Life, 1918-08-29 · page 27 of 34
Life — August 29, 1918 — page 27: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three pieces of wartime humor from America during World War I: **"Splendid Prospects"**: A bitter joke about German casualties—so many German soldiers are dying on the Western Front that Germany has less mouths to feed, thus solving their food shortage problem. **"If the Huns Should Take Up Golf"**: The title references Germans ("Huns," a common WWI-era slur) and imagines them abandoning warfare for leisure, depicted as children playing on a beach instead of fighting. **"Diary of a War Baby"**: A domestic satire where an American baby describes wartime home life—mother's constant war relief work, rationing (milk associated with Thrift Stamps/war bonds), and the baby's passionate patriotic reaction to seeing American soldiers and flags. The humor comes from the baby's primitive but earnest patriotism and the absurdity of treating an infant as complicit in war efforts. All three pieces reflect American home-front attitudes: gallows humor about enemy losses, mockery of Germans, and the total mobilization of civilian life—even babies—for the war effort.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
If THAT PROVES'TO BE A U-BOAT, FRED, AND IT COMES JO THE SURFACE, | WANT YOU TO DO YOUR BIT Splendid Prospects SEE the Germans are very much encouraged about the food situation.” How's that?” “Why, so many of them are being killed on the western front that it takes less food all the time.” IF THE HUNS SHOULD TAKE UP GOLF Diary of a War Baby all over the house, T shall do it sys- I hear them talking about so much, tematically, one room at a time. To- any It seems to have been ] CERTAINLY am having a hard row y L reached the dining-room, and planned to make me miserable. of it. Nobody at home half the went over the top of the sideboard, Every drop of milk I swallow makes time. Mother flits in and out occa- Nothing doing. Not a crumb! me feel as if I were taking the Thrift a but mostly she spends her I have a vague recollection of a Stamps out of their cards! And they je in war reliefs and rummage sales. nurse who used to take me out in a are so mean about it! And the way I suppose I am a non-essential, but carriage. Also there was a person in they talk! Even if they don’t say it still—, the kitchen whe prepared food. All in exactly these words, this is what Eventually, I hope to be able to crawl = gone now! What's the use of this war they mean: “Yes, of course, he is y a nice baby, but he can't be of (SSS any real use for years yet—may do aces 4 later in the trade war against Ger- many.” Yesterday some soldiers passed by with the American flag waving and the band playing, and it fairly got me on my toes. I managed to crawl up and hold on to a chair to get a look at them over the window-sill. I was actually shouting myself hoarse in a minute. Wonder why that flag makes me feel that way? It had me swinging my rattle around my head—and me with no hair at all to speak of! T got the carv- ing knife out of the sideboard drawer, “HERE! MOTHER SAYS YOU'VE COT TO STOP YER NOISE. SHE'S JUST GOT and was ready to stab anything in BABY TO SLEEP” sight. It certainly is fierce to be only comicbooks.com