Judge — December 8, 1917 — page 9: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This cartoon satirizes American military strategy during what appears to be World War I. The caption asks sarcastically, "Why not send over a brigade equipped with Teddy Roosevelt masks?" The image depicts a chaotic battlefield scene with soldiers in combat. The joke suggests that sending American troops wearing Theodore Roosevelt masks—playing on Roosevelt's famous reputation as a tough, aggressive "Rough Rider"—might intimidate enemy forces into surrender, rendering actual military hardware unnecessary. This mocks both Roosevelt's outsized public persona and American political debates about military preparedness and intervention strategy. The cartoon implies that relying on Roosevelt's fearsome image as a substitute for actual military resources would be foolishly ineffective, satirizing those who might overestimate psychological warfare versus genuine military capability.