Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 January 1913 — Automobiles and Social Standing. [ARTICLE]

Automobiles and Social Standing.

Has the Times observed that the social position of persons is now being determined by the automobiles they use? Of course, not every one who can afford the most expensive brand is eligible to society, but other things being equal, if the person should be seen by those in power using a car of the less expensive sort, he would either have to get a high-class ear or be snubbed. During the last last summer I saw a lady in a ten-thousand-dollar imported car actually sniff at some people in a fifteen-hundred-dollar domestic car, and turn her back on them as though they had committed at inexeusable gaucherte, if that Is the proper expression. Again, I heard a woman who runs a twelve-hundred-dollar car say as a carload of people rolled by: "I don’t know who they are, but they must be people of”social distinction or they wouldn’t be riding in a —,’’ mentioning one of the highest-priced cars on the market. Some day some wise auto manufacturer in this country will build cars only to order, and accept no order unless it is previously indorsed by the committee for the “Preservation of Social Ideals.” Yes?—Letter to New York Times.