Judge, 1921-02-26 · page 11 of 32
Judge — February 26, 1921 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "The Millennium" by Walt Mason This satirical piece attacks self-righteous moral reformers—called "The Truly Good"—who are portrayed as joyless busybodies intent on eliminating all harmless pleasures. The cartoon shows stern-faced figures confiscating children's toys and kites while adult figures look on disapprovingly. The satire targets progressive-era reformers and censors who sought to regulate entertainment, recreation, and morality. Mason mocks their belief that joy is sinful, contrasting ordinary people's innocent Sunday drives and simple pleasures with the reformers' grim determination to ban smoking, theater, novels, and games—all in the name of spiritual salvation. The "Truly Good" represent what Mason sees as killjoy moralism run amok: people so obsessed with eliminating vice that they'd create a "dreary place that no sane man can stand." It's a critique of excessive censorship and moral policing during the Progressive Era.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
TO LAUGH AT CRANKS, BUT NOW, fT SEEMS THE Trety Goov ake REALLY CUTTING The Millennium By Warr Mason Raven ustration by H, play your game of marbles, lads, right roundly, while you may in all our native gra they'll take your sport aw The Truly Good have gone afield to rid this world of » they ll pinch the long have wheeled. and stop your merry din The Truly Good are bilious dames, and lank men, who'll rob us of our harmless games, and put us in the pen. With skipping-ropes, ye little m forth a while. and the Truly Good are making raids on all such games ; for soon hoops you side-whiske: play; today. The Truly Good are tiresome folk, who think joy is a crime they hold it sin to laugh and joke and have a bully time. Most people work, day after day, to make the kettle boil; they have but little time to play, their stunt is honest toil. But when the Sabbath day arrives, they take their motor carts, and load therein their aunts and wives, and leave the towns and marts; they tour the country roads, gadzooks, inhale the fra- grant breeze, and sermons see in running brooks, and in the stones and_ trees, It’s something they look forward to, these pleasant Sunday drives, when Mother Nature they may view, beside their aunts and wives; the children see a thousand things that fill their souls with glee, and they are happier than kings, if happy kings there be. Barton Phe Truly Good look on and weep, and say, while wagging cars: “The holy Sabbath they should keep in penitence and tears! Upon their auto seats they perch, with heart hard as stone, when they should spend nine hours in church, and hear the pastor drone! Their wickedness is coarse and raw, it’s worse than a dise: We'll have to pass a dark blue law for bidding crimes like these We used to laugh, as people s sass; but now, it the Truly grass. They've cut out all the flow pink, and now men seek the swimming-holes have a drink Oh, little children, at cranks and all their really cutting and beverages they would seems, Ml are in the top. and fly the paper kite, for soon the Truly Good will stop all inf: e delight! And, weary father, smoke your pipe, in comfort, while you y. the day’s at hand, the time is ripe, when it will fade away The Truly Good have now decreed a war on all such joys, they sav tobacco is a weed that our soul's health destroys. And take the children to the show, while shows may yet be for soon the censors stern will throw their blight upon seen the sereen, And read the novels you adore while novels may be bought, or soon you'll be compelled to pore o'er censored tommyrot. The Truly Good arc ase, theyre busy in the land, to make this world a dreary place that no sane man can stand. dus ¢ comicbooks.com