Life, 1920-08-05 · page 38 of 48
Life — August 5, 1920 — page 38: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The left page features an advertisement for traveler's cheques from Bankers Trust Company—not a cartoon. The main satirical content is the article **"Sauce for the Goose,"** which critiques Prohibition's claimed benefits. The satire works by *accepting* Prohibition supporters' logic to expose its absurdity: **The argument:** Labor leaders surveyed claimed Prohibition benefits workers. The article sarcastically asks: could they all understand something the "average person" doesn't? **The satirical point:** It then *describes* a laborer's experience—sweating in summer heat, desperately wanting a cold beer at noon, which gave him joy and solidarity. Now, under Prohibition, that same worker is "sullen" and angry, easily manipulated by labor agitators demanding strikes and revolution. **The implied critique:** Prohibition actually *harms* workers by removing their simple comfort, making them resentful and radical—the opposite of the claimed benefit. The phrase "to the labor leaders" suggests union bosses supported Prohibition because discontent serves their organizing interests, not workers' actual welfare. This reflects 1920s anti-Prohibition sentiment among those who saw the policy as paternalistic and destabilizing.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“ » Ameri ABA j2aes, Cheques Safe Good Everywhere Convenient Self-Identifing For further particulars write BANKERS TRUST COM PANY NewYork City Mee: Sauce for the Goose The Literary Digest, desiring to know for a certainty how the workingmen of the country feel regarding Prohibition, wrote to hundreds of labor leaders Among the five hundred and twenty-six replies received, Prohibition was pro nounced an unqualitied benefit to the workingmen by three hundred and forty-five-—Anti-Tobacco Annual, S it possible that only three hundred and forty-five of five hundred and twenty-six labor leaders understood the advantages of Prohibition? To the aver- age person (whoever he or she may be) the advantages of Prohibition are at once apparent. Picture a sweltering day in midsummer, stifling, arid and enervating ; a day on which the value of any effort is not to be reckoned, Picture the honest workingman at his toil all through the morning—hot, footsore, a fountain of perspiration, a well of despondency— driving himself along by the blind force Jor comfort | Every pair guarantec 4 MADE AT SHIRLEY MASSACHUSET? of routine and the mechanical impulse of habit. Comes the blessed respite the noon hour, a time when many white-frothed cans of delicious, ice cold, amber fluid of a pleasing sharpnes were consumed, For that welcome relief to his parched insides the honest work ingman gave unreserved thanks. Therdf was an ocean of good fellowship in ever pail, every swallow was a lyric gurgle o easement and solace, and the last dr was merely the jovial sv other scuttle to come. And now, Sullen under th! midday heat, the men gather in sulty groups, thinking of the creamy, chill brew that should be trickling down what the Old Soak calls their ozzly-gooztums, and speculating upon the probable meas ing of life, liberty and the pursuit happiness. They are a disgru table, reeking, smoldering lot, ready to be fanned into a blaze by the least .winds effort of a wily labor leader Higher wages? Shorter hours? production? Down with capital? S$ tage? Why not2—anything to relieve the horrible feeling. Ah, yes; as the lab leaders say, “ Prohibition is an unqual fed benefit "—to the labor leaders H.W. HL Joursatiss is the right word in the right place. Literature is a word in its place Hot, wate D] Sure Relig comicbooks.comi