Life, 1920-01-15 · page 12 of 36
Life — January 15, 1920 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**Top Cartoon: "An Old Wheeze Reapplied"** A Major asks gentlemen whether prohibition will make people live longer. The response—"Damne, no! But it will *seem* longer"—satirizes the unpopular Prohibition era (1920-1933). The joke mocks how strict alcohol bans made life feel tediously prolonged for those who enjoyed drinking. **Bottom Cartoon: "Seeing Red"** A man appears to be hallucinating or panicking, chased by what looks like a bull or dark shape. This likely references "seeing red" as an expression of anger or Communist fear during the Red Scare period. **Finance Section** Text describes an oil-stock salesman using misleading claims about drilling operations to sell shares—satirizing fraudulent investment schemes and financial deception common in the era.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
AN OLD WHEEZE REAPPLIED “MAJOR, DO YOU THINK FOLKS WILL LIVE LONGER UNDER PROHIRITION ?” “DAMME, No! RUT IT WILL SEEM LONGER.” Finance HE man who was selling oil stock was asked if there were any indi- cations of oil where his company was dr ‘. “Indications!” he said. “Why, I should say so. We have three thou- sand acres leased, have a standard rig up, have three hundred feet of casing on the ground and more ordered, have our company organized and incotpo- rated and a million shares of stock printed, have opened offices in three cities, have two hundred people selling stock, are only forty miles from a pipe line, and there was no oil found in those other wells about there, so it must be in our well. Oh, we have plenty of indications. How many shares do you want?” DUCATION—the sum total of all SEEING RED . * the things we haven't been taught. comicbooks.com