Life, 1917-07-12 · page 24 of 40
Life — July 12, 1917 — page 24: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two distinct pieces of satirical content: **"Insuring Your Success"** (left): An editorial arguing for worker cross-training—employees should spend time learning their supervisor's job so they're ready for advancement. It cites New York City police studying law as a practical example. The satire is subtle: the piece presents this as revolutionary workplace wisdom, though the idea is straightforward. The accompanying illustration shows a woman surveying a modest house marked "FOR SALE," suggesting the promised upward mobility. **"Attagirl!"** (right): A wartime joke (likely WWI-era, given "France" and "Germany" references). A young woman tells a soldier she'd prefer his letters come from Germany rather than France—implying she wants him fighting deeper in enemy territory, suggesting either patriotic zeal or darkly comic indifference to his safety. The bottom caption references Easter hats from rabbits, appearing to be a separate, unrelated cartoon. The page reflects early 20th-century American attitudes toward industrial efficiency, class mobility, and wartime patriotism.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Insuring Your Success HE principle of insurance is that a small fraction of one’s daily effort, usually expressed in money, will not be missed at a time, but over a long period will grow so that it becomes a permanent bulwark against any crisis. That idea is a permanent addition to humanity's progress. Now someone recently has discovered, and put into practice, a similar idea, which in time may have a far-reaching effect. It is the idea that every worker in a subordinate position will spend a fraction of his time in learning to do the work just above him. When the worker above him moves up, he will be in a position to take that worker's place. Thus by a simple process of direction in effort there may easily be created a revolution in our whole industrial machine. In New York City, for example, the policemen have just begun to study law. Police Commissioner Woods does not, of course, expect to make lawyers out of them, but it is easy to see, in this particular instance, how much more efficient they will become. The rule is as plain as a pipestem. Everybody should follow it. It is, while doing your own work, take a little time to learn how to do the work of one higher up. He will be glad to help you, because he himself is learning from the man just ahead of him. HOME. AGAIN Attagirl ! HE LIEUTENANT: May I write you a letter from | “ somewhere in France Tue Girt: I'd much rather have your letter come from “ somewhere in Germany.” AF THE RABBITS BROUGHT THE EASTER HATS comicbookseera