Life, 1928-07-19 · page 15 of 40
Life — July 19, 1928 — page 15: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This cartoon satirizes law enforcement during Prohibition. Five caricatured officials stand watching a massive pile of confiscated alcohol barrels labeled "PUBLIC" being destroyed. The caption "On your job, kid!" appears ironic—the cartoon criticizes politicians and law enforcement for failing to genuinely enforce Prohibition. The accompanying text explicitly discusses this hypocrisy: politicians publicly support the Volstead Act while privately opposing enforcement. The article notes it's become "permissible" for politicians to undermine their own laws, and questions how long a governor could enforce Prohibition when "the girls have the vote"—suggesting women voters' opposition undermines enforcement. The cartoon mocks the performative nature of Prohibition enforcement rather than its actual implementation.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“On your job, kid!” tion were thrown back on the states, down-state Illinois would perhaps vote Chicago dry; and back-state Michigan might vote Detroit dry, as it did before the days of national Prohibition. But that would not make Detroit and Chicago any drier than they are now. One is almost tempted to think that the question will never be settled until people concentrate on reforming themselves rather than their neighbors; and when that happens the heavens will be rolled up like a scroll and there will be no more sea. Ir has at last become permissible, if not tespectable, for a politician to intimate that the Volstead Act is not a divine decree, which it is sacrilege to talk of altering; but not even Al Smith has yet dared to deny the dogma that the law, so long as it is the law, must be enforced. Governor Smith has a better record than most executives as a law enforcer; but among the statutes which he has sworn to uphold is one which forbids the citi- zens of New York to: appear in public with their faces painted or otherwise dis- colored. How long would a Governor last who enforced that law, now that the girls have the vote? Yet by the theory to which all politicians at present pay lip service it is just as sacred and as worthy of enforcement as the Volstead Act. Read the criminal laws of the Federal Government, and of your own state, and make up your mind whether life in this country would be endurable if there were any serious effort to enforce all laws. Luckily, so long as politicians are poli- ticians, there is not much danger of that. Elmer Davis. A GOOD PARTY MAN “Div Senator Dodge fulfil his cam- paign pledges?” “Yes, all except the ones he made to the public.” comicbooks.com