Judge, 1918-08-31 · page 11 of 32
Judge — August 31, 1918 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "The Notion Counter" - A WWI-Era Satire This page from *Judge* magazine features a cartoon and humorous column by Douglas Malloch, set during World War I. The cartoon depicts a father confronting his daughter about her expensive wardrobe, claiming such clothes aid the war effort. The daughter responds sarcastically that she's engaged to multiple military officers—suggesting women were using patriotic justifications for frivolous spending. "The Notion Counter" column consists of brief satirical observations about contemporary life, including: daylight-saving time's ineffectiveness, wives enforcing "work-or-fight" labor policies before government mandates, marriage's inevitable compromises, and the irony of women's iron-crossing techniques. References to General Crowder (who administered WWI draft) and the Austrian/Italian fronts ground these jokes in wartime context. The satire targets civilian hypocrisy about war sacrifice and traditional gender dynamics during mobilization.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
: clothes will help win the war y d to three § many corporals and privates, and every blessed one has sworn to ki The COLLEGE professor is writing a book in which he i the poets of Wisconsin into three i This will surprise a whole lot of people who didn’t think it was possible. Instead of getting us up an hour earlier in the morn- ing, all this daylight saving seems to do is to get us to bed an hour later at night. If you will think it over you will find that in about 99-99 per cent of the cases you wound up by doing what she wanted to do. Considering how some men like to roam and some dogs to stay at home, often it is the man who ought to be named Rover. They are using mules on the Italian front, but to be really effective they should be used on the Austrian rear. A great many cynical things have been written about marriage, but a great many authors have married. I do not envy the idle rich their pleasures, but their opportunities to spend their time some other way. There are no such fools as those who fool themselves. jors, two captains, half a dozen lieutenants, and 1 don’t know how fifty Huns before we are married Notion Counter By Dovuctas Mattocu But our wives put the work-or-fight idea into effect long before General Crowder ever thought of it. Universal training would teach the young man disci- pline. His father has already learned it. Judging from the mail, daughter’s former callers are holding a sector of the French front. I know a lot of ordinary people who are polite that I esteem above geniuses that are not. A woman wants a man to pay attentions to her before marriage, and attention afterward. A little learning may be a dang.rous thing, and so may a little applause. Most of the things we think we know are merely things we want to believe. Some fellows who give until it hurts are altogether too sensitive to pain. Speaking of the iron cross, did you ever see a woman iron any other way? If a girl is all that some man says she is, why should she marry him? comicbooks.com