Life, 1921-08-04 · page 14 of 34
Life — August 4, 1921 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This single-panel cartoon depicts a humorous social commentary about class and memory. A well-dressed stranger at a palace gate tells an attendant he doesn't need a tour, claiming "I used to be king here." The joke satirizes social pretension and the vagaries of political fortune—a former monarch reduced to visiting his old residence as an ordinary tourist. The attendant's polite offer to show him around makes the deflation more poignant: the stranger's casual announcement of his lost status suggests he's either delusional or genuinely displaced royalty, possibly referencing post-WWI European monarchs exiled after the war. The accompanying text items about a Peace Portal dedication and a brokerage office anecdote are unrelated filler content typical of Life magazine's varied format.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
12 Ahoy! The Peace Portal LEASE take notice that the Peace Portal is to be dedicated on Septem- per 6th. Keep that in mind. Brother Sam Hill, of the State of Washington, is in- terested in it and wants it known. The Peace Portal is at Blaine, the northern extremity of the Pacific High- way where the road crosses the line of British Columbia going on to Vancouver. The highway runs south from Vancou- ver through British Columbia, Washing- ton, Oregon and California to San Diego and the Mexican border—about two thousand miles. The Peace Portal is an arch and its purpose is to remind folks that the United States and Canada have got along for one hundred years without fighting. Brother Hill says that it is the first arch in the world to be put up to celebrate peace. All the other arches have been sequences of a fight. The date of the celebration, as said, is Sep- tember 6th, but the Portal will remain after the celebration, and so will the Pacific Highway. Both are commended to the attention of people who have the time to go round and inspect the re- markable improvements in this very, very remarkable world, especially in winter. Lucky Dog “PTAHE only friend Withers has in the whole wide world is his dog.” “Yes, and it is beginning to tell on him.” “What, on Withers?” “No, on his dog.” Essentials ILLIS: How do you expect to run a brokerage office with only two assistants? Gituts: That’s all I need—one to tell the customers what to buy and the other to figure out how much they lost. LIFE Recipe for an After-dinner Speech HREE long breaths. Compliment to the audience. Funny Story. Outline of what speaker is not going to say. Points that he will touch on later. Two Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, Outline of what speaker is going to say. Points that he has not time to touch on now. Reference to what he said first Funny Story. Compliment to the audience. Ditto to our City, State and Country, Applause. N. B. For an oration, use same for- mula, repeating each sentence three times in slightly different words. Mary Eleanor Roberts. Stranger (at palace gate): This is visitors’ day at the palace, is it not? Attendant: Yes, sir. Shall I show you about? “Oh, don’t trouble yourself. I used to be king here once.” comicbooks.com