Page:The Newspaper and the Historian.djvu/539

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the automobile in infinite variety , elaborate clothing, household equipment, - a thousand and one illustrations in the daily press

and in weekly and monthly periodicals all show prosperity and the ability on the part of many to gratify every desire, whim , or caprice. These are all the unconscious representations of the life of the wealthy, illustrated through the appeals of business houses for the patronage of the rich . If “ we make the thing we

buy ,” the illustration shows infallibly the enormous production of everything that contributes to a life of ease on the part of some members of society. It shows with equal clearness the develop

ment of the similar appealmade by all transportation companies , - speed , comfort, luxury, amusements, strange sights, unusual scenery , opportunities for business, “ safety first," politeness and consideration for both employees and passengers . The

limousine in its turn is always illustrated in appropriate sur roundings. But just as unerringly the illustration shows the opposite extreme. This, however , it does consciously , - no one seeks through illustration the patronage of tenement-house dwellers. The illustration is used, not to sell to those who can not buy, but to show overcrowding of tenements, lack of space, air, and light, the unwarranted use of fire escapes, unsanitary conditions

in passage-ways,areas, and back yards, and violations of decency, order, and law . The illustration becomes a conscious co -operator

with the forces in every community that make for righteousness through its service in showing negatively undesirable, positively objectionable conditions of life . The illustration presses upwards into the homes of the rich to seek their patronage, but it also presses downwards into the homes of the poor to show to the rich conditions they have it in their power in part to relieve and prevent. Both extremes are abnormal, the illustration faithfully

depicts each class, but each from oppositemotives . The greatmiddle class is more normal in its conditions and its

interests and these the illustration also faithfully represents. It is interested in time-saving inventions, in ready-made clothing, in prepared foods, in victrolas and piano-players, in bicycles and

runabouts, - all of these interests are standardized and repre sented through the ill