Life, 1918-04-18 · page 28 of 40
Life — April 18, 1918 — page 28: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains several distinct satirical pieces mocking early 20th-century social concerns: **"Pull Your Weight"** — A patriotic poem (by Arthur Guiterman) uses nautical metaphor to pressure readers into civic contribution, likely referencing wartime or national emergency sacrifice. **"If Doctors Advertised"** — Sharp satire attacking medical quackery: fake doctors hawking unnecessary surgeries, dubious diet theories, and expensive sanitariums to wealthy hypochondriacs. The "Dr. Gassoway Coincatcher" character exemplifies the charlatan specialist. **"Carrying It Too Far"** — A joke about a clergyman marrying three generations of the same family, with the punchline suggesting the minister holds a grudge. **"The Lines of Yeast Resistance"** cartoon shows a portly woman resisting temptation (a bread basket), playing on contemporary diet culture and the double meaning of "yeast" (baking/fermentation). The page satirizes medical fraud, false economy schemes targeting the wealthy, and emerging weight-consciousness—reflecting 1920s anxieties about health, consumerism, and bodily discipline.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Pull Your Weight HE billows are heaving behind, The breakers are foaming before; need all the strength we can find— Zach ounce you can put to an oar. Are you doing the best that you can To keep the old galley afloat? Are you power or freight? Are you pulling your weight— Are you pulling your weight in the boat? We It isn't the task of the few— The pick of the brave and the strong; It's he and it’s I and it’s you Must drive the good vessel along. Will you save? Will you work? Will you fight? Are you ready to take off your coat? Are you serving the State? Are you pulling your weight— Are you pulling your weight in the boat? Arthur Guiterman. If Doctors Advertised ‘O matter whether you have anything the matter with you or not, call on me and I will operate on you. I guarantee to scare you so by a five minutes’ talk that you will spend any amount of money to have almost any organ in your body removed.—P. G. Cuttemup, M.D. Are you nervous, selfish and rich? Come to my private sanitarium and take my celebrated starvation treatment at four times the price you would pay at any first-class hotel, not including extras or the services of an untrained nurse. Be convinced that you have all the fatal diseases, and at the same time be relieved of your superfluous cash. I camouflage about four thousand idle rich a year. I ama stomach specialist. For twenty years I have ad- vanced more fool theories about diet than any man in America, and I have put a new remedy on the market, on the average, every three months, Come to me and Ict me experiment on you at twenty-five dollars a visit. Read my new book entitled “One Hundred Ways to Knock Out the Stomach.” I will guarantee to make a nervous wreck out of any strong, healthy man in six weeks. —Dr. Gassoway Coincatcher. Experiment IRST ESQUIMAU: What do you think of this day- light-saving plan? Seconn Esquimau: We might try it, and go to bed a couple of months earlier this year. ORGIVE us our Congresses as we forgive those who Congress against us. “So ye call yerself a mascot, ye hoodoo!” Carrying It too Far ILLIS: The same clergyman married me who mar- ried my father, and now he is going to marry my son. Isn't that unusual? Guts: Yes, indeed. I don’t believe in a person carry- ing a grudge all the way to the second or third generation, Do you? THE LINES OF YEAST RESISTANCE comicbook#eonm