Life, 1916-08-24 · page 9 of 42
Life — August 24, 1916 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**The Cartoon:** The illustration shows a seaside beach scene with well-dressed figures on a pier. The dialogue caption reads: "She: PAPA SAYS THAT UNLESS YOU KNOW HOW TO MAKE MONEY YOU CANNOT MARRY ME. / He: BUT IF I MARRY YOU I DO KNOW HOW TO MAKE MONEY." This is a romantic/courtship joke playing on the double meaning of "making money"—the young man suggests that marrying a wealthy woman would itself constitute financial gain. **The Article:** "A New Function" satirizes the idea of appointing Supreme Court justices as presidential candidates. The author argues the Court should remain independent and removed from politics, not serve as a "holding company for presidential candidates." The piece criticizes Charles Evans Hughes (identifiable from context) for allegedly using his Court position to campaign, using invented patriotic slogans. The satire targets the politicization of the judiciary and the inappropriate merging of judicial and executive branch ambitions.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
She; PAPA SAYS THAT UNLESS YOU KNOW HOW TO MAKE MONEY YOU CANNOT MARRY ME, He: BUT IF 1 MARRY YOU 1 DO KNOW HOW TO MAKE MONEY, A New Function NE of the great difficulties with our American system of doing things is that we never go far enough. We shall probably be content in the future to select an occa- sional presidential candidate from the Supreme Court, and let it go at that. What ought to be done, of course, is to make the Su- preme Court a sort of holding company for presidential candidates. Interpreting the Constitution is an obsolete affair, anyway. The Constitution has been interpreted so much that it gets almost hysterical when anybody from the Supreme Court draws near. Nobody even wants to do such a thing any more. The Constitution, long since re- tired from active business, ought to be left alone to dwell in obscurity, just as if it were one long Vice-President. Inasmuch as interpreting the Constitution was the only function of the Supreme Court, it is obvious that Mr. Hughes was selected just in the nick of time to give us the opportunity of preserving it for this new function, if enough interest in the idea can be aroused. Hereafter, members of the Supreme Court should be appointed with the sole idea of using them for Presidents. A member of the Supreme Court has to remain more or less silent. This will be almost unbearable, of course, while he is waiting to run for President, but he can, as Mr. Hughes has done, employ his spare time in inventing a number of highly original expressions to use during his campaign, such as, “I am an American,” “ Our flag waves over a united people,” “It looks like rain,” “I believe i honesty of purpose,” “ America is a great country,” etc. comicbooks.com