Life, 1924-09-04 · page 6 of 36
Life — September 4, 1924 — page 6: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**"The Outlaw" Cartoon:** A police officer confronts a well-dressed man carrying a small toy car, suspecting contraband. The joke plays on Prohibition-era anxiety about hidden alcohol ("home-brew"). The tiny vehicle becomes comic evidence of the era's obsession with detecting illegal liquor. **"September Stratagems":** Lists middle-class concerns of the period—justifying a daughter's education, accepting inevitable labor unrest from coal miners, purchasing cars, and grape harvests (likely referencing home wine-making during Prohibition). **"Disqualified":** A teacher's lesson about Alexander the Great is undercut when a student notes he "wasn't a Nordic"—satirizing contemporary racial pseudoscience popular in 1920s America. The page reflects post-WWI anxieties: Prohibition enforcement, labor tensions, and emerging racial ideology.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
LIF E..- September Stratagems 'O continue to wonder if one’s daughter has reached the ‘limit of her thental capacity or to send her to college and find out. To accept the inevitable from the coal kings immediately or later. To buy a closed car or to try to get away with the fresh air fiction another winter. To regret the waste of the grape harvest or to purchase an empty barrel and participate in it. McC. H. Disqualified TEACHER (desiring to impress the vanily of earthly ambition): Yes, children, Alexander the Great was a hero and conquered the whole wide world. But he had one big fault. What was it? Buppinc Keacte: Please, ma'am,—he wasn’t a Nordic! SUALLY, after the first half-hour of a campaign speech, the crowd stretches as far as the eye can sec. THE OUTLAW The Cop: wey! WHATCHA GOT IN THAT PACKAGE? The Suspect: TH-THAT’S MY HOME-WoORK. To the Mah Jonger Set A’ honor goes upon the rack, A reputation on the pan; Your playing is with steady clack, Which somehow irks a simple man. Whatever seasons wax and wane, Whatever flowers are in bloom, Their perfumes give this bird a pain, Within an overperfumed room. When once a spade was called a knave, I knew a queen was called a heart; Now characters I try to save While you tear characters apart. I do not like your game at all, For sadly doth this fact appear: The dragons hidden in the wall Are not the only dragons near. James K. McGuinness. Overheard at the Moron Club ‘ ELL, what did you expect? Why shouldn't there be a slump in the stock market, with these bolshevists in Congress upsetting business, and shaking the very founda- tions of national prosperity? What chance is there for boosting up stocks so’s we can unload them on the honest investor, as long as a lot of jay legislators are going around criticizing the Administration, and looking into the way the public’s business is being run? We won't have a real old- fashioned boom in the Street until we jail all these fellows — that are trying to make the people discontented with the Engineer's Son: WEx, POP, HOW LONG DID IT TAKE “EM TO United States Government.” W. G. DIG THIS ONE? comicbooks.com