Life, 1921-02-17 · page 13 of 34
Life — February 17, 1921 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains a WWI-era poem by Joseph Andrew Galahad titled "The Return," depicting a soldier's desperate wish to leave the army after enduring combat conditions—sleeping in mud, eating sand-flavored food, marching through darkness. The soldier begs for basic comforts: water, a working gun, a dry throat. Below, "Peripatetic Pies" satirizes American Quakers' attempts to send mincemeat pies to German universities as peace gestures during wartime. The author questions the wisdom of introducing American food to Germany while suggesting this could be viewed as a suspicious act by the German government—mocking both Quaker idealism and wartime paranoia about neutral gestures being misinterpreted.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
February The Return MUST go back to the army— And now it will fall on a welcoming ear. So long I have seen life is empty, And of late I have understood why: I huddle in pain under twenty floors Gare: That shut out the sun and the sky. ct ad- selves S Ob: g and ‘otest- I—who've been used to the saddle, To the drill in the open ficld; I who have crept through the wet, black night, All booted and spurred and heeled; anita- I who have eaten my bacon Flavored with sand and my horse's pened t hide— Jnited : se . ; I sit in an office the length of the day obody ) And wonder I haven't gone stale and lungs died, t well But I've reached the end of my tether— I have closed the office door, near- is I've pulled down the blind with a lump in my throat— And the office shall see me no more. Give me a gun and a uniform! Give me a horse with a wicked ey Give me a long, lean sabre, And a throat that is never dry! Give me a can of water— Give me a ration of “tack "— jow me the trail to the days of old And the Army —1 Must Go Back! Joseph Andrew Galahad. THE FLOATING POPULATION, A TERM of endearment—about six months, Peripatetic Pies HE students at eighteen German universities were recently served with mince pie by the American Quaker Relief Commission. As lovers of peace, of course, our good Quakers boldly make use of almost any medium for disseminating con- tentment and good will among men, but frankly, is this an appropriate time for injecting American mince-meat into the international situation ? It is a lamentable fact that our mince ‘pies are under surveillance by the police of this country, and their introduction to German universities might well be con- strued by a suspicious government as an unfriendly act upon our part. Wouldn't it be advisable for us to keep our mince meat at home until the world has settled down to the full enjoy- ment of peace, pies and prohibition? 'AKE care of the pennies and along will come some relief fund and take care of the dollars. AT ODDS AND ENDS comicbooks.com