Judge, 1911-09-23 · page 5 of 26
Judge — September 23, 1911 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The top panel depicts a tavern scene satirizing the Mormon Church's leadership. The text criticizes the church president's denial that Mormons still practice polygamy, arguing they must "perfect" it through simplified folk songs like "Yankee Doodle" and "Dixie" performed at "pupil recitals." The bottom illustration, captioned "CAN YOU BEAT IT?", shows an early automobile broken down beside a tree, with a man working on repairs while another sits dejectedly nearby. This appears to satirize the unreliability of early automobiles—the joke being that despite their modern technology, they constantly fail, making horse travel seem preferable. A gas sign visible in the background emphasizes this is about automotive frustration rather than fuel availability. Both pieces mock institutional incompetence through humor.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
| ae president of the Mormon Church indignantly denies that the Mormons are still practicing polygamy, and we guess he is perfectly right. It would be a sheer waste of time. The Mormons must be so perfect at it by this time that they don’t need to practice it any more than Mr. Paderewski needs to practice ‘‘Yankee Doodle,’’ ‘‘Dixie,"’ or any other of the simple songs of the people, to get them over at a public recital. UE | “CAN YOU Yes. Bildad, although a gathering of birds is ordinarily referred to as a flock, we presume it would be all right for you to allude to a gathering of crows as a caw-cus; but if you don’t mind we'd rather have you say it to us over the telephone. We are suffering just at present from an acute attack of the gout in our right foot, and your reward if you were to say it to us in person might cause us some suffering. BEAT IT?" comicbooks.com