The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1909-01-23

modern car of romance.
whether Cupid or Mephisto-
- pheles IL in the chauffeur's
seat, the automobile occu-
pies the center of the stage at time
when the worlds most thrilling melo-
dramas are being played. The ma
chine has impaired its own breathless
and dizzy speed to the men and
women who ride in it or drive it. and
the world gasps while the giddy per-
Torrance goes on.
What is there about the whiz wagon
which renders men reckless and lures
women into what the poet LIE CALI
enne calls the moral shipwreck
wrought by the automobile?" Is it
the speed madness?
Perhaps lie Gallienne's answer is as
good as any other. He declares that
the automobile is in our religion. in
what is left of our manners, in edu-
cation and would be in our morals II
it had left us any. Naturally, having
set its. blight on everything else, it has
entered the home to rob the parent
of his daughter, the husband of his
wife.
"'Cherchez Iautomobiliste' is the
present day axiom when folly or crime
has been committed" says LIE CALI
enne. 1T is the man with a face like
horse that is tempting the woman.
The autoist is neither man nor beast.
He is half human and the rest of him
is compounded Of various brute forms
the sort OF monster that only an au-
tomobile age could produce. And is it
any wonder that Eve to-day should
take rib from such an Adam?
Irresistible but pepraving.
Look at the face of that fellow at
the wheel there. II there is any face
more hopeless 1t is that of the woman
sitting behind him. All machines are
brutalizing, but o, the brutalizing. de-
PRAYING power of this machine!
And 1t is irrestible," he continues.
Il love its exhilaration-yes, it's in
charlottesville l condemn it as the
drunkard condemns drink. / know /
shall yield again. There is nothing to
be done, of course. You can't save
woman from the automobile. She is
doomed, as we all are doomed. The
latest revision of Faust should put
Mephistopheles at the speed lever,
with Marguerite at his side. We are
lost. lost irredeemably. and we drown
our sorrows in gasoline"
All Of which may be only the poets
frenzy. colored with certain sly hu-
NOR of exaggeration. He seems to be
little dizzy from the fumes of his
own machine. The whiz wagon is not
all tragic. It leaves much of romance
and comedy, even of farce, in its trail
as 1t whirls through the world. 1t
merely seems to pitch all the emotions
and passions Of men into its own high
key, and colors the daily record Of
events with its own rich hues.
Numbered by Thousands.
There are more than 1900 automo-
biles in Illinois and 1t is estimated that
at least $1,000 of these are owned by
citizens Of Chicago and it's suburbs.
The latest year book of the Ameri-
can Automobile association shows a
total membership of 1879. with is
state associations and 132 clubs. When
you consider that this embraces only
fraction of the automobile owning
population, and that many people ride
in each car as occasion offers, 1t will
be seen that the lure Of the whiz
wagon il widespread. Even those of
us who cannot ride are given to imi-
tating or at least secretly envying
the speed and extravaganza of the au-
tomaniacs.
1t would seem even that the hostil-
ity of the lodging public has abated
recently. for the automobile proved a
political ally In one of the most unique
congressional campaigns ever held in
Illinois. In the Twenty-fourth district,
where there are many farmers and
where the whiE wagon might be ex-
pscted to be particularly. unpop
ular. there was a contest between an
automobile and a mule. and the mule
was defeated.
Orlando Burrell of Carmi was for