Life, 1916-12-07 · page 36 of 94
Life — December 7, 1916 — page 36: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This *Life* magazine page contains two interconnected Christmas satires: **"The Great Adventurer"** is a romantic poem praising Santa Claus as a daring, selfless figure who traverses dangerous terrain to deliver joy without expecting thanks—his "whiskers" being merely a disguise. **The cartoon below deflates this sentiment ruthlessly.** It depicts modern New York City's bureaucratic and labor hostilities destroying Santa's mission: a motor cop tickets him for speeding, Health Department inspectors confiscate his reindeer as unsanitary, and union teamsters beat him for lacking a membership card. The satire critiques early 20th-century urban America—its rigid traffic enforcement, health regulations, and militant labor organizations—as obstacles to generosity and holiday spirit. Santa cannot function in this regulatory maze. The joke highlights tension between nostalgic Christmas idealism and the harsh, litigious modern city. **"X-Actly"** above further mocks Christmas commercialism, where "X-mas" becomes an equation of expenses, aggravation, and disappointed expectations.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
1016 Christmas Life The Great Adventurer ] CALLED him that because he knows He takes a chance with every man, As if they all were straight and The world, and loves it—every His cheek is red from facing snow. He whirls a rapid course because mile: true. He has a thousand leagues to go, The southern seas, the northern He gives you all of him he can, But sometimes I have seen him snows ; And never waits for thanks from pause, And faces danger with a smile, you. For whiskers are a thin disguise And never ponders if the goal Is worth his while. Are rather few. The heroes of that mould to-day For Santa Claus! Charles Divine. , . A TRUE BELIEVER IN PREPAREDN X-Actly TRA X-penses plus X-travagant Outlay plus X-traor- inary Display plus X-treme Irritation plus X. Shopping plus X-tensive Errand-running plus X-acting Demands plus X-aggerated Prices plus X-uberant Antici- pations plus X-pectations Unrealized plus X-asperating X-periences equals X-mas. EING clever at repartee consists of having at your tongue’s end the words which come to others an hour later. This Year RS. SANTA CLAUS: Sakes alive! Claus, you've been gone only an hour and here you come back look- ing as if a cyclone hit you. What in the world has hap- pened to you? What's the matter? Santa Ctaus (sadly): New York. I just got within ten miles of the place when a motor-cop pinched me for speeding, a couple of Board of Heath inspectors confiscated the reindeer for violations of the sanitary code, and mem- bers of the Teamsters’ Organization beat me up because I didn’t have a Union card. comicbooks.com ~~}