Judge, 1937-11 · page 8 of 36
Judge — November 1937 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Judge Magazine Page This page contains two cartoons satirizing American social absurdities of the era. The **top cartoon** mocks the prevalence of questionnaires flooding the country. A group of people gather around a large tuba, attempting to read music for a new song—the joke being that even musical instruction has become subject to questionnaire culture. The **bottom cartoon** depicts a tree growing from a pool, captioned "How long until your divorce becomes final?"—satirizing the era's divorce proceedings and their emotional toll. The accompanying text discusses questionnaire fatigue, eugenics colony proposals, newspaper editorial absurdities, and after-dinner speech tedium. A British machine invention is mentioned that supposedly interrupts bad speakers by moving a tongue mechanism. Together, these pieces critique bureaucratic excess, social pseudo-science trends, and institutional inefficiency in contemporary American life.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“Here’s a new song we can try if somebody here can read music.” “How long until your divorce becomes final?” Council what the purpose was in calling the emergency session. Whereupon a red-faced president, and an absent-mind. ed Council remembered that they had only one day left in which to extend the traction franchise under which the city was operating, and the failure of which would have caused the entire af. fair to go into liquidation. The ordinance passed unanimously. EVERY able-bodied man who has wit enough to hold a pencil between his fingers has been called upon at one time or another to fill out one of the horde of questionnaires that are flooding the country these days, At high tide today, while we were sorting the mail and filing all the bills, seed catalogues and ransom notes in the waste basket, we discovered no less than a half dozen pamphlets inquiring as to our taste in breakfast food, ice boxes, radio programs and the state. of the na. tion in general. The one that startled us out of our noon-day calm was a communication asking if we would like to be a member of a eugenic colony. “In the new places of the world,” it said, “human biology has ordinarily been utterly neglected. Careful attention has been given to the breeding of cattle, vegetables and flowers, with wonderful results. Why has there been no breed. ing of Aristotles and Galileos, Mendels, Benjamin Franklins, Shakespeares and Paderewskis?” After we had our equilibrium well un. der control again, we jotted down a note to remind us not to read any more ques- tionnaires. They bother us. CURTAIN raiser for this month is a three-line scene from an upstate New York newspaper office. Enter, from the left, a tired-looking reporter, fresh from an interview with a local politician, Editor: Well, what did he have to say? Reporter: Nothing. Editor: Well, cut it down and use on page four. IKE most people it has been our dis. mal lot upon occasion to have to list- en to an after-dinner speech. Sometimes as a matter of fact these speeches were very good but too often they were very bad. A chine has been dovented iia England which is supposed to cope wi the very bad s es, We say sup. posed advisedly. It works like this: ¢ machine takes the form of a large face with a protruding tongue, which proceeds to move the minute the speaker swings into action. At the end of eight minutes one of the eyes gives a wink which means “Two minutes to go.” The moment ten minutes have passed all the lights go out. According to the English idea, no speaker would dream of con- Judge comicbooks.com ¥