Life — September 20, 1917 — page 2: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis This is primarily a **Michelin Tire advertisement**, not satire or political commentary. The page features "The Quest of the Perfect Tube," a marketing poem claiming Michelin makes the finest inner tubes. The ad uses a humorous rhetorical structure: it poses the question "which inner tube is best?" to dealers, drivers, and doctors, then provides the answer—Michelin—with the tagline "Take my tip and try one, / And you'll surely see." The illustration depicts the Michelin Man (Bibendum) standing over various professional groups (dealers, drivers, doctors, bankers) labeled as crowds below him, suggesting their universal agreement with the product's superiority. This is straightforward early-20th-century advertising through verse rather than satire or political commentary.