Life, 1919-04-24 · page 19 of 46
Life — April 24, 1919 — page 19: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**"Ultimate Reform"** is a satirical poem mocking Prohibition advocates and moral reformers. The poem uses ironic exaggeration to expose the hypocrisy of self-righteous busybodies who want to eliminate *others'* pleasures (wine, laughter, beauty, love) while claiming moral superiority. The repeated refrain "if the sparrow can't warble, why should the lark?" suggests that restricting joy for some while permitting it for others is absurd. This likely reflects pre-Prohibition debates (early 1900s) about government overreach in regulating personal behavior. **"Pastel"** is a domestic story about a restless wife, fifty, married to a dull husband, fifty-five. She admires the young gardener trimming trees and fantasizes about rejuvenation and beauty. The joke concludes with her husband joking that their new puppy is a "free lover"—a reference to 1920s sexual liberation rhetoric, used here for comic contrast with her mundane marriage. The **cartoon** shows a motorist-and-mechanic exchange using dialect humor (common to the era), illustrating working-class comedic vernacular popular in Life's humor sections.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“LIP E- Ultimate Reform L T us reform the unshackled sinners Who still have pleasures we may not share: shall have no wine when they eat their dinners— i why, dear brethren, be halting there? < not let up till we've gone the limit, t us make the lives of the joyous dark; ever a pleasure is found, let’s trim it sparrow can’t warble, why should the lark? we are solemn and cold and mirthless, t right that others may still be gay? ess is wicked and laughter worthles us legislate these evils away ! s pass a law to have love restricted, i abolish beauty or veil its charm; hose who cause merriment he convicted + bringing to others debauching harm. inclinations must be the measure which all other men shall submit; vust not forget that in killing pleasure © save ourselves from the brimstone pit! is find the end of our own desires, ul there establish the final mark: © virtue somber and quench Youth's fires— the sparrow can’t warble, why let the lark? SEL Kiser. THE WEEKLY VISIT OF THE DIRIGIBLE Pastel GHHE st and looked at her husband as he ate his hmeieon .. . with his wrinkled forehead and square jaw. Fifty years old—and she was forty! Outside the gardener was trimming the oak trees, A young gardener. How fresh and clean the trees looked, freed from their deformed, twisted branches! She wished that the great clipper of destinies might occasionally trim old husbands and make what was left fresh and clean and straight hh year young again... like the gardener, and to 1 when they g id like horned toads, * "What's funny?” said her} “1 was thinking ars. The rose bushes need trimming, and ll do it seli. The exercise : AMA, what is free lov SSporerp r “Why, my dear, it is love that is : camster (to stalled motorist): 1 veLL yest co over — YY Any Conventions or ceremonies, is s NB THE HILL OUT OF HEARIN’, I THINK 1 KIN CIT IT doesn’t care how it acts or what it does FoR VE, MA'AM, “Then my new puppy is a free lover.” comicbooks.com