Judge — January 26, 1907 — page 1: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This 1907 Judge magazine cartoon satirizes Leopold II of Belgium. The grotesque caricature depicts him as a grotesquely decorated figure wearing a crown labeled "CONGO" and "JEWEL," with dollar signs for eyes. The labels "SPECULATIVE" and "SECURITIES" on flowing robes reference financial exploitation. The caption "Do you love this old man?" is sarcastic commentary on Leopold's brutal colonial rule in the Congo. Leopold personally owned the Congo as private property and extracted vast wealth through rubber production, resulting in mass suffering and death among Congolese people—a scandal that was becoming widely known in America by this period. The cartoon exposes Leopold as a greedy tyrant enriching himself through colonial violence.