Life — May 21, 1925 — page 7: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "Marc Antony's Oration—A.D. 1925" This cartoon satirizes 1920s radio culture and prohibition-era politics. The illustration shows a radio broadcast where Marc Antony (a classical reference) delivers a speech praising the deceased Caius J. Caesar—a fictional funeral oration mimicking Shakespeare's *Julius Caesar*. The satire targets Marc Antony as a Prohibition Enforcement Bureau chief who refuses political advancement to instead fight "evil-doers." The cartoon mocks earnest civic radio programming of the era, where stations broadcast "refined lectures and jazz music" to mass audiences. The accompanying poem "To My Neighbor" ridicules listeners driven to distraction by constant radio broadcasts, particularly romantic songs and news. The humor lies in treating grandiose classical oratory through the mundane lens of 1920s commercial radio.