Life, 1918-02-21 · page 13 of 40
Life — February 21, 1918 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**Top Cartoon:** Shows a jury looking completely bewildered during what appears to be a legal proceeding. The caption mocks their confusion about the phrase "four bells in the dog-watch"—a nautical term they cannot comprehend. This satirizes the disconnect between specialized vocabulary and ordinary jurors' understanding, suggesting juries are often lost during technical testimony. **Article: "Impatient Mr. Rathom"** criticizes John Rathom, editor of the Providence Journal and a "spy-catcher," for his impatient, violent approach to war policy. The piece argues he should allow Secretary Baker to handle war matters through proper legal channels rather than pushing for quick, reckless action. **Bottom Cartoon:** Depicts a humorous domestic scene where a child sitting on a pin cushion has accidentally taught his captions sign language.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
SNAPSHOT OF A JURY TRYING TO LOOK AS IF THE MEANING OF “ FOUR BELLS IN THE DOG-WATCH” WAS PERFECTLY CLEAR TO THEM Impatient Mr. Rathom M* JOHN RATHOM, famous spy-catcher, violent anti-German and editor of the Providence Journal, doesn’t sce how the United States can hope to win the war with a “professed out-and-out pacifist at the head of the war department.” Mr. Rathom is also deeply disturbed be- cause Secretary Baker “has appointed to important posts in the departments under him a number of rabid Socialists, a majority of whom are rabid pacifists and some of whom are German pacifists.” Mr. Rathom is evidently an impa- tient man. He wants the war won right away, after only a year or two of fighting. He forgets that Secretary Baker is a lawyer, and that lawyers are slow, careful workers, who never use one word when ten will do as well, and who believe in long-drawn-out fights. Mr, Rathom should curb his impatience, and allow Secretary Baker to deal with the war in his own meticulous, roundabout, legal way. In five or ten years he will work out some scheme whereby we can whip the Kaiser in another five or ten years. If Mr. Rathom had studied law in the same law school that Secretary Baker attended, he would probably realize that there is nothing so absurd, from a legal standpoint, as finishing a fight before it has fairly started Kenneth L. Roberts. “YY/HAT kind of coal are you using now?” “ Coalless coal.” MAPLY, JONES, WHO IS SITTING ON A PIN CUSHION, DISCOVERS THAT ONE OF HIS CAPTORS UNDERSTANDS THE SIGN LANGUAGE, comicbooks.com