The Rice belt journal. (Welsh, Calcasieu Parish, La.) 1900-19??, 1909-01-08

MODERN car vi FOludnCS- |
q 4 whether Cupid or Mephisto-
pheles is in the chauffeurs |
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 automobiles" 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 l'automobiliste' is the
present day axiom when folly or crime
has been committed" says LIE CALI
enne. 1T is the man with 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 II
anv wonder that Eve to-day should
take a rib from such an Adam?
Irresistible but Depraving.
Look at the face of that fellow a
the wheel there. If there is any face
more hopeless it is that of the woman
sitting behind him. All machines arr
brutalizing, but o, the brutalizing, de
praving power of this machine!
and it is irresistible" he continues
~ love it's eXhilaration-yes, its II
toxication-while l condemn it as tn
drunkard condemns drink. / know
shall Weld again. There is nothing t
he done. of course. You can't say
woman from the automobile. She
doomed. as we all are doomed. In
latest revision of Faust should pt
Mephistopheles at the speed leve
with Marguerite at his side. We al
lost. lost irredeemably, and we droW
our sorrows in gasoline
All of which may be only the poet
frenzy, colored with certain sly n
NOR of exaggeration. He seems to
a little dizzy from the fumes OF n
own machine. The whiz wagon IS III
all tragic. 1t leaves much of romano
and comedy, even of farce, in its ira
as it whirls through the world.
merely seems to pitch all the emotion
and passions of men into its own MI
kew. and colors the daily record
events with it's own rich hues.
Numbered by Thousands.
There are more than 1900 auton
biles in Illinois and it is estimated tn
at least $4,000 of these are owned
citizens of Chicago and its suburbs
The latest year book of the Anne
can Automobile association shows
total membership of 1889, with
state associations and 1872 clubs. Wn
YOU consider that this embraces OF
a fraction of the automobile own
population, and that many people II
in each car as occasion offers, 1t v
be seen that the lure OF the w
wagon is widespread. Even those
US who cannot ride are given to L
tating or at least secretly envy
the speed and extravaganza of the
tomaniacs.
1t would seem even that the hos
ity of the lodging public has aba
recently, for the automobile PROVED
political ally in one of the most unit
congressional campaigns ever held
Illinois. In the Twenty-fourth distr
where there are many farmers
where the whiz wagon might be
pected to be particularly UNI
uIar, there was contest between
automobile and a mule, and the N
was defeated.
Orlando BtuTell of Carmi was