Life, 1922-05-18 · page 7 of 34
Life — May 18, 1922 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This sketch depicts a dialogue between a visitor and native using exaggerated rural dialect ("gits up," "yuh," "nigah"). The humor relies on a stereotypical "country bumpkin" character who claims to wake early and work all day, contrasted with the visitor's metropolitan assumptions about small-town life. The satire appears to mock both urban visitors' condescending expectations of rural communities AND rural residents' defensive pride about their work ethic. The crude dialect representation was typical of early 20th-century American humor, though offensive by modern standards. The accompanying text snippets reference Bolshevism, Comrade Trotsky, and Lenin—suggesting this *Life* issue engaged contemporary political anxieties about communism and revolution, which contrasts sharply with the rural Americana of the main cartoon.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Visitor: Local Color I gits up earlier at home ’an any man in ’is heah town. Native: Yoh words don’t mean nothin’, niggah. I gits up every mawnin’ at one o’clock. What time does yuh git up? Visitor: fn I tole yuh, yuh wouldn’t onderstan’, They don’t have no time in ‘is heah town Personal Intelligence Being a translation, by hydraulic pressure from the original Russian, of certain “social notes” published in the Moscow Daily Bludgeon. R. BIG BILL HAYWOOD, of the Large William Haywoods, is spending the winter with friends here. He says the climate agrees with him better than in the States. Mr. Hay- wood will be remembered as the holder of the broad bail-jumping record in America. * + * Mollie Steimer, expert on sedition, privy conspiracy and rebellion, and con- sidered somewhat of an authority on false doctrine, heresy and schism, is again on the rock pile. Miss Steimer shakes a mean sledge. as early as whut I gits up. Comrade Trotzky went shooting last week on his Communist estate at Red- landsky. He enjoyed good sport, bring- ing back a couple of capitalists. They are rare these days. * * * Alec Berkman, of here and Amer- ica, visited Comrade Nick Lenine at the Kremlin this week. Comrade Nick is not so well. * * * Miss Emma Goldman, who was lec- turing on Anarchy at the University of Pretzelovitch, will be heard here- after in Sweden by request. She had hoped to take a P.G. in Bombs. * * * Comrade Nick Lenine did not go to Genoa for the Conference. He has ar- ranged to give a humorous lecture on “Nations Which Have Ignored Me.” Except Sometimes GET along without you very well, Of course I do. Except the times a soft rain falls, And dripping off the trees, recalls How you and I stood deep in mist One day far in the woods, and kissed. But now I get along without you—well, Of course I do. I really have forgotten you, I boast, Of course I have. Except when someone sings a strain Of song, then you are here again; Or laughs a way which is the same As yours; or when I hear your name. I really have forgotten you—almost, Of course I have. JB: comicbooks.com