Life, 1920-01-22 · page 1 of 36
Life — January 22, 1920 — page 1: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This January 1920 cartoon satirizes wartime profiteering. A well-dressed man stands in an ornate theater labeled "Our Engagement Brings Sold Out," confronting various business schemes. The left side advertises "Tickets for All Theaters" and "Drink & Heavy Lunch Slush." The right side promotes "Terms Strictly Cash," "Store Samples to Peddlers," and "Cloth Flowers 1200 Doz." The cartoon mocks a businessman exploiting post-WWI economic conditions through multiple schemes—reselling theater tickets, running restaurants, and hawking cheap goods. The "Prince of Profiteers" title derisively crowns this figure as emblematic of war-era opportunists who accumulated wealth through middleman tactics and price gouging rather than legitimate production, a common post-war complaint about profiteers.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
January 22, 1920 Copyright, 1920, Lile Publishing Company comicbooks.com PRICE 10 CENTS Vol. 75, No. 1942 i came Renee ler poe late } | | 0 « w w & wu ° « a wu 3 w ° z « a wu = - Drink a. } Heonwy binch