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Judge, 1920-03-06 · page 11 of 36

Judge — March 6, 1920 — page 11: what you’re looking at

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Judge — March 6, 1920 — page 11: Judge, 1920-03-06

What you’re looking at

# "Roads to Happiness" Analysis This illustrated essay by Walt Mason (with Ralph Barton's cartoon) presents satirical advice on achieving happiness through financial restraint and self-denial—a common morality-tale genre in early 20th-century magazines. The cartoon depicts a man in a cell-like room, gleefully counting coins by lamplight, embodying the essay's central irony: true happiness supposedly comes from *denying* life's pleasures. Mason's text mocks two types of men: wealthy "gilded boys" who squander money on movies, entertainment, and "the Great White Way" (Broadway); and miserly savers who count dimes nightly, missing "all life's joy and light." The punchline—that lawyers don't understand happiness comes from "weeping eyes" and "forty kinds of woe"—suggests the essay itself is tongue-in-cheek mockery of puritanical self-denial philosophy. The satire targets both hedonism and excessive penny-pinching, suggesting neither path brings genuine contentment.

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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

‘True Happiness ts His” Roads to Happiness By War Mason Mlustration by Raven Bartox you must control your and other F you would be a happy, man greed; cat rice cattle feed For if your health is on the blink, you cannot hi be; be careful what you eat and drink. and you'll be filled with glee. “Our graves we're digging with our teeth,” the men of science say, and soon we're laid the sod beneath, because we sidestep hay. Man fills himself with luscious pies ind steaks that lock sublime, and then he doubles up and dies Eat turnips and a dish of slaw. and drink miinwater through a and mashes made of brian. py long. long before his time. avoid the roast: beef lures, straw, and happiness is yours Cut out for keeps the movie show, the ribald film and reel snd to the lecture warehouse go, and hear some wise man spicl Last night [ yawned for three long hours while eld Professor Kurds turned loose all kinds of verbal showers 1 painted things with words. It gave me willies in my soul. and fantods in my head, and while he sprung his rigmarole,l longed to be in bed. And vet T knew my course was right, it’s good to hear men preach; and when I toddled home last night my conscie: was a peach. And if your conscience is O. K., and right side up with care, you're happy as a clam, 1 siy, though you may talk despai his truth is ancient, hoar and gray, and yet it’s safe and sine: To be unhappy is the way true happiness to gain. nce \ lot of foolish, gilded boys blow in their ample wage for ul the cheap and, gilded joys of this besotted age. ‘The wise man’s rede, the poet's rune, are handed them in vain; they never Save a picayune against the day of rain. The truer joys of life they miss. for gilded bricks that shine; they never know wholeson-e bliss of having seads in brine. The wise youth shuns the Great White Way, and pickles every yen; he does without things every day to sive the iron men. He wears his clotkes until threadbare, and hats that should be canned, sind walks nine miles to sive the fare a street He cats an onion or a leek and thinks car would demand. such luncheon tine; he cams twelve shining bucks a week, and of the twel He misses all life’s joy and light, its flavor and its fizz; but when he counts his dimes by night, trac > Sives nine. happiness is his. And when he’s saved a goodly roll, an auto climbs his frame and then the sexton digs 2 hole in which he ends the game Some lawyer gathers in his mon, and softly sighs, “Poor chump! He cut out all there is of fun, and merely hit the dump.” Alas, how little lawyers know of happiness and joy, the joy that has no taint of woe, the bliss without « How little Lawyers realize that misery is gle and weeping eyes pure happiness can sce! How little lawyers understand the cestasy we know, when we go trotting hand in hand with forty kinds of woe! that only sore