Life, 1917-07-26 · page 30 of 40
Life — July 26, 1917 — page 30: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains WWI-era commentary on food supply profiteering and patriotic sacrifice. The main illustrated cartoon ("What Rastus Saw After Hearing Latest War Reports") depicts an African American man's anxious reaction to war news—likely showing social anxiety about the conflict's impact. The "Publish the Rascals!" section argues for public exposure of food speculators and price-fixers hoarding supplies—a major scandal during WWI. The text demands transparency in identifying those profiting from food scarcity. "Their 'Bit'" offers gentle satire: young Jimmie proudly buys a small Liberty Bond (war loan) on his $6.83 weekly salary, then learns Rockefeller invested $10 million in the same bonds. The joke critiques wealth inequality—both participate in the war effort, but vastly unequally. The cosmetics tax joke mocks government hypocrisy: taxing deceptive products contradicts allowing deceptive wartime messaging. All three pieces reflect 1917-1918 American concerns: war profiteering, sacrifice inequality, and government credibility.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
WHAT KASTUS SAW AFTER HEARING LATEST WAR REPORTS. Truant ‘OU are the harbor of my random thoughts, Not great enough to hold the whole, wide flect Of life and love true to the mooring line You wove for it. Yet, in the dull, grey hours, Across a sca of fitful shade and gleam, The little vessels of my idle dreams Drift—drift, unnoticed, and return to you. Leolyn Louise Everett. Publish the Rascals! HE sovereign ultimate for all forms of abuse in a de- mocracy is publicity. The vast number of newspapers and the network of information and “news” which en- velopes us make it too easy for rascals to hide under cover. But, in spite of this, it still remains startlingly true that the public is unerring in its faculty of making use of facts which can serve its purpose. What ought to be done at the present time is to make public the lives and transactions of the men who are accused of-cornering our supplies of food. Everything about them should be published broadcast, and it ought to be done with authority. Fixing the price of food may or may not be a sound principle. There are two sides to that question. But there can be but one opinion about the value of showing up in the most public manner all the men who are handling our food supplies. If the AL RES If there are majority are honest, we want to know it. among them rascals and traitors, they should be eliminated at once. To know who they are and what they are doing is three- fourths of the battle. Their “Bit” IMMIE, very proud of his first job and weckly salary of $6.83, purchased a Liberty Bond on the installment plan. That evening he saw in the newspaper that John D. Rockefeller had invested in Liberty Bonds to the extent of $10,000,000. Turning to his mother, Jimmie said proudly, “ Well, ma, two of us Americans have done our duty, anyhow.” “[ WONDER why they don't put a tax on cosmetics.” “They don't want to put a tax on anything which tends to deceive the people.” PLAYING HIM FALSE