Life, 1927-06-02 · page 20 of 46
Life — June 2, 1927 — page 20: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains multiple satirical pieces typical of 1920s American humor: **"It Won't Be Long Now"** is the main political cartoon, mocking isolationist and xenophobic congressional rhetoric. Senator Holler delivers an absurdly overwrought speech treating the Pons-Winnecke comet as a foreign threat requiring military action and a $5 million appropriation. The satire targets jingoistic politicians who invoke Revolutionary War patriotism to oppose anything "foreign"—here, literally a celestial object. The Latin name becomes grounds for suspicion of Catholic/Roman influence, ridiculing nativist fears. The smaller jokes mock pedantry (a student misunderstanding an exam as a questionnaire), a child's literal interpretation of "order of the bath," and a customer confusing stockings with porches. The satire's point: American politicians inflate trivial foreign matters into existential threats using inflamed patriotic language, treating even nature as subject to national sovereignty.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“WISH TO RETURN THIS BOOK. IT WAS ADVERTISED AS A FIFTY-THOUSAND-WORD NOVEL, AND IT FIND IT CONTAINS ONLY FORTY-NINE TIOUSAND UT HUNDRED AND FIPTY-THREE. Mistake OR: I am happy to inform you, Mr. John- t you were marked one hundred in your recent examination. Srupent: Was that an examination? I thought it was a new Questionnaire Book. Teacher: wuart is THe “orvER oF THE BATH’? Kid: PA FIRST, THEN MA, THEN US KIDS, AND THEN TIE MIRED GIRL. It Won’t Be Long Now, Dearie (“The Pons-Winnecke comet will be visible the latter part of June."—News Item.) DDRESS by Senator Holler, probably of Ala- bama: Gentlemen of the Seventieth Congress! This nation to-day threatened by the most serious menace it has faced since the noble Liberty Boys of ‘76 wrested it from the dastardly lobsterbacks of the infamous George III. Gentlemen, I sound the call to arms! Without a vestige of official authority the Pons-Win- necke comet—an alien comet, a foreign comet, an un- American comet—will, unless speedy and stern measures are taken, be soon recling and lurching over our skies! Aye, OUR skies, gentlemen, for Old Glory rules the air above us as well as the ground beneath our feet. Nay, more! Have you thought upon the significance of the name of this uninvited comet? Pons, a word from the Latin, the official language of the Roman Catholic Church! Are we, gentlemen, to permit ourselves to be tuled from Rome, to accept in meckness any comets the y deigns to force upon us? Did the boys of '76, 1, of ‘17, and of many other years too numerous to men- tion fight and bleed in vain? No, a thousand times no! If we are to have a comet— and, mind you, I am a fair man and a just man and hold no enmity against comets as com- ets—let it be a native comet, a comet of the land we call home, a comet that can trail its tail across the heavens star-spangled as our own dear banner, a comet that need bow its head to none, but say proud- “Tam an American! So, gentlemen, I am honored in sponsoring the following bill for- bidding the Pons-Winnecke comet from entering the skies of the West- ern Hemisphere and providing for an appropriation of $5,000,000 to en- force this prohibition. Tip Bliss. Everybody Up! A ancient Mexican seat of learn- ing, La Universitad Michoacana san Nicolas de Hidalgo de More- may be obliged to close its doors. The trouble is probably that nobody has been able to think up a college yell for it. At the Hosiery Counter WANT to see some stockings suitable for wear at the Coun- “ “iow D’YA FEEL, CHARLIE “KIN DA SENT MENTAL, MATE T’ LEAVE Tit’ OLE SCHOOL.” “@wan! Tua’s gus’ TH’ GIN.” “No; porch.” MARRIAGE seems to have de- veloped into a problem which has to be worked out of. comicbooks.com