Judge, 1931-08-08 · page 9 of 36
Judge — August 8, 1931 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "Judge Vanwinkle's Second Awakening" Analysis This is a satirical story by Arthur L. Lippmann depicting a character (clearly referencing Rip Van Winkle) returning to his hometown after years away, only to find it utterly transformed by modernization and urban decay. The satire targets early 20th-century American social changes: the disappearance of traditional Dutch colonial character, replacement of churches and homes with commercial establishments (gas stations, pharmacies depicted as "cowboys," Chinese pagodas), the rise of organized crime ("racketeers"), and Prohibition-era concerns ("Dew Droppe Inn," radio references). The protagonist finds the changes so disturbing that he flees back to nature ("dwarfs in the high mountain ranges"). The comic's point: rapid modernization has destroyed America's pastoral past and replaced it with commercialism, vice, and lawlessness. It's fundamentally nostalgic criticism of contemporary urban America, lamenting what industrialization had cost.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
JUDGE ce twe wii wm) by ARTHUR L. That fe years had existed without him, He rubbed his eyes in amazed surp | We "Bai down to his atu: At the sights he discovered about hi | By a swell hotel stood a buxom ers. In a verdant grove sat a noisy drove Of professions « looked in vain for the old Dutch strain } H Of benevolent burghers and plowboys. ‘The streets and stoops were alive with groups Of obstreperous pharmacy cowboys, Where the church had steod near a friendly wood Was a sha And the home his fraw once had scrubbed served now that sold wieners and soda, As a gasoline Chinese pagoda, j ] H r felt strange fears, seeing racketeers | Being routed by uniformed troopers. H From the “Dew Droppe Inn | Of the radio boop-be For a while he trod the hi And reflected how time bringeth changes. Then he seized his pack and that night was back With the dwarfs in the high mountain ranges! comicbooks.com