Life, 1919-01-09 · page 22 of 34
Life — January 9, 1919 — page 22: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three satirical "open letters" from 1919 (based on post-WWI references). The first letter, signed "Life," appeals to the President on behalf of businessmen starving due to Mr. Shonts's control of street transportation, ironically warning that without relief, "Anarchy and Bolshevism" will result. This mocks both the transportation crisis and exaggerated Red Scare rhetoric. The second letter, to Henry Ford, congratulates him on entering journalism and humorously suggests that producing newspapers will prove as problematic as manufacturing cars—ideas, like automobiles, will break down and fail. The bottom illustration shows a child asking his father why he's now using their smoking room since swearing off on New Year's Day—a gentle domestic humor joke about broken resolutions. The third letter addresses Robert La Follette, accusing him of being a traitor for his anti-war stance during WWI, sarcastically praising his "patriotic stupidity" in supporting pro-German positions—this directly attacks pacifist/progressive opposition to the war.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
LF IE Some Open Letters D' AR MR. PRESIDENT of the amalgamated society those On behalf who are doing business in the great metropolis of this country and who are compelled hy force of circumstances to get a large propor- tion of their meals in prominent hotels and restaur- ants, we appeal to you, in the name of humanity, to keep us from starving. Owing to the fact that our entire street transportation system is now in control of Mr. Shonts, our already depleted energies are so minimized by the horror of metropolitan travel that it is comparatively casy to rob us of all we possess, even heford there is placed before our famished bodies the microscopical portions of alleged nourishment which have now taken the place of real food. Anarchy and Bolshev- ism are rampant among us, and unless we have relief we cannot answer for are of Broadway Democracy Feed us, Mr, President \nemically yours, PPAR MR. FORD: Tn congratulating you spon your entrance into the sacred domain of journalism, permit me to forestall any enthusiasm you may have by notifying you that it will probably take you somewhat longer, even with the hest machinery available, to turn ont an idea every “DARN IT, WILLIE, SINCE PA SWORE OFF ON NEW YEAR'S DAY HE'S CONE AN’ SWIPED OUR PLACE FER SMOKIN AND EVE MAD BEEN PRUSSIANS you have been turning on of your project, that in both cases the process is mucl the same. To turn ont both Fords and ideas require imagination, initiative, the proper employment of skill and brains and an irate assembling of varic necessary parts. After you have started productio I shall expect to see a certain proportion of ideas stalled on the read. They may run out of gas the steering apparatus may go back on the driver, there will be blowouts, and the brakes may not al- ways work. But if you journalism by same methods that you have employed with ye cars, 1 see no reson why you should not eventually furnish ar cheap ideas to afford mental tran: That ainst you in Con- as been allowed to go by defanlt and that nobody knows whether vc itor to your country or not, inspires for you my indignation d sympathy. To have fought the war with the loquacious energy you displayed, to have worked for the late Kaiser with such consistent bravery, to have furnished ‘such a genuine uplifting example of patriotic stupidity to other pro-Germans and pacifists, and then, after all this work, not to get anywhere