Life, 1917-09-20 · page 25 of 40
Life — September 20, 1917 — page 25: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**Top Cartoon**: A child asks his father if God made man in His image, then points to a bishop nearby, asking if God "really look[s] like that." The joke mocks the bishop's appearance as unattractive or undignified—a common satirical attack on clergy, suggesting their physical form belies their supposedly elevated spiritual status. **"Not Unreasonable" Section**: This satirizes Congress's verbosity following America's entry into WWI (March 1917). It argues that Congress produces disproportionate talk relative to ideas—requiring thousands of words per actual idea, much like artillery requires thousands of bullets per casualty. The satire critiques legislative inefficiency and empty rhetoric. **"Financiers" Joke**: Two Black men discuss bigamy as economically advantageous ("two sources of revenue"). This reflects period stereotypes about both race and marriage, typical of early-20th-century magazine humor. **Bottom Photo Caption**: A woman jokes that her fiancé's visits make noise—implying impropriety or scandal, a mild social critique on propriety and engagement etiquette.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
ign ag rae v. Wd y Uh SI hj le 2 EL “PAPA, DOES GOD MAKE MAN IN HIS OWN IMAGE?" “WHY—ER—YES.” “DOES HE REALLY LOOK LIKE THAT BISHOP OVER THERE?” Not Unreasonable—Considering T is estimated that Congress has talked six million words since it convened on March 4, 1917. Some ill-natured and malicious persons have gone so far as to say that the number of words used is all out of proportion to the num- ber of ideas brought forth, Such persons are evidently not familiar with the laws of chance. They probably think that every bullet fired in battle should kill a man, whereas it is a well-known fact that more than ten thousand bullets are required for each mortality in battle. Of course, ten thousand words emitted in the halls of Congress don’t account for one idea. It is doubtful whether there is one idea to every hundred thousand words. Still, talk is cheaper than bullets; and where a crowd of men—particularly Con- gressmen—are gathered together for the purpose of talk- ing, the laws of chance make it necessary that the pre- ponderance of talk over ideas should he tremendous. Financiers WO negroes, not inclined to overwork, were sitting on a fence and discussing the advantages of bigamy. “It must shore be a heaven o? bliss!” said one. think, two sources o” revenue!” “Just IVILIZATION is a state of affairs where nothing can be done without first being financed. “ARE YOU ENGAGED TO THAT YOUNG MAN WHO CALLED LAST NIGHT? IVE HEARD SEVERAL REPORTS—” “GOODNESS, AUNTIE, DID WE MAKE AS MUCH NOISE AS THAT? comicbooks.com