Salt Lake Tribune | 1918-02-03 | Page 38 | Autos Essential to Modern Progress

AUTOS ESSENTIAL 10 : . 1BE1 PROGRESS ! Studebaker Official Says Motor Car Is Greatest ' Business Developer. 'People who apply ibe name of 'picas- : ure" to the automobiles of today i-ertainlj ; l-.i-VD not taken tile tune to give mailcr serious thought." suys L" , : Oilier, vice president ami director ot t-wt of the .SUidcDu-ker corporation. j "It nould liu as impofsihie. he eon-. tinned, "to conceive ol the conduct 01 . personal and business affairs without me automobile today as it would 10 conceive ol handlinc; modern business- without mm. express trains, fast freights, Lleer.l : and lona-riistanco telephones. Die niu- i tor car has not onlv become, an essential part ot modern life, but it has been Ureatlv responsible for Hie development. lot the wav we live ani do business to- I day. It has made the wondeitul business busi-ness achievements which we accomplish in the twelve months of the i ear pes- j sible. , "A well-known authority recently estimated esti-mated that about MJ per vent of the automobiles auto-mobiles in use In tins country today are I used by farmers. 1 think it is really an overestimate. To my knowledge, l,3n,-ti-iS of our 4.2l,d.S4 cars registered .luly 1, 1917, were in the twelve cast-north central cen-tral and west-mirth, central farming states. About per cent of the population popula-tion in these stales is in the country and towns of less than 2600 population. In the state of Iowa there is one automobile auto-mobile to every- eight people, ami nearly as many in the surrounding rural states. There has been an increase of nearly j') per cent in registration in these states from July 1, l'.iie, to July 1, 1917. "The necessity of the motor car to modern life is responsible for this almost universal use of the automobile in the country sections of these farming states. One car to every eight people is better than one car to every tvvo families. An analysis of the .rural life, not only In these states, but in all parts of the United States, is a revelation to the man whose thoughts are based on the way farmers used to live ten years ago. Any of a dozen or more great farm papers published pub-lished in these central states sells nearly 35 per cent of its advertising space to farmers who advertise special sales of blooded stock. "The automobile has made the success suc-cess of these sales possible because it has Increased tho radius of the farmer's operations from five or six miles to fifty or sixty miles, fie thinks nothing of getting into his car and driving fifty miles to a stock sale and he can do it in the same length of time he used to drive ten miles to town. "The automobile ha3 been the greatest emancipator of the farmer-business man. . It has developed the average fanner inlo a big business man, henefited tle smaller farmer immeasurably and changed the social aspect of farm'life in general "There is no need for us to worry about whether the automobile Is a necessity or a luxury. Regardless of what we ' say or do, or how we argue or reason, the automobile will answer for itself and it is hound to demonstrate its necessitv and utility. Just as it did when it saved France at the Marnc."