Life, 1917-08-30 · page 30 of 40
Life — August 30, 1917 — page 30: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Life* magazine satirizes the American bar culture and anticipates Prohibition. The top cartoon shows a soldier firing a machine gun at a crowd labeled "Business as Usual"—commentary on wartime profiteering and civilian indifference. The main text presents a fictional museum dialogue set in 2017 A.D., where a mother explains bars to her son as historical curiosities. The satire mocks the illogic of bar culture: men paid inflated prices for drinks they didn't need, bought rounds for companions out of social obligation, and consulted mirrors to admire themselves while drunk. The mother notes men complained endlessly about gas prices but never about outrageous bar markups. The joke hinges on treating bars as extinct relics—reflecting the magazine's perspective during or anticipating Prohibition (alcohol ban, 1920-1933). The bottom cartoon about servants relates to wartime labor shortages. The satire criticizes both consumer irrationality and the social rituals surrounding alcohol consumption.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
” 4 ” In the Museum, 2017 A. D. The Bar H, oh, Mother! See that tremen- dously long article of furniture with the brass rail ia front of it, and the huge mirror behind it! That must have been a dressing-table for a giant.” “A very reascnable conjecture, my son, but erroneous. It used to be known as a Bar. Men were tomed to assemble in front of purchase enormous numbers of drinks, which they didn’t need, at prices many times in excess of their value. “What a silly custom, Mother! What made them drink if they didn’t need to?” “Heaven knows, my child! Your great-great-grandfather, Raoul, has often told me that in his younger and wilder days, before Bars became ex- tinct by reason of the Great War, he sometimes visited a Barroom with a few companions and consumed so many drinks that he became practically numb “To never heard of anytning so ab- surd, Mother. Why did people pur- chase drinks over these Bars if the prices of the drinks were so muclt higher than they should have been?” “That, Raoul, is another question which I cannot answer. Your great- great-grandfather has frequently told me that men who screamed as though they had been knifed every time gas- oline rose a cent a gallon would never murmur when a barkeeper charged them a dollar for three drinks, whose in- gredients didn’t cost a bit over eleven cents.” edit such a state- ment, Mother!) The human race must have been in bad shape prior to the “Tocan scare “pus SAS USUM.” Great War. Did men always buy three drinks at a time when they visited Bars?” “Oh, no, Raoul! As I understand it, a°man bought as many drinks as there were men with him, and then had to wait while the other men bought drinks in turn.” “How strange and complicated, Mother! I wonder why the Bar had a mirror behind it? One would think that the men wouldn't have cared to sce themselves acting so foolishly.” “One would think so, Raoul; but one would have another think coming. Men would no more have patronized a Bar without a mirror behind it than they would have fought Germany if she had been a republic.” “Ah, well, Mother, the whole thing ~yecee lid AND YET MRS, LEO WONDERS WHY SHE HAS TROUBLE KEEPING SEKVANTS. is beyond me! Can't we turn our at- tention to something simpler?” Most assuredly, my son. Let us. pass into the next room and have a good laugh at the early models of ver- tical, non-rotative pumping engines. The present laboratory is supply- ing serums in limited quantities to the Federal Government, but to cope with situations that might arise at any time among a great body of troops the preparation of antitoxins, serums and vaccines must be under taken on a much larger scale than ever before attempted in New York State—New York Evening Sun. wy squirt the filthy stuff into our Ty own soldiers? it on Congress. comicbooks Egil