Judge — 1888 — page 68: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This appears to be a political cartoon from Judge magazine promoting the "Sohmer Piano" as a humorous solution to winning the 1888 presidential election. The scene depicts a formal concert hall with "Columbia" (female personification of America) and four men in formal dress around a grand piano. The visible text references turning from "political combatants" and "clamoring food" to the piano as the path to victory. The joke conflates American politics with musical performance: rather than engage in messy political debate, the cartoon satirically suggests that owning a quality Sohmer Piano is "the ticket" to electoral success in '88. This appears to be advertising disguised as political satire—a common Judge practice—mocking both the shallow nature of political campaigns and consumer culture's promises of transformation.