Judge, 1915-04-10 · page 13 of 24
Judge — April 10, 1915 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous short story (not a political cartoon) by Tom P. Morgan titled "One Omission," illustrated with a scene of rural figures. The story's satire targets a specific personality type: the chronic worrier who obsesses over abstract, impersonal problems while remaining indifferent to actual human suffering around him. The narrator's brother-in-law Wendover Weams frets sequentially over: - Niagara Falls erosion - Skyscraper deterioration from electrolysis - The metaphysical problem of personal identity (the famous "ship of Theseus" paradox) - The monotony of pea-splitters' lives The joke's point: When the narrator finally tries redirecting this anxiety toward a real, concrete tragedy—starving sheep farmers attacked by wolves in the Northwest—Wendover either misses the hint or ignores it, continuing his abstract worrying instead. The satire mocks self-absorbed intellectualism divorced from practical compassion, suggesting some people prefer speculative anxieties to genuine human need.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
NO MAN CAN SERVE TWO MASTERS two years ago and doesn’t seem to have his profoundly obfuscated 6O\AY BROTHER-IN-LAW, Wendover Weams, who dropped in to dinner hunger thoroughly ap- peased yet, is just now 4 Qe over who actually owns v)_ the North Pole,” grimly ]} felated Grout P. Smith. J—|I!) «Some time ago he was 5-1 |} deeply concerned about |, what he had read of the awful ravages of elec- trolysis on the steel framework of sky- scrapers. (In passing, I may say that he has never owned any skyscrapers, and there are abundant signs that he never will, but all the same he was genuinely concerned about their impending fate.) “Before that, he went around sagged all out of shape with regret over the indiffer- ence of the great public toward art. Still prior to that, if I have got his afflictions in the proper rotation, he suffered real distress because of his inability to determine why ONE OMISSION By TOM P, MORGAN profanity is equal to medicine for rheuma- tism. This was preceded, I believe, by an extended season of worry over the wearing away and ultimate obliteration of Niagara Falls. At one time he had a period of de- pression over the terrible monotony of the lives of the unknown persons who split all the split peas. “Somewhere along the line he was plunged into melancholy over the changes that take place in the human body and the imminent danger of misplacing his identity. He rea- soned that as the body is continually renew- ing itself, it is due to be made completely over once in every seven years, and there- fore there was no means that he could think of for determining whether the original identity was preserved all through that pe- riod for use afterward or not. Something like the old problem of the knife blades and handles: If you have a pocketknife and lose the blade, and then have a new blade put it is still the same knife. If you then lose the handle and have a new handle riveted on, you naturally think you still possess the same knife. But if somebody else finds the old blade and old handle and puts them together, the question naturally arises, Which knife is the original one? ‘For various reasons I finally called his attention to the distressing condition of the innocent sheep raisers of the Northwest, whose mutton was being devoured by packs of ravening wolves. But if he detected the analogy, he has never mentioned it, but just continues to sit and worry about the men- ace of militarism, interspersed with eating with a firm hand at the customary hours, and does not even notice that I am wearing away twice as fast as Niagara!’’ “Sinking of ships It certainly does— Commercial item: sends cotton down.” to the very bottom. comicbooks.com