Life, 1917-08-02 · page 9 of 40
Life — August 2, 1917 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes educated women and class anxiety during World War I. The poem "Vers Libre" mocks a woman with a Ph.D. who claims expertise in multiple academic fields ("Anthropological, Ethnological, Psychological") yet lacks practical knowledge—the joke being her pretension exceeds her actual understanding. "The Only Solution" presents a middle-class conference advocating the abolition of the middle class itself to solve war burdens. The committee's absurd logic—that eliminating middle-class people would prevent future complaints—satirizes how middle-class citizens bore financial and human costs of war while wealthy people profited. The sketch "Yesterday—To-day" (artist: Angus MacDonall) shows a couple, likely contrasting prewar and wartime circumstances, though specific figures are unclear from the image alone.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“LIFE: 169 Vers Libre KNOW a girl Who is a Ph.D. She thinks she knows all about man, For she has studied him From standpoints Anthropological, Ethnological, Psychological, Physiolo Philosophical. In reality she has not even Matriculated in the course. She has never said, “Stop it! You're mussing my hair.” The Only Solution HE middle-class people had a conference, and decided that it was unfair to put the entire burden of the war upon them. “The laboring classes will bene- fit extremely,” said the M. C. P., “because, while they have to pay more for necessities they can get all the work they want at more than double the old wages. The rich people pay a few thousands down now and then, which is a small price for the excitement of having a war and the pleasing, if wholly fictitious, illusion that they are making sacrifices. But as for us, the middle-class people, we contribute about everythin money, sons and daughters—and they have even fixed the income tax so that, no matter how many children we have, the tax remains the same.” This being declared Gospel truth, as everyone knows, the conference de- cided to appoint a committee to wait upon Congress. The committee fol- lowed instructions. It waited. At the end of four or five years, when the war was over and the middle-class peo- ple were all either broke or dead from worry, the committee made its report. “We find,” said the committee, “that both God and Congress move in mysterious ways their wonders to per- form. We therefore recommend that all middle-class people be abolished, so that hereafter, when a war breaks out, they will have no just cause for com- MAN is usually thrown on his YESTERDAY — TO-DAY own resources when he hasn't any. comicbooks.com