Life, 1917-10-18 · page 17 of 40
Life — October 18, 1917 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**Top Cartoon:** Depicts punishment for the author of the "Hymn of Hate"—a famous anti-British German poem. The figure is surrounded by large German military helmets, suggesting satirical consequences for German wartime propaganda. This reflects American sentiment during World War I. **"Professional Humorist's Will":** Christopher Morley's humorous essay bequeaths his comedic formulas, speaking invitations, and sense of humor—satirizing the predictability of professional humor writing and the exhausting social obligations of public figures. **"Shopping in Berlin":** Mocks an optimistic professor suggesting female students will shop in Berlin after the war. The satire implies such confidence is absurd—questioning whether Americans would ever visit post-war Germany and whether Germans would remain "civilized" after the war's devastation. **Bottom Cartoon:** A salesman's insurance pitch to an anxious client, likely commenting on wartime uncertainty and financial anxiety.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
ole, PUNISHMENT FOR THE AUTIIOR OF THE HYMN OF HATE A Professional Humorist’s Will JOF. COSE, being in sound mind, 9 body and sense of humor, and de- sirous of making testamentary dispo- sition of my real and unreal estate, do give and bequeath as follows: My personal effects, to wit: one pair of grogram trousers, one boiled shirt, seersucker coat, plug hat and cighty- five cents, I give to my wife. My sense of the ludicrous I bestow upon my son. It is all he will have to begin life with; if he decides to do without it, so much the better for him. The unpaid royalties on my books 1 devote to the upkeep of the Asylum for Defunct Colyumists. The unvarying formula I have used for thirty years in the composition of routine jokes, 1 wish to return to the owners of the copyright of the Old Testament, from whom I borrowed it. My invitations to speak at dinners, lunches, chambers of commerce, wom- en's clubs, Chautauquas, sanitaria, cor- respondence college flapperverwer- tungsanstalten and institutes for im- beciles, I pass on to the one who is hardy enough to face them. To all dear mothers-in-law, land- ladies, commuters and Cabinet officers, who have been an unfailing source of inspiration to me, my never-ending gratitude. Christopher Morle “1 WOULD LIKE TO INSURE YOU, SI “ COMEFAROUND WHEN 625 Shopping in Berlin SSAR will not drop German. Not yet. The paper said that at the college- opening Professor Burgess Johnson told the girls their German would come handy when they began to do their shopping next year in Berlin. Seems a hopeful man! ill, the girls won't be out till next July, and will still have five months to do that shopping in. If the war is not over and Berlin accessible by the end of next year a lot of guesses will fail to connect. It may be possible to shop there next year, but that anyone but Germans will do it is a suggestion with a shock. It implies reacceptance of Berlin as a civilized city, reaccept- ance of Germans as civilized people; and how long that will take, who knows Reason Enough “WW/HY do you go hunting in Maine instead of the South?” “Because Prohibition is so new the South it is impossible to get a drink anywhere now.” 'HE slacker who could hide behind a woman's skirts of the present style would be too thin to make much of a soldier. "MON MY LAST LIF