Judge, 1917-01-13 · page 8 of 28
Judge — January 13, 1917 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a comedic dialogue between two Jewish immigrant characters—Markowitz (the boss) and Henry (his employee and brother-in-law)—depicting their contrasting philosophies about money, work, and life during what appears to be WWI-era America. **The satire:** Markowitz represents the anxious, money-obsessed businessman obsessed with losses and debts. Henry represents the optimistic laborer who finds joy in singing and philosophy despite hardship. When Markowitz complains about a client (Davis) who lived lavishly before going bankrupt, Henry defends music as spiritually valuable—worth more than diamonds. Markowitz dismisses this as naive. **The humor** relies on Yiddish-inflected English dialect ("woik," "noivous," "coitified") common in early 20th-century American comedy depicting Jewish immigrants. The final panel's joke—an "Optimist" and "Pessimist" exchange about the war—suggests Henry's cheerfulness may be foolish given real hardships outside their discussion. The piece satirizes both immigrant anxieties about financial survival and American materialism.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
66PPSRA-LA-LA-LA, tra-la-la-la,” dreamily hummed Henry Shapiro as he looked through his ledger in search of information requested by Max Markowitz, his boss and brother-in-law. “What's the joy by you?” demanded Markowitz, throw- ing down his daily trade paper filled with business news—pleas- ant and unpleasant. “A feller like you must dance by a fu- neral, if you sing by a failure, where your own brother-in-law is one of the family of creditors! A fine friend you——” “What should I do, cry?” flared back Henry. “Like I lost a relation—an only friend?” “Nu, ain’t money the only friend we got in this woild?” snapped back Markowitz, with a sweeping gesture. “Of course,” retorted Henry. “By people that act like money is their only friend, their money is not only their friend, but their enemy, too.” “If my money is my enemy,” sneered Markowitz, “I wish I was born with nothing but enemies. But how about our customer’s account—Davis & Springer—what I saw on the mechula list this morning? I ask you to give me some facts and you give me a song.” “Can't I sing by my own woik?” maintained Henry, defiantly. “What am I, a shine-boy? Your slave? You don’t let a feller be happy a minute. By you, so soon something goes bad right away you want everybody to go around without heads, without smiles, without jokes, without——” “By you it’s a joke to lose—" broke in Markowitz, in a rasping voice. “Sure it’s a joke,” laughed Henry. “Sing it off! Laugh it off! Forget it! What's good-b; good-bye. Yesterday is such a back number that even if you should try to sell it— the whole twenty-four hours—for a second, nobody would even take a minute's trouble to look at it. I bet you Joe Davis from Davis & Springer, himself ain’t looking half so worried like——” MARKOWITZ AND HENRY DISCUSS MUSIC AND ITS HARMS by LOT RAB cried Markowitz at the “He runned around “That banditte! That spend mention of one of the bankrupt’s names. with otomobiles and now I got to run around like mad. Hurry up! Find out how much we got stung by them! When I was last year by that Davis, he was living like a prince—on my money. And every minute it was ‘Markowitz, have a cigar!’ ‘Mark, old boy, have a schnapps!’ ‘Max, come up mine house!’ And you ought to see that feller’s house—with all the finest trimmings—imported stuff. Golden phono- graphs with diamond records; picktches, what the painting is woith more than the frame; a little table what costs so much, that it should be kept in a safe. So soon I come in his parlor, Caruso commenced to sing; and that sc/nwindler Davis enjoyed every note like it was a coitified check.” “Coitified check!” echoed Henry, stopping in his search for the required account. ‘Music is woith more than dia- monds by people that have music in their hearts; and is the best medicine for noivous people like you.” “Like me? Noivous! Who's noivous?” denied Marko- witz, defiantly. “No, no, not you,” mocked Henry, “you're so cool like Optimist—This war will soon blow over. Pessimist—Yes—over here. comicbooks.com