Judge, 1912-01-27 · page 7 of 24
Judge — January 27, 1912 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical piece uses Columbus as a vehicle to mock contemporary American immigration and social issues circa 1492's "discovery" anniversary (likely early 1900s). **The cartoon's joke**: The top illustration shows cyclists calling someone "lazy brute"—a pun on "wheelman" (cyclist slang). Columbus becomes the butt of the joke for his leisurely pace of discovery. **The satire's targets**: - **Immigration**: Butler notes Columbus "began the immigration problem which is still with us," referencing ongoing debates about Ellis Island processing - **Educational incompetence**: School maps omitted entire continents; officials ignore corrections, asking "What is there in it for us?"—mocking corruption and indifference - **Social progress**: Columbus couldn't witness bananas at five-for-three-cents prices or immigrant neighborhoods with German opera in Irish quarters—satirizing rapid urbanization and cultural mixing **The deeper point**: By comparing Columbus's era to the present, Butler suggests America's current "problems" (immigration, sloppy infrastructure, educational graft) stem from Columbus's original arrival. It's a darkly humorous critique of American institutional failure and xenophobia.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Old time wheelman—" Lazy brate!"" Christopher Columbus. By ELLIS PARKER BUTLER, Author of ‘‘ Pigs Is Pigs.”” N OCTOBER 12th, 1492, Christo- pher Columbus took his large, forceful foot out of his boat and set it on the beach of Guanahani, one of the Bahama Islands, immediately putting the other foot beside it, and thus he be- gan the immigration problem which is still with us, although C. Columbus has passed away. Had he waited but a few short centuries, he could have landed at Ellis Island and had his teeth examined free of charge. Truly, haste makes waste, C. Colon, as his neighbors called him, or Chris, as he was. affectionately termed by his crew, died in 1506, thus failing to live long enough to see the banana sold three for five cents and to hear Wagner's German tidbits played on an Italian hand organ in the Irish quar- ter of the land he discovered. What he would have said had he heard Wagner's dulcet strains is now only a matter for conjecture. There are some historians who say he would have spread his face in a glad, sweet smile, while others con- tend he would have discovered Alaska before he stopped running. None can tell. The parents of C. Colomb, as he was sometimes called, were woolcombers, which accounts for his long hair. Being combers by profession, his parents did not mind combing it. They combed it y morning, just to get their hands limber for the day's work. It is said that Chris’s father was something of a joker himself, and that he remarked, when Chris was born, ‘‘Woolcomb, little stranger!’’ but the little stranger would not woolcomb. He is said to have re- marked, ‘‘No, father; I have other plans. Herrman the ‘Great is getting old and there is an opening for a first- class sleight-of-hand man that can do neat parlor tricks with eggs and discover China off the coast of South America.’’ By this it will be seen that Christoval, as he was sometimes called, was hazy in his geography. Indeed, the school map of the world of those days was far from the map as we know it now. Through carelessness or graft, large slices of the world were omitted from the school maps; and when the matter was brought to the attention of the board of educa- tion, and suggestions were made that four or five continents seemed to have broken loose from their moorings and to have floated off, and the board was asked to get a new set of geographies, the only answer they made was, ‘‘What is there in it forus?’’ Nowadays Amer- ica can be found on all good European maps of the world, being retained on comicbooks.com