Life, 1919-10-02 · page 23 of 48
Life — October 2, 1919 — page 23: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The illustrated cartoon depicts a man in formal dress reaching desperately toward floating dollar signs while a woman lies unconscious or collapsed below him. The title "DELIRIUM" suggests mental disturbance or frenzy. **Context:** The accompanying text discusses post-WWI social upheaval—labor unrest, the failed League of Nations ratification by the Senate, and the Treaty of Versailles disputes. The passage explicitly mentions the Steel Corporation and labor agitation, suggesting the cartoon satirizes capitalist anxiety during this period of industrial turmoil. **The Point:** The cartoon likely critiques wealthy industrialists' frantic, irrational behavior during labor disputes and economic uncertainty. The man's desperate grasping at money while disorder surrounds him represents how capitalists lose perspective when their profits and control are threatened. The "delirium" is their panicked, self-interested response to genuine social change and workers' demands—portrayed as unseemly and disconnected from reality. The satire targets the wealthy and powerful as the truly unhinged actors in post-war America's turbulent reorganization.
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it get loose and run amuck if he can help it. Probably he has no uncontrol- lable ambition to subdue the Steel Cor- poration any more than he had ambi- tion to unionize and control all the policemen in the country, but he is at the head of a strong company with urgent lieutenants, and must lead it more or less where it wants to go, or give place to some general less wise. aly, @). wet 7HANS : HESE of hu- man life in a great revision, with 1} the attendant scraps and spasms, are neccessarily disturbing, but we must not take them too hard. When they stop traffic we will have to walk; when they check transportation we must eat less or go to the country and dig potatoes and milk cows. We are needed in the rural districts for those current processes DELIRIUM exercises. We can't help these agita- tions, but we need not let them agitate us too much. There has been a big war, and a good deal of the bottom has fallen out of things. The attempt of the Peace Congress to provide the League of Nations as a new basis for human affairs is held up by the Senate, and nothing can be settled in a large The World complains that the objectors are ready to accept almost all that i bad in the Treaty (there is much) with way until our senators get ready hardly a murmur, and concentrate op- position on the only part of it which is valuable—the League. ly the world, and especially these States, has not:suffered enough yet to know what is good for it, and take it. Europe in- sisted on a bad Treaty, and this coun- try balks at the League to cure the Treaty’s defects: We will have to wait u begins to quench the fice, tu burn the stick, and the stick to beat Poss’ which has power il the water and the fire the dog, and the dog to bite the cow. COCESooes ANWHILE, King Albert of Bel- gium and his Queen, are coming to M visit_us, and will be as welcome as General Pershing, Cardinal Mercier and Herbert Hoove There is a sen timent in Belgium that we were useful to the Belgians during the years of war. So far as concerns Mr. Hoover and the Americans who worked with him for Belgian relief, the sentiment is well founded. Still that it should be so it is remarkable strong The strength of it as expressed by Cardinal Mercier, and about to be still furthe emphasized by King to. encour Albert, amounts ement to people to have creditable emotions the right time and try to be decent. King Albert is a leading hero of the war, and his Queen is another. We shall all be delighted to see them, and Hiram will even applaud them. Johnson comicbooks.com