Life, 1924-07-03 · page 12 of 36
Life — July 3, 1924 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three satirical pieces: 1. **"Indian Idyl"** (top right): A poem by Sherman Ripley mocking someone named Hiawatha who fantasizes about inheriting oil wealth "a hundred miles farther west," imagining a "hundred-horsepower motor boat" instead of paddling a canoe. This satirizes get-rich-quick schemes and materialism among Native Americans during the oil boom era. 2. **"The Glorious Fourth"** (middle): A joke about Independence Day celebrations being censored or restricted, likely referencing wartime or Prohibition-era restrictions on festivities. 3. **"The Pedestrian's Notebook Again"** (bottom): A humorous column by Ward Tawell contrasting pedestrians with motorists, sardonically noting that a "true pedestrian" would sweep an automobile from under him—poking fun at the era's dangerous automobile-pedestrian conflicts.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“WHAT MAKES THE RADIO SQUEAL SO, JOHNN “WELL, MOTHER, IF YOU MUST KNOW, WHAT YOU CALL SQUEALS ARE REALLY THE SELF-OSCILLATIONS OF THE THER- MIONIC VALVES BROUGHT ABOUT BY ALTERING THE POTENTIALS OF THE HIGH AND LOW TENSION BATTERIES AND VARYING THE RELATIONS OF THE CAPACITATIVE AND INDUCTIVE QUANTITIES IN THE RECEIVER.” The Glorious Fourth “LIJOW shall we celebrate Independence Day?” “Let's have a drink.” “Sssh! That's been prohibited.” “Then let's drive out this street to the country.” “This is a one-way street in the wrong direction.” “Then let's see the play, ‘His Brother's Wives.’” “That's been censored.” Indian Idyl IAWATHA baled the Gitchee Gumee Out of his birch-bark canoe, And mused as follows: “If Longfellow had only placed the locale Of this biography of mine A few hundred miles farther west, And made it a few hundred years later, I might have inherited an oil well, too— And this would have been A hundred-horsepower motor boat.” So pondering, he sadly squeezed the Big-Sea-Water Out of his deerskin moccasins, And paddled away to visit Minnehaha, One of Hiawatha’s Chickens. Sherman Ripley. The Pedestrian’s Notebook Again ‘ALKING is a method of getting from place to place by leaps and bounds, For every pedestrian who believes that what is good enough for him is good enough for his son, there is a motorist to see that they both get it. It is a wise pedestrian who jots down the number of the motor car that is about to run over him, When a pedestrian really wants to reach his objective he disguises himself by taking a street car. Your true pedestrian is a person who, if he owned an automobile, would have it swept from under him by a motor Ward Twichell. First Pro. (to colleague): WELL, I'M WILLING TO TURN AMATEUR IF THERE'S ENOUGH MONEY IN IT. comicbooks.com