Life, 1918-07-18 · page 5 of 36
Life — July 18, 1918 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page is **primarily an advertisement**, not satirical content. It's a Timken-Detroit Axle Company ad from *Life* magazine (page 77). The illustration shows a truck on an incline above a wrecked locomotive, with the headline "Brake or Break." This is **not political satire** but rather commercial messaging about vehicle safety and reliability. The ad argues that good brakes are essential for trucks, positioning Timken-Detroit brakes as superior because they're reliable and engineered for safety. The dramatic locomotive wreck serves as a visual metaphor for catastrophic failure—warning that inadequate brakes cause disaster. This reflects early-20th-century commercial advertising's use of fear and safety concerns to promote industrial products to fleet buyers.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The importance of good brakes is often over- looked by a truck buyer, because they are the least used parts of the chassis. Of all the vitally important parts of the truck, the brake is the only one that is not in continu- ous operation while the truck is in motion. It is the only one that has to be built for the exceptional emergency. It is the one which must be absolutely reli- able, which must not fail under any circum- stances, and whose failure always means liability to serious injury of the vehicle and its cargo, if not to human life. There are three great commercial requirements in an efficient truck: It must have the right power transmission to drive the load. It must have sturdy axles to carry the load. And it must have some practical, economical and sure way of stopping the load. When the factor of human safety is concerned as well as the value of the whole vehicle and its cargo, stopping the load assumes major importance. Therefore good brake construction is an integral part of good rear axle construction. Brake or Break Timken-Detroit brakes have back of them the same long experience, the same engineering ability, and the same traditions of successful performance that are back of every part and piece of any Timken-Detroit Axle. The problem of building the right kind of a brake can be and is worked out with scientific accuracy. There is no guess-work about it. The Timken brake is designed in such a way that it closes its grip on the rear axle smoothly and evenly but swiftly. It brings the load to a dead stop without sudden jolt or jar, but in the shortest possible distance. And when set, it holds fike a bull-dog. Timken engineering goes beyond the brakes, it con- siders the relation of every detail of axle structure to the efficient operation of the brakes. It also co-operates with the truck builder in order that the system of rods and levers connecting the driver's hand or foot with the brake is scientifically designed and accurately installed; this is extremely important; for you must have not only good brakes, but efficient and dependable control of them every instant. Send for free copy of the Timken Booklet E-4, ‘The Anatomy of Automobile Axles,” and read carefully what it says about the essentials of good brake construction. THE TIMKEN-DETROIT AXLE COMPANY Detroit, Michigan Oldest and largest builders of front and rear axles for both passenger cars and motor-trucks. IMKEN:-DETROIT FRONT and WORM:-DRIVE REAR AXLES For Efficient COMMERCIAL Haulage comicbooks.com