Life — May 27, 1920 — page 7: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "Life" Magazine - "Price of Things" This page presents Philip S. McCormick's anti-war poem criticizing the economic costs of World War I. The decorative header "Life" features vignettes of domestic wartime rationing and sacrifice. The poem laments how war has depleted national resources—"nothing left on earth / That we can lay by for what it's worth"—while soldiers die. McCormick contrasts past prosperity ("heels were straight, my trousers pressed") with present hardship and debt. The satirical illustration below depicts two well-dressed gentlemen (likely politicians or profiteers) observing a vast battlefield littered with casualties. The caption "The Eastern Girl: 'GRACIOUS! DON'T YOU SIMPLY DREAD MILKING TIME?'" adds bitter irony—civilians complain of minor inconveniences while soldiers die overseas. The satire targets American complacency about war's true human cost.