Life, 1919-09-11 · page 9 of 48
Life — September 11, 1919 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes a wealthy man ("the President") who receives $25,000 annually for travel expenses yet lives beyond his means. The main cartoon depicts a church gathering, illustrating the article's premise: even the affluent struggle with overspending. Below, a smaller comic shows a man in formal dress being chased by a woman holding what appears to be a bill or notice, while another man watches. The caption reads: "You've had him long enough. It's my turn now"—suggesting debt collectors or creditors quarreling over who gets to pursue the debtor next. The satire mocks the financial irresponsibility of the wealthy elite during what appears to be the early 20th century, implying that even substantial incomes cannot satisfy excessive spending habits.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
WHY BUN Higher Planes THE reverend professor-president of our great Society of Motherless Mummies announces a rare discovery One of his mynscullions has explored the site of that second Babylon known to its own day as the “ Tender-Lion,” where an extinct yellow worshiped. There he found a sealed vessel resembling the sacred flasks on exhibition in the pavilions of the fif- teen-thousand-foot level. The professor is a sport no less than a martyr to superscience. He placed a drop of the beast was Being fully recovered on the second day after, in the presence of an assembled multi- Precious liquid on his tongue. ER HAS GIVEN UP SUNDAY GOLF tude, he repeated the experiment with two drops. If the first had proved stimulating, the second trial lifted him to that seventeenth heaven where ra- dium ultra-violet phonographs and Esperanto politicians never penetrate. Now the professor autos, announces that he has a force of Phleegonian Plagocites ana- lyzing the elixir. He states that the incident proves how much more poign- ant) were the primitive race than our own, even on the thirty-five-thou- sand-foot level in the float- ing palaces of our millionaires. He has even found in primitive writings joys of the 439 reference to a liquid called “ Wheeze- Key" used by the natives of the world after sea bathing in the days when men still level lived at sea The professor-president main- tains that a race possessing this ex- elixir rested content at lieves that some great cataclysm of traordinary never could have sea level. He be- the cosmos must have destroyed the art of its manufacture, to the great detriment of the present progress through the upper levels He hopes that his laboratories may be able to restore this loss and here- with offers a flying reward on the seven- thousand-foot level of three thousand pocket aeroplanes to the scientist who can make even a small quantity of the liquid daily, to be us: for race in its testing his new introspectrometer, recently adjusted in the third level of his upper stomach. Ar will be formed tor the exploitation of the discovery “tooth Century Wheeze-Key, Inc., 2nd Millionth Aerial Foot Level.” ro-dynamic corporation Address inquiries, Co-ordinate, 12,000- One of Our Transportation Problems President “CHE thousand dollars a year for trav- gets twenty-five cling expenses, doesn’t ne?” “My! He must be living ‘way be- yond his income.” HE peace dove seems to have only reached the squab stage “YOU'VE HAD HIM LONG ENOUGH MY TURN Now” comicbooks.com