Life, 1918-01-10 · page 23 of 40
Life — January 10, 1918 — page 23: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The main cartoon satirizes the "Keep-a-Pig Movement"—a WWI-era food conservation effort encouraging home pig-raising. The joke: a wealthy family has taken the directive literally, filling their formal dining room with actual pigs during dinner. The caption suggests their application of the patriotic policy has gone comically wrong. The accompanying text discusses Russia's role in WWI. A Tribune article dismisses Russia as a spent force; the magazine's response argues this is premature pessimism. Russia, though weakened, remains strategically significant and unpredictable—potentially still valuable to the Allies or even destabilizing to Germany internally. The secondary humor ("What She Did") is a brief domestic joke about Mrs. Bump's reluctance to register her age. Context: This reflects American anxieties about Russia's uncertain commitment to the Allied cause during the war.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“My DEAR, THE ‘ KEEP-A-PIG MOVEMENT’ WAS PERFECTLY CORRECT IN THEORY, BUT I FEAR THERE HAS BEEN SOMETHING WRONG WITH OUR APPLICATION OF IT” Russia If we are to avoid future disap- pointment, depression which will weaken our wills and break down our courage, it is essential to recog- nize’that for the duration of the present war Russia has ceased to be a factor—The Tribune. ES, brother; probably; but what will you bet on it? Do you, in your mind, offer a hundred to one that Russia doesn’t come back before the war ends, or ten to one, or five to one? It makes for concentration of opinion to express oneself in terms of hazard. Anyone who counts on Russian armies to help end the war and is go- ing to be depressed if they don’t, had better put his mind on something else. But Russia is not pro-German yet, and she occupies a large spot on the map, and one way or another she is still liable to count. Even if her armies do not help the Allies, is it not possible that her example will count in Ger- many for something not favorable to military energy? At least the Russian bugaboo is not so useful to scare Ger- man children with as it was. It is not safe to count out a country so uncertain as Russia is. What She Did RS. WILLIS: Did Mrs. Bump register? Mrs. Giuts Mrs. Wi away? Mus. Guus: Yes; away off, Yes, : Did she give her age comicbooks.com