Life — December 22, 1921 — page 15: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This cartoon satirizes the mounting costs and complications of travel in post-WWI America. The sequence shows a traveler attempting to purchase tickets, but repeatedly encountering various fees and taxes that accumulate as he progresses. The left panels show growing crowds of officials at ticket windows labeled "Pullman," "Immigrant Taxes," and "Excise Taxes." The right panels depict the traveler being progressively weighed down and frustrated as additional charges are imposed at each stage—eventually fleeing toward "the Trains" in desperation. The satire targets America's expanding tax burden following World War I, when new federal taxes were introduced to pay war debts. The cartoon humorously suggests that by 1921, the cost of simply traveling had become absurdly complicated, with taxes and fees multiplying faster than the traveler can manage.