Judge, 1915-05-29 · page 5 of 24
Judge — May 29, 1915 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The cartoon satirizes the declining prestige of traditional professions. Two well-dressed figures admire a distant city, discussing its beauty—establishing an aspirational tone that's then undercut by the accompanying text. "Take a Letter" pivots to mock stenographers. The text celebrates stenography as a lucrative profession, claiming stenographers earn $8-18 weekly and can eventually run businesses. However, it simultaneously ridicules stenographers through pointed observations: they're the only office workers who arrive late, dress poorly for evening events, and lack mirrors (suggesting poor self-awareness). The satire targets the growing white-collar workforce and economic mobility myths of the era, implying that while stenography promised advancement, the reality was undignified labor with modest rewards.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE TREND OF THOUGHT Florrie—Look, Fred! How beautiful the T A K E ‘HERE used to be a time, if a man had something to say to another ma~, when he took his pen in hand and said it. Now he tells it to a girl or blows it into a horn. In thuse good old days the pen was alleged to be mightier than the sword; now its prin- cipal and almost exclusive uses are to sign checks and figure baseball aver- ages. The pen used to be mightier than the sword; but now the stenog- rapher is mightier than both of them. Stenographers are manufactured by business colleges, which are seats of learning scattered through the down- town districts of our largest cities. Graduation therefrom does not entitle you to membership in the University Club, nor does it confer any degrees. But it has other and superlative ad- vantages. It will get you a job for from eight to eighteen dollars a week, whether you know how to spell with- (Gad! you know we've all got a bit 0° the warrior in us!) city is from here. How far do you suppose it is? | Fred—Oh, I sh’ say the—ah—range was about seven thousand yards. A L E out looking it up or not. The raw material from which stenographers are manufactured comes principally from the grammar grades. Many a promising kindergarten in a town has been broken up by some enterprising business college. Guest—Do you serve a dinner for fifty cents, waiter? Waiter—Yes, sir; but the bread and butter is extra, sir. T T E R The stenographer is the only one in the office who can come down fifteen minutes late in the morning and get away with it. The stenographer is also the only person who notices it if there isn’t a mirror over the sink. A stenographer without a mirror over the sink is practically helpless. The stenographer is likewise the only person who comes to work in a party dress. A man very seldom appears in evening clothes to take up the day's occupation, but the stenographer will very often put in an appearance dolled up as if she were going to attend a wake. The stenographer is the real financier of the United States. Many a man who has fifty thousand dollars a year with which to run a business wishes he could make it go as far as the girl can stretch the eighteen a week. A new style no more than has its eyes open comicbooks.com