Judge, 1918-02-16 · page 13 of 36
Judge — February 16, 1918 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical cartoon imagines German occupation of New York during World War I. The image shows a giant steel pickle monument replacing Columbus's statue in Columbus Circle—a deliberate absurdist mockery suggesting Germans would erase American heritage and impose ridiculous, degrading cultural symbols. The "Hohenzollern hordes" reference is the German imperial dynasty. The "dill pickle" joke likely plays on anti-German ethnic stereotypes (Germans associated with pickled foods). The satire warns that Kaiser Wilhelm II's conquest would destroy American monuments and identity, replacing noble symbols with crude, humiliating ones. This represents wartime propaganda from Judge magazine's pro-Allied stance, using grotesque humor to express anxiety about potential German invasion and cultural domination.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
If The Kaiser Conquered America—No. 3 hordes were in possession of New York, do you doubt that, among their first efforts in Teutonizing the town, they would erect a solid steel dill pickle upon the pedestal now occu- pied by the shaft and statue raised in Columbus Circle in memory of America’s discoverer? I you can bring yourself to dream such a horrible nightmare— suppose the Hohenzollern