters and wineglasses would give sailors something productive to do—polishing ship's mirrors and scent bottles. This appears to satirize well-meaning but impractical civilian advice for keeping idle sailors occupied during wartime. **Bottom cartoon**: Depicts a weather forecaster proven wrong about weather conditions. The joke emphasizes his habitual inaccuracy. Both cartoons use humor to critique civilian interference in military matters and the unreliability of "experts," reflecting wartime anxieties about competence and social disruption.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
— Othe Cusking — Aunt Josie Daniels: FIELD DAY IN THE NAVY AFTER YOU THROW OVERBOARD ALL THEM DEC, YOU CAN SET THE CREW TO POLISHIN’ THE SHIP'S HAND-MIRRORS AND “AYE, AYE, MUM!” help in lifting the curtain momentarily, so that we know that, after all, the suffering is real and we are not being fooled. And this is only one spectacle of cruelty that we enjoy. Children are being deprived of their childhood, little mothers wasting their lives, men and women warped and twisted in the intricate machinery of modern life—what a variety of pleas- ure one may derive from this phantas- magoria! Alongside of the perma- nent mental cruelties which it is our common heritage to enjoy, the crudi- ties war displays can have but a transient interest. Rome never can come back. We have advanced beyond Rome. “YOU can’t tell; that boy of Todd's may be a congressman some day.” “Indeed! Why, I thought he seemed quite bright.” He: tHe SOMETHING ATHER MAN SAYS WE ARF IN POR A PROLONGED DRY SPELL, BUT E HE 1S WRO: AS USUAL, comicbooks.com