Life — December 1932 — page 12: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis: "What the Country Needs" This satirical article by Parke Cummings mocks eugenic pseudoscience popular in the early 20th century. The piece purports to describe a "European laboratory" selectively breeding humans to eliminate undesirable traits—creating boys who don't cry, women who arrive punctually, men without humor, chess champions, and motorists who won't honk horns. The cartoons illustrate the absurdity: one shows a cluttered laboratory workspace ("Gosh, not a darned thing to do!"), another depicts a piano player in a domestic scene, mocking the notion that human behavior could be engineered through breeding. The satire critiques both scientific overreach and social control, ridiculing the idea that human personality flaws could be "fixed" through artificial selection—a concept the author presents as simultaneously ridiculous and slightly appealing to readers' frustrations.