Life — May 5, 1921 — page 21: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This Charles Forbell cartoon satirizes people who avoid attending church. The image shows police and authorities literally rounding up and herding a large crowd of reluctant civilians toward a church building, complete with a police wagon. The chaos suggests resistance to forced religious attendance. The satire targets those who skip Sunday services—"divine service dodgers"—by depicting their capture as a law enforcement matter. This reflects early 20th-century American social attitudes where church attendance was expected as civic/moral duty. The cartoon humorously suggests such shirkers require the same police intervention as criminals. The exaggerated scene mocks both the dodgers' behavior and society's judgment of them.