Life, 1921-02-17 · page 22 of 34
Life — February 17, 1921 — page 22: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The top photograph satirizes immigration policy, captioned "Immigrant Hordes Swarming to Our Shores One Week After the Sunday Blue Laws." This appears to reference anti-immigration sentiment following Sunday blue laws (legislation restricting activities on Sundays). The silhouetted image shows a ship, the Statue of Liberty, and what appears to be incoming vessels—presenting immigration as an invading "solution" to enforcement efforts. The poem "Transience and Permanence" by Strickland Gillilan meditates on human mortality and life's fleeting nature—likely contextualizing broader anxieties about social change and demographic shifts. The lower illustration, "Tropical Follies of 1921," depicts an underwater scene with mermaids and dancers, apparently a theater or cabaret fantasy—possibly satirizing Jazz Age entertainment culture or escapism. The page conflates immigration fears, philosophical musings on impermanence, and frivolous entertainment, suggesting early-1920s anxieties about social upheaval and cultural change in postwar America.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE SOLUTION IMMIGRANT HORDES SWARMING TO OUR SHORES ONE WEEK AFTER THE SUNDAY BLUE LAWS ie Yet when we realize that men Transience and Permanence Do o'er and o’er and o’cr again ABIES arrive, mature, age, die; The idly curious wonder oft Some things the primal ape-man did We know not how, we know not why, | Why, since so soon it must be doffed, Ten backward steps toward the squid; Nor ever shall. Old Adam knew We mortals take on life at all. That every tendency, begun No less than modern sages do. To silent Heaven our voices call By thought conceived or action done We fight for life; we think it dear; For answer to this puzzle queer— Since earth went hurtling from the sua, Long as we may, we linger here. No reassuring voice we hear. Shall live till mankind’s race is run— These are the only facts we know: In dumb despair we sadly sing: This, then, the thought that must appall: We come; we stay a while; we go. “The transiency of everything!” “The permanency of it all!” Strickland Gillilan, TNTAAM NAR TS MONG TROPICAL FOLLIES OF 1921. comicbooks.com