Life, 1920-12-30 · page 25 of 39
Life — December 30, 1920 — page 25: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a satirical humor column from *Life* magazine featuring topical one-liners and two cartoons mocking American society circa early 1920s. **The cartoons:** 1. **Top right**: A man at a doorway confronts a woman about repeatedly calling names from a list, assuming they're out of town. The joke: she exploits the phone system—getting her nickel back when calls go unanswered, making harassment free. 2. **Bottom left**: "The Youngster" shows a child telling an elderly man to move aside, satirizing generational rudeness or youth's disregard for elders. **The text satirizes:** - Post-WWI anxieties (Bolshevism, "Fourteen Points," crime waves) - New Year's resolutions as meaningless - Russian communists' abolition of marriage/money - Urban crime (Chicago/New York crook transfers) - Tammany Hall corruption - Airplane novelties and "aeroplane-marriage" fads - Tolstoy's influence on wealthy Americans refusing inheritance The humor is cynical, assuming readers recognize current events and share skepticism about modern progress and morality.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
eX LINES Here a Titter and Precept Upon Precept, Line Upon Line There a Titter A SCRAPPY New Year—ch? cee Murder, murder everywhere—and not a clue to link. to it, boys, and take what's base out of baseball. see No, plebiscite is not a mineral. It’s a sop thrown to the ideal- ists. eee Where is there a mince pie like Casar’s wif eee Those Russian Bolshevists certainly are “ nutty.” By abolish- ing marriage and money they vainly imagine that they can get rid of Cupid and cupidity. eee Probably any resolution you make at present will pass. see The Ten Commandments seem to be off on a vacation. Or have they gone in search of the Fourteen Points? cee A movement is on foot in Tammany Hall to purge that organization of Colonial Dames. eee Among the holiday novelties is a new super-aeroplane espe- I trains and cially designed ior swooping down upon fast m carrying off the loot. eee With Chicago crooks banished to New York and New York crooks relegated to Chicago, how much less crime will there be? The almost-perfect Sunday about to bless this country will permit murders and hold-ups only between the hours of 1 and 2a, M.and to and 11 P.M promptly at midnight on Saturday. Burglars are expected to quit work | ae 7X ~ ] The Youngster: GANGWAY, THERE, OLD MAN! “HURRY, AGNES. NAME ON THAT List? WHY DO YOU PERSIST IN CALLING EVERY YOU KNOW THEY'RE ALL OUT OF TOWN “WELL, HARRY, IT’S QUITE A BARGAIN, CENTRAL GIVES ME MY NICKEL BACK WHEN THEY DON'T ANSWER, SO IT DOFSN'T COST ME ANYTHING.” Bologna, Italy, has acquired recently an unsavory reputation as 2 revolutionary center. Hitherto it has heen known chiefly for its sages and its sausages. eos The middleman doesn't belong to the middle classes. He owns them. It was the influence of Tolstoi that led young Garland of Boston to refuse a legacy of ope million dollars. How careful we writers should he in our outpourings! see We moderns travel faster than our ancestors, but where are we going? cee Flighty young couples have started the aeroplane-marriage fad. The theory is that a little extra risk at such a time doesn’t count. vee Europe is getting crazier all the time. Even Mt. Blane has lost its head—and it was a mighty cool one, too eee Only the brave deserve membership in New York clubs eee their Of course, crimes will continue to be committed if perpetrators aren't cee Fresh bread is all right in its way, but—oh, boy!—do you remember the old toast? cee We have with us to-night— No, we haven't! Edward S Toast MASTER Cnorus av Tannes Van Zile, comicbooks.com