Life — September 21, 1928 — page 11: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis The top cartoon depicts a formal Senate dinner where one guest has brought an enormous pile of what appears to be potatoes—labeled "The Inverterate Golfer Carries the Caddie Idea Still Farther." This satirizes two competing 1932 Senate candidates discussed in the text below: Mr. Curtis and Mr. Robinson. The joke compares their campaign tactics to a golfer absurdly carrying excessive baggage (the potatoes symbolizing political "baggage" or campaign promises). The accompanying text criticizes both candidates' Senate campaign speeches as lacking coherence and substance, comparing Robinson's approach to a "jerky presentation" lacking plan. The bottom cartoon is a separate domestic humor joke: when asked about a huge structure behind a house, the owner replies it's merely a bathroom—satirizing the era's trend toward increasingly elaborate home fixtures.