Life, 1918-11-28 · page 8 of 34
Life — November 28, 1918 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page presents post-WWI reflections on American gains from the war. The main article discusses intangible benefits—moral growth, national unity, and restored international relationships—despite material costs. The cartoon below satirizes domestic expectations for peacetime. Labeled "The Average Housewife's Hope of What Peace Eventually Will Bring," it depicts a woman (representing civilian desires) surrounded by people offering goods: food, milk, butter, bread, clothing, sugar, and coal. The labels reference wartime rationing and scarcity that Americans endured. The satire's point: while politicians celebrated moral victories and international alliances, ordinary Americans—particularly housewives managing household supplies—simply wanted basic consumer goods restored. The cartoon captures the gap between grand national rhetoric and everyday material hardships that citizens experienced.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“EEE * What We Give Thanks For HAT have we Incalculable benefits, bought at a great price. We are ing the tined by the war? pay- price, The are and feel it benefits chiefly are harder to reckon, moral, and being beyond price Material things can be expressed ’in figures, and people who do not understand much except material things try to express: moral things in the same way But the figures in this war are all in the wrong column We have spent many, many dear lives and billions of dollars, and have nothing to show for it more tangible than that we feel better. We went into the war for our health, and we have got the health Very than health? What is What is better worth ex- What good is physical well worth more penditure and e health, fort? without and not very wh we Our were went into the war bad. years, ation was We had rin along a hundred ccumulating 4 from anywher be doubtful wt ac sorted until it had begun to citizens ther we were a unit or We much like a human gan to be feel too It be breed we began to k heap, what ngCries. uncertain were, and what was the color of our livers. It was doubted that we could act together as a great people for a at purpose, except, perhaps, for self- Such two years, while we stood on the brink and felt of the But when, finally, Germany pulled us We began to function as a nation at war; defense. doubts abounded for water and_ hesitated in, they all went to grass some- what awkwardly at first, but with rapid improvement, and presently, with enor- mous energy. Then it began to be dis- for the mere sake of bigness, but had the dy- closed that we were not big namic force that ought to go with size, pnd withal, and handy with our hands. That was worth finding out, and the \nd it has were active on our feet, war has disclosed it nade Juable more definite us va friends, and brought us into the family of na tions, and loaded us up with new re sponsibilities. Thanks to the war the United States will never again seem to Europe an outlying — district, Italy, nor England, for United States There is hardly anything so. valuable nor France, nor cign countries to. the quaintance and b We have made « in life as to make favorably regarded, very large acquaintance indecd, and we all hope we have earned some regard. The effect of it will be to enrich Amer- ican life, and give it more background, remunerative and And if the future is to tic together and make it| more agreeable the nations more atid more closely, it is worth everything to us to have tied up in a great crisis to the A REMINISCENCE, “WHAT ARE WE OUT HERE FOR, SE POUK-LEAPED CLOVERS, THE GENERAL GOING TO START AN OFFENSIVE TO-MO} kow.” associate nations that we have been with in this war—the nations that hav fought the great fight for civiliza and a better world Here around again Thanks giving Day, the old Puritan festival dd what thanks we have this year t give! Peace has come back. The war is won. The crops are abundant. The Our war losse comes infinenza has abated were not greater than we can bear \ll these are fair bases for thankful but the Maker for with grateful hearts is that we got into the war, and got into it in Al the ¢ of that course are ness, thing we praise ou fortable advantai 1s nothing compared with the great moral fact that by a resolutely sustained, we time right choice THE AVERAGE HOUSEWIFE’S HOPE OF WHAT PEACE E} TUALLY WILL BRING comicbooks.com