Life — November 30, 1916 — page 5: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "The Reactionary" - Life Magazine Satire The top cartoon spells "LIFE" using illustrated figures representing maids departing their employers. The poem "The Reactionary" by Berton Bradley accompanies this, presenting an employer's lament: maids constantly leave despite being treated decently with good rooms and pay. The employer cannot understand their departures. The bottom illustration depicts a social gathering where an "Anxious Mother" and "The Girl" discuss a boy named Harold. The mother wants him taught tennis; the girl responds that he needs to strengthen his wrist first through months in a baby carriage before she'll "take him in hand." Together, these pieces satirize rigid, old-fashioned attitudes—the employer's confusion about workers' desires for freedom, and the mother's controlling approach to child-rearing—mocking those resistant to modern social changes.