Life, 1927-12-22 · page 27 of 36
Life — December 22, 1927 — page 27: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This *Life* magazine page contains three satirical pieces: **"Perfervid Albion"** mocks British anxiety about American dominance. Lord Riddell (a real British newspaper magnate) accused America of seeking global commercial supremacy. The satire responds by having American institutions gleefully confirm this paranoia—banking houses, museums, and publishers all claim their sole purpose is crushing Britain. The joke: Britain's fear is absurdly exaggerated; America isn't actually conspiring against it. **"The Modern Way"** satirizes 1920s parental neglect among the wealthy. While parents attend theaters and nightclubs, children unsupervised engage in frivolous activities (dancing at the Ritz, playing poker). The punch line blames Santa Claus for children's misbehavior—a backhanded critique of modern parenting abdication. **"Ask Them Another"** appears to reference a legal case involving "tampering"—likely Upton Sinclair (the muckraking author) and jury interference, though details are unclear from this excerpt alone. The cartoons exemplify *Life*'s satirical approach: exaggerating social anxieties and generational concerns for comedic effect.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Perfervid Albion N a speech at Glasgow Lord Rid- dell charged America with seck- ing to dominate the world in Com- merce, Finance, Art and Literature. Startled, we hastened to the United States Chamber of Trade and Board of Commerce, who gladly gave us a round-robin statement to the effect that their sole aim in existence is to utterly crush England commercially. The heads of all the great banking houses n New York are unanimous in the tense ambition to ruin Eng- land financially, feeling sure that the worse off England is the better off America will be. They were glad that Lord Riddell had warned Eng- land, as she would thus be prepared to accept the worst. The Cosmo- politan Museum of Art jumped at the chance to be quoted as follows: “Our entire organization speak and think of nothing but ‘Der Tag’ when we shall have stripped England of every artist and work of art worth a swear.” Numb with concer that is really quite all right, we hastened to the Authors’ and Pub- lishers’ Cahoot League for the ver- dict on England's literary fate “We confidently expect,” they for a country “So you are secretly engaged to Tommie?” “Yes, I haven't told him yet.” “He thinks he can start a fire by rubbing those sticks tog “The poor sap! Doesn't he know that those automatic lighters never work? stated, shall we have rendered E hundred per cent illiterate but the English language itself will cease to be heard in the land. In fact, we have just finished the preparation of a crude dialect to take its place over there. Co-operating with Mayor Thompson of Chicago and some fearfully intelligent British we are devoting all our en ergies to circulating rumors to breed un- that in ten years not only and one peers, calculated friendliness tween Eng land and America. We think it is an awfully bright thing to do.’ r The Modern Way TWAS the night be- fore Christmas and ill through the house Not a stir- creature was ring Mother and Father had gone to the theatre and a night club. Phyilis was dancing at the Ritz Bobby was out in the road- ster Grandina was playing poker at the club. mice were butcher shop. Can you blame Santa Claus The visiting a Ask Them Another SINCLAIR: What are we tried for to-day? Faun: My lawyer says for Special’ Grand der the with the being » tampering with the Jury that was called to charge of Grand Jury the charge of our the Grand Jury that was called to our tampering that met to investigate tampering with charge Grand consider the of our tamper that in with the ing with the Jury dicted us for tampering Federal that for conspiracy a while back. Jury was trying us for being peeved? The Man Who Reads the Movie Titles Out Loud Comes to Grief comicbooks.com