Life, 1925-07-09 · page 2 of 42
Life — July 9, 1925 — page 2: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page is **advertising, not satire**. It's a Cadillac advertisement from General Motors Corporation promoting the brand's reliability and craftsmanship. The circular illustration at top shows a globe or world sphere with Cadillac's coat-of-arms crest, representing "Standard of the World"—Cadillac's slogan emphasizing its global prestige and manufacturing excellence. The text uses corporate rhetoric praising Cadillac's "unremitting zeal to serve" and its adherence to quality standards. It appeals to owner loyalty while reassuring executives and workers that maintaining Cadillac's reputation requires unwavering commitment to excellence. This reflects 1920s-era automotive marketing emphasizing craftsmanship, tradition, and social status rather than satirizing anything political or social.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
AN ACCOUNTING AND A PLEDGE Cadillac keeps young and vigorous and virile because it is continuously refreshed and inspired by the sympathetic interest of a million friends. It renews its youth every day upon the generous approval of tens of thousands of owners and their families who take the time and the trouble to express their friendship for Cadillac—and their faith in its unremitting zeal to serve. Cadillac is gloriously young after twenty-three years of adherence to the one ambition of remaining the Standard of the World—after ten years of dedication to the task of outstripping theworld in thefurther- ance of the eight-cylinder principle. It is splendidly young in spite of the fact that its traditions are old—or rather because of the fact that those traditions are so fine and high that they make every working day a new day ofincreasing zest and inspiration. It has been said, and it is true, chat even if the impossible should happen and the directing heads of Cadillac should wish to deviate by a hair's breadth from the ideals which have dominated Cadillac all these years— they would not be permitted todoso. They would not be permitted to do so because the great group of mas- terworkmen who are steeped in the spirit of surpassing excellence would go on serenely as before—or throw down their tools if asked to do any- thing less than the Cadillac best. Cadillac is subjected to a pressure from within and from without to excel itself—the pressure of public expectation and the pressure of honest craftsmanship which can work no way other than the Cad- illac way. What is said here is in the nature of an accounting from Cadillac—a re-ded- ication to high service published at this Division of General Motors Corporation moment because of the advent of a new, young, and powerful, executive leadership. The pledge is from him—and through him, from the solid phalanx of Cadillac executives and workmen who consider themselves servants of the most loyal public any industrial institution has ever enjoyed. Great things are always under way for Cadillac and Cadillac owners— not merely a maintenanceof the high endeavors of the past but a con- stant striving after things never yet attained. To every Cadillac owner of record the executive head of Cadillac will endeavor at the earliest moment to send a personal pledge of the future. Meanwhile, because you and a mil- lion others count upon it—be cer- tain that Cadillac will never fail to realize your highest hopes. comicbooks.com