Judge, 1917-07-28 · page 8 of 28
Judge — July 28, 1917 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical cartoons mocking World War I home-front efforts. The top panel depicts civilians attempting wartime activities—studying tactics, manning equipment, digging trenches, handling barbed wire, standing sentry, spotting enemy aircraft, and managing gas attacks—with comedic incompetence. The figures are portrayed as bumbling amateurs playing soldier. The bottom article satirizes "Efficiency Engineers"—a contemporary business trend—through a narrator's friend who claims expertise while doing no actual work himself, merely directing others faster. The narrator ironically plans an "efficiency farm," suggesting the absurdity of applying corporate optimization theory to rural life. Together, the page mocks both civilian war participation as amateurish theater and the era's obsession with "efficiency" as a catch-all solution, presenting both as pretentious and ineffectual. The satire targets American overconfidence about contributing to WWI efforts.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Sentry Duty and Anti-Air Craft Gun A Prisoner of War Enemy Aeroplane Scouts Che Gas Ailack OL ee Victory -the Spoils of War CRecKeR The Charge GARDEN WARFARE OR SUBURBAN SOLDIERS OF THE SOIL YE A FRIEND who calls himself an Efficiency Engineer. There is something impressive about the gold letters on his office door which convinces me of the truth of his claim. To be an Efficiency Engineer one must, I think, be clever enough to add, subtract, multiply and divide so rapidly that his clients can not be sure he is making mistakes. He must be able to juggle six higher mathematics at a time without drop- ping one, and to operate a stop-watch. He must possess the “T'm always right” attitude to such an extent that no one will ever dare doubt him. The life work of an Efficiency Engineer is to make other people work faster than they’re accustomed to working without doing any work himself. My friend is a great success. He never works himself. He is always working someone else. By PACL THE EFFICIENCY FARM Much association with my friend has imbued me with efficiency ambi- tions of my own. It is my ambition to buy a modest little farm, and to organize it on an efficiency basis, as my friend would say. A modest little farm of three or four hundred modest acres, far from the madding crowd, which I’ve so often taken part in madding. Not too far, of course, for I’m a gregarious sort. I get lonesome. But I love the open. The opener, the greater my love. I love the modest fields, modestly clothed in green, the modest trees, the modest birds, and everything modest that the poets lead us to believe exists in the open, I say I love these things. I do. I always have. But, not having realized the advantages offered by Efficiency En- gineering, I have always hesitated and hung back from actually WING comicbooks.com