Life, 1928-02-09 · page 13 of 35
Life — February 9, 1928 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This article satirizes well-intentioned civic improvement efforts in a town called Grandview Flats. The Chamber of Commerce acquired land and built infrastructure (highway, tannery, slaughterhouse, asylum) expecting industrial development and progress. Instead, the article describes darkly comic consequences: increased crime, murders, overcrowded jails, and social problems. When residents kidnapped the Chamber Secretary and demanded higher wages, the Chamber created an anti-Commerce chamber—essentially admitting defeat. The satire mocks naive boosterism and municipal pride, suggesting that hastily pursued "progress" often backfires spectacularly. The cartoon at top shows a radio announcer in a fancy car, likely representing media hype promoting such schemes. The humor depends on readers recognizing small-town American Chamber of Commerce mentality—promoting growth without considering actual consequences.
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Fors a oul Mamouy a THE Sree hates ars wave a vt. er cone fh QuMe ATE TF . eax c sc we Tue Rapio ANNouNceR Takes Out His Car = —=— The Grandview Flats Idea T has been several years now since we organized a Chamber of Com- merce in Grandview Flats. Grandview Flats is a pleasant old semi-suburban town, whose houses are mostly about forty years old, com- fortable, unpretentious, and sprawl- ing, and whose inhabitants are the same. We established a Chamber of Commerce for the same reason we all bought Mah Jong sets—because everybody else had them. We en- gaged an enterprising young Sec- “Gosh, Myrtle, these Japanese costumes are heavy. I wish we had one of them Hawaiian dance acts,” retary for it at a pretty large salary. The Chamber of Commerce ob- tained an enormous 240-millimeter howitzer from the Government and set it up on a pedestal where we had thought of putting a symbolic statue of Peace Descending on Grandview Flats. The Chamber of Commerce built a new highway from the city, and succeeded in bringing to town a horsehide tannery, a slaughter-house, a nitroglycerin plant, and an asylum for the criminally insane. A good part of the residential section was thus rendered untenable, and we gained a bootlegging problem, a large new jail, and four or five mur- ders on every saint’s day. About a year ago a bunch us old residents got together and kidnaped the enterprising young Secretary of the Chamber of Commerce and delivered him to the captain of a sailing vessel bound for the Pacific Islands to load guano. We then established in Grand- view Flats a Chamber of Anti- Commerce. The Chamber of Anti-Com- merce took over the fine new ho- tel, shut off the running water, and employed a staff from the asylum for the criminally insane. The Chamber of Anti-Com- merce encouraged the workmen in all the factories to strike for higher wages. The result was that they got no wages at all; at of He Sue: the end of two months they were so maddened that they burned down the factories and had to move away. The value of real estate has been cut in two and the old families are moving back. The jail has been turned into a school, the ravaged flower-beds reconstituted, the smoke and soot cleaned off the furniture, and Grandview Flats has abolished progress. The 240-millimeter how- itzer has been cleaned up and aimed, ever in readi- ess, at the empty es of the Cham- ber of Commerce. Morris Bishop. \ : Fred's got some gin outside and—— I'm off gin. It dissolves my lipstick, comicbooks.com