Judge — October 5, 1901 — page 8: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This is a political cartoon from Judge magazine (copyright 1901) satirizing anarchists. The image shows a devil figure confronting an anarchist, with the devil declaring he's "worse than" the anarchist and warning: "Don't you dare try to implicate me!" The cartoon's point appears to be that anarchists—who engaged in violent acts and assassinations around the turn of the 20th century—are so morally depraved that even the devil himself wants to distance himself from them. The scattered objects (books, newspapers) suggest anarchist propaganda and violent planning. This reflects early 1900s American anxiety about anarchism as a violent political movement, particularly following the 1901 assassination of President McKinley by an anarchist. The satire inverts traditional morality: even evil personified rejects association with anarchists as beyond the pale.