Life, 1915-09-23 · page 39 of 48
Life — September 23, 1915 — page 39: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains a book advertisement and a cartoon satirizing early automobile culture. **The Cartoon:** A "stalled motorist" (broken-down car driver) asks a native person if a jug contains gasoline. The native's reply—hoping it *isn't* gasoline because it would taste bad on pancakes—is the joke. This references a common early-1900s stereotype about Native Americans or rural people as unsophisticated, implying they might consume gasoline or wouldn't know the difference between fuel and food. The humor relies on this demeaning racial/cultural caricature. **The Advertisement:** Kelly-Springfield Tires uses the metaphor of a "magic carpet" for reliable tires, claiming 99% run full mileage without adjustment. The pitch: good tires should be invisible—you shouldn't notice them working. **Context:** This reflects when automobiles were still novel, tire failures common, and casual ethnic mockery was standard magazine humor.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
By the author of “The Helmet of Navarre” STRAIGHT DOWN THE CROOKED LANE BY BERTHA RUNKLE A straightaway story of love, loyalty and mystery about folks that are recognizably human and therefore intelligently interesting. The narrative—as readers of Bertha Runkle would expect—gets off handily in the first chapter, and roves alway barwand. Neracves dou’ always do thas seas daye. "The cabor's happy gift of unviolent humor was never put to such steady and successful use. The novel opens amidst society people of Newport, who are viewed with the eyes of neither the muckraker nor Teka . It shifts to army life scenes in the Philippines, which the author, herself the wife of an officer sometime resident there, knows intimately. Chiefly concemed in it are the Auk, who stands by her lazy, rich, and fine stepfather and playfellow ; her real father ; her selfish, beautiful, and far from bad mother; and a Lieutenant in the Army ; and there are a number of clearly drawn subordinate characters. Behind the whole story and motivating it, is the enormous, mysterious, unlucky Plassey Diamond. Pethaps “Straight Down the Crooked Lane” is the kind of a novel you like. Frontispiece and jacket in colors by William Van Dresser. Price $1.30 net, postage 10 cents. AT ALL BOOKSTORES Published by THE CENTURY CO. New York City Stalled Motorist: My BoY, 1 HOPE THAT'S GASOLINE 1N THAT JUG, Native: cee! 1 HOPE IT AIN’T—IT’D TASTE LIKE TH’ DICKENS ON PANCAKES! A Magic Carpet good motor tire is a magic carpet to whisk you swiftly and comfort- ably where business calls or pleasure waits. It should never destroy the magical illusion by intruding upon you its own mechanical personality. The instant a tire calls attention to itself it ceases to be a good tire. And the best thing we can say about Kellky- Springfield Tires is that you scarcely ever have to think about them. It is a matter of record that ninety- nine per cent of Kelly-Springfield Tires run their full mileage without the slightest necessity for adjustment. It is this fact that permits the following very liberal basis of adjustment in the rare cases where adjustments are required: Plain tread, 5,000 miles; Kant Slip, 6,000 miles. In Ford sizes, Plain tread, 6,000 miles; Kant Slip, 7,500 miles. Kelly-SpringfieldTireCo. Akron, Ohio Branches in all principal cities comicbooks.com