Life, 1918-02-21 · page 14 of 40
Life — February 21, 1918 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes the decline of the coal industry through a mock murder mystery. Multiple figures—a railroad official, a bureaucrat, and a Pacific representative—each claim responsibility for "killing King Coal," attributing it to their own incompetence or systemic failures. The bottom cartoon depicts gentlemen in top hats at a bank, with the caption about a teller refusing to cash a two-dollar check without identification—a satirical commentary on banking bureaucracy and over-caution. The right column critiques temperance advocates' ignorance about alcohol content in beverages, mocking anti-rum reformers' lack of scientific understanding. Overall, the page targets early 20th-century Progressive Era concerns: industrial decline, government inefficiency, banking regulations, and temperance movement absolutism.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
294 Who? 'HO killed King Coal? * said the Weather. “I did it with my blizzards and the meanest tem- perature I could create. I killed King Coal.” “I did it,” said the Railroad. “I tangled myself up in a hopeless mess after a long previous career of financial manipulation. I was the one who killed King Coal.” “Twas I,” said the Bureaucrat, “with my rotten system of incficiency. Gripped by incompetents, I fixed King Coal so that he couldn't possibly move. Put me down as guilty.” “Pooh, pooh!” cried the Pacifist, “T made the conditions in the first place. If it hadn't been for me, King Coal would have been doing his bit from the beginning.” Then the newspapers cried, and Dr. Garfield explained, and all the critics zed, and National Pride blushed again, and red tape wriggled with joy, “PE: and the Colonel snorted. And Truth came out of the bottom of a well and said: “Alas! gentlemen, docs no one dare tell who it really was?” Ignorance About Drinks Te Mr. Bryan and Mr. Daniels and a large proportion of anti-rum re- formers every beverage that contains alcohol “alcohol,” and therefore “poison” and necessary to be sup- pressed in toto. Whether it contains three per cent. of alcohol or forty makes no difference to these persons. If there is any alcohol in it it is un- ethical and must go under the ban. But in Europe, and especially in the Scandinavian countries where temper- ance reform has been most successful, the drinks of low alcoholic percentage are looked upon as temperance drinks, and may be sold without license, or a very low one, and are not ta: But the strong drinks are taxed according to their alcoholic percentage, and de- IF DREAMS CAME TRUE. PITIABLE CONFUSION OF THE TELLER WHO REFUSED TO CASH OUR TWO-DOLLAR CHECK WITHOUT IDENTIFICATION barred from advertisement. They must not intrude on notice, and all the profit in them and in the sale of them goes to the government. That is the right idea. Our temperance people will never do a good job until they learn to distin- guish between drinks. It is a tragedy that the temperance agitation in this country should be so largely in the hands of people who know nothing about drinks except the effect of the strongest beverages upon the weakest heads. Hope Springs Eternal HEER UP! A Northfield weather- sharp writes to the Springfield Republican that by February ith the maximum allowance of cold for this winter will he used up and “the tem- perature tension must rela. Put your mittens in the drawer, Leave your arctics in the closet; Winter's not here any more. No great congelation! Was it?