Judge, 1918-06-08 · page 12 of 36
Judge — June 8, 1918 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This Judge magazine page contains two distinct pieces of satire: **"Ossified Philosophy"** by Warren Woodruff Lewis mocks academic philosophy as irrelevant and overly abstract. The title "ossified" (hardened, rigid) suggests philosophers have fossilized minds. The piece ridicules Professor Phil Oss for pondering useless questions—like where cigar smoke goes or the evolution of collar buttons—while ordinary people care about practical concerns (the cost of living, rising prices). The Newton apple anecdote exemplifies how philosophers derive grand theories from trivial observations. The satire targets the disconnect between intellectual elites and common concerns during what appears to be a period of economic hardship. **"Scraping Acquaintance"** is a brief joke cartoon (drawn by Julia Daniels) where a stranger uses transparently false logic to claim familiarity with a woman—arguing that since both were somewhere last Christmas, they must have met. It's gentle humor about social pretense and awkward conversation starters. The page satirizes disconnected intellectualism and social awkwardness typical of 1910s-era Judge magazine humor.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Drawn by Carvert Suir Tuat “First Tite” You Wore Lone Trousers Ossified Philosophy By Warren Woovrurr Lewis EEP-SEE philosophy is all right for college pro- fessors and high-brows, but you’ve got to have something diaphanous for the masses. The form of thought must ibe exhibited behind a thin curtain; to wit: the National view on diaphanous street dresses. The “I’s” have it in every city. Prof. Phil Oss, in his Critique of Poor Reason, de- clares a future cosmical conception of philosophy. That’s agreeable as far as eight cylinder minds are con- cerned, but you can’t get one cylinder people to take any stock in things cosmical. They insist on leaving out the s. A philosopher is a person filled with ossified ideas. When you see a man whose face extends back to the point at which bone formation begins and whence it radiates, you can mark him for a philosopher. His center of ossification radiates excruciating knowl- edge. Old Ike Newton was sneaking a nap under a tree when an apple bounced off his head. He tossed the apple in the air and it came down again, thereby es- tablishing the philosophy of gravitation. After that Ike hired himself out as a philosopher and even went so far as to prove that everything that goes up comes down. That part’s all right, but you can’t make the diaphanous crowd believe that the high cost of living will ever come down. When he brings that down, old Prof. Phil Oss will have more disciples than there are calories in a New England boiled dinner. A good form of philosophy is the science of most fundame tal matters, such as maybe it will and maybe it won’t. When you arrive at the conclusion that it won’t, you sit down and figure out that it will. By the time you get through you find that it isn’t. What matters? The Masses are more concerned over the reason for holes in a Swiss cheese than they are over Hera- clitus’ philosophy of evolu- tion. Prof. Oss spends seven days a week trying to figure out where the smoke goes from a choice Havana cigar. Thediaphanous crowd is worrying over the evolution of the nickel: it cost. The professor once spoke four hours on the evo- lution of bones, but a man who boasted of never having a headache broke up the meeting. He said the only thing that evolves from a bone is a collar button. Shrieks of silence rent the air as the professor ex- pounded the theory of life in another world, but he was unable to answer definitely whether it would be vege- table or animal life. All philosophy is a form of dope. If you take too much it will give you a headache, and then you’ve got to take more dope to get rid of it. If you can take enough of it to make you look ossified somebody will give you a dopester’s degree. After that you can spend your spare time trying to dope out where the wave goes when you wave a flag. Scraping Acquaintance Stranger—You were somewhere last Christmas, weren’t you? She—Why, of course: what do you mean? Stranger—Well, so was I. We must have met. Drawon by Jutta Daniers “Captain, shall we let sister play? “Yes, she can stand at the back and be the whistle.”