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Show WHY THERE IS AN INDIAN "Very few people know- that the Indian Motorcycle was named three years before it even was conceived. ' Saytl L. H Becraft, local distributer rof 'lie gasoline prototype of the red man 'It is an Interesting story, la the inside chapter of the birth of I the Indian.'' he continues. In 1897 The Hendee Manufacturing company 1 was building Slher King, and Silver Queen bicycles, gentlemen s and ladies models, respectively, in Spring-! Spring-! tield. Mass Its business was prettj healthy tor that period, when the bl-j bl-j cycle boom had spent itself, and thft "bottom was dropping out" of many plants, the annual output being in the I neighborhood of 4,o00 machines In-I In-I cldentally the company enjoyed a con-' con-' siderable export business transacted ; through the New Y'ork commission ' houses These shipments consisted of , what were known as 'name plate" bl cycle6. "When a commission firm placed an order with the couipuny, usually calling call-ing for 100 bicycles or so, the title of this particular lot of machines was pecjified. also, and name plates attached at-tached accordingly In the course of time, naturally, a large quantity of Hendee built bicycles went abroad under un-der all sort6 of names Practically all of these machines were Identical, scve In name, and sometimes the color col-or For sometime the company had been opposed to this practice, and fin ally resolved to take the bull by the horns, even at the cost of losing considerable con-siderable business. President Hendee made a trip to N w York and took the matter up with the commission houses At the fir?t place he called, he stated hl3 mission and proposed that all export shipments In future bear one name He also proposed the name "American Indian" on the strength of the worldwide world-wide prominence of the American Indian In-dian himself, and the cumulative value 0 Mich a title applied to a bicycle The proposition made n favorable lm-presslon lm-presslon and the flr?t firm approach-td approach-td acceded to it without serious opposition. op-position. "By good fortune all of the Hendee company's brokerage customers were lined up favorably toward the new policy. pol-icy. :md it went into effect Immedl-ai Immedl-ai I At the factory, however, the new line was referred to as "Indian'' for short It was not long before Presidnt Hendee camo to a full realisation reali-sation of the value of the name he bad chosen, and he decided to drop all other lines and build Indian bicycles bi-cycles exclusively. When the motorcycle was developed develop-ed a few years later, it was out of the question to think of calling It anvthing but Indian, as this already had proved a winner on the bicycles. In fact the nsme fitted the motorcycle even bet-, bet-, icr than It did the bicycle, and It was 1 rot a great while before the new chief I ceDOSd the nM rm tmm thu ulo,vum altogether. That is why there is an Indian Motorcycle today. Incidentally' it enjoys a far greater acquaintance I in foreign lands than did Its predeces- ! sor. and that without the use of a pre- j fix to indicate its nationality." Adv j |