Life, 1912-01-04 · page 28 of 108
Life — January 4, 1912 — page 28: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a boastful monologue personifying the automobile, read at a New York Automobile Club dinner. The car celebrates its dominance over horses and its role modernizing America—hauling fire engines, transporting injured people, delivering children to school, and building roads that connect rural and urban areas. The satire lies in the car's self-aggrandizing claims. It dismisses the horse as obsolete, admits it's "not a thing at all" yet paradoxically claims to embody "time," "space," "power," and "health." The poem gently mocks the automobile industry's breathless rhetoric about progress while acknowledging competitors like trolleys and horse-drawn vehicles still have value. Written in 1911, this reflects early-20th-century anxieties and enthusiasm about automotive technology reshaping American society—the replacement of traditional transport, road construction, and the car's cultural status as a symbol of modernity and efficiency.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
LAP E » The Automobile Speaks Read at the Automobile Club Dinner in New York, December 20th, 1911, By E. UST look at me! Just look at me! I am the motor car. Just see! 1 own the road. I’ve got the whole Rolled earth just where it minds my pull. The boldest, biggest, big thing yet, I'm here to stay. You won't forget. The horse, poor thing, I've done him up. The farmers use him. Like a pup, Some folks still keep him for a pet— He is a pretty creature yet— But when it comes to being hauled, Four legs don’t go. That hand is called. They say war’s going by the board, As arbitration brings accord, But while it lasts look out for me, For my long suit’s celerity. In war be prompt! My tires may burst But still I'm apt to get there first. In peace—that’s nearly all the time— I'm great beyond the scope of rhyme. Commodious, docile, swift and clean, I fare on frugal gasoline. I'm never scared, and fast or slow, I never eat unless I go. They say I have no style. They may! What's style to me! I don’t eat hay, Nor prance. Lugs have for me no lure. No powdered wig on my chauffeur! Plain goods, I glide where pride is rife, The herald of the simpler life. . S. Martin. Efiiciency’s what I admire. I haul the engines to the fire, To hospital the injured wight, To school the child. By day or night I'm there, and ready. Whirl my crank, I'm off as steady as a bank. The roads I’ve built, go out and see! They do come high, but that must be. They’re worth it. They and I contrive Enlargement for the human hive, Connecting life with where there’s room. My! How we've made the country boom! I know some folks still get along Without me. Well, that’s not all wrong. Trolleys must live and shoe men, too; There’s work for all of us to do. They say I’m dear, but that’s not so. I'm cheap, if you can raise the dough. Go out and look! Where do you spy A better money’s worth than I? I'm a new want, and wants compete For what men get. Without conceit, I'm not afraid to make a pass At any want that’s in my class, For see, I’m not a thing at all, But that which qualifies them all. I'm time, I’m space, I’m power, I’m health, And country air and urban wealth, Vision, and sport, and rest from strife— A length spliced on the span of life.