Life, 1917-10-11 · page 19 of 40
Life — October 11, 1917 — page 19: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This cartoon depicts **Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany** (left, in military uniform with spiked helmet) addressing **"Germania,"** the female personification of Germany (right, shown as a barrel labeled "GERMANIA"). The satire mocks Germany's depleting resources during World War I. Wilhelm suggests pawning the crown jewels—implying Germany is so financially exhausted by prolonged war that it must liquidate national treasures to survive. The cartoon suggests Germany cannot sustain the war effort indefinitely. The surrounding editorial discusses peace negotiations and America's war aims. The timing (page 587 of *Life*) indicates this is from America's WWI period, when debates raged about whether peace was possible and whether the war would "go over the winter." The joke: Germany, despite Wilhelm's confident military posture, faces economic collapse—a grim prediction of eventual defeat.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Ww re th w XUM “DON'T YOU THINK YOU OUGHT TO PAWN THE CROWN JEWELS NEXT, WILLIAM?” ment for some time. Then they re- lapsed into political slumber, and the old gang got back and elected their man, and the city went right back to contractor government assisted by thugs. The police ceased to be a pro- tective force and became an instru- ment of political oppression, until the other day an eruption of murder with police connivance, in a ward election, waked people up and led to the arrest of the present mayor and other officers of government on a charge of con- spiracy. We don’t want to wait until things like that have happened in New York. We can avoid them by re-electing Mitchel. Mr. Bennett's capture of the Republican nomination makes it com- plicated to do it, bu: it can be done, and must be done! Do it now, brethren; do it now! Don't let the city fall back into the ditch and he at immense trouble to get it out and clean it up again. Keep it on the level! Do it now, while the Police Department is still clean and honest and the charities are on the up- grade, and we have a civic organiza- tion that is worth saving. “THERE is mighty little war news, and making newspapers must be a fairly dull sport just now, though there may be a good item from Gen- eral Haig in Belgium before this num- ber of Lire reaches its readers. Peace hangs back, and we are all encouraged to believe that the war will go over the winter, If we even hope it won't, our war-masters reproach us and say we are doing mischief. On facts in sight they have the best of the argument. Reliable harbingers of peace-by-Christmas are not to be 587 had. There are some harbingers, but they are not reliable, The news that Colonel House had been requested by the President to assemble the facts of the war for use of the representatives of the United States at the peace council, when there is one, gave a good deal of encourage- ment to peace-mongers. It is, for a fact, a preparation for peace, but it may he a farsighted preparation for something still remote. The Presi has been abundantly criticised for not preparing. soon enough for war, and it is natural that he should wish at least not to be caught napping by peace. To some folks it may seem wasteful to spend time, labor and money collecting the facts of the war when Germany has such admirable arrangements for such work and would be so willing to furnish us with them, all complete and card-indexed. But every country pre- fers its own facts, and it is doubtless well worth while that a set for our use should be gathered by our own authori- ties. It is quite a job to do it, and will take till the end of the war; but if peace blurts in unexpectedly it can probably be hastened. Meanwhile one notices a disparity of view, not important but interesting, about one fact. The President has suggested that the United States is in the war to make the world safe for democracy. That has become a popu- lar slogan, and has been felt to be as good a compression of political truth as a small parcel of words can con- veniently hold. But Lord Northcliffe, in Current Opinion, says: “ The Amer- ican people are not fighting to make the world safe for democracy, but to make the world safe for themselves.” So Mr. Roosevelt at Johnstown, when he said, “ We did not go to war to make democracy safe, and we did go to war because we had a special grievance.” But at Racine he spoke of the Socialist party machine as “the tool of German autocracy and the enemy not only of American liberty and democracy, but of liberty and de- mocracy throughout the world.” Mr. Wilson got it right. Whatever makes the world safe for the United States helps to make it safe for democ- racy. No world that is not safe for democracy will be safe for us. comicbooks.com