Life, 1919-01-09 · page 28 of 34
Life — January 9, 1919 — page 28: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two distinct pieces: **Top section**: A soldier's first-person account of a nighttime patrol, illustrated with stark silhouettes. The narrative describes fear and homesickness—waiting for darkness, navigating by feel, dodging enemy fire, and thinking of his girlfriend in a warm theater. It's a straightforward, emotional wartime memoir presented as illustration. **"The Biograph" section**: A satirical poem mocking **George Creel**, head of the U.S. Committee on Public Information during WWI. The satire attacks Creel as a self-righteous propagandist who wraps government messaging in moral language ("Religious Verse," "Protective Coloration"). The barb about "We Were Not Prepared" likely references prewar criticism. **"New Times and Attitudes" section**: Social commentary noting that sailors were previously barred from respectable establishments (theaters, dance halls) but are now welcomed by "the best girls in town"—a reversal attributed to wartime patriotism and changed attitudes toward uniformed servicemen. The overall page reflects WWI-era American culture: soldier experiences, government propaganda criticism, and shifting social attitudes toward the military.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
*LTPE* As He Told It to the Folks at Home 1. I stood ready to go out on a patrol. All T was waiting for was darkness— and wishing it were over. y out of the wir twas still.” Fearfully so. W, Oh, no—I was just—oceupies 3. Out of the wire T felt and felt for that path that looked so plain on the located my patrol by whistle. They answered me in loud and distinet eat calls, 5. Suddenly I dropped, as the enemy sent up a flare, and I felt the ground fairly rumble with my heart throbs. The Biograph GEORGE CREEL HE ought to be a Seven-Reel Heroic Film of Mr, Creel: Behold the Son of Old Missouri \ssailing Graft with Righteous Fury! Behold him doing nothing worse Than penning fine Religious Verse! Behold him, brave as Coronado, Uprooting Vice in Colorado! Behold him blending Thoughts and Facts To justify his Patron’s Acts! Behold him giving Information With bright Protective Coloration! Behold the Moralist who dared Rejoice that We Were Not Prepared! 3chold, undaunted Clipping-paster, The Nation’s Leading Paper-waster! Approve, O Board of Censorship, Our Cinematographic Slip! Unless a Fickle Public wearies, “The Deeds of Creel” may be elrthur Guiterman Series New Times and Attitudes to Match FEW years ago one heard a good deal about the rejection of United States sailors in uniform from places of amusement. Proprietors of summer shows and respectable dance places thought them detrimental to the stand- ing of their establishments, and kept them out, thereby at times incurring the displeasure of naval officers, who sometimes remonstrated effectively. And now, when one sees youths i: plain sailor togs walking on Fift Avenue with the best girls in town and welcomed everywhere, how far, far away those curious old times scem! Those boys, cléan and active, look handsome to all people now, and if anyone doesn’t like their clothes he finds it safer not to mentio: 6. When all. of a sudden—ZI-ING! A bullet split the stillness of the nizit, I clinched my teeth to save my heart from bouncing on the landscape. 7. Outside the enemy wire in the wet ound, I wondered if my girl was th ing of ‘me. [ recalled the times I speot with her in a warm theatre, and how she 8. T unconsciously touched their wi which responded with an w Re I pussyfooted back, expecting taken by the sput-sput of a machine gu Fay 3 Ze SF", 9. At last I reached the opening in the wire, just as dawn was. breaking. Happy? "Oh, bor!