Life, 1918-11-21 · page 9 of 34
Life — November 21, 1918 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**The Cartoon:** The sketch depicts a domestic scene where a man and woman are in disagreement. The woman is seated while the man stands, gesturing argumentatively. A baby's crying is audible in the background. The caption reveals the joke: the man asks "That's either the baby or the cat crying. What shall I do?" The woman responds dismissively, suggesting he feed the cat if it's the cat, or let the baby cry since "science says that is best for him." **The Satire:** This mocks contemporary parenting advice from the early 20th century—likely referencing behaviorist theories that discouraged coddling babies. The humor lies in the woman's casual disregard for the baby's distress in favor of fashionable "scientific" child-rearing. It satirizes how uncritically people embraced modern parenting theories, even when they conflicted with maternal instinct.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
a YY Ye YY 5 Vf pif, Yi He: THAT'S EITHER THE BABY OR THE CAT CRYING, WH She: 1 11's THE CAT, FEED HER; IF IT's Why Not Abolish “Germany?” I" will be impossible to abolish what we know as “the Germans.” They will survive the war in all their arieties. To many persons, very y. this will be a sad thought, but however sad, tis true. In a letter from Verdun, carly in October, a conscientious young American soldier said: “ yone is sore at being here, and wants to get into Germany and begin the atrocities and then go home.” That will be the way of it. Even if the Allies and the Americans get into Germany before the Germans surren- der, they will not make a thorough job of atrocities. They could manage no more than a beginning of them at the written HE BABY, LET HIM CRY; BEST FOR HIM very most, and then they would want to quit and go home. No; “the Germans” will survive; hordes of them, male and female, young and old, and they will go on living. But why should “Germany” sur- vive? “Germany” is a name, an idea, a political suggestion. The name is steeped in filth, blood and dishonor; the idea has burst; the political sugges- tion is abhorred and cursed out wher- ever men go on two legs. The land that is covered by “Germany” will re- main; the states that it includes— Bavaria, Saxony, Prussia and the rest —will remain; but why should “Ger- many” survive? There is excellent supernatural au- thority for thinking that it won't. The ingenious Brother Johannes, whose seventeenth century forecast of the tre- AT SHALL I Do? FOR SCIENCE SAYS THAT 1S mendous performances of the Anti- christ towards the year 2000 has been fairly 1914, dicted «that the empire of Antichrist bust and he divided in The excellent but making good since pre- would go twenty-two states much less ancient prophecy of May- ence, which also seems to deal with the present complication, saw it end in the annihilation of Prussia and Austria, the es of Hungary to the east, and the revolution of Germany and Austria into three realms: Poland, Hanover and Saxony, To these suggestions add those of Bro. Ralph Adams Cram, who, though hospitable to the supernatural, is not unacquainted either with maps or fig- ures. He has published “A Plan for the Settlement of Middlé Europe" and a new map of Europe after the war, on which Germany does not appear. A province of Hanover is in it, and en- comicbooks.com