Judge, 1917-05-26 · page 7 of 32
Judge — May 26, 1917 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This cartoon satirizes German musical culture and naming pretensions. A visitor admires a newborn baby while addressing the father as "Herr Kapellmeister" (orchestra conductor), speaking in exaggerated German-accented English with stereotypical dialect. The joke centers on operatic ambition: the parents cannot agree whether to name their son after Wagner's *Lohengrin* or *Siegfried*—both famous operas. Unable to decide, they've temporarily named him "Opus I" (musical terminology for a composer's first work). The satire mocks Germanic musical snobbery and the pretension of naming children after grand operatic heroes rather than ordinary names. The "musical forehead" compliment plays on pseudoscientific phrenology theories popular in the era. The exaggerated German accent reinforces ethnic stereotyping common in American satirical magazines of this period.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
HIS TITLE Visitor—Oh, it’s a beautiful baby. And such a musical forehead! What have you named him, Herr Kapellmeister? “Ach Gott. ve cannot already decide on a name. My vife she vants he should be Lohengrin, and I vant him to be Siegfried, so yet he iss still yust Opus I.” comicbooks.com