Life, 1919-11-27 · page 17 of 36
Life — November 27, 1919 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This cartoon satirizes **President Woodrow Wilson** and concerns over the **Treaty of Nations** (likely the League of Nations treaty after World War I). The sketch depicts two men negotiating over horses—a metaphor for Wilson's treaty negotiations. One figure asks whether the horses are "to be druv or et?" (driven or eaten), questioning the treaty's intended use and value. The accompanying text criticizes Wilson's apparent paralysis in securing Senate ratification. It argues that while Wilson has done "extremely notable things," his isolation and inaccessibility to counsel have created a crisis. The piece blames Republican senators—particularly Lodge—for partisan obstruction rather than Wilson himself, accusing them of prioritizing political gain over duty to mankind. The satire targets both Wilson's stubbornness and Republican opposition to the treaty, reflecting the bitter 1919-1920 ratification battle that ultimately defeated American League membership.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
t “I'M BUYING UP HOKSES IN THIS SECTION. GOT ANYTHING GOOD YOU WANT TO SELL?™ “WAAL, THAT DEPENDS, AIR THESE HOSSES TO BE DRUV OK ET?” to the inability of Mr. Wilson to see his duty in the matter of concessions? If Mr. Wilson after his splendid services in introducing a great hope into the faulty text of the Treaty, suffering now from such a paralysis of the concessionary faculties as .o imperil all the world hes gained by his extraordinary exertions, he ought to be helped in every way possible both by people who care for him and by people who care merely for the welfare of the world. His state of health makes the whole situation critical, and ought to take it out of s forthwith. His mind is evi- active and able. The papers he put are as well done as ever. But he is very inaccessible to coun- sellors or pleaders. A little handful of people guard him, and must guard him, and admit to him whom they will and no others. That must be, but it makes more for anxiety than any other factor in the situation. The Senators, it would seem, are bound to put the Treaty through in such form that the President can sign it, but whether, or rather when, he will sign it, no one can tell Such a situation as that, due to no fault in anyone, least of all to any fault in Mr. Wilson, makes the re- sponsibility of the Senators all the heavier. They will not be judged by what he does or declines to do, but by what they do. It is up to them to forget partisanship and hate and re- member duty and the distress of the world. ani try’to meet to the best of their abilities. their sacred obligation to mankind. The Sun may say they have no obligation to mankind, but only to their constituents and the American people. If they take that view, so much the worse, but it need not their votes, for their con: the American people and man now so much in the same bos who does his duty by part of them incidentally It is all one duty now, a’ what etts will tell Mr. Lodge w and gets > finds her voice Mr. Wilson, how career appears! If he is mean, r | unfaithful in all relations; a er, a treacherous radical, a ‘ortance, man eaten up with self how altogether amazi achievement becomes He has done extremely nots things and a lot of them, and a] proportion of them have been of value. His detractors will be apt to admit that his performance has often been praise-worthy, t haps will insist that his motives have always been bad, or that his delivery is not graceful though he trol the ball, or that he rea when he ought to be reading the Con stitution of the United States It makes one laugh. Pe: makes the President laugh as he lies abed in the White House, or sits in wheel chair to take t Europe they think he person. Over here about of the high-brow clement in the Re publican party wipe their feet on him in conversation and would rather beat him than raise the tariff. Of course it is too bad that he should have got so large a group of respectable people crazy mad at him, and doubt less it ult in him to have done a virtue. All the same, it is funny. He preaches the most pious politics the country ever sat under and excites the most malignant per sonal opposition the land has known since the Federalists hated Jefferson and Andrew Jacksor What is the matter with those Republicans? Is it that they don’t want to be good, or merely that they don’t like th And can it rec is so extraordinarily unpalatable? record of at haps it air, In quite a four-fif