Judge, 1928-12-29 · page 7 of 37
Judge — December 29, 1928 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Judge Page This page satirizes American electoral corruption, specifically referencing a disputed election involving candidates Smith and Ottinger. The top cartoon depicts a courtroom ("Judge") where a warden and habitual criminal discuss election fraud—suggesting the judicial system is examining crooked voting practices. The main article, "Our Third Great Vitaphone Production: 'What Price Gary?'" mocks election manipulation through a factory-worker narrative. It describes how Al Smith's victory involved ballot-stuffing and pointer-switching on tally sheets, with explicit references to the St. Lawrence factory. The accompanying illustration shows a man nearly blown away, humorously depicting chaos. The satire criticizes how working-class voters were manipulated through fraudulent counting methods, treating election-rigging as entertainment while exposing actual corruption practices.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
J Our Third Great Vitaphone Production: “What I've just found ont that Al Smith was elected! The vote was in the bag, as they say. It seems Smith blew up his checks, donned a double-breasted suit and fed the Belgians. So, when you pulled down a pointer on row A you were pulling down a pointer on .and when you pulled down a pointer on row B, in reality you were pulling down a pointer on row C. And, when you were pulling down—but, why go on? Take the farmer, Take the beer y from the farmer and you ave a problem on your h Take the farmer out of the saloon and you have beer on your hands. What you did this past election day was to dip your hands in heer, and, unthinking, you didn't know it. Every vote for Hoover was a vote for Smith, but what did the factory man care? Every factory man that I’ve talked to since November 6th has said to me: “Jack, all we want is a full dinner pail, restrictive tariff and damn the St. Lawrence.” JUDGE Wanves—Back again, eh? Hauiteat—Yeh, any phone calls? the St. Lawrence,” I nd you've put labor on 1 basis!” said the St. Lawrence Perhaps he’s right. The one thing about the clection stood out was Ottinger. Now, then, what about this Ottinger? It was too chilly for the man to take off his shirt—yet he had to have a sail— There’s a man that won't con- cede the election because he claims that there's a lot of United Cigar coupons mixed in with the Roosevelt ballots. He wants the vote sifted and put through a strainer to take out the pith and seeds. You "t blame him in the least, can you? If you or I had run we'd want to get at the will of the people, and the only way to get at the will of the people is to put them through a sieve. In fact, the surest way part is through a to a woman's coarse wire sicve The other evening I was down at Barney's and while I was wait- ing for a table and a laugh I dis- covered a vote for Ottinger in one of the saxaphones. Pewee was just about to blow one of those stolid notes out of his inimitable horn when I saw a perfectly good Ottinger vote undern I said: “Pewee, ther derneath your reed.” he didn’t understand, s said: “All right, I'll play that next.” He sure missed the point, didn’t he? Anyway, you can see for yourself that it cut Roose- (Continued on page 29) comicbooks.com