Life, 1918-01-10 · page 14 of 40
Life — January 10, 1918 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains war-era satirical content from WWI. "A Litany" is a prayer-poem by Woodbridge Clapp seeking divine protection from various social threats—cowardice, corruption, and dishonest critics. The illustration shows a soldier and woman, captioned about an army officer being "not very venturesome." "The Greatest People Alive To-day" humorously lists who a dog considers most important: the lady who rescued it, her girl companion, the welcoming man, a hugging boy, and the girl who said "Poor little dear!"—satirizing human sentimentality toward pets. "A Novel Problem" describes an army officer distributing Life magazines to soldiers in cantonments, noting copies fall apart quickly—essentially advertising Life's durability and appeal to troops. The skeleton cartoon at bottom remains unclear without caption context.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“LIF &- A Litany ROM foes within and foes without, From Shadow Huns and spies, From those who fear and those who doubt, From sophistry and lies, From those whose special pleas assist An enemy abhorred, From hyphenate and pacifist— Deliver us, O Lord! From college cranks on dress parade, From laggards in our land, From slacker, coward and renegade, From foes of native brand, From critics and their poisoned darts That cut like two-edged sword; From all but patriotic hearts Deliver us, O Lord! From crawlers of the trousered kind, From mortal weeds and tares, From men like moles, asleep and blind, From human hounds and hares, From whiskered wasps and social fleasa— The van of treason’s horde— From all of these—Our Father, please— Deliver us, O Lord! Woodbridge Clapp i The Greatest People Alive To-day (According to the Outcast Dog) a HE beautiful lady who rescued him from a gang of tor- The Flirt: FOR AN ARMY OFFICER, YOU ARE NOT VERY VEN- TURESOME, menting youths, 5 ‘ Her little girl companion who untied the tin can from Shy Suitor: 1 veLoxc 10 THE RESERVES, E his tail. The middle-aged man who welcomed them all into the house. The boy who insisted on hugging him. The invalid girl who said: “ Poor little dear!" The old man who tickled him behind the ears. The round little woman who gave him a warm bath and bound up his bruised hind leg A Novel Problem A army officer stationed at one of the cantonments gives us this bit of information: “I note that around the various reading-rooms Lire is the first publication to wear out. I have even seen copies, too worn longer to hold together, distributed by leaves!” The only way that occurs to us by which we can meet this situation is to get out a special military edition of Lire, printed on boiler-plate and copper-riveted. die ISCONSIN is said to be getting ready to repudiate La Follette. We are glad that Wisconsin is getting into the war at last. “WELL, WELL! THIS MUST RE HIS MEATLESS TUESDAY”