Life — June 22, 1916 — page 3: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis This page is primarily **commercial advertising** for Pennsylvania Rubber Company's Vacuum Cup Tires, dominating the right side with product claims ("6,000 Miles Guaranteed"). The **left side contains editorial content**: a humorous sketch about automobile troubles and a serious essay on "Professors of Political Economy." The sketch depicts a motorist with mechanical problems consulting what appears to be a stalled mechanic—satirizing early automotive unreliability and the expertise gap between owners and repair workers. The essay discusses how political economists must observe social phenomena objectively, without moral judgment—a 1910s-era argument about scientific detachment in social study. Additional ads promote Canadian steamship travel and ebony tread tires, typical of Life's mixed editorial-advertising format during this period.