Life, 1923-03-01 · page 8 of 36
Life — March 1, 1923 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The page contains two distinct pieces: **"Ballade of Winter Sports"** (left): A poem dismissing winter sports as unpleasant, authored "F.D." The speaker rejects skiing and ice-skating as cold and uncomfortable, preferring warmer alternatives. It's a humorous complaint about seasonal activities. **"Fables for Farmers"** (right): An article by W.G. discussing agricultural economic hardship. Percy Peardige, a Vermont dairy farmer, explains that farmers lack capital—their money goes to banks and creditors while agricultural prices remain depressed. The piece critiques how wealthy Wall Street interests control industry and farming through capital control, leaving farmers perpetually struggling. **Cartoon below**: Depicts a well-dressed man boasting to a woman that he started as a barefoot boy, now wearing fine shoes. Her response—questioning if he actually owns them—is satirical commentary on false prosperity and debt.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Ballade of Winter Sports ET others freeze their ears and ski, And joy to fill their necks with snow. That temperature means naught to me Which goes to zero or below. I lace no skate on frigid toe; To smite the puck I’m ne’er cajol’d. They give me pains, not “healthy glow,” These winter sports—they leave me cold. Snowshoes and I do not agree; In overshoes I stand more show. I skid no boat on ice-bound sea, When Boreas begins to blow. Some, violent, on their stomachs throw Themselves to coast—for fun, I’m told. I shook and forswore long ago These winter sports—they leave me cold. The frequent change of hosiery, The nose-that’s running—to and fro— The knickered femininity, The men who let their whiskers grow, Are winter sports that cause me woe, Put silver threads among the gold. I must confess I’m con, not pro These winter sports—they leave me cold. L’Envoi. Prince, count me out, if you should go Up to Lake Placid. I’ll make bold To state I’m no blame Eskimo. LIFE Fables for Farmers “AS I understand it,” ellipsed Percy Pearidge, the well and favorably known ensilage expert of the Calicoon, Vt., dairy farm, “the reason why prices of everything us agriculturists’ got to sell is low, while prices of what we buy has gone sky-hootin’, along with interest and freight rates, is scarcity of capital. Been readin’ about it in a mighty kind letter wrote by one of them financiers down in William Street, New York. Says, says he, this deplorable lack of interest on the part of the ruralists in seven per cent. gold bonds means that every- thing is depressed for lack of capital. Struggling cor- porations that only made thirty-six per cent. profits last year is forced to pay dividends in stock certificates, the supply of paper out of which capital is made having been exhausted by concerns printing oil-well debentures for the country trade. This William Street fellow says that it is their capital that sets the wheels of industry a-hum- min’, and makes the farmer prosperous by giving him a market. Looked it up in my boy’s history book last night, and by jing, he’s right. When the first settlers landed on our shores they hadn't no capital, and had a mighty hard time to make a livin’. After ‘bout two hundred years they heard that capital had been invented over in Europe, so they sent and got some, and now they make it right down there in New York. ’Course it’s rough on the banks that useter make a fair profit, since now they ain’t hardly none of them makes more’n forty per cent. a year lending out somebody else’s capital, but if they’s any ways we can help them bankers by cuttin’ down their income taxes, or payin’ higher interest rates, we're for it.” These winter sports—they leave me cold. F. D. W. G. Egoist: I am proud to say I started out in life a barefooted boy. Girl: Well, well, and are those shoes you’re wearing your very own? comicbooks.com