Life, 1918-08-08 · page 4 of 36
Life — August 8, 1918 — page 4: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page is primarily a **letter to soldiers at the front** from *Life* magazine's editors, not a political cartoon. The content addresses homesickness and disconnection experienced by deployed troops. The editors acknowledge that soldiers worry about home life and miss details, which can fuel imagination and anxiety. They reassure readers that life continues normally at home despite wartime conditions. The P.S. note admits this is essentially an **advertising page** designed to secure subscriptions, but claims *Life* prints content based on genuine editorial feeling rather than strict commercial rules. The decorative border features illustrated figures in military uniforms. This appears to be **WWI-era content**, given references to soldiers abroad and "American Expeditionary Forces."
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Letters from the Rear (To the boys at the front) Fellows: When you are off somewhere fighting like h—I, you don’t have much time to think—except between times, and then you do a lot of it—and it is just during these moments that you go back in your mind and wonder what the folks at home are doing. Everything that you have left seems more or less like a dream, and it’s hard, very hard, to make it real. The worst of it is that you can’t help but be suspicious, especially when the mails are held up, or you don’t hear regularly. You want to keep your mental picture of home, and not being able to connect up with all of the details, you begin to imagine that things are happening that are really not happening atall. Well, believe me when I say that things are happening here just the same as they always were, but we don’t seem to know it so much. The fact is, those of us who have to remain behind haven’t got our minds here on anything but you. You are the great factorin our lives. Every little story about you boys that comes trick- ling through the press is grabbed up and devoured offhand by millions of us. So don’t get uneasy. If someone tells you we are not awake, don’t believe them. We are actually getting into this war up to our necks here at home. We’ve got to. The pacifists and slackers are doing the great fading act. Yours, “ye P. S.—Do you understand about this page? It is really an adver- tising page, intended to secure subscriptions to Lirr. But, aside ‘speci from the atrocious coupon that the effete business office com- Otte: \ pels us to print every week, wedon’t stick tothe card. We Enclosed oftentimes have things in this page that have not the Bree remotest bearing upon the great art of securing sub- $1.26). Seval is. scribers. It is just as we happen to feel. Coming soon—a great patriotic number of Life Subscriptions to Lir may be sent to Amer- ican soldiers abroad at American rates of postage if addressed to them as members of the American Expeditionary Forces. _ The price of annual subscriptions, postage Opea:only. ‘to! new! subscribers: woah. included, for Canadian, British and other sol- scriptions renewed at this rate. Ny diers in the Allied armies, is $6.04 LIFE, 17 West 31st Street, New York. $3 y One Year, $5.00. (Canadian, $5.52 Foreign, $6.04.) % comicbooks.com