Life, 1919-08-28 · page 36 of 40
Life — August 28, 1919 — page 36: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page mixes political commentary with advertising. The main content critiques **postwar profiteering**: American shoe manufacturers export identical shoes for $5.75 that sell domestically for $20, yet the article sardonically defends this as consistent with Wilson's stated wartime principles toward smaller nations. The **Theodore Roosevelt section** advertises an upcoming Scribner's Magazine series featuring Roosevelt's letters. It references his 1905 diplomatic negotiations—brokering peace between Japan and Russia during the Russo-Japanese War, which the text claims was newly revealed. Roosevelt famously used the German Kaiser as a diplomatic tool while privately dismissing the Russian Czar as "preposterous." The quoted insult about the Kaiser being a "jumpy creature" exemplifies Roosevelt's characteristic bluntness. **"The Higher Catechism"** is satirical wordplay questioning wartime authority figures—Burleson (Postmaster General), the War Board, legislators, and alienists—each capable of declaring something is/isn't what it obviously is, mocking government overreach and censorship during or after WWI. The page reflects post-WWI American skepticism about profiteering and governmental power.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Sh-h-h! HE recent news that a New York jobber has J to export at five dollars and seventy- T five cents the same shoes that retail here for twenty dollars is encouraging. At least it shows that we still have the same spirit toward the smaller nations that President Wilson says we went into the war with, That we are paying several hundred per cent. more than we perhaps ought to may strike ople as strange. They may think that it is due to profiteering, and it may make them But they ought not to feel this way about it. They should consider that if the ers cannot make money out of the war, they might combine and form a union and strike for still higher profits than they are getting now To do this they would only have to present a petition to Congress, showing the number of votes they control, Thus we should be worse off than we were before. “The Kaiser has had another fit ..What a jumpy creature he is!” —Theodore Roosevelt. “ Besides sending to me he is evidently ¢ gaged in sending to all kinds of other people,” wrote Roosevelt on March 30, 1905, in a confidential letter to Secretary Hay who was abroad for his health. Roosevelt was starting negotiations for peace —at the request of Japan, a fact now revealed for the first time. And he was using the Kaiser as a catspaw with the Czar, who impressed Roosevelt as “A preposterous little creature as the absolute autocrat of 150,000,000 people,” and who almost ruined everything at the critical moment by marking the envelope containing Japan’s terms with “the words “No Further Consideration.” The diplomacy of those great days in the White House, when the Big Stick was wielded with skill and humor and power, are mirrored now, at last, in “Theodore Roosevelt and His Time” Shown in His Own Letters Compiled by Joseph Bucklin Bishop From 150,000 letters written by Roosevelt while he was President, Mr. ge has woven the story that sums up our national life over that period. No such letters ever were written and no such story has ever been possible. It will be published as the most important magazine feature of the year ina series of articles starting in the SEPTEMBER SCRIBNER’S Se Scns MAGAZINE, 597 Fifth Avenue, New York City Leginniog with the Maga zine orice semen | How towrit ; Gaining fo thors ied re ideas ile dln, , There is no other for writers, young or Literary Depa: they are const catalogue free The Home Correspondence School Dept 2 Springfield, Mass. cara Che Higher Catechism HEN is a book not a book? When Burleson says so. When When When When When When When When a is a strike not a strike? the War Board says so. is a drink not a drink? a legislator says so. is a play not a play? the police say so is a murder not a murder? an alienist says so. comicbooks.com M