Life, 1916-10-26 · page 21 of 46
Life — October 26, 1916 — page 21: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two separate cartoons and an essay by Thomas L. Masson critiquing men's formal fashion. **Top cartoon**: Shows a car stuck in a rural mountain road. The driver asks for directions, only to learn he must back up eight miles—a humorous commentary on poor road conditions and early automobile travel difficulties. **Bottom cartoon**: Depicts children playing, with one child (Emerson) appearing to be "right" about something, while another insists "anyone can see that he is right"—likely satirizing blind conformity or peer pressure. **Masson's essay**: A lengthy satire arguing that men's formal evening wear (tuxedos, stiff collars, derby hats, coats) is absurdly unchanged since medieval times and fundamentally ugly. He criticizes men's unwillingness to reform these uncomfortable fashions, comparing stiff collars to torture devices. The piece advocates for fashion reform from a "humanitarian standpoint." The page also includes a brief joke about Japanese baseball fans, reflecting early 20th-century American interest in Japan.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“A WASHOUT? BUT WHAT AM I GOING TO DO? I CAN'T TURN HERE” “RECKON YOU'LL HAVE TO BACK UP, MISTER, IT’S ONLY EIGHT MILES” knows they are ugly enough. Yet they have been worn without material change since the middle ages. When the evening approaches, and the man, throwing off the cares and responsibilities of the day, starts out to be gay, what does he then do? He arrays himself in a melancholy costume fit only for an undertaker. It is not because his clothes are necessarily uncomfortable that man should complain. Anyone is willing to be uncomfortable if he can make an impression. Silk and derby hats are uncomfortable, but men wear them because for generations no one has had brains enough to invent anything else. Think of the coat, with its monotonous sleeves. And the stiff collar. If stiff collars were unknown, except in jails, there. would be a popular reform movement to do away . with them on the ground of cruelty to criminals. The most that man, unaided and alone, has been able to do is to vary the color of his waistcoats and shirts and ties. But the form of all these unbeautiful things, with immaterial variations, has remained the same since any of us can remember. Viewed calmly and artistically and from a humanitarian standpoint, it is horrible. Thomas L. Masson. “SAw two.or three Japs at the ball game to-day.” “Yes, they say the Japs make very excellent fans.” “OH, DO COME ON, EMERSON! ANYONE CAN SEE THAT HE Is niGHT!” comicbooks.com