Life, 1920-09-30 · page 25 of 40
Life — September 30, 1920 — page 25: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This Life magazine page satirizes American political apathy and the futility of reform movements. The "Kickers' Party" was formed to "save America from itself," but their stump orator Beverly Binks discovers that while citizens complain constantly about government problems—Congress, taxes, laws, morality—they refuse to actually *do* anything about them. The cartoon shows a man kicking money out of his pocket, illustrating the disconnect between complaint and action. The resulting platform is darkly humorous: the "Do Nothing Party" explicitly endorses inaction, advising people to vent their frustrations "brightly, wittily and patriotically—and forget it." The satire targets both passive voters who grumble without engaging civically and the politicians who profit from public discontent without delivering change. The phrase "It is the only party that always wins" suggests cynically that doing nothing—maintaining the status quo—is politically the safest course.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
3S ov ELV aeew eS “LIFE Come and Join Our Party! It Isn’t Quite What We Hoped For, But Then— Our weekly blurb (including synopsis of previous chapters). Three wecks ago the great Kickers’ Party was formed, its object eing to save America from itself. Beverly Binks, the greatest stump orator in. the world, was engaged to undertake the cam paign, Last week our platform was started What has happened since is contained in the absorbing account that follows. But we anticipate t_mes- LLL. is now it will be recalled that the sage received from Beverly Binks, our stump orator, was a request for instruc- tions about Mexico. We replied ordering him not to commit himself. Well, we thought it over, and conclude that we would better go slow about Mex: co. We don't know too much about it, anyway. Mexico has a lot of oil and other valuables concealed about its per- son. We don't like the way it has killed off some of our people. over, Our first thought was to instruct Bever- Then ly Binks to go in and grab it we began thinking about another war, and what we stood for—jus- tice for all, ete—and we made up our minds that we'd better go slow We wired Beverly to come hom He came at once, and we had a ence. He reports as follows: “The fact is that everybody kicks at the way things are being run, but when it is put up to them they refuse to do any- thing. Take Congress, for instance. They all admit that Congress is bad enough. that it is composed of a lot of stupid people outrageous which the plain people have to pay out of their pockets. But then, what are you go- ing to do about it? As a man said to me the other day, ‘I've been kicking all my life about our government, and when I heard you were forming a Kickers’ Party 1 ran to join. Congress may be pretty bad, but I haven't time to go down there myself and straighten things out, and maybe we'd better leave ‘em alone.’ “Everywhere I went the people felt the same. They liked to hear me denounce things for a while, and then they refused to hack me up.” onfer- who spend sums That was about the sum and sub: We have there- from ance of Beverly Binks’s report changed the Party to Do Nothing Party. Kickers’ fore name “ EVERYWHERE | WENT Our platform — herewith appended — is the result of years of experience in politics dates back to Adam. It is as follows FAK FAST FOODS ARE TO CONTAIN ATI Platform of Party (Strict! Our New 585 Do Nothi up to date) Jazz, and the world jazzes with you All bre ne ishment Bea d It is the ¢ akfast half of on Get the Go to times When head heac the buck, re per cent. the mentioned dolefully, to contain at real nour your opinions from headlines, movies Wa ington shake your but pass If your taxes are higher than you think they should be, if your liter is worse than you it should be, if the indecency of certain things oppresses you, if the delays of the law irritate you, describe your fex s brightly, wittily and for Jjo-nothing. party tl \ TONE NOURISH MENT HALF OF ONE. PER comicbooks.com