Romance And "Those People"!

Quite the cover blurb:

SPOILER ALERT: There's a double meaning here...

For once, the cover blurb wasn't overselling the interior:

Despite what you may be thinking..."his wife's people" are...spoiled rich white folk!

"One of his kind"?? Walt reacts poorly to that kind of talk!

"Those people."

As his classy wife hectors him all the way home...

...Walt flashes back to his younger days:

"The Corner"--where "they" lived!

Man, there sure are a lot of vague pronouns in this story.

Anyway, Walt and his bros pick up some classmates from The Corner for some weekend fun--including cutting out Marian's friend, Dave.

Romance blooms between Walt and Marian...but he's still a snob.

But real love runs wild!

And so!

There should be a sound effect of screeching brakes here...

It's hard to think of a circumstance when a secret marriage might be a good idea...especially when it doesn't stay a secret very long from Walt's well-connected father!

And Pop is a real winner!

"One of...of THEM!"

"One of HER kind!!"

Walt refuses...but he let's dad's approbations sneak into his skull, and suddenly can't stand The Corner:

Oh, dear...

So Walt relents, and gives in to dad.

Yep--Dad pulled some corrupt strings, and presto change-o, you were never married!!

Of course, the timing is pretty bad, because...

Oh, dear.

Good for you, Marian!

Yes, "her kind" is the one going in for name-calling. Right.

Anyway, Walt gets a "real" society wedding, and a job keeping "those people" where they belong!

Well, that real estate transaction leads him to...

Which brings us back to...

So Walt grows a bit of a social conscience--in a particularly violent manner--and vows to fight bigotry and intolerance!

The story is frightfully vague about "those people"--is it just that they're poor? Or is there some religious/ethnic component to this "intolerance" that the story is too coy to spell out?

Still, you have  to applaud a 1953 romance comics that dares to tackle these issues (even obliquely), and respect a story with the guts not to give the protagonist the standard happy ending.

The story came from the Joe Simon/Jack Kirby studio, but there's no sign either of them was directly involved. GCD says the author is unknown, and credits the art to Bill Draut.

From Young Romance #60 (1953)