Judge, 1904-10-01 · page 2 of 16
Judge — October 1, 1904 — page 2: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This cartoon satirizes American bureaucratic inefficiency and red tape. The scene depicts a street-level interaction where citizens encounter officials behind windows and barriers—the visual metaphor for government obstruction. The joke below—contrasting a pleasant vacation with a hospital stay from a "broken leg"—suggests that dealing with government bureaucracy is as unpleasant as being injured. The title "Our Autocracy" sarcastically compares American democratic institutions to authoritarian rule, implying that citizens experience government as oppressively rigid and impersonal. The cartoon criticizes how ordinary people navigate multiple official channels and offices, reduced to anonymous applicants facing indifferent institutional power. This reflects Progressive Era complaints about bloated, inefficient government becoming increasingly distant from citizens' needs.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
PUBLISHED WEEKLY Ar Tne Parkke BUILDING, Fourrm AVENUE AND Ninxreextn SteKKT, New Youk. Western Apvexrisine Ornicr—1313 Hard rt Building, Chicage, Ml, TERMS TO SUPSCRIPERS: UNITED STATES AND CANADA IN ADVANCE. 1 se numbers = 0 weeks . Including the Cuntsratas Jui FOREIGN SUPSCRIPTIONS—To all foreign countries in the postal union, $6.00 a year. Eonoenan saurs-acents—Jaternational News Company, Di The contents of FUDGE are protected by copyright in ncery Lane, F.C, London : Brentano's, Avenue det" Opera, Paris th the United States and Great Britain, Saarbach's News Exchange, Mainz, (grmany. Infringement of this conyright will be promptty and Pigowusly prosecuted. is, otherbvise return of the Latter when found unavailaNe cannot be guaranteed. DRAWINGS and alt contributions sent to the Art D ent si fa descrintive letler-press should in every instance be writen uzon its individ insure safe and prompt return of matertal not . name and address Written plainiy on each and every separate sketch. ture, and NOT uron a separate slip of paper. Inciosure of stamps to the full amount of rostage is also reauired, 10 The accompanying fobe or T HAVING become known that Kuropatkin means little partridge, we naturally yearn to learn the Japanese equivalent of toast. OW the aster and the catkin In the zephyr sigh. Gee! but can’t old Kuropatkin Flit and flee and fly! White THE LAWN-MOWER is being relegated to the murky fast- nesses of the cellar, and the salvias glimmer and the hydrangeas bob against the pensive banks of haze, : the chunks of gloom tl re lying around unchained, are vaselining their pinions for a southward flight, then, oh, then! do the hosts and cohorts of Underhill Parker tremble in a body and apart when they dream of the broom that is already preparing to sweep them ruthlessly from the scene when the leaves in sudden eddies hurtle athwart the dull, empurpled wold. LJNDERHILL PARKER is rather crestfallen, not to say sad to the core, when he considers the tillers of the field that recently did some tall toiling and spinning about in the s horny-handed down-easters g: d the merry minstrels, overcome by tes of Maine and Vermont. These ve the Esopus haymaker a taste of their political quality which is asa garden of unripe cucumbers lodging in his mental stomach. He is now aware of the fact that the rural vote will be a lively factor in the coming election, and that the livelier it shall become the worse it will be for him and his ancient running-mate. He also knows, ue ! too well, if he knows anything, that the bucolic vote will be both a success and a failure—a success for the man with the sword and a for the man with the telegram. S A SWINGER and a slinger. of the paste-brush Belmont is so much in a class by himself that he appears to be absolutely lonesome. His style is peculiarly artistic and swift, and bristles with a charm which should gain him a life-contract with any patent-medicine concern that would ave the side of a barn or a coal-yard fence covered with the iridescent posters that set forth the virtues of its mixtures in a given space of time. His paste is of the hundred-cent-Jollar quality to the eye, while in spirit it is of the fifty-five-cent variety. Still, he is spraying it to the right and to the left over the backs of all the Democratic stars, from Parker to the historic donkey, whose bray, changed from andante to adagio, passes current in the Tammany wigwam for a peroration on anything from archeology to pie by the champion windsmith, William Jennings Bryan. The Belmont trading- stamp now decorates the slats and the wishbones of each and every Dem- tic knight that comes within the radius of the Belmont brush until they shimmer and shine and scintillate in panel, frieze and dado. Decorated in this fantastic fashion, they are, if possible, even more picturesque than usual, The Tammany war-paint cannot add to their general gorgeousness and grandeur. They are quite as lustrous as illustrious; and yet, when all has been said on the subject, their colors, like their hopes, will fade even as the flowers in the frost that will appear upon the scene considerably in- side of the brief period of two moons. — OUR AUTOCRACY. “Oh, yes: | enjoyed my vacation. Had a fine, airy room, good bed, nice grub, perfect attendance, and lots of rest."* ++ For heaven's sake! where were you?” “In the hospital, with a broken leg.” comicbooks.com