Life, 1920-02-19 · page 6 of 48
Life — February 19, 1920 — page 6: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is an editorial statement from Life magazine's staff defending their ongoing labor dispute with the Business Office. The magazine's workers had walked out demanding fair subscription rates and refusing to publish coupons they considered exploitative. Life's editors assert their principles: no compulsory coupons, honest advertising, and editorial independence from business pressures. They acknowledge occasionally yielding to business demands but argue "the right will prevail." The piece emphasizes Life won't accept censorship of coming issue numbers or allow the B.O. (Business Office) to insert false praise. The accompanying silhouette illustrations of people in various positions of conflict or negotiation visually reinforce the dispute's human stakes and the magazine's defiant stance on worker and editorial autonomy.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
We Are AST walked out on the Business Office, refusing to yield to their unjust de- They wanted us to print every week an atrocious filled with subscription rates, asking innocent people to subscribe to this paper. They wanted us to boom Lire all the time in this page, bore everybody to tears by begging them to become regular subscribers, to rub it in that they mus, obey that impulse, and to give out- siders the impression that Lire was a perfectly ripping humorous paper, filled with gems of wit, ete, ete. A list of our grievances against the B. O. would fill a complete issue of this paper. Now they tell us that selected the worst time in the world to walk out on them— just when a lot of special numbers are coming and wonderful new covers and a grand contest, and so on. Of course. Why not? We struck at the psychological moment. We hope we know our profession. But one thing is certain, and we want all of Lire’s readers to understand this once and for all week we mands. coupon we have We are no slaves to the business end of this paper. We are not striking for more money or shorter hours, but for free advertising determina- tion, for liberty of thought and action. We ex- pect to say occasionally some nice things about this paper—when they are deserved. We shall probably ask you now and then to become sub- scribers, if we think the coming numbers justify it. But our opinions cannot be bought. Further- more, whenever we see fit we shall reserve the Still Out right to omit that coupon from the right-hand corner of this page, where it has usually been appearing. The fact is that the Business Office is very much overestimated. All business offices are. We advertising writers may as well face this thing now, while the facing is good. It's time we all got together and stood out for our principles. Take our humble selves as an instance. For years we have been advertising Lire in this page, and we confess that we have often yielded to the meretricious blandishments of the sordid B. O. Eventually the B, O. will have to yield. The right will prevail, Nobody owns us. In the meantime, if they can find space anywhere else in this paper to publish Lire’s subscription rates (as complicated as they have always seemed to our simple understanding), we have no objec- tion. We believe in giving everybody a fair chance. Meanwhile, we stand on this ultimatum: No compulsory coupon. No insincere urge to subscribe. No holding back from telling the truth about coming numbers, No paragraphs of fulsome praise of this paper, inserted after we have passed the proof and gone home for the night.® ‘ *See our issue of January 29, where the B. O. inserted the paragraph in italics on our page, just because we sneaked home an hour earlier that eve- ning to celebrate the baby’s first birthday. comicbooks.com