Life, 1923-01-04 · page 7 of 44
Life — January 4, 1923 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two unrelated pieces of early 20th-century American satire: **"Home Town Questionnaire"** (left column) poses ironic questions about small-town life—asking why citizens tolerate various local inconveniences and hypocrisies (drug stores, prohibition enforcement, surface cars). The humor targets provincial American towns' resistance to progress and self-awareness. **"Gratified Ambitions"** (right column) is a poem about Frank McGhee, a boy whose modest dream was simply to become a taxicab driver—presented as touchingly humble compared to grander childhood aspirations. **The cartoon below** shows a humorous misunderstanding: a woman asks a poorly-dressed man "Are you the electric light?" He replies "No, ma'm, I'm the gas"—a pun on "gas" as both fuel and derogatory slang for an unpleasant person.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Home Town Questionnaire HEN you first come to New York from ‘way off some- where, do you wonder: If you look as countrified as you feel? If any Jews are left in Russia? How soon the bell boys can enter Wall Street? If every one feels that way about Hylan, why some one doesn’t do something about it? Why they call them drug stores? When they first began to get that way about Brooklyn? How the Prohibition officials ex- plain themselves ? How they can look at their funny ttle surface cars without laughing? If any small town could produce nything more distinctively ‘small- | Wil Hi | | i i MI a tenn LIFE town than the average “colyum” in the daily papers? How they train their policemen to answer politely so many fool ques- tions? If it would not be interesting if some catastrophe were to cause every one in Greenwich Village or at the Ritz to revert suddenly to type? If any warrior, patriot or aristo- crat ever displayed a more deter- mined courage than those who daily enter the subway rush? If any thoroughfare in all the world could be more thrilling and beautiful on which to take your walks abroad than Fifth Avenue—even your own Main Street? If you are going to see anything really wicked enough to whisper truthfully about back home? M. A. M. Lady: Are you the electric light? Worm: No, ma’m, I’m the gas. Gratified Ambitions HEN Francis Patrick John McGhee Was but a little lad The height of his ambition was To be a pirate bad. He dreamed of looting merchants, and Denying tearful pleas From helpless, hapless maidens to “The Terror of the Seas.” Too often childish visions must With childhood pass away; The lovely hues of Might-Have-Been Replaced by dull to-day. But kindly Fate saved Frank McGhee From such a future drab, And happy in his piracy He drives a taxicab. A. H., Jr. Rus: Dobbs married an heiress. Dus: For better or worse? Rus: For more or less! NM i Hy Nat ji hy 4) Hf hi comicbooks.com