Life, 1921-08-04 · page 22 of 34
Life — August 4, 1921 — page 22: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three separate humor pieces satirizing early 20th-century social situations: **Top cartoon**: A golfer accidentally hits a pedestrian's hat with a golf ball. The golfer says "fore" (the standard warning), but the pedestrian demands $5 compensation. The golfer agrees, treating it as a business transaction rather than an accident—satirizing both golfers' carelessness on public courses and the pedestrian's opportunistic complaint. **"News Sense"**: A joke about newspaper credibility. One person reads "it'll rain today" in one paper, so asks why not buy another paper instead—mocking newspapers' unreliability and the absurdity of consulting multiple sources for basic facts. **"The Life Guard"** by Russell E. Smith: A humorous essay wondering why lifeguards appear so melancholy. The author discovers through a newspaper that a lifeguard married a woman he rescued—implying lifeguards are trapped in unhappy marriages to women who feel obligated to them. The satire targets both the sentimentality of such rescue-marriage stories and men's apparent misery in matrimony.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Pedestrian: Look what you did to my hat, and it cost me five dollars, Golfer: 1 said “fore” “All right. I'll take it.” News Sense Author’s Note <i HIS paper says it’ll rain to-day.” ‘HE two cents an ounce it costs to “Well, why don’t you buy some mail a manuscript doesn’t make it other paper?” first-class matter. Chorus of Envious Men: Throw him back—he’s too small to keep, The Life Guard "VE always wondered what makes life- guards look so sad. Is it the taste of the brine as they sweep seaward in search of a struggler in the waves? Is it the thought, ever-present, of the danger and death lurking in the green-hued breakers for the venturesome? What is it that lends the Hamlet-like air to the sun- bronzed, Hermesian features of the guards at the beach? Can it be that—? Now I know! It was through a newspaper I read. The dispatch told of the rescue of a woman by a lifeguard. As a reward she married him. From the look of most lifeguards they have all been married by the women they rescued, and consider the reward more than they deserve—or can bear! I know a lad who wants to be a life- guard. He is taking swimming lessons from a sad-faced one now. I think I'll advise him to train for a subway-guard instead. It’s much less crushing, I imagine! Russell E. Smith. comicbooks.com