Life, 1923-10-18 · page 22 of 44
Life — October 18, 1923 — page 22: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**The Cartoon** (top): Shows a woman, child, and dog in a home with a woman on the telephone. The caption "Oh, Look! Somebody's Left the Telephone Running!" depicts a common domestic scenario where someone has carelessly left a phone off the hook—a mundane but relatable mishap of the era. The humor lies in this everyday inconvenience. **"The Love Letter Contest"** (middle): A sentimental short story about a woman who won a contest with a romantic letter about lost love. The ironic twist: she uses the $20 prize to buy a smoking jacket for her husband—the only man she ever truly loved. It's a gentle satire on overwrought romanticism versus domestic reality. **"The Very Latest Jokes"** and **"For to Admire"** (right): Brief satirical items mocking contemporary issues—coal strikes, tariff hypocrisy, and a traveler's observations about European pricing and politics. These are light social commentary rather than pointed political satire. The page reflects 1920s American attitudes: nostalgia, domestic humor, and skepticism toward European affairs.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“OH, LOOK! SOMEBODY'S LEFT THE TELEPHONE RUNNIN The Love Letter Contest “YEAR Once-Upon-a-Time,” she wrote, “after all these years what will you think to receive a letter from me? It will be like a ghost reaching out in the dark and taking you by the hand. I am but a ghost to you; you a ghost to me. And yet—— “Just a trifle brings your face be- fore me—a chance word, the strain of an olden song, the scent of lilacs in the spring, of violets in the winter. “Ah, one does not forget! Dear Once-Upen-a-Time, one never for- gets! All these years without word or sign, and yet to remember! That, perhaps, is the woman of it. “Still, I think it may come to you, too. In the quict night times, when ghosts do walk, do you ever feel my check against your own, hear me whisper: ‘I love you! I love you!’? “TI think it must be so. Dear Once- Upon-a-Time, love is deathless. It lies beneath, above, beyond every- thing else all of one’s life. All of life? Why, it is life. Dear Once-Upon-a-Time, love is life.” There were half a dozen men who had loved the Lady of the Love Let- ter. They remembered it when her name was blazoned forth in the news- paper as the winner of the first prize. And each p‘umed himself, strutted or sentimentalized, as his nature de- creed. They shot pitying glances across fifteen or more years to the Lady of the Love Letter. And she? She greeted the twenty dollars rap- turously—there weren't many twenty dollars in the Love Letter Lady's simple life. But she parted with it more rapturously still. For it went to buy a gay smoking jacket for the husband whom she idolized—the only man to whom she ever had given a serious thought. Ida Alexander. The Very Latest Jokes ETTLEMENT of the coal strike The joke is on the consumer. What Mussolini thinks of the League of Nations. Farmers who say the protective tariff has not helped them ask for still higher duties cn foreign wheat. Manufacturers with seventy per cent. tariff protection denounce farm- ers for seeking “class legislation.” Wall Street financiers announce intention to come to aid of farmers. “For to Admire—” RAVELER, traveler, home from France, What is the truth abroad? Say, does the cause of peace advance? Is Germany's plea a fraud? Why, as to that I cannot say, But here is a thing I know: Two hundred francs I had to pay For a meal at Fontainebleau. Traveler, traveler, you have seen Italy's hills and dales— What will become of the Florentine If ever Fascismo fails? Listen to this: at a place in Rome They had the nerve to show A Fairbanks film that we saw at home At least two years ago. Traveler, traveler, set us right— How do the English feel? Are they indeed in a mood to fight Over Alsatian steel? Say, I met a man by the name of Brown That I worked with at Saint Paul, In a little hotel in a bum Scotch town— It's a small world, after all! Stoddard King. comicbooks.com