Judge — May 7, 1898 — page 16: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This Judge magazine page references the USS Maine explosion of February 1898, which precipitated the Spanish-American War. The top text "Remember the Maine!" was a war rallying cry used to mobilize American support against Spain. The central figure appears to be Uncle Sam (the striped-pants character), flanked by four photographs. The cartoon juxtaposes the Maine disaster with the stated concern for "starving Cubans"—the humanitarian justification for American intervention in Cuba's war for independence from Spain. The satire likely critiques American foreign policy: questioning whether intervention was genuinely motivated by humanitarian concern for Cuban suffering, or primarily driven by nationalist fervor over the Maine. The placement of these competing appeals suggests irony about the true motivations behind American military action.