Judge — April 27, 1918 — page 3: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "When—" by Maurice Switzer This is a poem by Maurice Switzer with illustration by Charles Sarka. The verse catalogs various modern anxieties and dissatisfactions—autumn melancholy, lost romance, spiritual emptiness, moral compromise, financial disappointment, scandal, and existential ennui. Each stanza begins with "When," describing scenarios of doubt, weakness, and disillusionment. The final lines pivot sharply: when life feels like a gamble and your mind wanders while hands idle, the cure is **work**—presented as salvation from modern malaise. The illustration shows a muscular, athletic man at an industrial site, embodying vigor and productive labor. This appears to be early 20th-century social commentary promoting work ethic and labor as antidote to the psychological and moral ailments of contemporary urban life.