Life, 1928-05-03 · page 36 of 46
Life — May 3, 1928 — page 36: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes contemporary figures and events through marked-up text and cartoons. The main target is **Lincoln's Gettysburg Address**, which appears annotated with critical comments mocking its style and grammar as sub-standard English. The handwritten critiques suggest this is a homework or classroom exercise, making fun of treating the famous speech as if it were a student composition deserving of editorial correction. The surrounding cartoons mock foolish modern behavior: a motorcycle stunt ("Bend Your Arms Like Hell"), and a pedantic "book lover" who visits friends only to inspect their libraries. The attribution to "Harvard Lampoon" indicates this is collegiate satire. The overall point: contrasting the gravity of Civil War sacrifice with modern frivolity and pretension—critiquing both contemporary affectations and those who would nitpick historical greatness through a schoolmaster's red pen.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
— Wi travel noon He g made eal Among His Books ie “I visit my friends occasionally,” ef It sec marked the book lover, “merely for the pur-| for J pose of looking over my library.” showe’ —St, Louis Post-Dispatch, | thougl somet and tl very § His did ye Daz 1 the st me oF -l In colleg sitting friend ¥, 17'S QUARTER OP TWELVE. witene’L AVE 1 “BEND YOUR ARMS LIKE HELL, JouUNNY!” —Kasper (Stockholm). ro 288 _ ska i 4 A wraate (@7) “Fourscore_and_seven years) ago our(fathers_, ww» wot \ &' ow “x -aewer | brought forth on this continent a new nation, wet ~O) Ve s q% we Be nore comeful conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the propo- gy%* ay) ye sition that all men are(created equal.) Now we we Que’ Tare engaged in a great civil war, testing whether opt vad e ‘ ‘ to towets that nation, or any nation so Gonceived)and so a NA Sentence § _ dedicated, can long endure. (We) are met on a o* great battlefield of that war. (We have come to Vou ue! taraxk ?_dedicate a,portion of that field, as a final resting- \s Hin a a place for those ‘who here_gave their lives that ay! Or what &" their nation might live. (pis altogether fitting Evy TP— and proper that we should do this. But, in a ater: aero ‘ larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot What prtcerety aw Be 2 hall hi 2 Se tamed Ave consecrate, we cannot;hallow,,t is Ground.) G Sp: a Cn ‘07? brave men, living and dead, who struggled here d have consecrated it far above our power to add No: . or detract. The world will little note, nor long ; runt very AWK! remember, what we say but it can never . W forget what they didlhere) It is for us the living, A yore speshiy *"* rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished wor + gat WS Ge We work which they who foughtGer@have thus far Sra Dp: so nobly advanced. e She work ca not upp to English, A standards. ~ mm , x lew ¢ ee fi and. / jr abe filling, tls your Csr ng TeX. Sav Pricnut or Enctisn A THEMES —Harvard Lampoon, comicbooks.com