Life, 1920-09-09 · page 15 of 44
Life — September 9, 1920 — page 15: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This six-panel satirical cartoon depicts a senator responding to a paper shortage by producing an absurdly voluminous report on the paper industry. The humor lies in the escalating irony: each panel shows the senator increasingly buried under the very papers his report generates, culminating in the final panel where he's overwhelmed by the 504-page document distributed to 150,698 constituents. The satire targets government inefficiency and bureaucratic excess—specifically, the senator's solution to paper scarcity actually worsens the problem. The cartoon mocks how politicians often respond to crises with self-defeating actions while congratulating themselves for their efforts. The phrase "do its bit for the paper shortage" underscores the absurdist contradiction at the heart of the joke.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
-LIFE- Senator Sounder Averts the Paper Shortage The paper shortage that menaces the voters of this great and glorious republic needs prompt and vigorous action on my part. A brief but voluminous review of the paper industry, with twenty-eight pages of statistics, will make the situation perfectly plain to them, __ I must carefully explain that the way to save paper is to save it. That will help them to realize that they must not waste one single sheet of it. T must send a report of the situation to my con- stituents—a report such as only a person in my posi tion can give them. They must be made to understand the extent of the calamity that impends—that even the existence of the Congressional Record is threatened. Printed in a neat volume of soq pages and distributed to 159,678 of my constituents, that little report will, I fancy, do its bit for the paper shortage. EE comicbooks.com