Life, 1916-07-27 · page 7 of 32
Life — July 27, 1916 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The cartoon depicts a rural family encountering an automobile at a farm. The caption reads: "We'll have fine weather for our trip, John" / "Yes, I hope so. I see one little cloud, but it may blow over." The humor relies on early-20th-century anxieties about automobiles. The "cloud" the farmer references is literally the dark automobile—a new, unfamiliar technology that disrupts traditional rural life. The joke equates the car with weather concerns, treating it as an unpredictable, potentially threatening force of nature. The accompanying text discusses summer preparation for potential war and maintaining civic duty, suggesting this *Life* issue addresses both modernization concerns and pre-WWI military readiness. The cartoon satirizes rural Americans' wariness toward industrial progress and automobiles specifically.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“WE'LL HAVE FINE WEATHER FOR OUR TRIP, JOUN.” “YES. his dislike for us. His manners must not be expected to last a gmoment ion calls for. If we slump in preparation he will slump in manners. To be respected we must he respectable, and keep it up. Then we can afford to be polite to everybody, without danger that our gentle deport- ment will be misunderstood. We must expect to try out and main- tain indefinitely a force thoroughly well able to handle any job that can be con- trived for us in Mexico, and since it would not be right to keep militia r ments on such duty for a long time, we must have other troops ready to re- Our problem longer than the oc lieve those now serving is not worked out by the mobilization of the militia; that is only the begin- 1 Hore go. ning of it—a demonstration, probab of how not to do i liminary to doing it as it should be done. ND this is the summer to get thi great work so well begun that it will go on to completion and a per- manent order, There are but two law- ful topics of thought this summer for responsible grown-up people—war and politics. Whenever we try to shut our eyes to war the next newspaper will open them. One day it is a compact between Russia and Japan; the next it is Reventlow clamoring to let the Ger- man the loose again. To-morrow it will be something else, but no day will pass this summer that submarines on 1 SEE ONE LITTLE CLOUD, BUT IT MAY BLOW OVER.” does not bring us its ning not to Ict the war's end catch us bare. If we are not worth attention we will not get it; if we are not worth respect we will not win it; if we are too proud, too humble, too lazy, too mean to qualify ourselves to fight we should cultivate humility of spirit, for we shall need it. This is the voter’s summer. until November his wishes will Speak up, voter! Speak for o safeguard our From now prevail. military preparation country; to make our just wishes re- spected; to enable us to do peaceably our duty to ourselves 1 all our neighbors, and to insist peaceably that they shall do their duty to us, E, S. Martin, comicbooks.com