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Show 8 PRESCRIPT! FOR iTOIOSILE HIS i- The Principle Upon Which the Automobile Club of Cleveland Cleve-land Was Founded and the Manner in Which It Has Benefited Its 8000 Members Mem-bers and the Motorist in General. (By Fred H. Caley in Motor Life.) When tho president's call took tho members of the Ohio state militia away from their offices and set them to guarding buildings and public utilities utili-ties in the vicinity of Cleveland, it did jnot take the Cleveland Automobile ' club long to start a campaign of its own. This campaign was wnged among tho members and friends of the club and boro immediate fruit. Before Be-fore the militiamen had beon on duty many hours there wore sufficient mo-' mo-' tor cars and trucks on hand to movo tho men to their posts, help in changing chang-ing reliefs, transport supplies and render ren-der valuable assistance in all the ways demanded by the military service. These cars are still on duty and will remain as long as thoir presenco is needed. The successful automobile club Is tho organization which finds its peculiar pe-culiar position in the community and proceeds to develop along that particular partic-ular line. I do not mean automobilo clubs should hold aloof from all other communal enterprises, but they should at all times bear in mind their own civic purpose and hold fast thereto. If thfe automobilo club will attend strict ly to its civic "knitting" it will soon find a long skein of memberships sufficiently suffi-ciently strong to pull worth-whilo benefits ben-efits in the form of better roads, better bet-ter streets and better laws. I am assuming that everyono connected con-nected with motor organizations has recognized by this time that the peculiar pecul-iar niche to which reference is made is in the civic life rather than the social so-cial life of the community. We found this out in Cleveland six years ago and outside of one" or two exceptions which help to prove the rule, I believe it is the experience of all clubs which are going farthest in membership and influence. There are many activities in a community which can bo carried on by other organizations organiza-tions just as well as, if not belter than, by automobile clubs. On the other oth-er hand, there are functions which fall primarily to an organization of motorists, motor-ists, and which no other body can perform per-form so well. In the class of activities not primarily primar-ily ours, I might mention tho giving of dances and the general conduct of a country club. As to other organizations organiza-tions being better fitted to give parties, par-ties, I want to deal with the question strictly from tho point of view of our own associations, rather than from the outsider's. The chief obstacle to really real-ly successful dancing parties is the same as that concerning a country establishment. es-tablishment. The automobile club that is a real automobile club is too big for such social activities. It is first of all a matter of size. And the motor mo-tor organization that does not find its membership so large as to be unwieldy unwiel-dy for such affairs had better change its business, and be an out-and-out social so-cial organization rather than try to influence in-fluence legislation by the weight of its membership. Tho time of the big democratic dem-ocratic automobilo club is hero, and the organization that does not recognize recog-nize this fact overlooks the big fact in motordom today. We want the men with the cottages and tho Fords, and the automobile club that does not fight for that co-operation will never get far in American 'life. The futility of trying to mingle the varied social strata represented in a big civic organization Is at once apparent. ap-parent. The social affairs aro bound to degenerate into partlos f,or certain cliques, and that means only one thing in organization life. I challenge tho entire country to1 point to an automobilo country club )- - ; successfully operated from a financial point of view. If an automobilo club is performing its civic functions, it will havo a membership mem-bership boyond tho confines of patrons pa-trons of n single country club, and that means tho deficit of the country club Is being saddled on tho membership-at-largo. I challengo anyone to point out to mo an automobile club that can nt this stago of piocecdings sit back with an air of solf-saticfaotion and say. "Thoro is nothing more of direct motoring mo-toring value for which wo can spend our members' money, so wo must.put the surplus into conducting a country club." Show me an automobilo club that thinks moro of Manhattan aB a concoction con-coction than as a touring destination and moro of May parties than of traffic traf-fic regulations, and I will show you an organization that soon will have an opposition association sufficient to give the older organization ample leisure lei-sure to devotp all its attention to receptions. re-ceptions. ' Tho Clevolaud Automobilo club has not conducted a race,, social function or club tour in years, and it is today tho biggest automobilo club in the country, with moio than 8,000 members mem-bers paid up and in good standing. So much for what not to do. Let us seo how we can comply with Motor Life's request on the positive side. If the reador will pardon tho first person per-son reforenco, the request can best bo answered by summarizing some of the accomplishments of tho Cleveland club within tho past year. Tho city of Cleveland has adopted a paving program of $10,000,000, distributed distrib-uted through five years. Mayor Davis declares this is a direct result of the automobilo club's efforts and followed a campaign for a bond issue One hundred miles of new pavement in tho county was completed, and many of tho roads already paved but too narrow for modern traffic needs, wero widened with stato funds, the net revenues of tho automobile license department. . . A prizo of $100 to tho township showing greatest improvement in maintenance of earth roads produced thousands of dollars' worth of work on dirt roads. Among now laws enacted by the 1917 legislature were: Requirement of lights on horse-drawn vehiclos, mandator!' man-dator!' maintenance and marking of adequato detours during road construction, construc-tion, and increasing tho penalty for stealing a car to a possible fifteen years in the penitentiary. Following a crusade against theft of membors cars, directed by the club, thirty persons woro sentenced to ponal Institutions from Cuyahoga county alono. Hundreds of danger and direction olgns wero erected. Each mombor received freo a copy of tho volume four, Blue Book, covering cover-ing tho Middle West, with a special Cleveland supplement. This Is part of the club's touring information department, de-partment, which employs four persons for that work alone. Illegitimate speed traps wero entirely en-tirely abolished in Cuyahoga and neighboring counties through sweeping sweep-ing decisions against them by the attorney at-torney goneral of tho slate, obtained by club's counsel. The foregoing aro some of the benefits ben-efits secured for members, separate and apart from the many benefits derived de-rived through affiliation and reciprocity reciproc-ity with other clubs. That is why, at tho end of our fiscal year we found that out of S.00O members mem-bers wo had lost loss than 8 per cent by resignation, death or removal from tho city. Now bear In mind that thero aro various Individual services performed on which wo go the limit, but tho Cloveland club conducts no insurance exchange, supply house or speedway. Six years ago tho club had 400 members. mem-bers. We throw out tho drinking tables, ta-bles, card tables and pool tables. In our now quarters in the Hollendcn wo haven't even a lunch room. The biggest big-gest part of tho space is devoted to business offices and there Isn't a wait- i or or a cigar clerk listed in our fourteen four-teen employes. t The conduct of tho Cleveland Automobile Au-tomobile club represents a radical departure de-parture from that of the vast majority of automobile club3 throughout the country. It has aimed to find its niche and to fill it in a manner which leaves no ground upon which a rival association associa-tion can build in that locality. It is striving to benefit tho Individual motorist mo-torist by battering the community In which he lives, by co-operating with the local government in improvng rond conditions, and in other ways. Ono of tho most peculiar traits of automobile-dom is that it is selfreg ulating, a stage never developed openly open-ly byvtho railroads theaters or other industrial or social phases. The biggest big-gest progress in traffic regulation, highway development and legislation looking to tho conservation of genoral safety originates in automobile clubs. It is in these fields of tremendous importance im-portance to tho entire community city, state and nation that automobile clubs can find their greatest usefulness useful-ness and profit; It is the opportunity for greatest service and the realization realiza-tion in our organizations of the rotar Ian Idea that he profits most who serves best. |