Life — December 8, 1921 — page 15: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This cartoon satirizes Prohibition-era bootlegging. The caption reads: "Howdy, Osifers! Looks like we was gonna have a white Christmas, what?" with a subtitle noting "(The bootlegger, for the first time in a year, carries home some suspicious-looking packages with a clear conscience)." The humor hinges on a snow pun: "white Christmas" refers both to snow and to cocaine or other white drugs. The bootlegger character (left, in checkered coat) addresses police officers, suggesting he can now carry packages "with a clear conscience" because the white snow provides cover—literal camouflage for illicit goods that would otherwise appear suspicious. The cartoon mocks both bootleggers' brazenness and police ineffectiveness during Prohibition.