Life, 1924-01-17 · page 11 of 36
Life — January 17, 1924 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The cartoon titled "Daughters of the Revolution" depicts children sitting in what appears to be a modern, industrial interior space, illustrating a humorous essay below. The text discusses a contest to name the North River (flowing between New York and New Jersey). The essay humorously catalogs various suggested names: "Half-Moon" (referencing a Chinese junk), "Hudson" (after the explorer/a Dutch tailor), and competing proposals like "East River" and "South River." The satire mocks the absurdity of public naming contests and the conflicting claims people make based on historical or personal reasoning. The accompanying sections "The Veteran" and a brief note about "Naturalists in Mongolia" appear unrelated to the main cartoon. The overall point satirizes civic pride, historical competition, and how democratic processes produce ridiculous compromise solutions.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
ae SRE, SAaNA~ LS ALVIS DAUGHTERS OF THE REVOLt The Original Prize-Winner HE stream on the west of New York and the cast of The tes New Jersey flowing south is called the North River bored they were with receiving such ot 1 the meeting of the judges relate The appropriateness of this title makes its origin quite ob: is therefore no wonder that the vious: it was arrived at through a prize contest should have be Inves ng the theory, I discovered that this, indecd, accompany was the case. Such a contest was held a number of years “GENTLEMEN ago by a group of people who had proved that the boat When this river was dis , it was th called the “Half-Moon” was a Chinese junk plying between i f ship we Madagascar and the Isle of Wight, and that the man called “alcutta; uate this geograpl nac Hudson was a tailor in Amsterdam who never got close , o name the river ‘North.’ cnough to the sea even to smell it; they therefore objected And so, the stream on the west of New York and the to the river's being called the Hudson, and offered a prize east of New Jersey flowing south was called the Nc for the best suggestion for a new name. River Thousands of suggestions poured in; the people on Man The Veteran hattan Island, to a man, upheld the suggestion that it b : called the “West: River”s\the.psopleiet New Jersey, tal J DGE , say that when this man’s car ran over you, this ignoring of them as a challenge as well as an ins - Was that wh ‘ou lost your lef unanimously upheld the suggestion for calling it the “East _ and every man, woman, and child in upper New State wanted it called th uth River.” A scattered few voted in favor of calling the river “South Naterat or “Southwest.” These, however, were believed t« eggs severa , have been moved solely by the spirit of compromise. left there by careless picnickers of the paleolithic age comicbooks.com,