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Show BUSINESS IN NOW DEPEND 1 Ml CHI A True and Amazing Story of the Automobile as a Potent Force in Industrial Indus-trial Activities. By JOHN- N. WILLYS. Do you know that right now there are 5,000.000 motor vehicles in use, or onei to every twenty persons in the United States? In these cars, twenty-five million people, peo-ple, one-fourth of the population, could be transported 100 miles or more in a single day. Only the first filling of gasoline would be needed for the purpose. pur-pose. Before the war produced unneare!-f conditions, it is not astonishing that people had paid little attention to these matters and had not analyzed tho usefulness use-fulness of the automobile. The manufacturers manu-facturers themselves believed their splendid sales organizations to have been responsible for their marked sales increases, when, as a matter of fact, the motor car had come to fill a demand which had existed for centuries. But now we have stopped to analyze the food we eat, the clothes we wear and the time we can save. How, then, does the automobile fit into this big plan? Who uses itl There was only one way to find out. definitely, and that was to ask the people who owned and operated ears. This was accomplished by getting an expression from every man who purchased an Overland Over-land car in 1917, showing the occupation occupa-tion in which he was engaged. This information in-formation has been tabulated in classifications classi-fications by trade to conform with tho census figures. Survey Made. The result of this investigation, when charted, showed some interesting figures. fig-ures. The first one is that this survey indicates in-dicates that ovef SO per cent of automobile automo-bile use is for business purposes. The next great fact, gained at a glance, was that the men, whose business busi-ness depended upon covering a great deal of ground in a short space of time wero' its largest purchasers. While these figures apply only to the 1917 production of Overland cars, we feel that we may safely assume that approximately ap-proximately tho same divisions by trade are applicable to automobile ownership own-ership in general. We h.ivot therefore, assumed this to be the case in our conclusions. con-clusions. Shall we expect to find nntomobilea in the city alone? Look at the first occupational di-; di-; vision of tho chart. The pro at American Ameri-can farmer, representing 3X2 per cent i of the population of the country, bouphl : 53.1 per cent of the automobiles last year. The farmer is buyi ng automobiles automo-biles because they have rione moro to ' lighten labor and chanpe his cntiro plane of livinp and doing business than any other invention since tho harvesting harvest-ing machine. Mileage Compared. The estimated possible annual passenger pas-senger mile Horvict? of motor cars in about fiO.nno, 000,000 as compared with 35,000,000,000 passenprr miles attributed attrib-uted to our railroads. Those multipliers of cnerpv are traveling 40.000.000 miles a dav, tho equivalent of 1600 times around the world. Many a nation has been conquered, not for lack of bravery brav-ery or men, bnt for the lack of transportation. trans-portation. We are farther from our bases of supply than any warring nation. na-tion. This nation must devote every ounce of energy to produce more food, more munitions, but with the enormous increases in-creases must come more transportation; more done in less time. We cannot go back to thr days of the army mule and pack saddle, the prairie schooner and the "one hoss sb.iy.M Speed, speed and more Fpeed is the cry. And America Amer-ica answers with her 5,000,000 automobiles automo-biles and the greatest transportation tool, the preatest aid to personal efficiency effi-ciency in the world. The total horsepower used to tirrn th wheels of America's industrial plants is only 11,000.000. Balance this againtf; the" 100,000,000 horsepower of tirn craving crav-ing onergv represented by the passenger passen-ger cars of this country alone. For the buv man, the automobile practically makes the whole, community commu-nity his office building whero he may po Irorn one inisincss enomiwit meeting to another in his motor car almost as easily as he steps across the ' Under the hfadin, "Transportation," "Transporta-tion," are included all of the rnanae-ers, rnanae-ers, 'superintendent-?, foremen pd employees em-ployees of the many public service eor-jor'ations eor-jor'ations of the country. Here wc find the railroads, telephone and telegraph companies and many like occupations. Tliev represent per cent of the population and own but 3 per cent of the automobiles. The reason for this small percentage of car owners is at once apparent as the bulk of the, business busi-ness of these men is over various car-ricru car-ricru of the country, and here the automobile auto-mobile is not so much an essential to the conduct of their duties. You need only to refer to any government gov-ernment report covering the increase nf land values to s that the total amounts to millions of dollars en both farm and suburban property. |