Life, 1920-03-18 · page 21 of 54
Life — March 18, 1920 — page 21: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes American obsession with California's climate and the types of people it attracts. The essay, attributed to Agnes Repplier, mocks how Americans abandoned East Coast sophistication (Broadway, Beacon Hill, Philadelphia's "dear decay") for California's perfect weather and natural abundance—presented as almost absurdly exaggerated (fruits "the size of a bull elk"). The top cartoon shows women discussing marriage timing with circular logic—a jab at frivolous female reasoning. The lower cartoon depicts a doctor recommending Peru's climate to a patient, satirizing how readily Americans accept climate-based solutions. The "Population of California" census parodies the state's demographic reality: retired easterners, entertainment industry workers, tourists, and Asian immigrants dominate, with actual Californians comprising only 5 percent. This deflates California's mystique by suggesting it's populated entirely by transients and outsiders chasing the climate myth. The overall message: Americans' climate-obsession reveals superficiality and gullibility.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Climatic “[ LIVE only for climate and the affec- tions,” observes the divine Theodora, in Disraeli’s novel, Lothair; and the sym- pathetic American reader (if Dis- raeli still has an American read- er) pities the lady whose tastes were so primitive, and yet who never knew Califor- ria, Her stamping grounds were Greece and Italy— countries where the affec- tions have flourished with an almost unseemly lux- uriance, but where climate is more fickle than love. Only in our favored land can be found a spot where the weather is unavailable as a topic of conversation because it innocent of offense. The reports of enter prising landlords and hotel proprietors in this ter- restrial paradise read like the reports of the scouts who bore back from the land of Canaan that fatal Muricl: 1 DON’T INTEND TO BE MARRIED UNTIL AFTER I'M THIRTY, cluster of grapes, which, Mabel: ANv 1 DON’T INTEND TO BE THIRTY UNTIL AFTER I'M MARRIED! in the Bible pictures of our infancy, was the size of a bull elk. Americans forsake the glitter of been linked so smoothly with that Those brilliant, bloated California Broadway, the chaste supremacy of rockbound coast, dedicated to Puri- fruits; those arrogant, overtopping Beacon Hill, the dear decay of Phila- tanism. Only Americans and a wise California flowers, to which no poet delphia. They prove, if proof were Englishman or two are aware of the would dare apply his usual patroniz- needed, the Arcadian instinct surviv- swift and miraculous transit. A few ing epithets; those cloudless skies and ing in sophisticated man. years before the war a New York in- mudless walks are the lure for which And the blue Pacific waves have valid, lingering in the Riviera und the care of an eminent German phy cian, expressed a desire to go home. The doctor, loath to lose so profitable a patient, opined that she could not bear the winter climate of Manhattan. * But,” protested the lady, “I need not stay in New York. There are warmer places I can go to.” The doctor reflected for a moment. “Yes,” he said acquiescingly, “there is Peru.” Agnes Repplier. The Population of California elccording to Live's Latest Census ETIRED easterners....35 per cent. Moving-picture actors “ Tourists Orientals The Pup: Wet! ALL THIS FUSS SEEMS TO BE ABOUT THAT OLD SHOE I abs BROUGHT IN THIS AFTERNOON ! Californians comicbooks.com