Life, 1921-07-28 · page 23 of 34
Life — July 28, 1921 — page 23: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**"Recipe for a Country Club":** A satirical how-to guide mocking the hypocrisy and financial schemes of exclusive country clubs. The joke: solicit money from "unobjectionable" (respectable) neighbors, then extract funds from "objectionable" (undesirable) people to build the club that will exclude the latter. Once established, continuously raise dues and issue bonds—trapping members financially. The satire targets both the snobbish gatekeeping of social clubs and their predatory financing practices. **"The Trusty Joke":** A brief poem about annoying poker players who repeatedly retell the same worn-out jokes about cards and typewriters. **"The Wrong Bottle":** A domestic drama story setup (text only) hinting at dark marital discord—a husband suspects his quarreling wife may deliberately grab poison from a medicine cabinet. **"Liberty":** Political commentary on American freedom. The text ironically notes there are no laws against various personal choices, yet people claim liberties are being lost—likely referencing Prohibition-era restrictions on alcohol and other emerging government regulations limiting individual behavior.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
July 28 Recipe for a Country Club ET together all the unobjectionable G people in your neighborhood, and ask them to chip in to raise the necessary million dollars to acquire the piece of land upon which you propose to erect the club house. After you have seen them all, then get the rest of the money from: the objectionable people. With this money well in hand, secure the services of two architects and a golf professional. Issue bonds for a million mor Then assess all the members about fifteen hundred apiece “just to get the ‘hing started.” After the club house is erected and the course is laid out, double the dues and initiation fees, and call a meeting of the members “to vote on another bond issuc.” If they demur, point out to them that their only hope of getting their money back now is to put in twice as mucin. iy this time, your country club will have such a reputation that nobody will tay out. As they say in all graft- ing circles, “It’s a cinch.” One at a Time, Anyway * * THE TRUSTY JOKE. LICE: I’ve met the’only man I ever ‘, - ‘ x loved There’s one awful nuisance in Poker; : 2 > It’s the fatuous second-hand Joker. \ircIntA: How often? He says, “They’re all blue,” And “Three typewriters,” too— JROHIBITION doesn’t prohibit; it If his wife pulled that stuff he would choke her. I just provokes. The Wrong Bottle HE light was always poor in the bathroom. I had always told Hor- tense that it was dangerous to have the medicine chest in the shadow. It was impossible to tell the difference between the carbolic acid and the witch hazel without taking the bottle out into the hall. That night, after we had quarreled bitterly, I heard her moving about in the bathroom, and then the clink of glass as she moved bottles about in the medicine chest. I had always predicted that she would get hold of the wrong bottle some day. She came out into the hall where I could see her. She had. In her hand was the bottle of witch hazel. Liberty HERE is no law in this country against cannibalism, preaching the flatness of the earth, going to church on Sundays, remaining poor, not taking a drink, or working eight hours a day. Dog: They must be looking for that bone I buried And yet they tell us “we are losing our last week. liberties!” comicbooks.com