Life, 1923-03-08 · page 17 of 37
Life — March 8, 1923 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This editorial cartoon satirizes political inattention and poor governance. The image shows two figures seated before a radio: on the left, an older man in civilian dress appearing to listen earnestly; on the right, a military or political official in uniform, seemingly distracted or dismissive, holding what appears to be a listening device away from his ear. The accompanying text discusses the departing 67th Congress, characterizing it as undistinguished but perhaps not worse than deserved given that legislators are underpaid and overworked. The "Listening In" title suggests the cartoon critiques leaders who *claim* to listen to constituents or advisors but fail to genuinely engage—a commentary on political performativity versus actual accountability during the post-WWI era congressional transition referenced in the text (mentioning proposed changes to presidential/congressional inauguration timing).
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
that a powerful person got together here would continue to be useful to him in the Beyond, so they filled up Tut-ankh-Amen’s deadhouse_ with beautiful and valuable things, and made provision for him, so far as possible, to go on where he left off. All that has changed. We do not provide in that way for the departed at all. . We think that the only things that will be useful to them are spiritual acquisitions,—that if they had developed in wisdom and in goodness they will carry that devel- opment with them where they go, but that their money, their objects of art and their motor cars and such be- longings will be no longer any good to them. We have achieved that idea very definitely, and pretty much everybody who believes that life con- tinues after death accepts it. But it has not yet had the effect upon con- duct that it ought to have. The most conspicuous efforts of mankind are still to get and keep material things, and those who best succeed in it still most impress the minds of their con- temporaries. And it is just the same with the nations. To be strong and rich and * LIFE - have money coming to them looks more important to most of them than to be wise and kind and good. That is why it is so difficult to reconstruct the world. Nevertheless we are prob- ably improving. We have had ter- rific object lessons in the inexpedi- ency of going after material things too hard, especially the things that belong to some one else, and they are the less likely to fail of their effect because the means to produce further object lessons of the same sort not on- ly continue to be impressive, but are constantly improving. When the world is told that if it won’t be good it will go to pot, for once it is in a position to believe it. It knows vivid- ly the processes by which the de- struction will be accomplished. It has seen them work and still observes and feels them. E say good-by to the 67th Congress without undue vio- lence of grief. Its last days were in Listening In 15 some respect its best days. It passed the British debt measure and that is to its credit. The disposition has been to think of it as a worse Con- gress than we deserved, but taking the country as it is, that may not be true. The job of being a legislator is a bad job. It pays not much: it is tiresome. To any first-class man with a living to make, it is a misfortune to have it thrust upon him. We wonder that Congress is not better, when perhaps we ought to be wondering that it is not worse. The movement to amend the Con- stitution to secure the inauguration of new Presidents in January in- stead of on the fourth of March, and to provide that a new Congress shall meet in that month instead of in the following December, seems to have all the weight of argument in its favor. There were reasons a cen- tury ago why a considerable space of time should intervene, both for Pres- idents and Congressmen, between election and the beginning of service. Those reasons do not exist any long- er, and the provisions that were due to them may well be changed. E. S. M. comicbooks.com