Judge, 1915-11-27 · page 9 of 28
Judge — November 27, 1915 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes early 20th-century progressive reforms and modern trends. The opening section mocks **Eugenics** (improving the race through selective breeding), **Uplift** (reformers meddling in others' affairs), and **Efficiency** (removing human joy through excessive systematization)—all fashionable among reformers of the era. The "Modern Derivations" section offers cynical redefinitions: **Egotist** as an excellent sailor, **Life** as a gamble or dance, **Society** as a hierarchy where the wealthy climb via "Alpenstock of Money." The bottom cartoon shows a car disaster with caption mocking deceptive advertising claims about fuel efficiency. The poem "Village Nightingale" describes **Sammy Sisson**, a barber with operatic talent trapped in his mundane job—a commentary on wasted potential and the grinding constraints of ordinary life. The overall tone: *skeptical mockery* of both progressive idealism and modern consumerism, celebrating traditional values over trendy reform movements.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The Seven Blunders of Modernity E“ ‘ICS: A foolish attempt to improve the rac promote human happiness by substituting anatom affinity for love. Uplift: A contagious mania for throwing monkey wrenches into the evolutionary machinery of human be- ings who are hard at work attending to their own business. Efficiency: The removal of all the waste and all the joy from all human activity; displacing common sense with the micrometer caliper and the slide rule. Prosperity: The much longed-for condition of being unrea- sonably well off; equally fatal to individuals, institutions and commonwealths. Vers Libre: Club-footed poetry; rhythm in the last stages of locomotor ataxia. Sexology: Conscious evolution on a rampage; a disas- trous mixture of underdone ethics, unthought suggestion, and natural instinct Associated ‘Chari ficiency in brotherly love and SOPORIFIC sympathy; a convenient expedient for allaying the pangs of Ashford —How are the acoustic propertics in that new church? conscience while the fruits of legal pillage are enjoyed. Bassford—Great ! If you sit-well back you can't hear a word of the sermon. —H. W. Dee. Modern Derivations A round of pleasure: putting spokes in another person’s wheel. MATEUR ARC HITECTS: people who build castles in Spain. Original highbrows: the Attic philosophers. sf s hing that never pains but it bores. Boob: a man who wears smarter clothes than you, who makes a Imitation: the tribute that mediocrity pays to originalit hit where you do not, and who whirls your girl away for a joy-ride Common Sense: what you have that the other fellow lacks. while you're counting out your change for the street-car tickets. Life: a gamble to the fatalist, a gambol to the young. Societ; sort of mountain of which the hoi polloi get the peak Bare lic: something that some people can clothe in such a way as via the newspaper route, and the socially elect the summit by means to make it appear the naked truth. of the Alpenstock of Money. —Don Bregenzer. Egotist: a person who would make an excellent sailor with his continual piping of “I, 1, sir!” Agreed To With Provisos Garden of Love: a place where quarrels are picked and where She—Do you believe in confidences between man and wife? the fruits of victory often consist of lemons He—Why yes, if her husband isn’t jealous. The Village Nightingale AMMY SISSON softly sings. Moons and Junes, and rings and springs, Loves and doves, and blossoms rare— Sammy stops to sling his hair, Blond and curly, from his brow, ‘Then proceeds his rhythmic row— Flow from out his mandolin. At such times he hates like sin Whiskered customers and things Interrupting while he sings. Sammy Sisson heads the list; He’s our crack tonsorialist. But he might have won renown Had hard fate not held him down To the cursed barber chair, Pruning whiskers, cutting hair. But, alas, he cannot dodge Exg-shampoos and the muss-sodge. Ever ‘tis his dreary fate Hair and beards to amputate. Toils he for the filthy dross; What is now Grand Op'ry’s loss Is our humble hamlet’s gain. Thus does genius strive and strain To escape the galling gyves That must bind themall their hves. Sammy Sisson might have shone; Now we claim him for our own. So he sits and softly sings, Winters, summers, autumns, Fit punishment for the agent who told you the car would go twenty miles on a gallon springs.—Tom P. Morgan. comicbooks.com