Life, 1917-06-14 · page 19 of 38
Life — June 14, 1917 — page 19: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The main cartoon depicts three well-dressed men (likely wealthy businessmen or politicians) confronting a small, working-class figure labeled "The People." One man dangles a pocket watch, suggesting they're extracting wealth. The caption's joke is cynical: the rich are taking income tax but leaving "enough" for ordinary citizens to survive on—implying the burden falls disproportionately on workers. This satirizes **1917 wartime taxation policy**. The U.S. was preparing for potential entry into World War I (the text references "war preparation" and Russian delegation), which required massive revenues. The cartoon mocks how the wealthy and powerful extract taxes while claiming generosity, and how ordinary people bear the financial weight of war preparation. The caricatured figures represent the political/financial establishment making these decisions without genuine consultation of "the people."
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Income tax: to be doing—most of us do not know. We are confident that we are not mak- ing a perfect job of war preparation, but still we are hopeful that we are doing, at Icast, as well as ought to be expected. France stood off the Ger- mans till the British got ready; now the British and French are hard at it to stand them off while we get ready. If we are not getting ready as hard as England did, and Canada and Austra- lia, we are at fault. This number of Lire goes to press on Registration Day. The plan has been to let nearly three months lapse before the draft, but there is a prospect now of having the draft immediately, so that the men finally selected may be in training by the first of September. Meanwhile, we have about four hundred thousand men already trained, or training, and the officers’ training camps are busy, and our navy is in the war, and our money is fighting, and ships are building, and crops growing, and mills working, and all that counts. Our National Guard troops who went to the border are well spoken of DON’T TAKE IT ALL—LEAVE ENOUGH FOR ME as good soldiers, and by no means green, M® ROOT, Mr. Mott, General Scott, Mr. Crane and the rest of our delegation to Russia, have got as far on their journey as Asia, and are expected in Petrograd on June rth, The prospect ahead of them is rather mottled, but there will probably be a government to receive them. Mr. Root has had experience of turbulence and political uncertainty. He has been in politics a long time, and presided at the Chicago convention of 1912, Prob- ably he does not speak Russian, and that alone is enough to prevent his be- ing asked to take the chair in that country, but he is a helpful man, and so are Mr. Mott, General Scott, Mr. Crane and his other companions, and 1031 it is a comfortable thought that they are where they are. We shall, doubtless, have to rest for some time in such comfort as we can get from that thought, for the details of the commission’s labors are not likely to make much figure in our papers for some time to come. For that matter, anyone who is bent on knowing the bottom facts about this war should plan for extended life, for there is a great deal about it that will not be disclosed until it is over, and will then be subject to revision and discussion for a long time to come. But any day the news from Russia may be better, just as any day it may be worse. There is still a Russian army, and the news that General Brusiloff has resumed command of it is good. Minister of War Kerensky seems to have a firm purpose to fight the Germans. Word comes that Rus- sian labor thinks that the workman’s millennium has arrived and has pushed wages up at Icast a hundred per cent That is disquicting, but it is only tem- porary. Russian labor will find out that water in the long run only rises to its own level, and that the height of wages in the long run depends upon the value of what is produced. But, of course, this is an inconvenient time to instruct the Russian people in the clements of political economy. eeta bita pi, fraterni ONGRATULATIONS to our for- mer fellow-citizen, Baron Astor of Hever Castle, now made a British Viscount, in consideration of his ef- forts and expenditures in these years of war. His advancement brings Father Knickerbocker as near as he can hope, or would wish, to come to a seat in the House of Lords. It is a droll habit our British breth- ren have of distributing honors the way they do. It seems to meet a human want that is sincerely felt. The main dispensers of titles in this coun- try are our universities, which at this time of year are busy elevating the de- serving and bringing blushes te the checks of modest worth, > comicbooks.com