Judge, 1932-06-18 · page 5 of 36
Judge — June 18, 1932 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "Skippy Dialogues" by Percy Crosby This comic dialogue features two working-class characters discussing foreigners and American identity—likely reflecting 1920s-30s anxieties about immigration and assimilation. The humor centers on Skippy's malapropisms and misunderstandings about library books involving foreigners. He confuses concepts like "foreigners" and "laundry tickets," and makes absurd claims (a man with a mustache appearing in a library book; an ink eraser creating a hole in a page). The underlying satire appears to mock nativist prejudices against immigrants while simultaneously portraying the working-class characters as ignorant and suspicious of foreign literature. The dialogue suggests both anti-immigrant sentiment and ridicule of those holding such views—typical of Judge's satirical approach to social tensions of the era. The crude character design reinforces period stereotypes about working-class identity.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
JUDGE Skippy: How do ya know what the for- ciguers has got to say? SKIPPY: Hello, Yay ya been keepin’ yase 1 seen you since had your pianner took away. Sit down an’ toast my ear with a little chatter. Yappy: I was just up to the library profoundin’ meself. Skippy: What do ya mean ‘pro- foundin’’ yaself Yappy: Gettin’ meself deep. I'm the deepenest guy on the block an’ me mind goes after learnin’ like a hurch mouse for a_ delicatessen. It’s gettin’ so the English language hands me a laugh so me eyes has been nibblin’ at books wrote by foreigner: Skippy: How do ya know what the foreigners has got to say? Yappy: That’s what leaves me floatin’—them writin’ books what people can’t read. When I set to squintin ’over the pages with the al- phabet in the wrong places, I get to breodin’, but sometimes ther pic- tures in the books an’ that makes it nice. Only now I aint to come in the library any more, so the librarian an’ to make sure, I got pointed out to the help. One sruy says: “We sot more o’ his thumb prints than we know what to do with.” Anyway, they de it very clear to me that I wasn’t wanted when the cop took me out. kippy: If that was me, I'd get off a letter to Washington air mail. Ss aint What for? Yapry: No, | brought that up an’ it yot drownded out in the shoutin’. Skippy: Shoutin’? Yappy: Yeh, it all started with the book full of a lot o’ drunken words. Why don’t the foreigners keep where they belong? Ya don't see me yoin’ over to Siam or China or Italy an’ writin’ boc an’ if Tecan s home an’ do me readin’ an’ writin’, they’s cught to be a law to make the for eigners keep in their own alleys. Vhy IT can show you a book in that that’s nothin’ but laundry have yot a Congressman ! Laundry tickets! y: That's terrible! And there’s the Joneses. A betterer gang of Americans y couldn't find. Real Americans w couldn't all get on the Mayflower, an’ what ppens? — Jonese great- yrandfather writes a book an’ it's still goin’ through the mails waitin’ to yet took on by a print house. Skippy: An’ Hoover tryin’ to squeeze the navy on a ferryboat, but don’t get worked up. Tell us how the library give the foreigners a break over their very own flesh an’ blood. YAPPY: through couldn't Well, I) got to the foreigner book make no 3 lookin’ an’ I sense to it; a’s where the z’s ought to be, an’ x's where the e’s ought to be until it was like readin’ a lot o’ barbed wir so when I see a man’s picture in the book I put a moustache on him, That was last week an’ nobody knew I made it, only I got to chewin’ it over in me mind an’ 1 felt 1 wrong— Skippy: Did wrong. Yappy: An: ay, I figured I'd make up for 0 I ups to the library an’ I come acro: nother foreigner book an’ this time I see a man with a great big moustache. So, figurin’ that I'd even things up, I pulls out an ink eraser an’ rubs out the mous- tache. Only I rubbed so hard I wore a hole right through the paper. The guy looked like he was yawnin’ an’ that gives me an idea, so what do I do but get out me little rubber ball with the hole in it an’ fill-it full o’ water, When I got everybody's eyes drawed to the picture by Bronx cheerin’ from behind it, I let the water squirt through the guy's mouth. SKIPPY: YAPPY done What happened then? The libr. took book away an’ put it Skippy: Where Yappy: In the farrer corner of the library as ya go in. ppy: What color is it? Yapry: Red. Skippy: Lend us your rubber ball. the comicbooks.com