Life, 1917-12-06 · page 42 of 92
Life — December 6, 1917 — page 42: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two distinct pieces of Christmas-themed satire: **"Unbearable"**: A brief dialogue joke mocking precocious children. A seven-year-old dismisses his older cousin for believing in Santa Claus, considering such belief beneath his intellectual sophistication. The humor targets both the child's pretentious superiority and the absurdity of a seven-year-old's self-importance. **Main Cartoon**: Shows "Mickey, the Newsboy" organizing street children into a syndicate to collectively purchase a Liberty Bond. Published during WWI (December 1917), Liberty Bonds were government war bonds. The cartoon praises children's patriotic initiative while satirizing the aggressive marketing of war bonds to Americans. The crowded scene suggests both grassroots support and the pervasiveness of bond-selling campaigns. **"Candle Gleams"**: Brief satirical aphorisms about gift-giving, materialism, and Christmas consumerism—poking fun at the commercialization of the holiday and the impossibility of selecting perfect gifts. The overall theme: Christmas commercialism and wartime patriotic messaging intersecting.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Teen” > Christmas Life VOL. 70 DECEMBER 6. 1917 “White there ts Life there's Hope" No. 1832 Publi LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY | ed by Jo A. Mircnene, Pres’t. Miterr, See'y and Treas. t7 West Thirty-first Street, New York English Offices, Rolls House, Breams Bldgs., London, E, C, Unbearable RS. BOSTONNE: Why, Emerson, did you run away and leave your little cousin from Chicago all alone? MERSON (seven years old): Yes, although he’s a year older than I, he knows positively nothing of the historical side of the Christmas fable, and his conversa- tion about the Santa Claus myth is simply so childish I can’t stand it. Candle Gleams T is easier to give than to forgive. A Spug and his “honey” are soon parted. Buy in haste and repent at Icisure. He that gives last gives best. Put not your faith in price tags. Truth is safer than fiction. Many are galled but few outspoken: The gifts father gets show the fam- ily’s belief that man wants but little here below. All men may be born equal, but not equal to the job of selecting anything which will exactly suit a woman. Man is born to trouble as the sparks from the gift cigar fly upward. Some are born unlucky, etc. but more have weirdly made wearing ap- parel thrust upon them, iy PAYING TELLER MICKEY, THE NEWSBOY, FORMS A SYNDICATE TO BUY A LIBERTY BOND comicbookssqag