Salt Lake Tribune | 1918-08-18 | Page 30 | Hup Dealer Tells of Auto Industry

HUP DEALER TELLS OF AUTOira The growth and development of the automobile industry has been so rapid that people generally have not had an opportunity to appreciate its vast extent ex-tent or its importance to people in every walk of life. In discussing this, Wil-lard Wil-lard Richards, manager of the Hyland Motor compaDy, distributors of the Hup- mobile and Garford trucks, quoted facts and figures so astounding a6 to be almost al-most unbelievable were it not for the fact that they are based on the highest authority in the land. ' ' The passenger service rendered by automobiles," said .Mr. Richards, "is in excess of 45,000,01)0,000 miles each year. While that figure is so big that it fairly staggers the imagination, it is easily reckoned. There are 5,000,000 automobiles in use in the United States today. Multiply that by 3000, which surely is less than the average mileage, that gives 15,000,000,000. But this figure fig-ure must be multiplied by three the average number of passengers per car. At the rate of 3 cents a mile this represents rep-resents an actual transportation value of $1,350,000. ' 1 A census of those to whom the industry in-dustry gives employment shows that there are 830,000 actual workers. These people, together with their dependents, would completely populate the city of Chicago. During the year 1917 more than two and a quarter times the gross revenue of the United States post office, of-fice, or $747,000,000, was paid to employees em-ployees of the automobile industry. The amount of actual capital invested is $1,297,000,000, a sum far greater than the capitalization of all national banks combined. "Some idea of the time and labor saved by automobiles may be gained from the fact that American automobiles automo-biles alone could transport all the men in the contending armies from Paris to Berlin in forty-eight hours. " While it may not be generally known, farmers owe more to the automobile auto-mobile industry than any other class of people. In the first place, over 2,000,-000 2,000,-000 automobiles are owned by farmers, and it has been carefully computed that if each one carried only one passenger but ten miles each day," the yearly gain in production over horse power amounts to $250,000,000. Right now there are 25,000,000 horses left in the countrv. Automobiles could be substituted for them and the conserved land planted to wheat; one year's yield would be i enough to wipe out every cent of the national debt, including the three liberty lib-erty loan issues."