Life, 1929-01-04 · page 20 of 36
Life — January 4, 1929 — page 20: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page collects brief news items paired with sarcastic editorial quips. The main cartoon depicts a wife discovering her husband has purchased a trombone—a comedic domestic scene about wasteful spending during the Jazz Age. The accompanying "Life at Home" section mocks contemporary news through dry wit. Examples include: - **Naval recruitment**: After reporting the Navy needs 5,000 more enlisted men, the quip "Join the Navy and see Herbert Hoover" sarcastically references the then-President. - **Anti-Saloon League satire**: A Harvard physicist's pressure machine is jokingly suggested as a tool to coerce congressional temperance supporters. - **Transit statistics**: New York's transit ridership figure (3.2 billion) is mocked as impossible—"all packed in one car." - **Women and smoking**: Kansas's WCTU campaign against cigarettes is dismissed as misguided; the quip blames climate instead. The humor relies on readers recognizing current events and political figures, making pointed critiques of 1920s American society through absurdist exaggeration.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
CHICAGO, Dec. 10—The prediction that the white race eventually will turn brown was made today by Dr. Morris Fishbein, editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Yeah? ——s Zaye AB: yy) ee. TTR NEW YORK, N. Y., Dec. 23—Negotia- ‘ a a tions are reported under way in Wall St. AN: rp : looking toward a merger of the Yarns "> VY Vas yct’e by | corporations of America. We may now look for better fiction. WASHINGTON, D. C., Dec. 16—Ad-| Hotel, where Rothstein was shot, failed to miral Hughes, chief of Naval operations, | gain her freedom this afternoon and was} NEW YORK, N. Y., Dec. 20—Statistics said in his annual report that more than|held in default of $5,000 bail. She}released today show that 3,235,200,000 5,000 additional enlisted men would be}thumbed her nose at the crowd in the | people use the transit system of New York needed. corridor. City every year. Join the Navy and sce Herbert Hoover. pictir | imm Th and | No need to be snooty about it. And all packed in one car. NEW YORK, N. Y., Dec. 20—The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in Brooklyn has upheld a ruling that pedestrians have the right of way. Well, so they have, when they're in a hearse. BOSTON, Dec. 23—Percy W. Bridg- man, professor of physics at Harvard, has perfected a machine capable of producing a pressure of 600,000 pounds to the square inch—the greatest ever attained by human artifice—but outside its scientific value he cannot think of any use to which it can be put. The Anti-Saloon League might use it on members of Congress. NEW SYSTEM OF SPELLING LES- SONS ADOPTED IN SCHOOLS Children of 5 and 6 years are learning to spell and write on portable typewriters instead of manually in the Horace Mann elementary school at Teachers’ College, Columbia University. Good idea. Why not extend the course to include grown-up stenogs. TOPEKA, Kansas, Dec. 21—The W. C. T. U. of this city is preparing a drive for the passage of the Anti-Cigarette law which was repealed last year. “Cigarettes are making idiots of Kansas women,” states Miss Lorraine Wooster, secretary of the organization. Nonsense, it’s the climate. LEMOYNE, Pa., Dec. 19—Mrs. D. C. Pentz of this city has found during the course of several years more than 2,000 four-leaf clovers. What luck. NEW YORK, N. Y., Dec. 21—Bridget ~ Farry, chambermaid at the Park Central “John, dear, don't tell me you've bought a trombone!” comicbooks.com