Salt Lake Telegram | 1939-08-18 | Page 6 | American Truck Expert May Help China Win War by Solving Transport Problem

American T u J Expert May Help China Win War by Solving Transport Problem CHICAGO The American who built one old two two- cylinder tire hard truck into a fleet f 2500 streamlined highway high high- way cruisers Is going to China to systematize the road transport system on which hangs Chinas China's only chance ot winning the Japanese Japa- Japa nese war He is John Lewis Keeshin preside of the Transcontinental Trans Trans- continental Lines the development of which turned trucking into bi business Already Al- Al ready his assistant auri e vice nt and trea of Freight Lines Inc a subsidiary is on his way to China to begin the hug task Keeshin himself will follow later The job of creating a t working motor transport system for vastly more difficult dif dif- was for the United States is somewhat similar And Keeshin's experience in creating the first American t system should be ot the utmost service in solving the Chinese transport problem Rose the lIard Vay Keeshin knows what it is to build His first delivery job was driving a horse and wago for his fathers Chicago meat mar mar- Keeshin was soon drawn to trucking and he hauled prod uce to the tough South Water Street market by night His first long haul job is said to have been with a load of wine grapes to JoIlet 36 miles miles-in a drive chain job with carriage lamps for headlights and nO windshield to fend off the winter gale Keeshin rose the hard way A second truck a third a little littlemore more business here a little more there a fourth truck Every dime taken in outside a bare living for himself going into new equipment By 1920 he had 25 trucks by 1925 he had 50 b 1930 y After that he was one of the potent figures in the early stages of a rising business By 1935 Keeshin was operating in a half half- dozen states with tractors tz L. L The next year an alliance was formed with the Lehman Broth rs' rs banking firm ot New NewYork York and with added capital further expansion was made Other lines were purchased cn- cn soli dated into a system which now covers the Job Keeshin's problem in China is tremendous Japan all the seaports of China most of the important and river transport facUlties of hina and its military forces forces' hav be e n shoved back up to the west and south The only course of supplies is noW through the back door by hastily hastily-bulIt motor roads from Russia Burma and French Indo Indo-Ghina The desperate flinging of l road from the Burmese border to the Chinese city of in eight months over nearly miles of mountains with but the bare hands of Chinese as tools is an epic of modern times It is a mile 2100 haul from the Bay of Bengal to Ch provisional Chinese capital This road is narrow Iy room for two trucks to pass The route to Russia is longer and I worse Twelve miles an hour is good speed while torrential rains tear at the Burma road making heavy maintenance work sary at all times Three thousand Am e r 1 can trucks have already been bought boughtin in the United States by China Most of them are already at Rangoon Ran Ran- goon Burma or Indo Indo- China Another 2000 are to be besent sent later To coordinate this vast trans trans- to eliminate terminal congestion at and other necks bottle of the s stem to set the machinery to supply the blood Ufe-blood of SUpplies to the embattled em- em battled Chinese that nation is the job undertaken by Keeshin and his associate