Judge, 1919-08-23 · page 9 of 36
Judge — August 23, 1919 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "The Uplifter" - Explanation for Modern Readers This is a humorous poem by Walt Mason, illustrated by Ralph Barton, satirizing the "Pollyanna" personality type—what the text calls "Sunny Jims." The cartoon depicts a cheerful, relentlessly optimistic man visiting someone suffering in the heat, insisting their misery has a silver lining. The satire targets forced positivity and toxic cheerfulness. Mason argues that constant optimism is inappropriate and unwelcome during genuine hardship. He distinguishes between *appropriate* optimism (sharing joy with the happy) and *inappropriate* optimism (lecturing the suffering). The "uplifter" who arrives with unsolicited encouragement ("the aches that rack and grind are but punk phantoms") exemplifies social rudeness masquerading as helpfulness. The joke: sometimes people simply need sympathy and permission to suffer, not motivational speeches. The exasperated narrator threatens violence, suggesting how intensely annoying such relentless cheerfulness becomes during real pain.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
BVA Ou, Tuexe Are Tites Warn Suxsxy Jnts, Wao Come ro Us on Buoyant Linus, Axe Moxe Tax We Can Staxp.” The Uplifter By War Mason Mlustration by KNOW it’s wrong to hate the man who follows up the moral plan of saying helpful things; who comes along in hours of woe, and tells me all my griefs will go, and bids. despair take wings. The sun is blazing in the sky, and to me, where I sit and fry, the brave uplifter comes; and smilingly he says the heat is just the stuff to save the wheat, the succotash and plums. I do not care a single hoot about the saving of the fruit, when Lam baking thus; and any man who comes around should sit with me upon the ground and help me sigh and cuss, Oh, there are times when Sunny Jims, who come to us on buoyant limbs, are more than we can stand; there are dark hours when we despise the glad and optimistic guys who smile to beat the band. Uplifters come to bring relief; but if we want to nurse our grief, what business have they here? If we would wallow in our woe what right has any dizzy bo to spring a word of cheer? I have all kinds of rheumatiz; red pains throughout my system whiz, and friends would sympathize; some look dis tressed and say, “By James, of all the fierce, unholy games. rheumatics take the prize.” There’s comfort when my friends admit that I can make all rivals quit, when it comes down to pain; there’s comfort when they look as though they never saw such stacks of woe—their course is safe and sane. Rar Bartox But now the spruce uplifter comes, he sings and whistles and he hums, and looks exceeding gay; he says the aches that rack and grind are but punk phantoms in my mind, vain things to shoo away Alas, I am too weak and sick to gather up a hefty brick and smash it on his dome; I cannot chase him down the stairs and pelt him with a lot of chairs, and so I write a pome. I like to see the Smiling Jim when I am well and full of vim, and everything’s O. K.; then he may dance and smile and sing, and be as happy as a king, and I'll be just as gay; Ul waltz with him around the shack, and clap him roundly on the back, and say he is a peach; but when all things are going wrong, I would not hear his gladsome song, I would not hear him preach. I am an optimist at times; but in my speeches and my rhymes I choose the proper hour; I laugh with people whea they smile, and show a handsome line of bile when they are feeling sour. Believe me, that’s the only way; be blithe and chipper with the gay, and doleful with the sad; the man who yips three rousing cheers when other folks are bathed in tears will make his neighbors mad. The sun is blazing overhead, and I am baked and half-w dead, and full of misery; and there wlll be a crime today and try uplifting me any gent should come my way comicbooks.com