Judge, 1920-07-17 · page 11 of 36
Judge — July 17, 1920 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "Dream of Heaven" by Walt Mason (Judge Magazine) This satirical piece imagines heaven as an escape from earthly frustrations—specifically, the social annoyances and moral hypocrisies of early 20th-century American life. Mason catalogs his grievances: nagging wives, financial pressure from neighbors judging his spending, aggressive salesmen pushing encyclopedias and other products, corrupt politicians making empty promises to the poor while enriching themselves, Wall Street plutocrats, and meddlesome relatives. The cartoon's illustration shows an angel with a top hat and cherubs—a genteel vision contrasting with Mason's biting complaints. The satire targets materialism, status anxiety, and commercialism of the era. Heaven represents not spiritual peace but *freedom from society's demands*—no chores, no one telling him to save money, no aggressive salesmanship or political corruption. The joke is that Mason's heaven isn't divine transcendence; it's simply escape from American capitalism and social conformity. The subtitle's reference to various religious figures (Luther, Wesley, Wolsey) adds mock-serious weight to this irreverent vision.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
RAR aga 7*H| VATions io AVEN roe SERAPH MARTIN LUTHER foe C HERUG JOHN WESLEY 72 ARCHANGEL THOMAS WOLSEY Wy. zene N Heaves, Tas Prerry Seae, xo Canpipates Witt, Paw tie Exrtn” Dream of Heaven By Watt Mason Mlustration by Raven Bartox > are canned—no wonder it is heaven asa place where one can rest, without a rest; where all the butt-in gu THINK ¢ break; no honest sweat streams down one’s face, no — called the blest In heaven, 1 am pretty sure, no candidates will paw the earth, and tell the ignorant and poor that they alone have atesmen who arise, and in a voice cs of lies concerning peo bones are tired, no muscles ache. For Lam tired of build ing fires, and mowing lawns and sweeping walks, and pruning trees and punching lyres, and winding forty — sterling worth. I'm tired of f clocks. of doleful pitch, hand out huge packa ‘our trifling conduct ple who are rich. They jump on capital with shoes which are re adomed with two-inch spikes, and all the Wall Street bunch plutocrat kinds In heaven no one’s wife will say, makes me blue; why do you fool the hours away, when there a forty things todo? The garden’s growing up to weeds, the win abuse like terriers, or other tykes. I love the help! dow needs a pane of glass; you ought to plant those nutmeg — who gathers in the shining bone; he has the goods beneath his seeds, yet here you sit, and cut no grass.” hat that yawping statesmen seldom own. I love the man who It will be soothing to the soul to sit around and do no chores, has the grit to nail down everything in sight; with me he always while all the countless ages roll like bill olden — makes a hit, though he may beat me left and right. shores » candidates in Henry cars will tour the streets of Paradise In heaven there will be no cranks who tell us we should and hand the saints two-cent cigars, and show the angels goo pinch and save, and put our pennies in the banks, and leave goo eyes them, till w in the grave. And this will be a gr I think of heaven as a place where agents for a five-foot who does not long to blow his wad? For art is long shelf won't talk the whiskers from your face, until you hate brief, and soon we're planted ‘neath the sod. I blush to buy nd yourself. Oh, Lam tired of wily gents who'd sell me pair of pants, for when such handmedowns I buy, my divers Atlas-Gazetteers, if I'll pay fifty-seven cents three times a neighbors and my aunts remark that I'ma spendthrift guy. I'd month for sixty years. And [am tired of smiling dames who like to blow in all Lown, and die a pauper in the end, and hav force an entrance to my cot, and ply their deep and sinful games, misfit grave alone,without a mourner or a friend. But meddlers and sell me books by Walter Scott will not let me run the sort of course that I'd select; they're I'm tired of oh, so many things! They chgfe my soul and nagging me to save my mon, or all my future will be wrecked. — make it sore; and when I have my robe and wings, perhaps I think of heaven as a land where no one meddles with the _ they"ll make me tired no more, " ws on the them