Life, 1918-07-11 · page 26 of 34
Life — July 11, 1918 — page 26: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains sharp political satire targeting **Claude Kitchin**, a North Carolina congressman. The lengthy article "The N.C. Mind" uses crude regionalist mockery to attack Kitchin as intellectually rigid and unchangeable—comparing his mind to "spoiled child" or "Patagonian savage" unable to concede anything. The satire suggests Kitchin's worldview is fixed by geography/genetics, making him suspicious of coastal northerners (whom he views as criminals), hostile to publishers and wealthy businessmen, and opposed to war (except when capitalists benefit). The author presents this intransigence as a regional character flaw rather than principled political disagreement. The "Words on Talk" section appears unrelated commentary on poor conversation habits. The "Life in the Navy" photo caption references WWI naval operations. **Context**: This reflects early 20th-century elite Eastern intellectual contempt for rural Southern politicians, using pseudo-scientific regionalism to delegitimize political opponents rather than engage their arguments.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
IF ONE OF THOSE LONG-DISTANCE SHELLS WOULD ONLY GO FAR ENOUGH Words on Talk ALK is unskilled: conversation. :veryhody except the dumb and the very young knows how to talk; but only a few people are able to produce conversation by talking and saying something at the same time. Talk is a habit; while conversation is, to a great extent, a knack, just like crank- ing an automobile or making a good salad dressing. People whose heads are full of thoughts are sometimes poor ause they haven't the knack. Until the human race learns. not to talk unless it has something to say, the average person will spend most of his life in being bored to death by his neighbors’ words. Un- fortunately, all of us think that we are ridding ourselves of gems of thought whenever we open our mouths. Usu- ally we are wrong. Thus we must re- sign ourselves to boring and to being bored. conversationalists, be« HE has no idea of the value of time.” “1 know it. She is just about as hard to do business with as one of the departments at Washington.” Island of Cuba. latitude and longitude seems to be necessary to produce the Havana cigar. The same thing is true of the North Carolina mind. Apparently upon no. other area of the earth's surface can this special freak of nature be pro- duced. And among all the specimens of the North Carolina mind the one known as the Claude Kitchin is na doubt the most perfect one now on exhibition, Subjected to certain in- fluences which appear to have their effect upon other forms of human in- telligence—for instance, to the com- panionshjp of standard books, the con- tact with other minds, some of them broad and liberal in their views—all this makes no difference to the Claude Kitchin mind. It still remains true to type, The soil of North Carolina has fixed into it certain unchangeable traits, undilutable by any known process of persuasion or logic. The Kitchin mind, like the spoiled child in the nursery or the Patagonian savage, is never ready to concede anything. suspicion. is always to be avoide inev anathema—people to face of the earth. immune. mind. W Follette. "LIFE" IN THE NAVY FROM THE UNITED STATES OPERATING BASE, HAMPTON ROADS, VA. SENT To L hy the government?” The N. C. Mind T is rather singular that the tobacco which goes into the making of Havana cigars can only be grown in a certain section of the Any attempt to transplant it has always resulted in failure. A certain peculiar combination of soil and climate and “at's PERFECTLY SEMPLE” An object which this mind has never seen before must of necessity be an enemy, to be viewed with snorts of passion and unwavering To the Kitchin mind, everybody liv- ing on the Atlantic seacoast north of Atlantic City is an accomplished crook. A publisher is an unhung villain. A man who has an income over eighteen hundred dollars a year—unless he is congressman from south of Mason and Dixon's line—is a base criminal. War a But when it is able then it is always brought on by capitalists, and all capitalists are be relentlessly pursued until they are driven from the for the many voted laborer, he must always be kept Such, in substance, is the Kitchin Nemesis don’t hear anything about La Has he been interned “No; by something a great deal more powerful—by public opinion.”