Judge — April 24, 1920 — page 4: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "Say It With Flowers" This cartoon depicts a homeowner being advised to "Keep Your Damn Hens in Your Own Yard"—a neighbor complaint about roaming poultry. The title "Say It With Flowers" is ironic: rather than delivering harsh criticism directly (the genteel euphemism of giving flowers), the neighbor is delivering blunt, profane criticism instead. The satire likely comments on post-WWI suburban tensions and class anxieties. Keeping chickens in one's yard was common during this era, especially during wartime (when food self-sufficiency was encouraged), but increasingly seen as uncouth by those aspiring to suburban propriety. The cartoon mocks both the neighbor's rudeness and the pretension of "polite" society trying to enforce middle-class standards on working-class residents.