Life, 1916-12-28 · page 35 of 41
Life — December 28, 1916 — page 35: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains a satirical essay titled "Wall Street the Wicked" that mocks American society's tendency to scapegoat Wall Street for all national problems. **The Satire's Point:** The author argues that people across America—from the West to the South to the East—irrationally blame Wall Street for everything: droughts, earthquakes, bank failures, even the boll weevil infestation and the Gulf Stream's behavior. The essay suggests this is absurd scapegoating: Wall Street has replaced the Devil as society's convenient villain now that religious faith has declined. **The Joke:** By cataloging increasingly ridiculous accusations (misguiding the Moon, begetting weevils), the author reveals how irrational and all-encompassing Wall Street blame has become. He concludes that the discarded Devil was "an over-rated four-flusher" compared to Wall Street's newly invented wickedness. **Context:** This reflects early 20th-century tensions between rural/agrarian America (suspicious of financial centers) and Wall Street interests, with populist rhetoric treating finance as inherently corrupt. The page also contains unrelated period advertisements for stationery and prints.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Wall Street the Wicked HE Wall Street of fact is a market- place full of bawling brokers; the Wall Street of imaginative editors and orators is a malevolent monster, the off- spring of an inky Welsh rabbit and a po- litical nightmare. When the Higher Criticism flipped the Devil and Hades out of theology’s plan of salvation, habit proved stronger than faith; human na- ture demanded some substitute for its ancient bogeys, some compensation for its lost scare-crows; and Wall Street was invented for a credulous republic. In the weird and windy West, Wall Street is believed to be a digest of all the wickedness of all the world; it is the sin-eater of all the death, disease, disas- ter, destruction and depravity of Ameri- ca, the scape-goat for all the perils, panics, pilferings, pestilences and _poli- tics of the nation. Droughts, crop-fail- ures, floods, earthquakes, cyclones, hom- icides, divorces, elopements, comic operas and bank failures are laid at its doors; it is accused of making the Tariff, man- ipulating the prices of living, misleading the Gulf Stream, misguiding the ministry, and maligning the Man in the Moon. In the sunny and shootful South, Wall Street is charged with begetting the boll weevil. In the tame and timorous East, Wall Street is a synonym for wealth and wickedness; an unregenerate with cash and cunning, devoid of conscience and character; a malignant mercenary wor- A NEW LIFE PRINT Copr. Life Pub. Co, The Boy Who Became a Lawyer Printed in colors on fine Bristol Board, plate-marked. Size 12 x 16 in. 25 cents each j | Sent prepaid on receipt of remittance | LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY 17 West 3ist Street, New York How Big a Man Are You in the Mail? Examine Your Own Letterhead HI HEN a sheet of paper is all of you a man can see or feel—just how do you impress him? Do your letters crackle with importance and subtly suggest the sub- stantial standing of your firm? Mark this: Today’s conditions in the paper industry emphasize your opportunity to make your business sta- tionery outstandingly impressive. Many firms have stooped to shoddy paper—to ‘“‘save’? a tenth of a cent per letter. Many once good papers have been shorn 3 Lud for thir watermard in the of quality to find a market. tel sationery of firms of recegnizad tm- portance. You will find tt froveantl, CONSTRUCTION But Construction Bond, with its honestly maintained quality today, gives you multiplied advantage —it now meets so little real quality competition in the mail. Make a note now to improve your business stationery. Write us for latest letterhead suggestions and the names of the stationers in your locality who carry Construction BOND Bond in stock and produce fine stationery upon it. 4. E.WROE & CO., 200 EAST ILLINOIS STREET, CHICAGO shipping the golden calf and leading There may be good fathers and hus- lambs to the slaughter. Wall Street is the national goat. In politics it is denounced with heat and hatred, its recognition avoided, its en- dorsement dreaded, and its financia sought and solicited. It makes the hon- est farmer shudder and the plain people squirm, The more we consider Wall Street the more we are convinced that the discarded Devil was an over-rated four-flusher, a piling amateur in depravity, a mere tyro in sin, « raw recruit in wickedness. bands, generous neighbors, pious church- men and good sports in Wall Street; but the man so lacking in patriotism, piety and pulchritude that he dares to say so, is an impostor, a whited sepulchre, and an enemy of Society. Joseph Smith The Mansions of the Rich The old woman who lived in a shoe hoasted. “It is the most expensive sort of dwelling,” she said—The Sun. comicbooks.com