Judge, 1913-10-11 · page 8 of 24
Judge — October 11, 1913 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three separate satirical pieces mocking early 20th-century vanity and social values: **"An Irreducible Minimum"** (poem by S.X. Wilson): Satirizes male materialism and superficiality. The speaker's deathbed "minimum" wish list—silk shirts, spats, greased hair, creased trousers, gold-filled teeth, manicures—mocks men who prioritize grooming and fashion over meaningful accomplishments. The title suggests these trivial concerns represent the bare essentials of a shallow life. **"The Junior Member Speaks"**: Contrasts family members' noble ideals (abolishing poverty, ensuring justice, women's suffrage) with a ten-year-old boy's purely imaginative, self-centered fantasy of baseball using cosmic-scale props. The satire critiques childish materialism versus adult progressivism. **"As Things Go To-Day"**: A brief domestic joke where a wife requests $30 weekly "pin money" and the husband sarcastically compares it to alimony payments—implying marriage costs approach divorce settlements. This satirizes marital financial tension and changing women's economic demands.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
An Irreducible Minimum O+4. WHEN I shall be called to die, Let me have had the price to buy Asilk shirt anda pair of spats And the one best ON» © bet in haughty hats! Let me have had my coiffure as —t = greased And parallels in trousers creased; My boots englazed, and round my neck A two-bone scarf without a fleck! Let me have had my teeth fresh filled With gold meticulously milled; And let me be, ere I’m immured (If nothing else), womanicured! —S. X. Wilson. The Junior Member Speaks HE SEVERAL members of the fam- ily had been telling what they would do if they owned the world. Mother would abolish poverty. Father would provide absulute justice for all. Sister Sarah would give every woman the vote. Finally the views of ten-year-old Johnny were sought. “*What ’ud I do if I owned the world?”” said he, looking up from a geography he had been studying. ‘‘Well, I'll tell you what I'd do. First I'd get old Atlas to sign up two baseball teams among his brothers and cousins; then I'd lay outa diamond on the Desert of Sahara, put the Rocky Mountains around it fora fence, give the players the moon for a ball and the North Pole for a bat, and, say, maybe I wouldn’t sit on top of Pike’s Peak and see some ball game!"’ Elusive Some things on earth are very strange; The mysteries thereof are many. They say this is a world of change, And yet I cannot borrow any! AS THINGS GO TO-DAY Hermione—1 think you should allow me thirty dollars pin money a week, Herman. Herman—Great Scott! You couldn't get as much as that in alimony! comicbooks.com