Judge, 1909-09-18 · page 7 of 16
Judge — September 18, 1909 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes the "Wets vs. Drys" political debate—the Prohibition movement that dominated early 20th-century American politics. **Main Editorial ("Wets and Drys"):** The author humorously imagines what would happen if rain-making technology worked: society would split into rival political parties as bitterly divided as the actual liquor debate. Manufacturers of rain coats would war against straw-hat makers; universities would publish pseudo-scientific defenses of each position. The satire mocks how Prohibition advocates turned a simple moral question into an all-consuming partisan crusade affecting every institution. **Three Comic Strips Below:** - "Got What He Wanted": A Harlem man marries his cook—satirizing working-class life choices - "The Retort Courteous" and "The Bad Egg Again": Mild domestic humor about eggs and airships The page uses exaggeration to critique Prohibition's divisive, ideological fervor consuming American politics and society.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
WETS AND DRYS. t fortunate that the elimate is not subj slation? What a world of trouble we have been saved by a divine providence in making us unable to say exactly when the wet season shall begin, and to fix the closed season after or before which it shall be unlawful to shoot a straw hat. If the climate were subject to legislation; if a few years ago the rain-makers had suc. ceeded in anything more than skinning a few farmers and providing names and plots for farce comedies, it is plain to be seen that we would now be divided into political parties along new lines. Wets and drys, now confined to the booze question, would take on a new + and tight more bitterly than ever before. All the aweut makers would get into one party. All the manufacturers . eer RO CER B PRAIRIE: of rain-coats, with their salesmen and servants and maids and Po> :! IMPRovemE MY chauffeurs and landlords and grocers and preachers and newspapers, Comvany, BULOING Site, Fi 1) aaa VS MTT would get into the other party. Then we would be regaled with learned dissertations as to the comparative philological, philosophical, and physiological advan- tages of straw hats over rain-coats, and vice versa. The president of the straw-hat trust would endow a university to teach that a straw hat was really the proper thing the year round, and that rai coats were unsanitary, unscientific, treasonable, socialistic, anarch- istic, immoral, barbarous, harmful to business, injurious to con- fidence, unfair, unconstitutional, irreligious, etc., throughout the entire dictionary. When the straw-hat party once got thoroughly intrenched in power, they would very naturally advise us all to stand pat, to let well enough alone, and keep on letting well enough alone, If they were asked what the rain- ere going to do for a living they would sympat And so, now that everythin s settles ck to a colorless humdrum of an unissueful strug istence, for all except in the goodness of our hearts, h ected to offi ) (RSeme there are some questions wi : ie : } : andl haven't hod THE RETORT COURTEOUS. OUR hat's a ch- e' y down!” ‘ In seathi ; Ofc . : ! CANOLYN WELLS, Md my airship this morning.” 0? Thought you liked it, “Itdid not suit, Law says it must carry a light at wh out to see me land, and think I have steady Inte at night’? THE BAD EGG AGAIN GOT WHAT HE WANTED. Cuitemer—"* eany pood Harlem—* Vo vou know that Jones has married bis cook Grocer— sir.” . Hronx—* Just like him, He'd always rather fight than ea: Customer" My gracious! are they as far gone as that * comicbooks.com