Life, 1923-07-26 · page 28 of 42
Life — July 26, 1923 — page 28: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical piece by Don Herold mocks Mayor Hylan's Silver Jubilee parade (likely celebrating his 25 years in office—Hylan was NYC mayor 1918-1925). The author argues parades are economically wasteful: 150,000 people at $10/day wages equals $1.5 million, plus heat prostration costs and Fifth Avenue damage totaling roughly $20 million—hence "joy walk." The joke: Herold predicts the parade will flop, but it actually happens with multiple parades and a million marchers, proving him wrong. The irony is that his economic critique, though logically sound, fails because people enjoy parades regardless of cost. The bottom cartoon references Prohibition-era "pocket-flask" drinking culture, contrasting it with the pre-WWI slogan "full dinner-pail" (worker prosperity). It satirizes how American values had shifted toward hidden vice during Prohibition.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
LIFE Hylan’s Twenty-Million-Dollar Joy Walk By Don Herold AYOR Hylan had been arguing with me three hours to get me to march in his Silver Jubilee parade. “You are making this hard for me,” said he. “Now, Don, I wish you wouldn’t hold back. I want at least 150,000 people in this parade. Suppose everybody acted as stubborn as you.” “I don’t see why they don’t.” “Aw, come on. Say you will.” “Walk three miles on red-hot asphalt in a boiling hot sun and fall over with prostration every few blocks, hidden in the middle of a column of other people where nobody would see me, anyv and with no chance to stop in any- where and get an ice-cream soda!” “Well, you're not nice. You're not public-spirited.” “Mr. Mayor, parades are silly. You oughtn’t to allow them, let alone encourage them. Did you ever stop to think what it costs the city to have a parade? Talk about the economic waste of the trial trip of the Leviathan about which the New York World and other papers have made such a fuss. A mere drop in the bucket compared with the cost of a parade down Fifth Avenue. Suppose you get 150,000 people to march all day down Fifth Avenue. Say their time is worth, conservatively, $10 a day apiece. This is not taking into consideration the plasterers, bricklayers and cartoonists in the parade whose time is worth even more. There alone is a loss to society of at least fifteen million dollars ($15,000,000). And heat prostrations. They must cost the city at least $20 each in ambulance service and ice packs. Easily another million. This parade you contemplate will be a twenty-million-dollar joy walk. With twenty million dollars you could fill the lakes in Central Park with pretty little goldfish. “Besides, you interrupt all the stenographers along Fifth Avenue, and there is another great loss to society. In spite of the fact that nobody wants to see parades, everybody stops work to look at them. No, Mr. Mayor, parades are a wicked waste and I am not going to march in your Silver Jubilee parade. “Furthermore, I believe, Mr. Mayor, that people in gen- eral are too enlightened to march in parades any more. I predict you won't get ten people in your Silver Jubilee parade. Good day.” It was proved that I knew what I was talking about, when, during the Silver Jubilee, there was not one parade, but four or five, with a total of about a million marchers and a fine lot of heat prostrations. Immediately after- wards, it was necessary to repave large sections of Fifth Avenue, owing to prostration dents. This was an item of ex- pense about which I completely forgot when talking to the Mayor. Toot, Toot! DO not know, I do not care How far it is to anywhere. I only know that where I’m not Is always an alluring spot. OMETHING less than a generation ago the winning political slogan was “A full dinner-pail”; to-day it would appear to be “A full pocket-flask.” THE TRAFFIC COP AT LIFE’S FRESH AIR FARM comicbooks.com