Life, 1920-04-15 · page 8 of 44
Life — April 15, 1920 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This cartoon depicts **Pan** (the Greek god of nature, identifiable by his goat legs and pipes) being interrupted while playing his pipes to a young child in a pastoral landscape. The caption explains the joke: Pan's enchanting music is being disrupted by **Sunday motorists**—weekend drivers who disturb the countryside. The satire targets early 20th-century automobile culture. As cars became accessible to middle-class Americans, Sunday driving became a popular leisure activity. The cartoon mocks how these motorists' noisy vehicles destroyed the peace and natural beauty of rural areas, literally interrupting an ancient symbol of pastoral harmony. It's a commentary on progress intruding upon nature and tradition.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Che Smokeless Past F Eve had lit a cigarette, She would have scorned the any! That still remains a prime regret In every church and chapel. Had Alexander owned a pipe. Would he have wept, demented, For other worlds for conquest riyx He would have puffed, contente: If good cigars had fumed and g!ov In Rome, Horatius Flaccus Would certainly have penned an « To praise the god To-Bacchus Bethink you, blithe Tobacconist, My fragrant brier stoking, How much the mighty ancients n/ Who never dreamed of smokin; MERA H was born with a silver spoon oe. Ga his mouth,” “That's nothing. She was born y Pan the Piper (interrupted): CONFOUND THESE SUNDAY MOTORISTS ! an oil well in her back yard.” What We Are Coming To F British celebrities find that travel in this country is t PRING is already here. Summer is close at hand, and expensive, we might send our audiences over there it becomes increasingly easy to picture to one’s self the torrid days and stifling nights that mean so much of misery and suffering to the little children of the tenements. The housing problem in New York City is most acute During the coming summer closer crowding, more heat and worse air will make the tenements even more intoler- able than usual. A fortnight’s outing in the country may actually save the lives of some of these children. Below will be found the plan for providing these outings, not only this summer but every summer. Under the arrangement Lire’s Fresh Air Fund has received from Mrs. Agnetta Baldwin, Bowling Green, Ohio, the necessary funds to establish FRESH AIK ENDOWMENT No. 162 “For the good of coming men and women,” From Houston L. Gaddis, Esq., Grosse Isle, Michigan, funds to establish FRESH AIR ENDOWMENT NO. 163 In Memory of his mother, Mrs. M. Lowe Ganors. From Mrs. Mary Avery Gaddis, Grosse Isle, Michigan. funds to establish PRESH AIR ENDOWMENT NO. 164 In loving Memory of her mother, Exizanetn Porter Avexy To establish a Fresh Air Endowment two hundred dollars in Victory notes or Liberty Loan bonds, or their equivalent, should be sent by registered mail to Lire’s Fresh Air Fund, Inc., 17 West Thirty-first Street, New York City. The income from this amount provides that every summer, in perpetuity. a poor child will be sent from the slums of New = ‘ ; 3 “LABERTY, LIRERTY—WHERE HAVE 1 HEARD THAT WORD York for a fortnixht's stay in the fresh air of the country i BEFORE? WASN'T IT THE NAME OF A STATUE OR SOME- A Fresh Air Endowment may bear any designation chosen. THING?” comicbooks.com