Life, 1919-05-29 · page 17 of 42
Life — May 29, 1919 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three separate satirical pieces reflecting post-WWI American anxieties: **"The Healthy Materialist"** critiques labor unrest, arguing workers' demands are reasonable (money, food, ending Prohibition) but have been radicalized by "profiteers" and poor entertainment—not ideology. Unrest is portrayed as rootless discontent seeking direction. **"Backfire"** mocks Prohibition's unintended consequences: a saloon owner cancels his lease after a Prohibitionist tenant moves in, harming the very regulation supporter. **"Fighting the Bolshevist Plant Bugs"** defends the Department of Agriculture's plant quarantine (No. 37) against nurserymen's complaints. The text dismisses critics who assume the government deliberately injures business, arguing the quarantine legitimately prevents disease and pests from imported plants. The cartoon shows a child ignoring mother's warning—implying complainers ignore expert advice. The page reflects skepticism toward both labor radicalism and reflexive anti-government sentiment, favoring expert technocratic solutions.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
*LIPFE® o4l It explains how difficult the delousing process is in the case of plants which have roots with carth clinging to them, and how apt it is to kill the plant. Only plant experts know about these matte: nd they are liable to disagree. But readers who read tements, on the backs of their spring plant-catalogues that make them want to run down to Washington and destroy the Depart- ment of Agriculture, are advised to try to get fuller infor- mation before doing so. The Healthy Materialist AM Unrest. There are various ways of calming me. Put money in my purse. Put food in my stomach. Give me back my six-per-cent. beer. Start the movies moving. Tam quite human, and not naturally Bolshevik. But profiteers, eighteenth amendments and the murderous monotony of the films have made me look dangerous. Unrest is merely movement looking for a place to rest. Backfire that Prohibitionist. so mad about?” “The owner of a saloon in one of his buildi cancelled his lease.” Sarees | THe critics arrived after the world was created HY ARE YOU SO INTERESTED IN THE DOG, HAROLD?” , NOTHING MUCH, HE REMINDS ME OF SOMETHING.” Fighting the Bolshevist Plant Bugs RE have been wails in the newspapers about plant rantine No. 37, devised by the Department of Agri- . which prohibits importation (except in specified cs under special conditions) of certain bulbs and plants » Europe. Importing nurserymen object pretty gener- to this quarantine, and some of them in their cata- s print claborate protests against it, setting forth Iships which they say it imposes on them and on the lic that wants the shrubs and bulbs that they have been to import, and insisting that the quarantine is unneces- ry and useless. Persons who are ready to believe that © present administration sits up to iavent ways to injure rivate business and balk the desires of private buyers, vdieve What the plant importers tell them, and add one ore rivet to their conviction that we are hving under a esome and inperious government. We have been at the pains to send one of the importers’ reulars to the Department of Agriculture, and got a few reulars and explanations in reply, and that course is recommended to anyone who is moved by the nursery- en's complaints. The Department is trying to keep Bol- hevist plant bugs and diseases out of the country, and has en advised by its experts and hy experts of the several States that a limited quarantine, such as it has instituted, s the only way to do it. The Department does not think the quarantine is so oppressive as the complaining nursery- “ MOTHER TOLD ME NOT TO TASTE THIS, BUT I'M GOIN’ TO mien make out. Most plant producers, it says, approve of it. FOOL HER” comicbooks.com