Judge — April 23, 1904 — page 16: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page contains two satirical cartoons from early 20th-century Judge magazine: **Top cartoon ("The Best of Reasons"):** A husband fishing while his wife stays home. The joke reflects period gender dynamics—husbands valued fishing trips as escape from wives, implying marital tension or wives as unwelcome companions. **Bottom cartoon ("Falling Back on Patriotism"):** Two working-class men (depicted in immigrant dialect) discuss rising suicides among laborers. One sarcastically misquotes Patrick Henry's famous "Give me liberty or give me death" speech, claiming Henry actually warned against "contagious prosperity"—the irony being that *too much work* (not oppression) is killing workers. The cartoon satirizes how employers invoke patriotic rhetoric to justify harsh working conditions and low wages during a period of industrial expansion. Both cartoons mock social complacency: marital dissatisfaction and labor exploitation masked by humor or patriotic sentiment.