Life, 1918-03-21 · page 40 of 56
Life — March 21, 1918 — page 40: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains a call for WWI soldier letters and a satirical memoir excerpt about President Woodrow Wilson. **The Setup:** Life magazine solicits firsthand accounts from American soldiers in France, paying $10 per published letter—positioning itself as documenting the Great War experience. **The Satire:** The "Memoirs of Silas Griggson" (written retrospectively in 1971) mocks Wilson's administration. The author recalls dining with President Wilson and gently criticizing him for surrounding himself with "nincompoops"—incompetent advisors causing military blunders. Wilson deflects the criticism and refuses further meetings. **The Cartoon:** The illustration depicts a pig being inspected, with dialogue questioning its breeding and bloodline, referencing "Hohenzollern" (the German imperial family). This is a crude visual metaphor—the pig likely represents either an incompetent official or German militarism itself. **Context:** This reflects contemporary American skepticism about Wilson's war leadership and his cabinet appointments, a common criticism during WWI.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
To Our Boys at the Front 'OR letters from men in the American fighting forces in France Lire will pay ten dollars each, if they are considered of sufficient interest to print. Each letter should not be more than two hundred words in length; the shorter the better. Preferably, it should deal with some phase of life at the Front, and the preference will be given to humorous incidents, short anecdotes or matters of fact of human interest. Tell us what is happening to you and your comrades and how you feel, being careful, of course, to send only material that will pass the censor. All letters should be addressed to the Editor of Lire, 17 West 31st Street, New York, | U.S. A. Owing to the difficulty of transmitting mail, no letters will be returned, so corre- spondents are advised to keep duplicates. The name and address of the author should be | plainly written on each manuscript. x : | From the Memoirs of Silas Griggson (Written in the year 1971. As Mr. Griggson was one of the most distinguished young men of the days of the great war, it was his privilege to mingle with the chief actors of those days. His reminiscences cover a wide field.) T the time I write of Woodrow Wilson was President. He was a man of considerable intellect, and having been a college professor, his reading was wide and his con- versation extremely interesting. I dined with him privately upon several occasions, and found him to be a delightful companion. Yet outwardly he had the reputation of a cer- tain aloofness, and it is said that he had offended many people who had assisted him in his political career by refus- ing to see them. That he was generally loyal to his asso- ciates appears, however, to be the fact. He surrounded himself at the beginning of the war with a group of nin- compoops—at least this was the general impression. IT remember talking with him frankly once. “They say of you that the biggest men, who ought to be used in the war, are relegated to obscurity, while those who are incompetent are pushed forward, thus causing grave blunders.” “YES, HE SEEMS A CHEERFUL HOG, 1S HE HIGH BRED?” He smiled and changed the subject. “WELL, I SHOULD SAY SO! HE'S THREE QUARTERS HIGH I never saw him after this, He never would see me. FINANCE WITH A STRAIN OF HOHENZOLLERN comicbooks.