Judge, 1929-07-13 · page 13 of 36
Judge — July 13, 1929 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Judge* contains a satirical piece titled "Something About Summer Visitors" by Jack Cluett, paired with an unrelated cartoon about a weight-guessing carnival game. The main text is a sarcastic monologue from a parent ostensibly welcoming college-age guests for summer, but the exaggerated hospitality reveals parental exhaustion. The joke works through dramatic irony: the parent claims to happily sacrifice their bedroom, meals, servants' labor (referenced: "Ericson," Martha the maid, Joe the chauffeur), and money on the guests' entertainment—staying up late at the ice box, using the radio all night, making long-distance calls. The humor lies in how absurdly self-sacrificing this sounds, satirizing upper-middle-class parents' performative generosity toward their children's friends during the Jazz Age era when college visiting was fashionable. The accompanying cartoon shows a carnival weight-guesser at work, a separate piece of period humor unrelated to the text above. The satire captures early-20th-century anxieties about domestic disruption and class performance among affluent families.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
JUDGE Something About Summer Visitors always remember children that daddy is more than glad to have you invite your college friends to lynwood and = mother and father ve no friends so you kids can have as many guests you want and they can stay as long as they wish because mother and i love to give up our room and sleep on the porch with the flies and mosquitoes and tell valet all he wants you on has nothing to do but press harvard clothes and. shine yale shoes and when jack and ralph get through playing pool they mustnt bother to brush off the table because ericson will do that and if hes bu making drinks for the boys martha the maid will do it if shes not busy putting pleats in’ ginnies dress and joe the chauffeur will be at your disposal because mother and i can walk to th th and re- member betty di that father can go without his swim anytime one of the boys needs a bathing suit and your crowd gets in late at night just raid the ice box and mother and i will have a glass of water for breakfast if there is any left and i know how college boys and girls are they are apt to forget little items like shirts and tennis clothes and golf clubs and racquets and sneakers and white flannels so just sack fathers and mothers robe for any little thing be we d- ause an loll around in our bath- robes provided the boys or girls dont need them at the time and its perfectly all right to leave the radio on all night daddy has plenty of dough and wants to spend all he can on your fun loving friends and dont get them up early theyre all probably used “Step up, lady, and lemme give you a rough estimate!” to having breakfast served in bed at Hl am and any telegrams or long distance phone calls should be charged to me although i know the boys and girls will want to pay me back nd meals are any- time convenient to your pals and if the cook leaves mother will chip in and help thats what mothers are for dear and if phil or val or jack or ralph or bruce or jean or ginnie or winnie offer to leave on sunday just strangle them and make them stay longer because it makes a little boy out of father to have them around the house and a little girl out of mother and when they do leave if they ever do tell them to ke whatever they have inadvertently taken away in the form of cloth- ing because daddy and mother love outfitting the younger gen- eration. —Jack Ciurrr 1