Life, 1922-07-06 · page 21 of 36
Life — July 6, 1922 — page 21: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes the early 20th-century leisure movement and changing attitudes toward work. The "Waste-an-Hour Association" mock-advertisement ironically promotes idleness as virtue, inverting the Protestant work ethic that dominated American culture. Phrases like "IT IS BETTER TO WASTE THAN TO WANT" and the slogan "DON'T BE A BEE!" (contrasting busy workers with leisured gentlemen) parody both labor reformers advocating shorter hours and wealthy elites celebrating indolence. The humorous father-son dialogue below illustrates generational conflict over discipline and obedience—a common period anxiety. The page also includes a serious WWI poem about Verdun, the devastating French fortress battle (1916), and a cartoon showing animals gossiping—typical filler content mixing satire with whimsy.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The Waste-an-Hour Association A Summer Slogan ON’T BE A BEE! You need LEISURE. You need to learn the value of the Wasted Hour. You want to join the LEISURE CLASS. Of course you do! Who remembers the busy hour? It’s the wasted hour that sticks in the memory. Have you realized all you can leave undone in ONE LITTLE HOUR? Give us an hour a day! Join our association. NO DUES, NO DINNERS, NO MEETINGS! You practice at home or at the office. Our aim is to make every man a man of leisure. Our slogan is, “IT IS BETTER TO WASTE THAN TO WANT.” Begin NOW! Make a start by wasting ten minutes. LIFE You belong not to Time but to Eternity. Get in line with Eternity! Loaf, and invite your soul, says Whitman. He knew. All great men give Time the go- by. The Wasted Hour is the hour that shines in the sordid day of busy hours, as a gorgeous butterfly glows in a swarm of bees. DON’T BE A BEE! Waste an Hour a day. Waste a day a week, waste a week a month. Keep this up. You'll soon find you can double on this schedule. Remember this—the more time you. waste the more you'll have. It’s the busy hour that’s short! There is more time in one wasted hour than three busy ones! DON’T BE A BEE! H. H. FaTHeR: Stop that racket. Son: I don’t want to. Fatuer: If you don’t stop that racket immediately, I'll give you something to make a racket about and then you'll stop. 19 Verdun ITY of war-worn glory, o’er whose. walls smoke wreaths where the ivy spread, Weaving a halo not for serfs and thralls— A nimbus to your own heroic dead. The trembled Sentinel city, christened with the sword, Baptized with blood beneath an orange sun; Orphaned, thou art to all the world a ward— The Golgotha of German hopes— Verdun. City of Dead Man's Hill, of ruined towers, Embattled streets where once the half-gods ran; Thy walls once crumbled ‘neath the leaden showers, Thy name shall rise, a monument to man. W. D. Miss Gnu: There goes Willie Kangaroo. He’s broken off his engagement to Isobel Wallaby. Miss Gazelle: The little bounder! comicbooks.com