Life, 1919-07-24 · page 27 of 40
Life — July 24, 1919 — page 27: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains multiple satirical pieces from Life magazine (likely WWI era, based on references to 1920, Burleson, Baker, Daniels, and Redfield—all Wilson administration figures). **Top cartoon**: Shows an ostrich dentist being scolded by a patient for stealing items—scissors, button-hook, manicure set—turning the dentist's office into a "free lunch counter." The joke plays on the "ostrich" stereotype (head-in-sand denial) and criticizes petty theft disguised as professional services. **"Universal Signal Cards"**: A satire on a real dental proposal to use silent signals instead of conversation. The "cards" mock both wartime anxieties (Wilson admirers, Burleson's postal policies) and domestic complaints (high prices, rationing, servant problems), suggesting patients would need pre-printed excuses to avoid talking politics or economics with dentists. **Lower section**: "The Merry Ghosts" satirizes moral reformers as powerless against human nature's ancestral vices. The final joke about "Colonel Bourbon" taking grape juice likely mocks Prohibition advocates or temperance hypocrisy.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
163 Universal Signal Cards R. ALBERT L. MIDGELY of Providence, R. 1, in a paper read before the Pennsylvania State Dental Socie advocates silence and signals between dentist and patient, instead of the ‘sual conversation and near-con- versation. The following signal-cards should be provided by every dentist for his patients 1. I used to be a Wilson admirer; but go as far as you like. Nothing you say can make me sore now 2. Your buzzer is scraping the skin off my tongue. 3. Of course he ought to stay home until 1920. Then nobody'll care how much he travels. 4. You are breaking my jaw 5. Burleson is all of that, and then some. But why not include Baker and Daniels and Redfield? 6. Please take part of your hand out of my mouth; I want to swallow 7. You are right; if prices go any higher, we shall have to commit sui- cide. 8 Please hurry. You are making me so nervous that I would like to jump out of the window 9. No; I cannot get more than ten miles to the gallon with the grade of gasoline that is being used at present to. [am suffering keenly. Please don't talk to me. as nlltea ets “THE cook says she is going to take a two-weeks vacation, John.” “LOOK HERE, MR. OSTRICH ; SINCE YOU CAME IN HERE I'VE MISSED A PAIR “Gee! I wish we could afford to. OF SCISSORS, A BUTTON-HOOK AND A MANICURE SET. PLEASE REMEMBER THIS. 1S A DEPARTMENT STORE AND NOT A FREE LUNCH COUNTER.” The Merry Ghosts FORMERS of the professional and quick-cure type wonder why their efforts are laughed at and always fail. It is because they are fighting the Laughing Army of the Dead. These reformers wage war against the merry ghosts in the blood of the living Our ancestors are the hoodoos of all reformers. They were a piratical, drink- ing, devil-may-care lot, most of them, and they camp and guzzle and flirt in our pores and in our eyes And when the unco guid come along with their moral carpet-sweepers and ethical pumps you can hear the laugh- ter of these merry ghosts that control us. Our ancestors never die or resign; and every da win a Marne or two against the reformers. The Usual Way ILLIS: Bump claims to be a very strong-minded man. Gutis: That's right. When Bump tells his wife to do A HISTORIC MOMENT a thing he does it COLONEL BOURBON TAKES HIS FIRST DRINK OF GRAPE JUICE comicbooks.com