Life, 1920-03-04 · page 13 of 78
Life — March 4, 1920 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes spring-season anxieties among the middle class. The top illustration depicts a lion pulling a cart with a cherub—a visual metaphor for life's chaotic forces dragging humanity along unpredictably. The text lists typical worries: coal lasting through April, moving expenses, wedding costs, baldness remedies, children's health, camping budgets, and mortality rates—mundane but persistent concerns of early 20th-century American life. The bottom cartoon shows a professor declaring "the world is coming to an end within the next month" to a concerned family. His companion responds he "can't help that. He was born that way—always looking on the bright side." The joke mocks habitual pessimists whose doom-saying is so chronic it becomes their personality trait, treated with weary humor by those around them.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
N the spring the Old Man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of: Whether the coal is going to last through April. Where we'll move to, if the rent is raised again. How much Sue’s wedding is going to cost. New remedies for incipient baldness. Whether Bob is really getting whooping cough this time, nd whether we can afford a camp for him next summer. The high mortality among children’s spectacles and shoes, and the number of things that can go wrong with chil- dren's teeth. Who the presidential candidates will be. Whether Junior is going to flunk in his final exams, and why the dickens he should choose just this time to get fool- ish about the Perkins girl. How things are looking down on the old home farm. Why somebody doesn’t invent a way out of this squirrel- cage grind, anyhow! CRS. “THE PROFESSOR DECLARES POSITIVELY THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END WITHIN THE NEXT MONTH.” “HE CAN'T HELP THAT. HE WAS BORN THAT WAY—ALWAYS LOOKING ON THE BRIGHT SIDE.” comicbooks.com