Life, 1918-03-28 · page 31 of 40
Life — March 28, 1918 — page 31: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This article satirizes the YMCA's exclusion of Unitarians from its wartime service programs. The author argues the YMCA's policy is absurd: Unitarians are described as harmless, intellectually serious people who conduct themselves modestly—lacking the theatrical evangelicalism of other denominations. The satire's point: if the YMCA truly believes Unitarians are unsuitable for war work, it should intern *all* Unitarians, including William Howard Taft (a prominent Unitarian). The author mocks the YMCA's selective intolerance, suggesting its reasoning contradicts its own values. The concluding quotation ("A man's a man for a' that") invokes Robert Burns's egalitarian principle to highlight the discriminatory absurdity. The top cartoon references Von Hindenburg's WWI spring offensive; the bottom photograph labeled "Safer for Democracy" appears to show wartime destruction.
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527 AR Wwe VON HINDENBURG'S GREAT SPRING DRIVE SAFER FOR DEMOCRACY Barring Out the Unitarians HAT Unitarians are barred out of its service and war work by the YM. C. A. opens up a large field of speculation. Perhaps the Y. M. C. A. had so much material that it had to draw the line somewhe it would better be drawn at Unitarians. that a man is a Uni If this is true, then Mr. Taft should be interned at once. e, and concluded that Maybe the fact arian renders him unfit for war work Indeed, interning all the Unitarians for the period of the sequence of the Yo M.C. A ple to make a Unitarian useful, war seems to he the | ruling, for if it is not pc he should be duly segregatec he Unitarian hitherto has been supposed to be more or less harmless. He does n wear white nightgowns in public when conducting services, or lead impassioned revival mect- ings with a tin horn, where the business of saving souls is He does not write ponderous tomes on ethics, or indulge in ha reduced to a commercial proposition cussions on the higher criticism, His main concern is to build up character by an orderly process of self-develop- ment, or to teach the fundamental principles of life with- out self-advertisement, ridiculous ritual or rodomon- tade. Perhaps all this is what is the matter with him. Maybe the Y. M. C. A. is holding him up as a conspicuous excep- tion to the rule once laid down by an able poet, when he de- clared that “A man’s a man for a’ that.” I the Constitution to be gassed to death by amendments? comicbooks.com