Life, 1918-07-11 · page 25 of 34
Life — July 11, 1918 — page 25: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The top cartoon satirizes WWI propaganda by showing military/government officials and celebrities auctioning something labeled "W.S.S." (War Savings Stamps). Each figure interprets the initials through their own lens: Secretary Baker sees "sterling soldiers," Secretary Daniels sees "splendid sailors," while film stars and entertainers see dramatic content. The Kaiser, notably, sees "shameful savagery." This mocks how different parties promoted the same war effort using self-serving rhetoric. The bottom two items are humor pieces. "Just Right" jokes about Prohibition-era whisky quality—a planter gives bad whisky to a tenant, who paradoxically praises it as perfectly mediocre. "Friend/Soldier" makes a dark joke equating a football player's poor grades to killing "four Germans a day," darkly treating academic failure and wartime casualty rates as equivalent metrics. Both reflect WWI-era American attitudes.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
What the Initials Mean T° Secretary Baker: What ster- ling soldiers! To Secretary Daniels: What splendid sailors! To Douglas Fairbanks: Wild, startling scenes! To Annette Kellermann: Wonderful swimming stunts! To Mary Pickford: Wistfully sweet smiles! To Theda Bara: Wicked — siren’s schemes! To Billy Sunday: What shocking ser- mons! To the Kaiser: With shameful sav- agery! To Uncle Sam: We'll soon succeed! AUCTIONING A RARA AVIS, Just Right N the bone-dry districts whisky, or anything called whisky, brings fab- ulous prices; and the thirst dom gives any of his luxury planter, however, who had r ly ob- tained a quart of the fiery liquid for eight dollars, found it so bad that even the thought of getting his money’s worth could not make it go down. Accordingly, he gave it to one of his negro tenants, who declared it would save his life. A few days later, seeing * Jake, the negro still alive, he asked how was that whisky I gave y “Tt was jest right, boss, jest right. If it hada ben any bettech yo’ wouldn't ‘a’ giv it to me, it had ben any worse Ah couldn't 'a’ drunk it.” FRIEND: So you dropped Private Halfback from your service foot- ball team. Sormer: Yes. He fell down in scholarship. His average last month was less than four Germans a day.