Judge, 1915-05-29 · page 7 of 24
Judge — May 29, 1915 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page collects satirical commentary on early 20th-century American society through poetry and humor columns. **"Little Boy Blow"** mocks American self-promotion culture, arguing that modesty loses elections while boasting succeeds—a critique of press agents and celebrity marketing dominating public discourse. **"The New Wheeze"** ridicules unemployed actors who deny joblessness by claiming movie work, satirizing the entertainment industry's pretension and actors' defensive pride during economic hardship. **"Hopeless Case"** jokes about pervasive pessimism, depicting a man so defeatist he can't even fantasize without imagining debt—commentary on financial anxiety and depression-era gloom. **"Metamorphosis"** cynically argues that moralists' arbitrary ethical codes transform ordinary people into "sinners," suggesting rigid moralizing creates guilt rather than virtue. **"Dishonesty"** uses parent-child dialogue to mock political corruption: the joke's dark humor suggests vote-buying is acceptable if properly compensated—satire of normalized political bribery. The **top illustration** of an infant tree with a waiting crane likely represents political succession or patronage systems awaiting direction.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE OFFICER IN CHARGE OF THE INFANT-TREE AWAITING ORDERS Little Boy Blow H, LITTLE BOY BLUE, come, blow your horn, Or you might as well have never been born. Come, puff out your bosom and strut up and down And shout your own praises around through the town. The press agent’s howling all over the lot. Without a disturbance you're quickly forgot. Napoleon, Czsar and all of those guys, Their stories are writ round the theme: Advertise. We all praise the cut of mild Modesty’s coat, But Boaster’s the fellow who captures the vote; So the lesson to learn in life's early morn Is, Little Boy Blue, to blow your horn! Walter G. Doty. The New Wheeze “Out of a job?’’ asked Yorick Hamm. “Aside from the fact that the same is couched in unprofessional language,’’ re- plied Hamlet Fatt, with dignity, ‘‘your in- quiry savors of ribaldry and is, moreover, uncouth. An actor is never at liberty these days. If you don’t see his name on a Broadway bill, he is getting more money from the movies.’’ Hopeless Case **Pessimistic, is he?"’ “To the ultimate limit. He couldn't even imagine a castle in the air without a mortgage on One of the very uncommon things is com- mon sense. Metamorphosis NCE there was a good man who lived a happy and a busy life. But one day there came along a moralist, and he wrote an elaborate code of ethics which specifically prohibited everything that the good man was doing. Then the moralist who had made the code took it to the good man and said, ‘‘Here, if you will read what is written in these pages, you will very quickly perceive that you are not a good man at all, but a very bad man.’" Thus does ethics make sinners of us all. Dishonesty “Pop, in politics is it dishonest to buy votes?"* “*Yes, my son, if you don’t pay for them.’’ comicbooks.com