Judge — April 16, 1921 — page 13: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis This satirical cartoon by M. Marcel Arnac mocks Prohibition-era America through the eyes of a visiting French artist. The title "Land of Thirst" references the alcohol ban then in effect. The narrative follows the Frenchman's bewildered observations: Americans appear gaunt and desperate ("every one strikes me as having the look of a person who has been hanged a long time"). He encounters wild behavior—people distilling homemade spirits, a family making bootleg liquor from an "Uncle," and citizens desperately seeking alcohol. The final panel shows him driven to drink the cologne he brought, suggesting American Prohibition has made even this unthinkable. The satire targets Prohibition's failure and the resulting social chaos, presenting American society as absurdly desperate compared to France's wine culture. The exaggerated caricatures emphasize the cartoon's mocking European perspective on American moral legislation.