Life, 1922-06-15 · page 22 of 36
Life — June 15, 1922 — page 22: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains satirical commentary on 1920s American life rather than a single unified cartoon. The main illustration depicts the "Class of 1922 in 'How to Get It'"—a crowd of graduates streaming toward a building labeled "Class No. SH-H" (suggesting secrecy), carrying banners with a camel and text about "getting it." This satirizes Prohibition-era bootlegging and the widespread illegal pursuit of alcohol following the 1920 Volstead Act. The joke: despite official education in proper behavior, graduates are stampeding toward illicit alcohol instead. The text essays discuss worrying and longing, while the "Efficiency Courses" joke mocks the contemporary corporate efficiency movement—suggesting the new employee is too busy performing efficiency procedures to actually accomplish work. Overall, the page humorously critiques modern anxieties, corporate culture, and the gap between societal rules and actual behavior during the Jazz Age.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
> LIFE Worrying ‘HERE are two kinds of worrying: (1) worrying about everything; (2) worrying about nothing. I have been a great worrier. Looking back over my life I find that it has been divided distinctly into periods during which I have been engaged in one or the other of these two forms of worrying. It takes no more brains to engage in one kind of worry than it does in the other. I happen just now to be worrying about nothing, and I know it is an easy, brain- less condition. I realize, too, now, that worrying about everything takes no work or intelligence either, although when I am in a serious worrying mood I always regard myself as a hard, deep thinker. For a long time, in my younger days, I worried about everything because I thought it was smart. I guess I worried because I liked to feel smart. As I grow older I don’t care so much about feeling, or looking, smart. Worrying about noth- ing is much more pleasant, and I am arriving at the age in life when one is more concerned about his pleasure than about his intelligence. Whether one worries about everything or worries about nothing depends much on how one gets his day, or his year, started. It is usually a matter of an adjust- ment of about a quarter of an inch in one’s attitude. At just this moment you couldn’t worry me with fire, water, pestilence or theft. To-morrow morning I may worry fiercely bec miss the 8:30 train to the city and have to wait the 8:40. But I think not. I think this is one of the months when I am worrying about nothing. D.H. Longings IVE me a tale of the South, South Seas: Of the land of fei and poi; Where the faint hibiscus scents the breeze And life is a dream of joy. Give me a story of Tytee’s isle Where the white moon swooning swings And I'll tear it up with a fiendish smile For I’m tired of the dratted things! BL, These Efficiency Courses “That new employee of ours doesn't seem to a plish much.” “No, he hasn’t time. He's too busy being efficien Nobody Flunked Class of 1922 in “How to Get It.” comicbooks.com