Life, 1919-07-17 · page 27 of 40
Life — July 17, 1919 — page 27: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three distinct satirical pieces from post-World War I America: **"Our Little Busted Belgium"** criticizes New York City's Union Square, comparing its wartime deterioration to devastated Belgium and France. The piece sarcastically suggests that while European cities receive reconstruction aid, Union Square remains a chaotic "junk yard" cluttered with a subway station, a recruiting battleship, war-aid society structures, and peanut stands. It's a call for civic restoration. **The cartoon below** depicts a boatman offering a "comfortable house-boat in exchange for yer power-boat"—likely mocking wartime profiteering or the economic disruption among the wealthy. **"The New Peerage"** satirizes how World War I created new social hierarchies. Mrs. Crabshaw boasts her husband's family grew wealthy in munitions manufacturing and oil during the war, while Mrs. Nutch's family merely has old aristocratic lineage. The joke: wartime profiteers now outrank traditional wealth and status. **The three-panel comic strip** satirizes the disruption of domestic life—a doctor makes a 2:15 AM house call for a baby who swallowed a safety pin, only to receive a 2:30 AM apology when the pin is found under the crib.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The Greatest Need OFTEN think that anyone can face A crisis or a crushing tragedy With calm, exalted courage, but the place That needs the greatest strength and energy Is daily grind: to manage just to laugh At all the petty hazards of each day— To smile, whilst sifting life’s wheat from its chaff And strive to see just good along the way. Helba Baker. Our Little Busted Belgium HEN the processes of repair have got going in devastated Be and devastated France, and have been financed a little way ahead, cannot something bilitation of Union Square? ¢ done towards the reha- If you haven't seen Union Square lately, don’t go there. It will make you cry, Belgium Square: so would France. It has none of the dignity of a ruin; it has not been ground to inoffensive dust; it is not embellished with snarls of barbed wire and disabled tanks. Nothing like that; nothing so interesting. But all the same, it is a hideous war-time wreck. A subway invaded it and destroyed most o The war-zeal for recruiting planted a battleship in the middle of it. A cottage for some war-aid society stands by the ship, and what is left of the poor, dear old Square is mostly peanut stand and debris. Never such a gathering of incongruities outside of a junk yard, and, whereas the would weep for Union its trees “HEY, MISTER! WOULD YE LIKE A COMFORTABLE HOUSE-BOAT IN EXCHANGE FER YER POWER-BOAT?” incongruities of a junk yard have a kind of harmony of propriety, those of Union Square have none. Rise up, City Fathers, and fefch home Union Square out of the war! Peace has been signed. The New Peerage Rs. CRABSHAW. than hers? Mrs. Nuricu: wealthy working in a munitions factory, while her people made their pile in the oil boom. So your family dates back further It certainly does. My husband grew AND WHEN HIS BILL COMES, YOU PROTEST 2AM “COME AT ONCE, DOCTOR. BABY HAS SWAL- LOWED AN OPEN SAFETY-PIN.” HS A.M. 2:3 * SO SORRY TO HAVE BOTHERED YOU, bOC- TOR. WIFE JUST FOUND THE PIN UNDER THE CRIB.” comicbooks.com