Life, 1924-05-01 · page 24 of 40
Life — May 1, 1924 — page 24: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This Don Herold cartoon satirizes 1920s installment-buying culture. The top illustration shows a couple negotiating furniture purchases on a "dollar-down" plan—paying monthly for items they couldn't otherwise afford. The accompanying essay argues this reflects broader American consumer behavior: people buy luxuries (touring cars, phonographs, jewelry, musical instruments) on credit rather than saving. Herold mocks this as childish impatience, contrasting it with older generations who saved first. The satire's target is optimistic American consumerism and credit's normalization. A salesman's response—"Charge it?"—shows how commonplace easy payments had become. The author suggests this frivolous spending might be redirected toward public goods like "evergreens along national highways." The bottom illustration (unrelated) appears to be a separate joke about someone's father's medical operation. The page also announces contributions to the **Louvain Library Fund**, a post-WWI reconstruction effort for Belgium's damaged university.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
- LIFE - L cant stay 2 7 y~J/) Tust keg Dew wane i “ar Sit clown in thar dollan— 2- month chair and IY pry You @ tune On our prow Oddanr-a-mont 2 Ploanognaph 4 If we want a big war we just and fight it and pay for it are far too easy to buy, and th - 2-Manth, not be so n save up for them for fifty years And we might think of some better any of them if we had t way to spend the ni year y if we had fiity in which to think, Maybe we should decide it would be } ter to spend that cash for evergreens along national highways. One business writer has g 85 per cent. of all mobile sales 1,000,000, were on time year, or $ payments. The papers now s itis py sible to buy jewelry, saic equipment, cedar chests, dian One Dollar Down janips; By Don Herold and nuts, as well as J thin ical instruments, and candy actically every ti al casy terms, glance at the newspapers is ing the purchase. Sometimes this pe p to pay ca or a 1 i Ore. s| ‘us ] to reveal that humanity riod of wait served to show them for anything any more A cash cu } t y 1 1 Olute sus | ays is pretty much of acry-baby — they really did not want what they [mer is regarded with absolute su as far as wanting things NOW is con- tI they wanted. picion in a department store. If the cerned. And Mother Universe exer T Charge itr” and you say. I pay,” her manner changes im day the papers are full of easy cises no disci but pampers her — pay offers, and you can instantly have“? progeny. Instead of saying: “Well, anything you want almost for the ask- Mediately. wait a while and you can have it,” she ing, from a house and lot down to an It is terribly old-fashioned to have simply says: “Al right, let me have a — electric toothbrush, We surely are an ™oney in the bank dollar down and you can pay the rest — optimistic lot of animals in relation to Of course, there are occasions w of itad Hiwe tedit is necessary, as, for exan ra month.” the money we are g¢ and moth ig to make : s used to save get a dollar ahead we rush out and buy When Father breaks a leg wit ing saved up for it for several months Our i out hav up money to buy what they wa d,and a touri Iden oak phono: | got a lot of enjoyment out of anticipat graph and pay for it eventually. rora ut it seems to me that anybody ought to be able to wait a little while in order to pay spot cash for a saxophone or a rubber-tired tea-wagon. The Louvain Library Fund IFE takes this edge several g to the Louvain Library Fund and to ppeal for further contributions use. Work on the Library a ain has come to a standstill be s, and the gift of ica to the people of Belgium incomplete. Lirr invites its readers to assist in the cam aign now in progress to complete the lars needed to “finish the The following contrit heen received to date at this offic forwarded to J. P. Morgan & Co Lites $100.00 Marion C 5.00 C0; L. 300 1.00 3 500 F. G5. 200 $116 00 Checks, if 1 marked for will be duly edgments wil HOW'D YOUR PA GET OVER HIS OPERATION? “THAT REMINDS ME, DEARIE appear in Lire comicbooks.com