Life, 1920-02-05 · page 22 of 52
Life — February 5, 1920 — page 22: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**"Vanished Glories"** is a satirical poem by Berton Braley lamenting inflation and the disappearance of affordable goods. It nostalgically catalogs cheap items from an earlier era—five-cent cigars, dime sodas, fifteen-cent collars, and especially the fifty-cent table d'hote (fixed-price) dinner—contrasting them with current high prices. The repeated refrain "But where is the fifty-cent table d'hote dinner?" emphasizes how purchasing power has collapsed. This appears to reference post-WWI inflation (likely early 1920s), when prices rose sharply. The accompanying cartoon shows a disheveled monkey reading a newspaper listing economic catastrophes: "prices still soaring," "famine," "strikes," "no servants to be had," and "Bolshevism." The monkey's frustrated cry captures public anxiety about economic chaos and social upheaval during this period of uncertainty. Together, the poem and cartoon mock the widespread sense that ordinary comfort and stability have vanished—replaced by chaos and unaffordable living.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
"LLFE- Vanished Glories HERE is the olden-time five-cent cigar? The large ice-cream soda a dime used to buy? Where is the “Suit, $15"? Where are The five-dollar shoes that once gladdened the eye, The fifteen-cent collar, the fifty-cent tie, The one-dollar shirt we considered a winner, The nickel hot dog and the dime piece of pie? But where is the fifty-cent table d’hote dinner? In what spot Elysian, aloof and afar, Are beautiful doughnuts they once used to fry At two for a jitney? In what distant star Are dollar silk stockings? Where would one apply For socks at a quarter, or find on the sly A two-dollar hat for a saint or a sinner? The echo comes back from the pitiless sky, “But where is the fifty-cent table d’hote dinner?” The prices we meet give a jolt and a jar To all of our feelings, and glumly we sigh, “Oh, where is the generous chocolate bar For only five cents? In what limbo now lic The loud-ticking watch and the pen that ran dry We despair and grow thinner te answers dully, with smile all awry, “But where is the fifty-cent table d'hote dinner?” Envoy fk cost of living grows ever more high re soaked by the baker, the butcher, the tinner, And yet we continue to question and cry, “ But where is the fifty-cent table d’hote dinner?” Berton Braley. His Majesty “YT WANT YOU TO MEET MI COLLEG “ REALLY, you KNOW, 1 DON’T BELIEVE I CARE TO MEET AN THAT. SMITH. SHE WAS THE MOST POPULAR GIRL AT AS HOMELY AS Dany PAPER Ke PRICES STILE JOAR ENTIRE COUNTRY PRY/, TAXES INCREASED cone FAMINE STRIKE SERVANTS To OC MM No oLsHEvIEM Rat COLLY! IT MUST BE HELL UP THERE His Proud Moments HEN he tied his first clove-hitch knot. When he wig-wagged his first cor- rect message to the assistant scout- master. When he was able to lead the party out of the Big Woods by aid of a compass. When he felled his first tree When he stopped the panic at the Little Gem movie theatre. When he prevented Her from pick- ing the poison ivy. Is Childhood Serious? ‘OST children act as though they were easily amused—by, say, Guignol of the Champs filysces, the Central Park merry-go-roun a game of tag on the front lawn; | on the whole, childhood is a se thing to have. It was the late Mon- signor Robert Hugh Benson who spoke of a little girl, in charge of h still littler brother, as being amor the most solemn s shts in the world. comicbooks.com