Life, 1928-07-26 · page 6 of 36
Life — July 26, 1928 — page 6: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This cartoon satirizes **campaign financing corruption** during an early 20th-century election. The caption claims "The Voter Can Pick Out the 'Old Hokum' Every Time"—but the image shows the opposite: a blindfolded man sits while well-dressed politicians hand him various cigars labeled with candidate names (visible: "SMITH," "ROGERS"). The joke is **ironic**: voters claim they can discern honest candidates from fraudulent ones, yet the cartoon suggests they cannot—they're literally blindfolded. The politicians surrounding him appear to be offering indistinguishable "campaign cigars" (likely representing campaign promises or bribes). The accompanying text criticizes candidates accepting money from the public while pursuing their own agenda, and urges readers to support the Anti-Bunk Party instead of traditional candidates.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
tionary to hide behind, If the people would just use their head for one minute and ask themselves, “HOW CAN A MAN BE FOR TWO OPPOSITE THINGS AT THE SAME TIME?” It’s fine of them to want to run a Cam- paign on a high plane, But it would be just like me wanting to conduct my Cam- paign on a strictly Gramatical basis. T would like to, But I just ain’t equipped for it, and that’s the way they are. With Politicians as the tools you just ain’t equipped to conduct anything on a HIGH Plane. The whole election won't be a month old till everybody in it will Revert back to type, So that will give you a sort of a rough idea of how low it will get by fall. So that’s where the Anti-Bunk Party is a-lying now, Just to grab up the fellow that can see these other two boys are nice Kids, But they are just running for the Jobs. They got their minds set on the tail end of Pennsylvania Avenue, and they will promise anything short of pepe motion to have Senators eat breakfast with ‘em. Both as I say are personally O. K. But the lads are bogged up in Applesauce with their platform, “A Campaign on a High Plane.” Scorer, register the first Home run of the Comedy Campaign. So our party may not get many votes, but we got many a laugh coming before fall, and we've got our conscience intact. Please Don’t Send Us Money We Want Votes—Not Liberty Bonds A CONSIDERABLE number of citizens, in- flamed with enthusiasm for the Anti- Bunk Party and its invincible candidate, have been sending financial contributions to our campaign fund. This practice must stop! To begin with, we haven't any cam- paign fund—and we don’t want to injure our amateur standing by starting to col- lect one. If one of those Senate Investi- gating Committees heard that we were accepting gifts from the public, they’ abpocns Our Candidate ahd make 2 come to Washington, which is unbearably hot in the summer, and anyway, we cant afford to have him wasting his time talk. ing to Senators. So please don’t send us any more money, especially in the form of Lil Bonds or postage stamps. Liberty would get us into trouble (even if we sent them right back, as Mellon did) and stamps stick to our fingers. Memeersnip in the Anti-Bunk Pany is open to all, We can’t buy any votes, bur we'll accept any number of them as gifts Whatever your previous party affiliz. tions—whatever section of the count you come from—whatever your bank-rol] —whatever church you go to or stay away from—whatever your taste in liquor—f you're an enemy of Bunk, you're a friend of Will Rogers’, and we want you with us, If you want to sign up with the Ant- Bunk Party, and vote for Rogers, send in your name to Rogers Campaign Head- quarters, 598 Madison Ave., New York. Tue BiinpFoLp Test ror Campaicn Cicars The Voter Can Pick Out the “Old Hokum” Every Time comicbooks.com