Life, 1916-09-07 · page 25 of 40
Life — September 7, 1916 — page 25: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**The Cartoon's Meaning:** This satirizes government overreach and medical authoritarianism. A doctor orders a police officer to take a healthy family to a "pesthouse" (quarantine facility), ignoring their protests of wellness. The family's warning that "anything you say will be used against you" echoes arrest Miranda rights, suggesting loss of civil liberties. **The Satire:** The cartoon criticizes how governments invoke public health emergencies to justify removing individual freedoms without consent or due process. The "tyranny" is government imposing quarantine on the unwilling, treating citizens as threats rather than respecting their autonomy. **Historical Context:** Given the reference to "pesthouse" and wartime language, this likely critiques either WWI-era quarantine policies or early pandemic responses, mocking how officials weaponized health concerns against civilians' objections and constitutional protections. The accompanying book review of H.G. Wells' "What Is Coming?" reinforces the issue: warnings about civilization's future if society doesn't heed predictions.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE NEW TYRANNY JU TAKE'EM ALL TO THE PESTHOUSE, OFFICER. “BUT, DOCTOR, WE ARE PERFECTLY WELL.” “IT WARN YOU, ANYTHING YOU SAY WILL BE USED AGAINST You.” The Latest Books “ROUGH OR SMOOTH N his latest book, “ What Is Coming?” (Macmillan, $1.50) H. G. Wells asks Civilization to hold out her left hand and proceeds to read her palm. And as there are very few of us who are not interested to hear what an internation- ally celebrated, five-dollar-a-look palmist has just told one of our best friends in & professional interview — especially if the. friend is seriously “up against i and as Civilization has a good many friends who are deeply interested in her future and Mr. Wells is easily the best chiromancer of the day, “ What 1s Com- ing?” ought to have a wide reading ROPHECY, from the Hebrew variety onward, has consisted to a large ex+ tent of telling people what will happen to them if they don’t do thus and so, And in its ultimate essence this fs the nature of the pronouncements in “ What Is Coming?” But Wells is a very mod- ern-minded and scientifically inclined prognosticator; so that his tmplied warn- ings are based on shrewd balancings of cause and effect. And he is nothing if not a good sportsman; so that he dis- dains to play safe, like the Delphic Oracle, and squarely risks his own repu- (Continued on poge 417) comicbooks.com