Judge — October 21, 1922 — page 18: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This cartoon satirizes a figure labeled "Hughes" (likely Howard Hughes, the aviation industrialist) standing atop a cliff overlooking a naval fleet. The caption "The face that scrapped a thousand ships" parodies Helen of Troy's legendary beauty, inverting the classical reference to suggest Hughes's influence caused mass destruction rather than creation. The cartoon criticizes Hughes's business decisions—likely related to his aircraft manufacturing or defense contracts—as catastrophically wasteful, destroying vast military resources. The ironic classical allusion emphasizes the scale of the damage attributed to one person's actions or negligence. The drowning vessel labeled "Dreadnoughts" in the foreground reinforces the naval destruction theme. This represents Depression-era criticism of industrial titans whose decisions devastated American economic assets.