Life, 1916-10-12 · page 5 of 44
Life — October 12, 1916 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The cartoon illustrates a domestic scene with caption: "He: Darling, you don't have to put on a new dress every time I call. I have faith in your extravagance." This is a humor piece about courtship/relationship dynamics, likely from the early 20th century. The man's comment is paradoxical—he claims to have "faith in her extravagance" while ostensibly objecting to her frequent dress changes. The joke appears to mock male hypocrisy: men simultaneously complain about women's spending habits while enabling or expecting fashionable appearance. The accompanying text discusses campaign movies, particularly a Republican film called "Watchful Waiting," and critiques propaganda films' effectiveness compared to live speakers, plus a brief anecdote about a Western outlaw ("Bad Bill").
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
He: DARLING, YOU DON'T HAVE TO PUT ON A NEW DRESS YOUR EXTRAVAGANCE Campaign Movies 'HE Republican managers want to run a campaign movie called “Watchful Waiting,” showing Wilson asleep at his desk, and garnished with an attack on Mex- ican nuns by Villista bandits. But the production seems to inspectors like Everett Colby a little too rank, and at this writing it is still held up for emendations. As campaign liars the movies would beat the orators as far as the new caterpillar batteries beat machine-guns in the war. A speaker stands personally and visibly back of what he says, but a movie is a mere mechanism and can't be brought to book. It is the habit of mankind to believe what it sees. The movie can put an absolute lie in such form that every false detail of it bores in to the observer's sensibilities and leaves a violent emotion behind it. You may know the picture is a lie, but it is hard to avoid its effect. A Western Verdict WESTERN desperado had been killed. scarcely any evidence against the man who shot him. The coroner’s jury brought in the following verdict: “We, the jury, find ‘Bad Bill’ was killed with his boots on. We're against killin’; but thank God Bill's dead.” There was comicbooks.com