Life, 1917-06-21 · page 18 of 38
Life — June 21, 1917 — page 18: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes Lord Northcliffe, a powerful British newspaper publisher sent to America in 1917 to coordinate British war supply efforts. The magazine's opening metaphor compares the British government's "war cocktail" to gin—Northcliffe being the potent final ingredient after Balfour (the vermouth). The satire works on multiple levels: Life acknowledges Northcliffe's business competence while mocking his domineering personality. The piece notes he's bullied both British and American governments, and speculates whether he'll become a duke or face execution—though he's safely doing neither. The article's main complaint is about American press censorship: military movements are secret ("persons in khaki disappear"), yet obvious to German spies. Life argues the government should either maintain secrecy *or* provide local war news to sustain public morale—you can't censor everything and expect Americans to "fight the war on" nothing. The cartoons (small illustrations) appear to be decorative but support the gin/cocktail metaphor.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
JUNE 21, 1917. LIFE PUBL J. A. Mitcuent, Pres't. “* While there ts Life there's Hope" Publish HING COMPANY No. 1803 A. Mitre, Secty end Treas. 17 West Thirty-first Street, New Y English Offices, Rolls House, Breams Bldgs... “VOR the work which Lord ortheliffe is to do in this country,” the Tribune says, “the British government could not possibly have chosen a better man.” To be sure. The British government has been mixing us a war cocktail wherein Mr. Balfour having lately personified so acceptably the indispensable vermouth, Lord Northcliffe comes now to be the gin. No doubt Lord Northcliffe is valid gin, potent and useful in a war cocktail, . though apt to excite the prejudices of the fastidious. There will be those who will think we have Northcliffes enough of our own, but we haven't; or, if we have, this present administration has been too much for them. No news- paper editor or publisher in States has had any such part in our affairs these last three years as Lord Northcliffe has had in England. No as bullied and crowded our gov- ernment as he has crowded his, at one time it came to be a matter for speculation whether the end of the war would see him a duke or see him shot. Certainly at present he is not at all in the way of being shot, and whether he will be a duke matters not much. Great Britain may give over the habit of having dukes by the time the war is over, but that matters not very much either. The Iron Duke of this war was drowned at sea. Lord Northeliffe’s errand here seems to be not so much to make discourse or guide opinion as to do business. He these London, FE. C. comes to be the head of the various British organizations here that are working to supply British needs of all sorts, and especially war needs. He is used to doing business and successful in dealing with men, and no doubt in making the various British organiza- tions here work together for good there is plenty to keep him busy. T may do no harm if he talks a little. We are in the war quite a bit these days, but nobody knows aboat it but the German spies and the fellows that are personally doing the work. Really there is a great deal being done, but seldom so much as a band in the street. Persons in khaki disappear. One feels it's not polite to ask their friends what became of them. Presently word comes that they are at Buckingham Palace, or inspecting the Siberian rail- road, or in France. Your friend whose office view commands the local water- front takes you behind the barn and whispers that the So-and-so went out this morning loaded with what looked to be American citizens in khaki, and attended by so many battleships. Of course everybody on the water-front must know that, and the professional German observers all know all about it, down to the last gaiter button and funnel, but the newspapers mustn't breathe it, no, not even to sell a bond. One must not, and should not, com- plain of this reticence. A certain amount of it is necessary, and what is not necessary gets in for good measure But if the government perfects the plans afoot to shut off our rum, it must contrive somehow to give us big drams of local war news. We must have something to fight the war on. OWEVER, this way saves time and tears, and things will liven up, not altogether joyfully, when we begin to get American news from abroad. pretty good now when there is any- thing to make it of, as so lately. was when General Haig’s men blew up Messines ridge and gobbled up the remnants of it. are evidence satisfactory to most of us that the Germans can’t win and ought all to throw up their hands and cry Kamerade! But the military people refuse to see it so. Wood has been telling the students of the university at Sewance, see, that the United States is in for the hardest fight it ever had, and though. you may not believe it, you cannot prove at present that he is wrong, any more than he can prove that he is right. His position is the right one to take, for to count on a long, hard war makes for dead earnestness in prepara- tion, and that is what is needed. Long or short, the war when it ends must end right, and President Wilson in his the Pro- visional Government of Russia bluntly enough that it will not end right until it has taken away from the Imperial German government the power it has gained by intrigue and conquest “all the way from Berlin to Bagdad and beyond.” He tells the Russians that the status quo ante which the German rulers begin to call for will not do; out of that, he says, came this iniquitous war, and it “ must be altered in such a fashion as to prevent any such hideous thing from ever happen- ing again.” That is a very definite commitment of our energies and resources to the rescue of mankind from the German war Our foreign war news is Exploits of that sort the war General 1 Tennes- communication to says comichooks.com