Judge, 1918-08-03 · page 13 of 32
Judge — August 3, 1918 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "A Military Tangle" - Explanation for Modern Readers This is a short story (not a political cartoon) satirizing the strain on 1920s marriages caused by the era's dance craze and, more pointedly, pressure on men to enlist in the military. **The Setup:** Harry and Madge married after meeting during the widespread dancing obsession of the WWI era. The story notes this "extreme social hazard" led many couples into hasty marriages. **The Conflict:** Madge increasingly pressures Harry to wear a military uniform and become "a practical patriot"—he refuses. Harry begins avoiding home, eventually leaving immediately after dinner without conversing. **The Satire:** The story mocks both marital incompatibility and the social pressure on men to enlist. Harry's refusal to be "dragooned into any enterprise" without personal initiative represents resistance to nationalist pressure. The ending implies their marriage is failing specifically because of this conflict over military service. The illustration shows an elegant domestic interior with the couple—suggesting the gap between their refined lifestyle and wartime expectations placed upon them.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
A Cap, GLoves, ano a Swaccer Stick! A Military Tangle By J. A. Watprox Illustrated by Lawrence | ARRY and Madge had been married a year. In some circumstances a year is along period. They never would have quarre!ed over money, for each had plenty of that. They had a very short courtship. Both loved to dance, and they met as dancers when dancing was a universal obsession—when everybody who was anybody danced as well as most persons who were no- bodies—a period, in short, of extreme social hazard. At that period there was dancing everywhere, except, per- haps, in vestry rooms and mortuary chapels. Possibly those places did not at all times escape the fren The newspapers and the courts have since been reasonably busy with reactions from the human mis- haps incident to the marriage of many persons who danced themselves into matrimony. For a while before marriage, and for some time afterward, Harry and Madge were convinced that they were made for each other, and that they were in- fatuation-proof as to third parties. Lows Madge may have loved Harry, and Harry may have loved But Madge had that feminine tendency But finally Harry and Madge quarreled. Madge. toward uniforms that is increasingly prevalent, and went so far as to upbraid Harry because he would not wear one. Harry, who was not a person to be dragooned into any enterprise for which he had not disclosed a personal initiative, ignored Madge’s suggestion that he become a practical patriot, and began to absent himself from home. One evening, after they had dined, Harry lighted a cigar and settled back as though for conversation. His later habit had been to start for the door, lighting his cigar on the way. “T assume,” he remarked, “that you have decided our marriage is a failure.” “It resembles something of that sort,” she repli “Well, at that we are normal. It must be that there are no marriages in heaven because so many here are fatal to felicity.” comicbooks.com