Life, 1920-12-02 · page 61 of 97
Life — December 2, 1920 — page 61: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The top cartoon satirizes women's newly won voting rights (the 19th Amendment was ratified in August 1920, just months before this December issue). A woman expresses frustration with voting, saying she'll "never vote again" because election officials removed her from the booth when she tried to change her ballot—implying incompetence or obstruction by poll workers. The satire cuts two ways: it mocks both the woman's complaint as "unpatriotic" and, more pointedly, exposes the practical obstacles women faced exercising their freshly granted right to vote. The joke's sting is that despite finally winning suffrage, women encountered dismissive treatment and bureaucratic interference when attempting to actually cast ballots. The lower section is an unrelated humorous essay about a durable family bathrobe that has served various guests through wartime shortages, ultimately praising its humble practicality.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
December 2, 1920 “ You're dreadfully unpatriotic to say you'll never vote again.” But can you wonder at it? The last time I voted they put me out of the booth because I wanted to change my ballot.” An Honorable and Patriotic Career W* have a family bath robe in our house. Before the war it was pre- sented to me as a Christmas gift by a dear old aunt who had an eye for com- fort rather than beauty. That bath’ robe is a voluminous affair. The amount of wool lavished in its con- struction would stagger the most reck- less political economist. The immortal figures woven into it stand out with vul- gar complacency, a menace to the eye of refinement. It is built for business, and not for wxsthetic development. That bath robe has survived all comers; it has sheltered everybody who has abided with us—the aristocrat and the plebcian, the rich and the poor. Once we had the governor of Alabama—I won't say which one he was—and after his political speech in the Assembly Hall, we administered appropriate doses of alcohol and covered him up with that bath robe; and he said that it was good. And once there was a lady—one of those week-end ladies—who was used to having her grapefruit and coffee brought up to her room at noon, and who played bridge and golf and had ridden to hounds in Virginia and Scot- THE TREE IS CERTAINLY WELL TRIM MED, Hubby: so ami Wife: land: she was a howling swell in the night she shivered, and we couragcously brought out that family bath robe and covered her up with it. And we fancied she shuddered at it at first—and then forgot those figures on it, smiled her sweet, drowsy smile and swore—or per- haps we should say murmured—that never had been quite That bath robe carried us through war, own moral so thin that it did not cc te 0 delightfully wa scorning conventions, serene nd material—power. he res —none so fat that it did n ad it to do its through the fuel fa stretches of the mor And it did our 1 duly st wore it Nurses wore it tives wore it. And once I wore rAgned in the lonely domestic duty small hours of s only in justice Betweer 1 and rene Returned Near an it myself. comicbooks.com