Life — February 21, 1918 — page 3: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis This page is primarily a **Miller Rubber Company advertisement**, not satire. It appears in Life magazine (page 283) and uses a rhetorical device rather than political cartooning. The ad features a craftsman wearing an apron marked "M" and poses a question: should consumers buy uniform or "lottery" tires? The premise argues that Miller has solved the tire-manufacturing problem by standardizing quality—all tires built by individual workers vary in quality, making purchasing a gamble. The ad's "satire" is commercial rather than political: it mocks competitors' practices of variable quality control. The text emphasizes Miller's system rates workers by efficiency, ensuring consistent products. This is early 20th-century industrial marketing using comparative messaging—positioning Miller tires as the rational, scientific choice versus inferior competitors' "lottery."