The captain of an ocean liner offers a toast to his passengers sitting around a large dining table on a ship that is rocking a bit too much for most passengers. Caption: The Captain — Ladies and gentlemen, I drink to your very good health!
comments and context
Comments and Context
Cartoonist Ehrhart here makes a humorous, not political, comment on a contemporary trend, the increasing popularity of ocean cruises. Rising prosperity in the United States enabled this trend that joined rail travel and resort vacations among the upper classes. Steamship lines hurried their production of luxury liners — in England by the White Star and Cunard lines; in Germany by the North German-Lloyd line. In the United States, J. P. Morgan devoted resources to enter, and, of course, dominate, the transatlantic passenger and shipping fleets. After purchasing shipbuilding companies in Cleveland and Philadelphia but failing to secure federal subsidies, he bought into Great Britain’s White Star line, even hiring its executive Bruce Ismay. (In 1912, it was the White Star’s The Titanic that famously sank, and its chief, Ismay, who shamefully climbed aboard a lifeboat as many perished.)
