Life — October 23, 1919 — page 10: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "The Printers' Strike" This page addresses a printers' strike in New York City. The editorial defends publishers and "decent American workmen" against what it calls "radical members of unions" and "lawless, foreign" elements seeking to destroy American institutions through anarchism. The cartoon below depicts this conflict: businessmen on the left appear calm and controlled, while on the right, figures amid flames and chaos represent the strike's violence and disruption. The caption—about "Smith" losing his fortune and uncertainty over who serves whom—satirizes the social upheaval and role reversals the strike threatens. Life presents the strike as fundamentally un-American, positioning itself with established order against labor radicalism portrayed as foreign-influenced anarchism.