Life, 1918-08-22 · page 7 of 34
Life — August 22, 1918 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two distinct pieces: **The Illustration (top):** A seaside pier scene depicting well-dressed Edwardian-era figures. The caption reads: "She: 'YOU CAN'T BUY MY LOVE!' He: 'BUT YOU DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH MONEY I'VE GOT.'" The satire mocks wealthy men attempting to use money to seduce women, suggesting that even declarations of romantic principle yield to displays of wealth. **"A Soft Thing" (bottom):** A brief dialogue about a woman rejecting a suitor because he was "made a machine gunner last week." The humor derives from contrasting romantic devotion with military service—the woman prioritizes her sweetheart's safety over romantic sentiment. Both pieces satirize relationship dynamics and social values of the period, using humor to critique materialism and wartime concerns.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
She: you can’t puy My Love! “BUT YOU DON’T KNOW HOW MUCH MONEY I'VE Gor.” Only the clash of steel on steel and the groans of the stricken could be heard, The issue was never in doubt for an instant, At this kind of fighting the American is more than equal to any Prussian Guardsman, and in a little more than ten minutes all was over. Except for a few German prisoners, every German in the vil- lage had breathed his last That is the way to end the war. It is costly, but there is no cheap way. General March said of the later fight- ing in the Rheims-Soissons salient, that to kill as many men as possible came to be the sole aim of the oppos- ing forces. “Let us recognize gratefully that our men are as good for that serv- ice as any fighters in Europe. Being men carefully selected, at the best age for military activity and fresh to the work, it is quite likely that they are at present the most efficient German-kill- ers on the job. All things considered, they ought to be. They should be fit to rival the imperishable record of th British Contemptibles in the first blaze of the war, and of the French in the first battle of the Marne. Heaven send them strength and valor in the great work they are busy with, for, so long as Prussian Junkers con- trol Germany, to kill German soldiers is the only road to peace. The German soldiers may not all be so bad. Some of them, we know, are not so brutal or so treacherous as others. But so long as they are the meek tools of the scoundrels who brought on the war and have smeared it with infamies since their first lunge into Belgium, there is nothing for it but to kill them till they are tired of dying ¢n a rotten cause, and until their backers at home begin to run to their holes. For the masters of Germany who for forty years planned a world war for purposes of robbery, the proper re- turn is hell in this world and so much of damnation in the next as Almighty Justice may direct. For their fighting soldiers the natural fate is death—~ unless they have the good luck to be disabled or captured. The errand of the Allies is to clean out a nest of robbers, and make lies and spies and treachery and cruelty un- popular for a while in this worl is the work that our gentlemen a warding when they kill German sol- diers, Good on their blessed heads! A Soft Thing “YYOU can kiss me as many times as you can fire shots a minute, nounced the maid as an incentive to her sweetheart’s rifle dexterity. “All right,” said the latter, “but it’s only fair to tell you that I was made a machine gunner last week.” comicbooks.com