Life, 1918-03-21 · page 32 of 56
Life — March 21, 1918 — page 32: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains wartime satire from World War I era (references to "The Great War," Kaiser, Czar). **"The Saviors"** essay argues humor and imagination could have prevented the war—fantasizing that Mark Twain as Kaiser or George Bernard Shaw as Czar would have used satire instead of military force. **The cartoons mock WWI absurdities:** - Top image: A soldier in a shell crater, claiming the "longest shooting season" of his experience—dark humor about the mechanized slaughter of trench warfare. - Bottom cartoon: A soldier warning another about a U.S. senator's pro-German sympathies (relevant to 1917-18 American suspicion of German-American loyalties). The joke: be careful what you say around senators, then the crude punchline about telling the Kaiser "what we think of him." **"Cadzysazs!"** mocks unpronounceable Eastern European names—a common comedic trope of the era. The page uses humor to process wartime anxiety, xenophobia, and military carnage—exactly the "redemptive laughter" the essay claims saves civilization.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The Saviors is saved through humor and M** imagination. So Jong as he can laugh and create gods and music he cannot be extin- guished. Come wars, come pests, come revolu- tions, come the kill-joys of Pleasure, he has two cyclone-towers, made of Humor and the fiction- instinct. All the ills of this world are caused dy men and women who have no sense of humor. The Great War would never have occurred had an imaginative humorist Deen on the throne of Germany. Had Mark Twain been the Kaiser of Prussia and George Bernard Shaw the Czar of Russia, the great massacre toed by a series of would have been joint epigrams and satiric shafts from Potsdam and Petersburg. Humor is the cleanser and regener- ator, the concave mirror of Serious- ness, the sham-slitter, the liberator. The humorous imagination jester in the Temple of Pomposit The world will be redeemed hy Laughter and Art. They are the the saviors and redeemers. Prospero and Puck—let us call them from the with magi deeps. They will come wand and laughing brain! Benjamin De Casseres. A Happy Thought HERE is a bright: side to every lump of coal, People who ululate and tear their hair when haddock, that well-known twelve-cent fish, sells for thirty cents a pound should consider the price of radium. Before the war radium brought a modest $1,000,000 per ounce. At this writing one can’t find it on a single bargain-counter un- der $2,800,000 an oun Let us give thanks that we don't have to cat radium or get radium shoes for the baby. Van Gilder has on! “Yes, Real carrots.” IME is the interval hetween pay days: Gadzysazs! Caution GAWKRY recruit of Wrxezysk UNDERSTAND that he is a Surrendered at Prmxrqwalesazs; United States senator.” But he struggled and yelled ~ Does that mean that I must be care- { When he was compelled ful what I say?” To pronounce his own name at “Yes; better find out first whether alll “MERCY! THIS IS THE LONGEST SHOOTING SEASON IN ALL MY EXPERIENCE!” Nvdgownze, he is pro-German or not.” “AWPLL, $0 LONG, BERT. TF THERE AIN'T NO LADIES PUESENT WHEN VE MEET THE RAISER DON'T PERGIT TO TELL TEM WHAT WE THEN K 2 TEM