Life — May 11, 1922 — page 12: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Explanation for Modern Readers The top cartoon depicts a group of children in a vacant lot with a "For Sale" sign. One child declares, "Say! My father owns these lots, so I'm goin' to be pitcher, see?"—meaning he'll be the pitcher in their baseball game because his father owns the property. The satire mocks childhood privilege and entitlement: the child assumes he deserves a superior position simply due to his father's wealth/ownership, rather than earning it through skill. This reflects early 20th-century social commentary on class privilege determining opportunity. Below is a poem titled "Song for Anthologies" by A.G., satirizing anthology compilers who profit from collecting existing poems without substantial compensation to original poets—a commentary on publishing economics and artistic exploitation of the era.