Life, 1925-04-16 · page 5 of 36
Life — April 16, 1925 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This cartoon satirizes the **Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR)** and their obsession with historical authenticity and committee procedures. The historical figure Betsy Ross presents her American flag design to a group of formal committee members—"National Fathers of the Revolution, Inc." The joke mocks how the DAR bureaucratizes patriotism: even the iconic founding moment of flag design is reduced to committee approval, complete with businessmen's deliberation and nitpicking. One man comments on "layout," another on "visualizations" being "good, but will it sell?"—applying modern advertising language to 18th-century history. The satire targets both the DAR's stuffiness and 1920s corporate culture's infiltration of even patriotic institutions.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Whoa! AUL REVERE leaped into his saddle. “Through every Middlesex village and farm, Bess, old girl!” he whispered in his mare's ear, and they were off. And, as he rode, the daunt- less patriot saw as in a vision (in fact, it wes a vision) the future of the land to which he was bringing freedom. He saw a hundred and ten million people, the men in derbies, the women in felt hats with little bows on the top. He saw them pushing one another in and out of trolley-cars on their way to and from work, adding up figures incor- rectly all morning and subtracting them incorrectly all afternoon, with time out at 12:30 for frosted chocolates and pimento cheese sandwiches. He saw fiity million of them trying to prevent the other sixty million from doing what they wanted to do, and the sixty million try- ing to prevent the fifty million from do- ing what they wanted todo, Hesawthem all paying taxes to a few hundred of their number for running the govern- ment very badly. He saw ten million thin children working and ten thousand fat children playing in the warm sands. “OH, WHAT A RELIEF!” And now and again he saw five million youths, cheered on by a hundred million elders with fallen arches, marching out to give their arms and legs and lives for Something To Be Determined Later, And over all he saw the Stars and Stripes fluttering in the artificial breeze of an electric fan operated behind the scenes. So tugging at the reins he yelled: “Whoa, Bess! We're going back to the stable.” Robert Benchley. Historical Weeks HE American forces celebrated Use More Powder Week by defeating the British at Bunker Hill. eee Patrick Henry observed Liberty or Death Week with a speech before the American Revolutionary Convention, at Richmond. It was favorably received. eee It is estimated that only eighty-seven persons were beheaded in Paris during Be Kind to Everybody Week, in 1793. eee Benjamin Franklin discovered elec- tricity during a thunderstorm in Learn Something New Wi eee The panic of 1873 Let's Smile Week. started during Paul S. Powers. The Poor Fish CTOPUS: Good night! Let's get out of here. Here comes that bore- some Johnnie Shark. Devi Fis: Why do you say that? Octopus: Oh, he's always talking about the time he caught a man twelve feet long and let him get away. [ts effective, visvalizations good, x but will it sell? Youre gota = nice layout there, Mrs. Ross LE Lthink we might talk this thin, over a little better at lunch Va brighten up that ted a little How does it hit you, Paul ? nes BETSY ROSS SUBMITS A DESIGN TO THE SUB-COMMITTEE ON FLAGS AND BUNTING, NATIONAL FATHERS OF THE REVOLUTION, INC. comicbooks.com