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Title: Story of the automobile
Its history and development from 1760 to 1917 with an analysis
of the standing and prospects of the automobile industry
Author: H. L. Barber
Release Date: October 24, 2021 [eBook #66607]
Language: English
Produced by: Charlene Taylor, Brian Wilcox and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The Internet
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORY OF THE AUTOMOBILE ***
Transcriber’s Notes:
Italic text is clothed with _underscores_.
The spelling, hyphenation, punctuation and accentuation are as the
original, except for apparent typographical errors which have been
corrected.
The wide table of Curb Market trading for years 1906, 1909, 1912 and
1916 has been split into two, vertically, the first displays the years
1916 and 1912, the second half displays years 1909 and 1906 for each of
the three folio pages.
[Illustration: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
FIRST GREAT AMERICAN TEACHER OF THRIFT AND INVESTING FOR PROFIT
CHARLES E. DURYEA
MAKER OF THE FIRST AMERICAN GASOLINE AUTOMOBILE THAT RAN
HENRY FORD
FATHER OF QUANTITY PRODUCTION OF THE AUTOMOBILE]
Story of the Automobile
Its History and Development
From 1760 to 1917
With an Analysis of the
Standing and Prospects of
the Automobile Industry
By H. L. BARBER
Economist and Financial Writer
Author of “Making Money Make Money,” etc., etc.
CHICAGO
A. J. MUNSON & CO.
1917
COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY
H. L. BARBER
PREFACE.
So far as I know, there is no book in circulation that tells, in
concise form, the story of the mechanical and commercial evolution of
the automobile, mirrors its sudden leap into popular use, and shows how
it has demonstrated, in a most amazing way, the power of money to make
money, describes its benefits to the world, and forecasts the future
possibilities of the automobile industry as an investment.
This book, the “Story of the Automobile,” shows the struggle of man for
one hundred and fifty years to devise a means of propelling a vehicle
without animal power.
It describes the various stages of the evolution of the idea of motive
force other than animal power, in France, England, Germany and the
United States, and its triumphant culmination in a successful horseless
vehicle. And it makes clear how, when the automobile became of
practical use, its successful commercialization became most profitable
in the shortest period of time of that of any product of man’s
ingenuity supplying an article to meet human wants.
But if this were all that could be recorded of the story of the
automobile, this book would not have been written. The automobile’s
success demonstrates all this, and something more—something that would
not ordinarily occur to a person unless his attention was called to it.
The astonishing history of the automobile’s success affords one of the
most convincing and the best modern instance of the opportunities that
are being constantly presented for investing for profit.
It is a signal example kept in our hearing every day by the
Niagara-like roar of the cars along our boulevards, of the fact that
this is the age of golden opportunities for making money make money—of
opportunities that disclose themselves, sometimes unexpectedly, and,
when embraced, are apt to respond with a veritable avalanche of profits.
For was it not an avalanche of profits that overwhelmed the man who in
thirteen years made $200,000,000 and was offered another $200,000,000
for only a small part of his business? And this great fortune made by
Henry Ford did not exhaust the Ford automobile’s possibilities, for
millions are still being taken out of the business, one investor of
$2,000 having received over half a million dollars out of it lately.
When men who are not 40 years old today came out of high school they
either did not know what an automobile was or, if they had seen one
of the very earliest samples, they had no vision of what it would
develop into—no conception of what the future had in store for the
wabbly horseless vehicle, zig-zagging down the street, as a potential
money-maker.
And in the early days of the automobile’s struggles for recognition as
a promising investment, no banker or other moneyed man could be brought
to believe that it held out any reasonable hopes of great gain. No one
could foresee, not even the inventors of the automobile, that in less
than two decades the business done through its comparative perfection
would rank fourth in order of the industries of the United States. And
still less was there anybody so foresighted in the possibilities that
lie in money to make more money, as to vision the billions of dollars
of profits to be paid out by this one idea of a horseless vehicle.
We can find few instances which so forcefully show, as the automobile
industry shows, the chances for profitable investment in a short time
which may come from sources supplying the needs or pleasures of the
great mass of the people.
The chapters of the “Story of the Automobile” devoted to its
commercialization make clear that its greatest success has been due
to the production of automobiles at a price within reach of people of
ordinary means. For this the one man most responsible is Henry Ford. He
has demonstrated in a manner of many millions that the most money is to
be made out of things used by the greatest number of people—things that
become common needs.
The enduring truth of the profitableness of Philip D. Armour’s
apothegm, “Make and sell things that are ‘et’ up,” is not discredited
by the automobile industry, for the use of the automobile “eats” up
steel, brass, wood, rubber, leather, gasoline and many other natural
resources. The automobile wears out and has to be replaced, so it
properly comes in the category of things “et” up.
This truth, that the greatest profits lie in products that can be given
general distribution, with a consequent large sale, which is one I
have maintained in my book, “Making Money Make Money,” in my magazine,
“Investing for Profit,” and in all my teachings on the science
of investing, finds a splendid exemplification in the automobile
industry’s success as a phenomenally profitable form of investment, and
the circumstances of this success are but cumulative evidence of the
soundness of my doctrine.
And the success of the automobile industry in the measure and with the
speed it has achieved verifies not only this claim I have made and
maintained, but confirms my contention of the value of co-operation.
I have preached co-operation as urgently as I have advocated, as the
best objects of investment, the value of things used popularly and in
quantities.
The “Story of the Automobile” could not have had written into it the
glamour of the golden guerdons of Golconda but for Ford’s idea of
quantity production, reinforced by co-operative standardization of
parts. Co-operation between the manufacturers produced standardization,
and standardization enabled quantity production, and the low price
which quantity consumption warranted has caused automobiles to be
bought by millions, and the purchase of the automobile in millions,
instead of thousands, has made the hundreds of millions of dividends
which this wonderful mine of profits has yielded.
The “Story of the Automobile” is one of the best and most notable
proofs of two of my convictions bedded in the concrete of experience,
namely, that the most promising investments are those made in natural
resources and enterprises which the largest number of people can
patronize, and that co-operation is one of the most effective forces
in nature, and, therefore, applicable to the affairs of men as a
beneficent influence, and, if efficient, the handmaiden of success.
The story of the automobile has herein been treated in a way that not
only presents a graphic relation of the automobile’s development as an
invention, its commercialization, its benefits to man and the position
it occupies as a notable example of earning power, but in a manner that
develops the many morals taught by its success. The method of treatment
of the subject matter is uncommon, and, for this reason, interesting, I
trust, to those who read the book.
The chapter contributed by Mr. Edward G. Westlake, automobile editor
of the _Chicago Evening Post_, is a resume of automobile conditions
from the intimate viewpoint of a writer who has specialized in the
automobile, and enjoys a deserved reputation as the dean of the
automobile editors of the daily newspaper press. Every one interested
in automobiles will derive information and entertainment through
reading Mr. Westlake’s presentation of the amazing features of
automobile industrial figures. In it he states interesting facts not
stated elsewhere in the volume.
The book’s interest and value as a contribution to automobile
literature, of which there is not much in book form, would be less
than they are, but for the participation in its preparation by the
Business Bourse International, Inc., New York, whose vice-president,
Mr. J. George Frederick, is one of the highest authorities on business
economics.
The chapter by the Business Bourse deals with the automobile industry
from the standpoint of the financial and investment aspects of the
automobile, accessory and tire manufacturers’ securities, and Mr.
Frederick’s reputation in the financial world is a guarantee of the
authoritative accuracy of the facts presented in this chapter.
Credit for salient facts in the history of the automobile, obtained and
used in the “Story of the Automobile,” is given to a large volume of
nearly 500 pages, “The Romance of the Automobile Industry,” by James
Rood Doolittle, issued lately by The Klebold Press, New York city.
This volume is the most exhaustive work in book form yet published on
the automobile, and covers graphically every phase of its development
and popularization. It is virtually a textbook and reference guide of
facts of motor car history, and devotes particular attention to the
personnel of the founders of the industry and those engaged in it, and
the association features.
I can only hope that the work entailed in presenting this, the
“Story of the Automobile,” has been done sufficiently well to make it
interesting and instructive to those who read it.
H. L. BARBER.
Wheaton, Ill., April 2, 1917.
CONTENTS
PREFACE 1
INTRODUCTION 11
CHAPTER I.
Introductory—Automobile Figures Are
Amazing 27
Industry reaches two billion dollar mark—optimistic of
future increase—point of saturation far off—reliability
contest a factor in popularizing automobiles—Ford, the
wizard who converted the industry to price reduction—installment
plan of payment—part machining plays in low
selling prices—women a factor in automobile buying—good
roads now the industry’s greatest aid—farmers as
available prospects.
CHAPTER II.
Mechanical Evolution of the Automobile 49
First horseless vehicle constructed by Cugnot, a Frenchman,
over 150 years ago—invention traced in different
countries, down to the first successful gasoline automobile
made in the United States by Charles E. Duryea in 1892—prohibitive
laws in England discouraged invention there—Evans
in 1784 first American to experiment in horseless
vehicles—French and German inventors’ part in development—Selden
first patentor of gasoline motor—inventor’s
difficulties in interesting capital—electrics appear—steam
preceded both electrics and gasoline.
CHAPTER III.
Commercializing the Automobile 77
Steam and electric types outstripped by gasoline car—co-operation
partly popularized motor car—standardization
enabled price reduction—tungsten and other alloys, heat
treatment of steel, advertising and invalidation of Selden’s
patent, in the industry’s development—reasons for United
States’ supremacy in industry.
CHAPTER IV.
Automobile Industry As an Investment 139
Industry had little original capital invested in it—present
investment largely made up of profits—difficulties in getting
capital—dealers put up money to finance distribution—production
not reached its height—commercial cars and tractors promise great
opportunities—industry a surprise to economists—large as it is,
industry still in comparative infancy.
CHAPTER V.
Benefits Conferred by the Automobile 155
A medium of exchange of knowledge and ideas by bringing
people together—uproots bigotry and removes prejudice—revolutionizes
thought and habits, and liberalizes
mind—emancipates woman from drudgery of domesticity—increases
social amenities—a health giver; saves human
life; aid in eugenics—stimulates better roads—saving in
war.
CHAPTER VI.
Reports on Automobiles, Automobile Accessories
and Tire Manufacturers Securities
from a Financial and Investment Stand-point 171
Economic history, and its relation to stock trading in
the automobile industry—securities traded in on New York
stock exchange and curb—securities on exchanges in other
cities, and data for 1916—principal securities not generally
traded in—prices and terms—newer entrants—security
issues of tire companies—comparison of automobile with
other securities—present and possible future trend—graphic
charts and comparative tables.
CHAPTER VII.
Passenger Automobiles Manufactured in the
United States 219
Range of prices in effect April 1, 1917.
CHAPTER VIII.
Gasoline Trucks and Delivery Cars Manufactured
in the United States 231
Range of prices and other data prior to April 1, 1917.—Courtesy
of Everybody’s Magazine.
INTRODUCTION.
“What did Benjamin Franklin have to do with the automobile?” a great
many readers of this book will ask.
Benjamin Franklin was many-sided, and he had a great deal to do with
much that affects the birth of the American nation; and if it had not
been for what he and other patriots, statesmen and diplomats did, the
automobile business might have been in this country today exactly what
it is in England today—and that is a very insignificant industry.
Among other things Franklin was a signer of the Declaration of
Independence, and it was the American Revolution that made the
automobile industry of today possible; for, had there been no
revolution, we would probably still be a dominion of Britain beyond the
seas, and it is pretty certain that England would have had in force
in the colonies the laws she kept on her statute books until 1896,
practically prohibiting, by the imposition of excessive road tolls, the
use of the public highways to horseless carriages.
For, strange as it may seem to us in this country, which Emerson
epitomized as another name for opportunity, the English horse owners
and people generally resented, as early as 1840, the progress
represented by the automobile, and stifled all development of it from
that time to a date when France, Germany and the United States had made
it a real factor in transportation.
If, therefore, Franklin had not helped to free this land from the
British yoke, the automobile industry might have been in the United
States what it is in England today. France and Germany might now have
been doing the automobile business of the world, with England and this
country buying from them, as England and France are now buying from the
United States, whose automobile supremacy at this date is unquestioned.
While the gasoline type of automobile today is the most popular, this
is not to say that the electric type is not a success scientifically
and commercially. Indeed, the future extent of the automobile’s use
for commercial purposes is said by experts to depend largely on the
electric driven type.
And who will deny that but for Franklin the electric motor would not
have been, for it was he who wrested the thunderbolt from heaven, as
well as the sceptre of dominion over our land from the tyrant. Franklin
as the discoverer of electricity may well be accorded the credit
for the electric automobile, which has played no small part in the
development of the automobile industry, a fact which every student of
automobile history will concede.
It is, however, on an even firmer foundation than either of the
causes mentioned that Benjamin Franklin stands as contributing to the
success of the automobile industry. The inventors could invent and the
manufacturers could make the automobile, but who, pray, was to buy it,
if it was to be in general use, if not the common people? And how, may
we ask, were the people going to buy it without money?
As the great teacher of frugality and thrift, Franklin laid the
cornerstone, 150 years ago, on which the superstructure of the
American automobile industry has been erected. For, assuredly,
had the seed planted by him failed to germinate and ripen in the
American consciousness, we could as well have been today a nation
of spendthrifts as a people self-denying, thrifty and frugal. He
inculcated those principles of temperance and economy in the lives of
our forefathers which have been handed down to us from one generation
to another, to our advantage and as an aid to our saving habits, by
which we are enabled to buy automobiles.
Many a motor car today owes its ownership to the teachings of Franklin.
Many an automobile buyer would never have become one had he not heeded
Franklin’s injunction, to “Remember, a patch on your coat and money in
your pocket is better and more creditable than a writ on your back and
no money to take it off,” and the investor would not have put money
in stocks of automobile companies if he had not learned the truth of
Franklin’s teaching that “Money makes money, and the money that money
makes, makes more money.”
Franklin having done what he could to prepare American citizens to
economize and save against the day of the automobile, and to invest
their money in its manufacture, and the American citizen having
followed his teachings and accumulated enough to buy at least a Ford,
and perhaps a few shares of automobile company stocks, the man appeared
who produced the first gasoline automobile in the United States. That
man was Charles E. Duryea. His reputation rests on the fact that,
though there were steam and electric automobiles in existence, and the
gasoline motor had been developed, he was the first to put gasoline
motor and buggy body into co-ordination and make the first run the
second. To Duryea, the constructor of the “buggy-aut,” is accorded the
credit, by automobile history, of being the father of the American
gasoline car.
Following Duryea by only one year, came the genius who put into
general circulation the universal car.
A reading of Henry Ford’s biography discloses that his first idea, that
the big money was in production in quantity—that a million articles
sold at a profit of 50 cents each was a better paying transaction
than ten thousand sold at $3.00 each—was in connection with a watch.
Watches and clocks were the first things that Ford subjected to the
mechanical promptings of his boyish mind, and he had it all planned out
to make a 50-cent watch before Ingersoll had conceived the commercial
possibilities of a dollar one.
An accident which his father met with called him from Detroit to the
Michigan farm, and this accident deprived the country of a 50-cent
watch and gave it a $350 automobile instead. And most people will agree
that it was a fair exchange and no robbery. Thomas A. Edison, strange
as it may sound, was responsible for the practically universal use of
the Ford automobile, for he it was, who, by the chance remark, “What
you want to do to make money is to make quantity,” started Ford on
his downward price career. We have it from Mr. Ford himself that he
heard this statement by Edison, and that it so impressed him that he
made it the rule and guide of his life; that he never renounced the
idea. When, after building a motor that was a success and commanded
the attention and capital of moneyed men in Detroit, Ford formed
his first company to build his car, this great idea was obstinately
adhered to by him, and was the cause of his falling out with his
moneyed partners. They could not see the light which has given Ford his
halo—the great white light of quantity production. This light burns
with steady brilliancy because it is generated by the great principle
of the greatest good to the largest number. Ford’s associates in his
first company were not believers in this principle, evidently, because
when they fell out with Ford about it, and Ford got out of the company
to start the one he now controls, they went ahead making cars that
sell today for from $2,300 to $3,900. But though they have made fair
profits, they have not made the fabulous sums that Ford has, and one
can only wonder how they feel about it, and if they realize the error
of their views. They are probably wiser if not richer.
The success of Ford’s idea of quantity sales demonstrates a great fact
in the affairs of life. It is that fields of human endeavor are not
exhausted or worked out until the human race has ceased to exist. Take
any line of enterprise you will, and it has as many facets as a prism.
An idea only is needed, which, if the right one, illustrates the
enterprise as lights thrown on the prism cause it to sparkle in many
colored rays.
We think, for instance, that the acme has been reached in the making
and marketing of bread, but along comes a man with an idea for making
bread of bran, and he is immediately ushered into the inner sanctum
of the temple of great profits. Or we imagine that the last word has
been said in cereal foodstuffs, when lo, and behold, the man with the
right idea proves that the field has room and to spare for a financial
success in so simple a thing as rice dressed in a palatable and salable
form. And so it is in everything, automobiles especially. The man who
conceives the idea of a sport car supplies a want that others have
neglected. There may be many automobile tractors on the market, but the
human brain conceives one with some feature lacking in others, such,
for instance, as making a Ford automobile interchangeable into a farm
tractor, and it has an immediate and large success. And if anybody had
an idea that the profits from producing petroleum might be limited by
the use of gas and electric light, it was because the automobile’s
enormous consumption of gasoline and the use of oil by ships could not
be foreseen.
The field for investment is kept constantly fallow, and ready for the
seed that is to fructify into great profits, by the human brain which
is ever active—ever thinking. If its product is not an elemental,
it is a supplementary idea, as the rubber tire, the demountable rim
and the self-starter for automobiles. Until the world has arrived at
perfection in all things, the ultimate will not have been reached.
The opportunities of today and tomorrow are as great as they were
yesterday. It is a question whether they are not greater, for if the
quotation ascribed to Emerson is true, that the world will beat a
path to the door, though it be in a forest, of him who makes a mouse
trap better than his neighbor, the future possibilities of enterprise
are favored by increased population and the element of the cumulative
nature of the wants of man. As inventions and articles of use increase
in number, new needs which demand supplementary products are created.
Each new thing given to the world brings in its train other new things.
The crank of a Ford auto creates a demand for a self-starter. The
increase in population and wealth brings in its train a multiplication
of human units whose use of created things is on a crescendo scale.
The financial successes in the automobile business, great as they
are, have followed the inexorable law that the richest returns in
all investments are the ground floor ones. The history of no big
business demonstrates more clearly that the way to make money is to
invest in new companies when they are offering the first authorized
capitalization for investment subscription. Money-making opportunities
for new investors are always greatest in enterprises whose development
is ahead and in the future. If they have reached the stage where
development is already producing great profits, the door is closed to
the new investor, or else he must pay a premium to sit in such paying
company.
In the ground floor days of the Ford money-making machine, Miss Couzens
“risked” $100 on Ford. That $100 produced $100,000 in cold cash. But
it did so only because the inception of the Ford enterprise provided
the opportunity. Having made its half a billion, or more, the Ford
enterprise is no longer enterable on any basis that would give such
returns for each dollar invested. When money is needed enterprise is
willing to pay liberally for its use. When enterprise has all the money
it wants, money’s value to it is less. This is the most natural law. It
is a law that operates in other things besides money. “He that hath,
needs not; he that hath not, wants.”
The automobile industry illustrates graphically that when an enterprise
develops to the point where it is well grounded and has reached a
period of age and steady earning capacity, it is not new investors
who may come in and gather the richest plums, but the old ones, those
who helped to give it its start, who stood by it when the future was
obscure, and the ultimate outcome not certain. There is probably no
business that shows as many people in it now, who were in it at the
start, as the automobile business. This applies to manufacturers,
distributors and investors, and is, to a certain extent, due to the
industry’s newness. The original Ford investors are practically all
intact. It is the original investors who have reaped the reward of
their courage in embarking in new enterprise, and who have shared in
the division of the juicy melons the automobile companies have cut in
the form of huge stock and other dividends. We need no better proof of
the fact that ground floor investments promise the greatest returns on
money invested than the financial history of the automobile.
While quantity production and the co-operative spirit which led to
standardization were the keystones in the structure of the present day
automobile success, the history of the successful development of the
automobile demonstrates another fact, which is a vital one in the
realm of investment.
This fact is that most great financial successes are built on our
natural resources. This is peculiarly so of the automobile industry.
The steel, wood, rubber, leather and glass of which the automobile is
composed, are all products of the ground, the forest or the farm. It
could not be said that the products of the earth directly make the
profits of a stock life insurance company, but this can be said of the
automobile industry, and its history discloses that the automobile
business of the United States was four times rescued from failure,
first, by petroleum, for steam and electric cars would not sell in
quantities, and the gasoline from petroleum was needed to give the
automobile its great vogue, once by tungsten, vanadium and chromium,
again by the quantity production theory, and finally by co-operative
standardization.
At one period of automobile development, the manufacturers were ready
to give up in despair because cold-rolled and high carbon steels
only were available, and these made the weight of the car and the
price obstacles to its popular adoption. At the stage when failure
to produce a car at popular price was imminent, there entered on
the scene tungsten, chromium, vanadium and aluminum, all natural
resources, and they, combining with standardization, made quantity
production possible. Tungsten, alloyed with steel for valves, chrome
steel for springs, vanadium in steel to impart purity, and aluminum for
lightness, reduced the weight of the automobile 25 per cent, enabled
motors to be made smaller, tires lighter, original cost less, and cut
down upkeep cost to the users of cars. Quantity production thus was
made possible, and natural resources again vindicated their claim to
being premier possibilities of profit.
Of the future of the automobile and of products allied with it or
sharing in its construction and prosperity, as continuing money-makers,
all indications are that the profits already taken out of the motor
car industry in the United States are but placer croppings, and that
the years to come will record the workings of the real vein. This real
vein, in the opinion of the man who looks ahead, is in the use of
passenger cars, haulage trucks and motor tractors by the fifty million
of the population of this union of states who are on or of the farm.
As yet, the farmers have not risen to the full possibilities of motor
power in economic superiority over horse power for haulage, ground
cultivation, and other uses to which the horse is now put. Elements
which will hasten this awakening are the scarcity of man labor and
the workings of the immutable law of economics. There is not enough
food being produced by the world to supply the demand. If there were,
prices would be lower. Prices will remain high as long as the supply
falls below the demand. As long as they remain high, the stimulation
to greater production will continue, and this urge can have but one
result, which is to force the producer to adopt the most economical
method of production.
It has been determined that motor power is cheaper than horse power. It
is, therefore, only a question of time when the horse will go from the
farm as he is disappearing from the cities. In this evolution will be
found the money-making possibilities of investment in the motor tractor
and the motor truck. Their adaptation to the smallest as well as the
largest needs of the tiller of the land is now being assured.
With the horse, the farmers of the United States have been able to
break up only 70 per cent of the cultivable land not in timber. There
are over two hundred million acres of tillable land that have never
felt the cold steel of a chilled plow. There are two hundred million
more acres in timber that will, much of it, ultimately come under the
plow. Besides crippling the labor supply in this country, the European
war has taken a million horses out of our supply. The case in favor of
the tractor coming ultimately into common use seems from all this to be
completely made out—its adoption in large numbers being only a question
of getting the price down to a basis which will insure quantity
production. As this was done with passenger automobiles, it would be
folly to say it will not be done with tractors and trucks.
Figures showing the total amount of money that has been taken in
profits out of the automobile industry have never been compiled. It
is a business that has developed so rapidly and feverishly that the
water churned up by the commotion it has made has not yet settled. But
there is a record of enough individual instances of gigantic profits to
prove that the largest individual appetite for dividends should have
been satisfied by the ratio of earnings already made in automobile
manufacture.
But in every case the greatest profits were in the stock of those
companies that complied with Edison’s rule of large money-making—“What
you want to do to make money is to make quantity.” And they were also
companies which made an automobile that could be “‘et’ up,” as Armour
put it, by time and use, in less time than it takes time and use to eat
up a higher priced machine.
Ford, Overland, Reo—you will recognize this trinity as the leaders in
sales, and by the same token they have been the leaders in profits.
When it is stated that Henry Ford made $200,000,000 in thirteen years,
and was then offered a like amount for only a small part of his
enterprise, we may well believe that he credits his own statement that
“anything for only a few people is no good. It’s got to be good for
everybody or it won’t survive.” Other Ford investors profited on the
basis of $5,000,000 for each $10,000 invested. After the parent Ford
company had established a record of a million dollars a week in profits
in the United States alone, Ford stepped across the river into Canada
and organized a company there which is earning fifty per cent a year on
its capital of $10,000,000.
Profits of $52,000,000 in capital stock alone which has been built
up almost entirely of dividends earned, is the record of the
Willys-Overland Company. John North Willys founded the success of
this great money-making business on his personal check of $500,
cashed at great trouble during the panic of 1907, when the Overland
company was ready to go into bankruptcy. Besides the dividends
applied to increasing the capital, an immense amount in profits
has been disbursed by this enterprise. The dividends in 1916 were
$11,000,000, over 20 per cent of the capital. This year they will
likely be nearly double that amount. The Reo Motor Car Company has
paid over $50,000 on an investment of $1,000. These three are not
by any means all the automobile companies which have contributed
to make the automobile industry a signal example of the earning
power of money, but they represent the leaders of the popular or
quantity-production-through-low-price type. There are about 150
passenger automobile companies that are profitable in varying degrees,
proportioned to their price, not to say anything of trucks and
tractors, in the marketing of which fortunes are also being made.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY—AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRIAL FIGURES ARE AMAZING.
BY EDWARD G. WESTLAKE,
_Automobile Editor, The Chicago Evening Post_.
During the year 1916 the automobile industry in the United States
entered the “billion dollar class,” and manufacturers who have
membership in the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce which holds
the industry, as it were, in the hollow of its great hand, made no more
ado over this significant, almost amazing development than to meet in
the annual banquet and reiterate their statements that the critic did
not live who could predict, with certainty, the gain that might be made
in 1917.
It was expected that the industry would climb into the billion dollar
fold—men said that the fourth industry in the country had the financial
stage set for starring the “Big Billion,” and they never permit
themselves to see a possibility of a recession unless steel becomes
too great to be kept within bounds—in short material price is the only
problem the venturesome automobile maker will put down for earnest
discussion.
Accurate figures spread on the records of the National Automobile
Chamber of Commerce indicate that retail sales of motor vehicles in
1916 totaled $1,068,028,273. This total includes a production of
1,525,578 cars and 92,130 trucks. The passenger cars were valued at
$921,378,000 and the trucks were listed at $166,650,275. When the
statisticians of the national organization compared figures and found
the gain was 80 per cent, and paused long enough to find that the gain
the year previous had been 36 per cent, they talked about the complete
automobilization of the country and the inevitable addition of more
than 2,000,000 to the total of cars in operation in the United States.
PRICE DROP IN ONE YEAR.
Weight decreased, as the engineers had planned, and the average price
of cars decreased in one year from $671 to $605. In the eight previous
years the average price of automobiles had dropped from $2,125 to $814.
Wall Street, which once had only the cold shoulder for the automobile
producer, took a permanent seat at the table where daily the industry
was dissected, analyzed, weighed, discussed and reviewed; and, as a
result, it is as difficult to keep from the financial eyes of Wall
Street the operations of the great automobile factories as it would
be to hide the clearing house reports. The keenest financial and
commercial experts of the United States have learned to keep the motor
car industry constantly under surveillance—not that they mistrust the
manufacturers, but that they have found the industrial situation is so
firmly linked to the dollars and cents program of the country’s economy
that nothing may successfully act to deprecate the importance of the
auto industry. Time was when General Motors sold as low as 40—what
Stock Exchange expert would expect to see this stock sell for less than
105?—and if conditions were to become so chaotic that General Motors,
with its prosperous units, were to break to a point or two under par,
what financial student would not search for something akin to a Black
Friday?
Immutable laws work in the automobile industry. The maker daily takes
a course in the University of Production, because an army of selling
factors constantly is attending to the absorption facilities of the
country’s markets and he rarely permits himself the task of figuring on
the “probable saturation point.” It is a wonderfully important thing
to the maker that the national Organization gets official reports,
guides the policies of standardization, holds an indefinable influence
over the engineers of the industry, and sits as the congress of the
Republic of Motor Car Production. The auto industry of today is,
perhaps, the most intricate thing in the country, and yet so responsive
to the law of supply and demand that there is not an element of
guesswork in it.
Although more than two hundred automobile concerns that had entered
the arena of business, developing from the “blue print stage” to
manufacturing concerns of considerable output, had failed in the last
twelve years, the automobile industry had been a big paying one.
Pioneers who remain and whose works annually pay dividends, accepted
the failures as the necessary concomitant of a great business that only
showed an output of 3,700 cars in 1899 and only 11,000 vehicles in
1903, the amount growing to 485,000 cars in the year 1913.
“Our house is a generally well ordered one,” the maker delighted in
saying. “The industry is like a science. The engineer has brought
standardization to almost finality, the matter of styles and body
designs is an exact science, the tire companies have been keen rivals
but beneath their terrific competition they have permitted the stream
of co-operation in tire standardization to run smoothly, and the
manufacturer has spent his money wisely in equipping his plant with
plenty of large-quantity type of machinery and increased his plant
to enable him to handle the large production. Increased production in
economically managed plants spells the maximum of profit.”
POINT OF SATURATION FAR OFF.
And with experts bold enough to say that the field of prospects facing
the industry numbers 5,000,000 probable buyers, little thought is given
to imminence of “saturation” and a consequent rehabilitation of the
motor manufacturing and distributing plans. In the plainest language
that it is possible for the automobile maker to use he says today: “The
maker who has an adequate organization and builds a pleasure car or
truck that is as good as specified and who permits no retrogression in
his organization, will succeed.”
“Luxury and necessity.” The automobile maker is willing to have his
product classed in this way. For the early years of the industry the
car was a clear cut “luxury.” It weighed so much that its cost was
prohibitive to the big family of “Necessity.” The car simply had to be
“had” by men of large incomes. Automobiles were not sold by intensive
salesmen in those days—the family bought them, even as a fine jewel was
purchased at the great jewelry houses. Tremendous prices were paid, in
comparison to the set prices of the automobile industry at this day.
The “make” of the car that stood in front of the owner’s home often was
accepted as a basis for rating the social position of the owner. Seat
cushions, slip covers, fine upholstery and the name plate on the car
told a big and varied story.
Immediately following the craze to buy the high priced cars, developed
the “man Friday” of the industry—the chauffeur. And the chauffeur
worked readily with the wealthy man, often advising the purchase of
the foreign machine upon which Uncle Sam collected a very large duty.
But the foreign made car had its stamp of distinction, perhaps much
easier to utilize in the form of extravagant, even snobbish, style
of life that the owner of the foreign car elected to affect, and the
United States manufacturer of cars was not at all prepared to put out
a car that would correct the desire of Americans to drive around in an
imported article.
But the domestic car had a friend in this contingency. Economical
living was that friend. Ruin often followed the extravagance of
those who bought the high priced and, as many experts said, inferior
imported cars. Homes were mortgaged and all the financial trails were
traversed in the effort to maintain an impossible extravagant life.
The banker began to detest the automobile. It seemed to him that it
was undermining the life of the nation. Something had to be done to
correct, also, the tone of the domestic automobile maker’s life. He
developed a desire for watered stock. Over capitalization of his plant
was suspected by the banking interests, and on every hand the motor car
industry was decried. Waste and inflation stalked arm in arm through
many plants. It even was said that the industry was only a “game”; that
incompetent executives kept their eyes on the broker’s tape, while
corps of associates in the factories were ready to play the “game” for
all it would stand.
Few were blind to the prospects in the motor industry at that time, if
the financial interests of the country were estranged; but no one was
able to withstand the developments. The fire of criticism cleaned out
the dross. Organization, the big thing needed to eliminate the “game”
and give the industry the foundation upon which the large “billion
dollar business” subsequently was built, began to come into being. Men
of energy and brains got to work. These characters have remained. There
are those veterans of the industry who say that the year 1907 marked
the start of the business on the basis of a real industry. In that year
44,000 cars was the total output, and the value of the product was
registered at $93,400,000. This was the highest total of value for the
output of the industry so far reached in the United States.
The next year the industry built 85,000 cars, valued at $137,800,000,
and quantity production, efficient buying of material, strict
attention to cost production in the plants, effective steps toward
standardization, engineering methods that abolished a great deal of
weight, etc., began to be set standards among car makers. The official
statements of the industry show how well the improvements fitted in.
In 1909 the production of automobiles amounted to 126,500, valued at
$164,200,000. The following year the output climbed above the 200,000
mark, and since then the production figures have mounted steadily.
Automobiles were _sold_ and competition became keener, but the output
increased.
VALUE OF RELIABILITY CONTESTS.
With the new era of development in the early nineties came into
prominence farseeing manufacturers who paid heed to the thought that
the best way to put a fit and efficient motor car into the hands
of the public was to test the car, its material and its mechanical
practices, in some officially conducted series of reliability contests.
Besides, it was urged there was a “romance of business” attached to the
motor car industry that would lead to a greatly increased amount of
publicity in the press.
The national annual reliability competitions grew into wonderful
favor. Makers strove hard to win the reliability titles. The “Glidden”
tours became the tests that attracted not only the attention of every
automobile man, but the general public. The whole country became the
testing ground. For several years these national events did well the
work they were expected to perform. Automobile building received,
perhaps, its most practical aid. Makers learned. They took advantage
both of the mechanical data and the publicity. A complex but valuable
adjunct of the national tours became popular—every region in which the
American Automobile Association was a factor, and this organization
continues to be a powerful aid to the industry, had its reliability or
its endurance classic.
It has been said that the manufacturers of automobiles lost interest in
national reliability tours after the test of 1911. Perhaps many did.
But the truth, as told by a wonderfully efficient engineer, is that
there remained nothing more that a national tour could teach the car
builder. He had measured the power of his steel to withstand shock, he
had calculated the efficiency of his motor to stand its daily tasks on
a strenuous schedule, he had learned of the troubles of his rivals and
he had spent his money liberally, at the direction of his engineering
department, to make a car that would do anything a less skillful driver
than a national tour pilot could ask of the machine. The national tour
became a luxury. It was revived in 1913 on the long and strenuous grind
from Minneapolis to the Rocky Mountains, and an immense amount of
valuable information was the result. But the national tour seems to be
now chiefly remembered by the occasional discourse of an engineer who
tells of the long struggles in the mud and the hardships of sand and
dust storms.
With the added development of the plants, came another reason why the
national tour was not necessary. Testing tracks were added to the
maker’s plant assets. Testing on the roads followed the block tests of
the motors, and it began to be accepted as an axiom in the industry
that the engineer knew to a hair’s breadth what his engine could do
before it went out of the secret room where the chief engineer worked.
Meanwhile prices constantly were beaten down. The field of opportunity
to own a car widened. It was, even then, so much bigger, in comparison
to that in the Old World, that even the clerk and small salaried man in
general looked with a smile toward the day when he would own a car.
It is recalled that when the manufacturer began boldly to put the
farmer in the class of available prospects—openly declared his idea
of building a car that he could sell in the agricultural districts
as readily as cars were sold in the city districts, one man who this
year is making 750,000 automobiles, gave to the world his edict which
resulted later in the United States court sustaining his contention
that the “Selden patent” under which the organization of makers was
maintaining its official life, “was not basic, in fact was not worth
the paper it was printed on,” and he would refuse ever to recognize
the right of the national organization to grant licenses to make the
internal combustion engine and the chassis that went with it.
The public read with a strange feeling, the record of the great
litigation against the “basic patent.” It seemed like a battle of
Titans, and ordinary folk thought it might result in danger to the
industry. But only the lawyers were strenuously engaged. They argued
and submitted briefs for more than two years, the national organization
of the makers who accepted the license of the “Selden patent,” honoring
their national organization by paying to the treasury their pro rata
on the amount of cars made.
An enormous fund grew. But the man who wanted to make from 200,000 to
750,000 cars a year was determined. He won in the Federal court and
almost immediately the “licensed association” began to break up. The
contributions of license fees ceased and soon the association was a
thing of history. It was succeeded by the National Chamber of Commerce
which has become the senate, house of congress—the parliament, if you
please—of the automobile industry in the United States. Some, there
were, who had a very poorly defined idea of the actual mission of the
“licensed association,” believing that it was a “trust,” called its
function destructive. They thought that the officers of the association
would lay an embargo upon certain manufacturers and allot a more
liberal figure on annual output to the larger and stronger firms in the
organization.
FORD, A “WIZARD” AND “GENIUS.”
Unfortunately at that time, the licensed association had not the grasp
on patent protective measures, engineering work, standardization,
etc., that obtains in the present national organization, and the real
mission of the licensed association never became wholly evident to the
public. But the organization did its part in laying the foundations of
the industry. It made the handwriting on the wall for popular price so
large, that every man who subsequently invested a dollar in automobile
making read, pondered and agreed. It placed popular price and
standardization of mechanism in the same category—linked them so that
the words of the Detroit automobile manufacturing wizard became axioms.
The Detroit genius had proved that the depth and capacity of the
automobile market was exactly in ratio to the possible price reduction.
Amazing but true, the big men said, was the field that the lower priced
car opened to the thoughtful maker of cars. Manufacturers began to
talk of some day building and selling as high as a million automobiles
in one year. Others calmly declared that when the motor car sales in
cities began to “slow up,” there would be still more than 5,000,000
prospects in the agricultural districts. Others drew diagrams intended
to show that there would be a market for any priced cars that were
built in this country, the few persons with large incomes assimilating
all the high priced cars, and the many with average incomes absorbing
the quantity production at popular prices. All allowances were made for
the increase in the cost of labor, materials such as steels and other
metals, leather, etc., and some even went far enough to include the
possibility of a foreign war on large proportions and its effect upon
the industry.
No one gave concrete thought at that time to the possibility of a
skillfully conducted partial payment organization of a national nature
that would aid the small salaried man in buying his automobile on time
payments. But that came about and still is working out its part in
the great economic scheme of distribution of the factory output. The
makers did not essay digging into the dealers’ and distributors’ plans
for moving cars delivered to them for cash from the factories, and
they were not bold enough to say they could finance any time payment
and chattel mortgage plans. But many of them admitted the great value
of the plan, if a distributer, through a proper alliance with his
banker, could make sales in that manner and realize his money. The
public learned well, early, that the maker of cars rarely consigned
any automobiles to a dealer. The maker sold for cash—the draft had to
be presented by the dealer or distributer before he could unload the
freight car. It would be legitimate business, the public said, for any
automobile dealer to finance himself so that he could sell cars on
time. On time today is a mighty big phrase in the industry. It means
many a car added to the annual output.
With the growth of incomes in the United States the statisticians found
there were more than 6,000,000 people in this country with annual
incomes of more than $1,200, and 3,500,000 with annual incomes of more
than $1,800. All these things aided in installing confidence in the big
men of the motor industry. Quantity production became the password for
the manufacturer. A new development in distribution was wonderfully
improved—dealers from all over the country were brought to the factory
of the car maker, and after a convention of a few days, the dealers
were invited to sign up for the coming year, nominating the number
and type of models they would buy. The maker pored over his order
blanks when the dealers left, made his plans for material accordingly,
and there was only prosperity in each automobile factory, as a rule,
for the remainder of the year. The orders were indicative of, safely
speaking, sixty per cent of the signed total. Some makers took chances
and built very close to the total agreed on by the dealers, and, except
in few cases, the scheme worked out. Today the maker studies all
conditions and accepts the orders of his dealers, setting the figure of
output after numerous factory conferences.
Makers who could point to an annual production of, say 400 cars,
took counsel among themselves, and some 50 increased their factory
efficiency and financial responsibility that they can now point to
an output of as many cars in one day as they made early in their
manufacturing experience in one season.
The writer recalls one manufacturer who, about nine years ago, had an
output of about 500 cars for one season. Only recently he paid close to
a quarter of a million dollars, if indeed his extra expenses did not
bring the total to $300,000, to conduct a twenty-one day convention at
his factory covering a site of seventy-nine acres, at which dealers
from the four quarters of the country were entertained. He had daily
meetings in the big halls of his administration building, and his
lieutenants carefully outlined to all the plans of the company for the
year, and exploited the line of models.
“We have $30,000,000 in materials purchased, and expect to get all
this material when we need it for manufacturing cars,” said the big
man to his dealers. “But the war in Europe has caused many problems of
price and quantify to arise, and heaven only knows what the material
situation will be after July 1. I advise you to order all the cars
you need—think well of your requirements—and stick by that number.
Then you will not be like many are bound to be, who are indifferent to
manufacturing conditions—you will have cars to meet the biggest demand
the industry ever has known.”
That automobile president had the pleasure of meeting thousands of
dealers, speaking to more than one thousand of them daily, and with
his factory production manager he figured the probable needs of his
country-wide organization of dealers and branch houses for the year.
It is significant that the few changes he made on his early winter
production table, which the writer was permitted to scan, were made
only in the “increase columns.”
THE PART MACHINING PLAYS.
It would lead to the exhaustion of the reader were many details to
be given showing how the makers made quantity production and economy
of factory operation an assured thing. The largest rooms of wholly
automatic machinery were equipped, so that a large amount of crude
steel wires, rods, etc., practically go into a factory at one end
and come out at the other, fully machined and ready to go into the
assembly of a machine. Cylinder boring, all with one operation, takes
the place of operations that required many hours. Progressive types
of assembly of the finished components of the cars make factories look
like the “last words in manufacturing.” Machining crankcases and work
of that nature that required hours, is done in minutes. Aluminum, that
magic metal of the early days of the automobile industry, when it was
comparatively cheap, now enters so largely into engine and other parts
that at its greatly increased price it is more than a magic metal. It
is no uncommon thing to find in an automobile factory that a machine
costing more than one hundred times the maker’s cost of an automobile,
has been installed to hasten production.
In all the field of manufacturing there has not been wrought such magic
as in gear cutting. Forges pound out tons of steel forms, but the most
important machinery of a plant soon has these forms turned into gears
and other machined parts for the assembly.
The medium priced car of today stands as the best exemplification
of the approval of the Society of Automobile Engineers. This is an
organization that has done so much for the manufacturer that most of
the makers of cars are members. They point to the self-starter and
the electric lighted car as the triumph of the Society of Automobile
Engineers. And certainly from the original starter and the early
lighting effects, enormous strides have been made in the industry.
Fully equipped cars predominate now, where only a few years ago even
tops were not provided with the car as sold on the floor.
The self-starter is considered one of the greatest of the improvements
added to a good automobile. With this feature the car has become so
useful to women that the manufacturers have realized big returns.
Better than that, say some critics, is the verdict that the
self-starter returned—the chauffeur is no longer an indispensible
feature in car driving. Women master the handling of a car and with
the machines requiring less mechanical attention, one might say, every
season, woman accepts the gasoline car as her own. The number of
women drivers has grown so wonderfully that the makers of cars have
registered the woman driver as a constant factor. There’s no cranking
of the car necessary, and the wearing of fine raiment and white shoes
is Milady’s prerogative, even if she drives her car to the party
herself. She handles a multi-cylinder car quite as readily and with
the confidence of a man. The tires, always a problem, have demountable
rims, or they may be set in spare wire wheels, and troubles on the road
from blowouts and punctures no longer deter the woman driver. It would
be difficult to get the details on the number of women drivers added to
the list each season, but one of the best known automobile makers says
that it is so large that he would make his fortune safe if he only made
cars henceforth for women pilots. The entrance of the woman in such an
important manner in the automobile driving situation has made the gas
car maker lose all fear of the greater development of the electric car.
Woman has played an important part in the real estate world, distinctly
due to her eagerness to drive cars, by starting a movement towards
suburbs. The suburbs are “farther out and yet closer” as one maker put
it.
GOOD ROADS INDUSTRY’S GREATEST AID.
When the full effect of the work of good roads advocates is felt in
this country, and regular appropriations are to be available in a
regularly scheduled manner in most of the states, the biggest thing
the automobile industry ever had to help it will have taken up its
task in earnest. Less than ten per cent of the roads in this country
are improved, say the good roads statisticians. One says that at least
two-thirds of the reasons for present road developments are automobile
reasons. When the proportion rises and the Lincoln Highway and scores
of other long distance highways, intended to add to the cross country
touring practice, are made into complete roads that make for genuine
touring pleasure, the automobile industry will reap great benefits—more
than the most enthusiastic ever dreamed would come from concrete, brick
and other forms of specially prepared highways.
The war? Makers have varied opinions on the effect of the termination
of the war in Europe. A majority have expressed the opinion that our
exports of trucks and pleasure cars will take a big jump soon after
peace is declared. But seeking for a peace after the years of warfare
has become the least of the American auto maker’s trouble. Great war
orders have been received and filled by the American makers of trucks.
In 1914-15 the war orders rose to 14,000 trucks, as compared with only
784 in the season 1913-14. War orders still are being filled by some
American truck makers, or were until the “ruthless submarine warfare”
broke out anew, and after millions of dollars worth of the old models
bought up in the United States and absorbed by the European powers had
been swallowed in the mystery of the continent, United States truck
makers began on later design models. In that way they are able to admit
that the war has been a great blessing to the motor truck feature of
the industry. “All a part of the great scheme of economics that makes
for the approach of the complete automobilization of the country,” is
the way one manufacturer puts it.
The automobile industry is set—it is fourth in importance in the United
States. It will handle itself, so to speak. The makers know they must
give value for every car and truck they build, and the people have
become ready to continue in the industry every maker who plays the
industry as it should be—not as a “game.”
CHAPTER II.
MECHANICAL EVOLUTION OF THE AUTOMOBILE.
The history of every advance toward greater perfection in the
achievements of mankind, whether moral or physical, has been one of
slow and laborious development.
We speak carelessly of the wonderful advance the automobile has made in
a short time.
As a matter of fact, it has taken the automobile a hundred and fifty
years to arrive mechanically at the point it has reached today.
We thought the development of the motor car was speedy, but we find
that the measure of time required for its evolution, when put beside
the span of human history, lengthens as the shadows grow longer in the
dying day.
It is astonishing what stages this development has had to pass through,
what problems have confronted it, and what apparently insuperable
obstacles it has had to overcome.
In the light which our knowledge of the automobile now sheds on the
present day mechanism of this invention, it is difficult for us to
realize why these persistent struggles toward development of the
mechanical ideas summoned to the aid of the inventors did not produce
speedier results.
We can hardly conceive as we look upon the perfect limousine, skimming
over the smooth asphalt with a motion that contains no more vibration
than that in the glide of the expert ice skater, the crudeness,
cumbersomeness and racking joltiness of its first forbear, which was
the original expression of the mechanical idea involved in making
wheels revolve by a motive power other than that exercised by man, the
bullock or the horse.
If we want to relieve our minds of the strain of comprehending the
difference between the automobile de luxe, as we of today know it,
and the first automobile ever produced, and, by putting the two
pictures side by side, span the period of the development of the art of
automobile making, we must journey to Paris.
For, although internal combustion to drive a piston in a cylinder was
produced with gun-powder in 1678 by Abbe D’Hautefeuille, and a carriage
to be driven without the horse was a chaise propelled by human foot
work, first conceived by John Vevers of England in 1769, there is no
record that the two ideas were combined until it was done in France
somewhere between 1760 and 1770.
The first automobile ever made was that produced by Nicholas Joseph
Cugnot, a Frenchman, and it is today on exhibition in the Conservatory
of Arts and Trades in Paris.
There is no record of how Cugnot came to conceive the idea of his
invention, but it is surmised that he had read about James Watt, in
England, having discovered the principle of steam as motive power. This
was about 1755.
The history of Watt’s experiments in applying steam to run engines does
not, however, disclose that any engines he produced were ever seen by
Cugnot, or that any adequate description of them was published at the
time when Cugnot could have taken advantage of it.
So all we may actually know of Cugnot’s reasons for thinking he
could make an “animalless” road vehicle is locked up in the rickety
century-and-a-half-old Cugnot invention which we may see in the Paris
Conservatory.
And what we would see would be:
An object which might make us laugh, did we not soberly reflect, in the
light of our superior knowledge of today, that it was the first step in
the long, laborious journey, extending over 157 years, that inventors
had to travel to produce our luxurious limousine, our satisfying
touring car and our terrifying speed demon of the oval racing course.
Cugnot’s body returned to dust 113 years ago, but his idea went
marching on.
The visible expression of this idea which we can see in the Paris
Conservatory is in the form of a tractor for a field gun, Cugnot having
been a captain in the engineering corps of the French army.
The tractor has a single drive wheel actuated by two single acting
brass cylinders, connected by an iron steam pipe with a round boiler of
copper containing fire pot and chimneys.
Attached to this first motor-driven road vehicle is a wagon, on which
it was Cugnot’a idea to have a field gun mounted.
On either side of the single drive wheel of this clumsy contrivance are
located ratchet wheels. Pistons acting alternately on these ratchet
wheels revolved the drive wheel in quarter revolutions.
For the copper boiler of this first motor car, additional water was
needed after the machine had travelled a few feet, the exhaust of
steam quickly leaving the boiler dry. The speed attained was very
slow, by reason of the mechanical complications in transmitting power
to the drive wheel. As for running smoothly, the machine wobbled, and
bumped, and strained, and groaned, and finally ran into a wall. This
was because it was overbalanced by its boiler and engine and had no
steering gear.
Having run into a wall and been partially wrecked, that was the end
of the forerunner of the automobile, except for its subsequent rescue
from a junk heap and its installation in the Paris Conservatory; for,
disheartened by what he regarded as his failure to make a successful
steam-driven tractor to relieve men and other animals of the burden
of transporting field guns, Cugnot turned his attention to devising a
cavalry gun, at which he was so successful that when he died in 1804 he
was enjoying a pension of 1,000 livres a year, given him by Napoleon.
Cugnot could not, of course, have visioned what his first crude
automobile would develop into in the next century and a half. He
probably never thought of a car holding seven passengers—much less of a
speed for it of 60 miles an hour and more. In truth, since he abandoned
his efforts, he probably concluded the obstacles in the way of even a
practical fulfillment of his idea were insurmountable.
The one fact remains to keep company with the Cugnot motor tractor
in the Conservatory of Paris, that Cugnot was the father of the idea
out of which the automobile was evolved. He was the first to invent a
motor-driven road vehicle.
ENGLISH MAKE AUTOMOBILES ALMOST PRACTICABLE.
The English people have an enviable record for successful mechanical
inventions, and they were early experimenters on lines similar to those
of Cugnot. About the time that Cugnot ran his machine into a wall,
William Murdock, a mechanic, was working for Watt, the English inventor
of steam. Whether he knew of Cugnot’s automobile attempt or not, there
is no evidence extant. The idea of an engine-run road contrivance may
have come to him through inspiration, or in some other way, as it did
to Cugnot.
Murdock was quite familiar with Watt’s engines. He helped to build
them, and he was curious to know the different forms in which they
could be used, especially as to a road vehicle. He talked to Watt,
but was sternly discouraged by the latter. Just as Cugnot, no doubt,
concluded that his automobile would never get anywhere, Watt opposed
applying his engine to a road travelling machine, because he was firmly
convinced that no vehicle that could be invented could successfully
negotiate, at a speed to make it worth while, the execrable roads of
that day.
In this we have a fine illustration of the peculiarities and uncertain
nature of the human mind. It is an organism that astounds by its
perception of possibilities in one direction, while numb of any
sensation whatever in glimpsing the possibilities in another direction.
Watt could invent steam, but he could not imagine good roads. Had
he possessed the vision, he might have seen that roads, which he so
abhorred as to see nothing good in them, would be reformed if he but
encouraged applying his engines to road travelling mechanism.
In William Murdock’s way of taking the doleful discouragement of Watt,
we see an illustration of that mental attitude that man has universally
adopted in mechanical advance, toward the lugubrious prophet of
failure. He has matched hope and optimism against despair and pessimism.
Despite Watt and his mournful views of the impossibility of building an
engine-run road carriage that would advance over English roads, Murdock
went ahead and built a model of an engine-run road carriage; but when
he had it finished, Watt’s discouraging views prevailed, and Murdock
did not attempt to enlarge his model to a full sized form. He stopped
with the model, which is at the present day in the British Museum.
Murdock’s invention was tested, and the tests showed that an advance
in efficiency over the creation of Cugnot had been made. The model
was driven by a single cylinder of three inch bore. It had a one and
a half inch stroke. A crank converted the reciprocating motion of the
steam engine into rotary motion, the service performed in the Cugnot
invention by the quarter revolution ratchet drive. Murdock’s idea was
patented by a man named Pickard, in 1780.
The first automobile known to have been constructed and put on the road
was built by Richard Trevithick at Camborne, England, in 1801. It was
in the form of a stage coach, accommodating six or seven persons. The
engine, boiler and firebox were at the rear. The engine was one of the
first high pressure engines. A single cylinder motor was employed, and
spur gear and crank axle were used to transmit the motion of the piston
rod to the drive wheels.
With this coach Trevithick carried six or seven men over hills for a
mile the first day of the trial. The second day it made six miles. Even
with these performances, the invention’s impracticability must have
been decreed, because it was not continued in operation.
Trevithick himself felt, no doubt, that it must be improved upon, for,
in 1803, he built another contrivance driven by a horizontal single
cylinder with 5-1/2-inch bore and a 30-inch stroke. But the driving
wheels were ten feet in diameter. Fatal were these great clumsy wheels
to popular approval of the invention, and no further advance was made.
Trevithick had made one further step, and there the matter rested. He
had developed the high pressure steam engine, and he had really made
the first automobile, if such it could be called.
AMERICA’S EARLY EFFORTS IN AUTOMOBILE MAKING.
Just as the English, represented by Murdock and Trevithick, were
laboring on the steam propulsion idea, and France, in the person of
Cugnot, was experimenting with it, so America was groping to find the
solution. Cugnot’s activities began about 1760 and ended with his
death in 1804. Trevithick’s period was from 1780 to 1803. The American
experiments started about 1784. The man whom records show to have been
the pioneer in practical excursions into the realm of carriages driven
by steam, was Oliver Evans, born in Delaware but living in Philadelphia.
He developed the high pressure, non-condensing engine, although his
only knowledge of steam was derived from reading what little was then
printed about it, and his own discoveries. It appears as if Evans,
who is known to have had knowledge of Cugnot’s construction of a
road carriage, or, more properly speaking, a gun carriage, connected
in his mind his engine with a road travelling vehicle, because in
1787, four years before Trevithick built his steam coach at Camborne,
England, Evans secured a patent from the State of Maryland, giving him
the exclusive right to make and use, within its borders, carriages
propelled by steam.
That he immediately built a steam carriage in pursuance of this
authority is doubtful. The only authentic record of an attempt is of
one that he constructed in Philadelphia seven years later and under
peculiar circumstances. It is likely that his act in securing the
Maryland patent was done on the spur of a determination to build
an automobile, but it was not immediately carried out. He went on
perfecting steam engines up to 1804, when he accepted an order from the
city of Philadelphia to build a steam flat boat for dock work.
His mind appears to have then reverted back to the time seven years
before when he contemplated applying an engine to a road vehicle and
got the Maryland patent for that purpose, for, after building the steam
flatboat and installing a 5-horse power engine on it, he announced his
intention of mounting the flatboat on a wagon, on which he proposed to
drive the boat about Philadelphia.
A horseless carriage, no doubt, had been a hobby with him for years,
and he saw in the steam driven wagon, carrying a steam driven flatboat,
an ocular demonstration of the practicability of the horseless carriage.
The four wheels of the wagon he built were connected by belts and
gearing with the engine on the boat, and the vehicle was driven up
Market Street by steam, bearing the flatboat and its engine in triumph.
It circled the squares on which the City Hall and the statue of William
Penn now stand, and proceeded to the Schuylkill river. Here flatboat
and wagon were separated, and the former launched on the river. A
paddle wheel was affixed to the stern and connected with the engine.
The boat ran as well as the wagon had done. It steamed down to the
Delaware river and all the way to Trenton. The wagon, divorced of
engine and gearing, became only a wagon again, and whatever became of
it, history does not say.
The skepticism, the derogatory observations, the pessimistic prophecies
and the contemptuous disapproval of the many persons witnessing the
Evans’ pilgrim’s progress up Market Street aroused the inventor’s ire.
Had he but been philosophical, he would have appreciated that such has
been the fate and greeting of all inventions. But Evans was choleric.
When a citizen said his wagon was only what might now be dubbed a
“flivver”—that it would never run over five miles an hour, and other
things that the minds of the unimaginative conceive of innovations,
the inventor drew from his wallet $3,000 that the city of Philadelphia
had just paid him for his steamboat, and said the carping critic could
transfer the “roll” to his own pocket, if he could produce a horse that
would run faster for five miles than a steam wagon that Evans would
build. The size of the roll was too much for the pessimist, and he
betook himself and his criticisms off.
So we see that as there was a first automobile, so was there a first
automobile enthusiast on automobile speed. Why it is that motordom
hasn’t erected a monument to Oliver Evans for his abiding faith in the
future of the motor car as a speed demon, is up to motordom to explain.
AUTOMOBILE APATHY CENTURY OLD.
Oliver Evans tried but was unable to get any one interested in
developing his wagon run by an engine into an improved horseless
carriage. The minds of that day regarded the practicability of his
invention with as much skepticism as we would regard an invention to
visit Mars, if exhibited in our day.
So Evans gave up any idea of improving his self-running wagon, became
busy with an iron foundry which people could understand, and died rich.
There was a measure of justification for the lack of popular
imagination and vision toward the automobile in both England and
America when the first samples appeared. They were slow, noisy, erratic
in performance, and positively dangerous—threatening explosions,
collisions, and all sorts of dire things—and it was natural that people
should predict their failure.
So progress in the development of the horseless carriage lagged. It
was twenty years after Evans’ Philadelphia exhibition when it was next
heard from. Then the scene of operations shifted again to England.
In 1824, W. H. James, who had patented a water tube boiler for
locomotives, built a passenger coach, of which each drive wheel was
revolved by two cylinders receiving steam by means of a pipe from a
boiler.
A pressure of 200 pounds of steam to the inch was maintained. The
equivalent of differential action was supplied by independent
application of power to the two drive wheels. The coach accommodated
twenty persons. The contrivance ran satisfactorily on trials, and James
secured financial backing and built another coach weighing 6,000 pounds
which ran 12 to 15 miles an hour.
But the higher the rate of speed, the worse off the early automobile
builder was. Although James equipped his coach with laminated steel
springs, the road shocks and vibration stopped it every few miles.
Steam joints and connections were broken as fast as they could be
put together. The great need was a method of shock absorption, and
either no one knew that this was the key to the problem, or, if it
was realized, no one knew the remedy. So James failed to make the
auto-coach a success, and died in the poorhouse.
A year after James built his first motor-coach in England—in
1825—Thomas Blanchard of Springfield, Mass., revived the horseless
carriage subject which, in America, had been last experimented with by
Oliver Evans in 1804.
Blanchard built a road vehicle that was one of the best produced up to
that time. It was easy of manipulation and climbed hills successfully.
Blanchard took out a patent on it, but when he started to find people
who would buy a completed carriage he could discover none. Nobody
wanted it. And so Blanchard’s efforts ceased.
At the time James was building his two coaches, and after Blanchard had
given up trying to interest Americans in his invention, a Frenchman
named Pecqueur was experimenting on phases of the auto-carriage. He
discovered the principle of the “differential,” the balance mechanism
which enables one wheel to revolve faster than the other in turning
corners. He invented a planet gearing in this connection, which was
the origin of the idea of the differential, and applied it to a steam
wagon which he built in 1828. The differential of today is based on the
principle discovered by Pecqueur.
While Pecqueur was evolving this invention, Goldsworthy Gurney in
England made a car which was a practical failure in about everything
except that it demonstrated that sufficient friction between the drive
wheels and the road-bed could be created to produce propulsion. A trip
of almost 200 miles from London and return was made in 1828 by Gurney
in the second vehicle he built, in which the engine was concealed in
the rear. His car made 12 miles an hour for part of the trip.
From this time—1828 to 1840—the automobile really had a vogue in
England. A number of them were made and run as passenger carriers. For
four months a motor carriage made the nine mile trip from Gloucester
to Cheltenham four times a day. The “Infant” built by Walter Hancock
made trips between London and Stratford. The “Era,” also made by
Hancock, ran from London to Greenwich. To such an extent did the
auto-bus business develop, that speed of 30 miles an hour was claimed,
and one conveyance in 1834 ran over 1,700 miles without repairs or
readjustment. At least, that was the claim made, and as a claim it has
a familiar sound. The twentieth century automobile manufacturers who
claim a run of so many thousand miles without repairs to this and that,
have here a precedent for it that is as old as the industry.
But there was one feature about these early English motor busses that
was their undoing. They weighed three tons and over, and the wheel rims
were metal. The diameter of the wheels was six feet. The rubber tire
was unthought of. The effect on roads of running a 3-ton, metal rimmed
vehicle, carrying eleven to twenty passengers, was disastrous, and
parliament, incited by horse owners and others, legislated them out of
existence by making the toll charges prohibitive. Where the toll was
$1 for horse drawn vehicles it was made $10 for steam auto buses. The
consequence was that their manufacture and operation ceased about 1840.
In 1878 Bollee built a steam omnibus which ran between Paris and
Vienna, making 22 miles an hour. In this car was reached the highest
efficiency the art had attained up to that time. Practically an
identical car was built in 1880 by Bollee, which was entered by him 15
years later and won honors in the Paris-Bordeaux race.
In 1879 the automobile development germ returned to America.
In this brief sketch showing the struggle of auto-mechanism to advance,
from the very first inspiration of Cugnot about 1770, we must be
impressed by the determination with which the idea of auto-mechanical
perfection persisted. This persistence was so determined in the face of
all obstacles and opposition that it is almost eerie.
It was just as if some force of nature was struggling to break through
the crust of man’s consciousness. Or shall we credit it to man, and
say, rather, that it was man’s mind that was the impelling force in the
persistent attempts to read a mechanical riddle?
Whatever the impelling force, whether man or nature, man heeded its
behests and continued his efforts.
In 1879 an American did a thing which has had much to do with giving
the United States its long delayed start in the automobile industry.
This man was George B. Selden of Rochester, N. Y. He applied for the
first patent for the gasoline motor, as the driving force of a road
vehicle. This was before any automobile had been equipped with an
internal combustion hydro-carbon motor. This motor had, however, been
in use for some time in running stationary engines.
The bicycle had, at that time, been an acknowledged success, and in
considerable use for seven or eight years, and had had a great deal of
influence in improving roads. Better roads caused people to look more
favorably on the possibilities of the motor vehicle.
Selden built a gasoline motor under the specifications contained in
his application for a patent, and it performed satisfactorily in
experiments. But he did not build an automobile containing the gasoline
motor. He did not secure his patent until 1895, 16 years after he had
made application for it.
In those sixteen years he was endeavoring to interest capital, while at
the same time he was perfecting his motor. While the use of bicycles
had improved roads and this improvement caused a more favorable popular
view of the possibility that automobiles might be made successfully, a
new motive power appeared on the horizon just at this time.
It was electricity. It was in 1890, eleven years after Selden had
applied for a patent for a gasoline motor, and while he was still
wrestling with the problem of getting capital to aid him, that reports
that the storage battery had been more nearly perfected became rife.
Men to whom Selden went for financial aid feared that even if the
gasoline motor was feasible, it might be overshadowed by the storage
battery, and held off. Selden even went abroad to raise money, but had
no more success there than here.
Although an inventor and a skilled mechanic, Selden lacked salesmanship
ability. He was handicapped by impatience and irascibility, and his
predictions of the success of his gasoline motor, its general adoption,
and the extent to which automobiles would in the future be used, were
regarded by people with whom he talked as so extravagant that they
bluntly declared he was crazy, and avoided him.
He had proceeded so far on one occasion in interesting a Rochester
business man, that he had him in his store and was on the point of
getting him to put up $5,000, when he made a simple remark that
completely “spilled the beans.”
He said: “Jim, you and I will live to see more carriages on Main Street
run by motor than are now drawn by horses.”
The prospective investor looked at Selden for half a minute, and came
to a conclusion expressed in these words:
“George, you are crazy, and I won’t have anything to do with your
scheme,” and with this ultimatum the man stalked out of the store.
Twenty-five years later this man met Selden, and, extending his hand,
said: “Well, George, you were right years ago when you said there would
be more automobiles in Main Street than horses.”
But Selden ignored the man’s extended hand, and with passion thrilling
in his tones said: “Yes, and I wasn’t so —— crazy as you and the other
fools said I was,” and walked off. And he never spoke to the man
afterward.
Selden’s patent could have been issued any time within the sixteen
years that he let it lie dormant. He kept the application alive at the
patent office by legitimate methods, and his reason for not bringing
the matter to a head was that at no time in those sixteen years was he
ready to manufacture under it, and he put off the actual issuance until
such time as he was prepared to take full advantage of the privileges
it conferred.
He was alive to the fact that the years of a patent are numbered, and
he aimed to time the issue so that the patent would not expire before
he could derive the benefits from it.
It was in 1895 that the patent was issued, and in 1900 Selden disposed
of it to the Electric Vehicle Company of New Jersey.
In the meantime, the development of electric motor vehicles had begun,
and in 1885, Benz, a German, built the first road vehicle to be run
by the internal-combustion, hydro-carbon motor. It was a tricycle,
and its motor was single-cylindered, four-cycled, after the type of
an engine developed in 1876, in Germany, by Otto, and water cooled.
It had electric ignition and a mechanical carburetor. Benz secured
a patent in 1886 on his invention and it ran successfully, making
ten miles an hour. Benz was limited to the use of certain streets in
Mannheim, Germany, for running his machine, out of deference to the
tendency to nerves of horses and their drivers or riders. This tricycle
by Benz was the forerunner of the Benz automobile. This is one of the
most successful and popular cars in Germany—and before the war, in all
Europe. The first automobile imported into the United States was a Benz
car brought to the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. Up to 1917 the Benz
car was an entrant in most automobile speed contests.
While Benz was perfecting the gasoline motor in its attachment to the
tricycle, Gottlieb Daimler, another German, was producing, in 1885, the
motor-cycle. Daimler had devoted himself sedulously to the problem
of reducing the weight and increasing the power of the gas engine, in
order to adapt it to high efficiency road vehicles. He invented the hot
tube ignition to take the place of ignition by flame. By regulation of
the heat of the tube, the compressed charge of hydro-carbon vapor could
be fired automatically at a specific point in the cycle. Through the
increased speed thus produced the size and weight of the motor could be
reduced.
The Daimler motor was a big step in advance, as was proved by the
supremacy which the German and French automobile makers at once
attained. The French secured rights to the Daimler motor and operated
under them with such success that from 1889 to 1894, before the United
States had really waked up to motor car making, they were beginning to
put out gasoline automobiles successfully.
AMERICA BUILDS STEAM AND ELECTRIC CARS.
At this time, we, in this country, were following the steam and storage
battery fetishes. The first steam car in the United States that might
be called modern was built by S. H. Roper of Massachusetts, in 1889.
In 1900, steam car building in America gave promise of disputing the
gasoline car records then being made in France, but by 1905 the
gasoline car manufacturers had taken the cue from the European gasoline
successes, and this form of motor came to the front.
Contemporaneously with the activities in steam car building in the
United States, was the pioneer electric car construction era.
The first electric automobile was built in 1891, and made its first
exhibition appearance in the streets of Chicago in September, 1892.
The builder of this, the first electric driven vehicle, was William
Morrison of Des Moines, Iowa. It was bought by J. B. McDonald,
president of the American Battery Company, Chicago. Description of
the street scenes attending the showing of this car bring home to us
the extent to which an automobile was a novelty so short a time ago,
comparatively, as 1892. “Ever since its arrival,” said the _Western
Electrician_ of September 17, 1892, “it has attracted the greatest
attention. The sight of a well loaded carriage moving along the streets
at a spanking pace, with no horses in front, and apparently with
nothing on board to give it motion, was one that has been too much,
even for the wide-awake Chicagoan. In passing through the business
section, way had to be cleared by the police for the passage of the
carriage.”
To think that this description fits a scene enacted during the period
of the present generation! Eighty-eight years before in Philadelphia,
Oliver Evans’ steam propelled wagon, bearing in triumph a flatboat
surmounted by an engine, moved along Market Street with no horses in
front, and was a sight that was too much for the Philadelphian.
The world “do move,” but very slowly, and this 88-year span of time
is practically the measure of the period consumed by automobile
development to the point where a motor carriage would really run, and
keep on running.
The date of the building of the first American gasoline automobile that
ran was 1892. The man who performed the feat was Charles E. Duryea. He
had the assistance of his brother, Frank Duryea, but what was more, he
had the benefit of knowledge of what had been accomplished in Europe in
the gasoline motor field.
Panhard, Levassor, Peugeot, De Dion, Bouton, and Serpollet were
Frenchmen who had done things with gasoline cars, all (except Serpollet
and Levassor) principally through the manufacture of finished cars.
Levassor conceived the idea of a central frame to carry the power
plant, and thus solved the problem of road shock.
Serpollet had done more. He had invented the flash boiler, reviving an
art the English had previously discovered, which made the use of dry
or superheated steam possible. Higher pressure could be used, water
economies effected and weight reduced.
When Duryea and others, about 1892, gave concentrated thought to
gasoline propulsion, all the problems of automobile making had found
solution, except two. They were a method of cushioning wheel rims, and
some method by which the motor could be so placed that it would be
immune from shocks and vibrations.
So, when Duryea, in 1892, built the first American gasoline car that
would run successfully, he merely “assembled” the ideas that had then
accumulated.
The first auto-race in the world was run from Paris to Rouen, about 80
miles. It was run in July, 1894. There were 46 cars entered, of which
twelve only were steam cars. The Petit-Journal, a Parisian newspaper,
was the organizer and patron of the race. The winners were all equipped
with the Daimler gasoline motor.
A little over one year later—Thanksgiving Day, 1895—the first American
automobile race was run from Chicago to Waukegan. The organizer and
patron was a newspaper—the Chicago Times-Herald. Of two entrants, the
“Buggyaut” of Charles E. Duryea was one.
Duryea built his first car in 1892.
Henry Ford built his in 1893.
Elwood Haynes built his in 1894.
There were but four gasoline cars in the United States in 1896—Duryea,
Ford, Haynes, and Benz, the last being the German car which was
imported.
With the accomplishments of the builders of steam, electric and
gasoline motored vehicles at this time—1895—the practical success
of horseless carriages had been definitely settled. Practically all
fundamental problems had been solved. To make them finally an accepted
addition to the world’s methods of transportation in general use, two
things only were needed.
One was the development of perfecting devices, such as rubber tires,
the production of which began about 1889; and the other was the general
acceptance of automobiles by the people—a cordial, popular approval,
manifested by their purchase and use. And while the development to
greater perfection could be left to work itself out, the popular
approval to the point of enthusiastic general adoption was another
matter.
Inventors could develop, even if it took over a hundred years, a
complete, perfect machine, finally. But human doubts, mental apathy,
and man’s opposition can be overcome by only one means—enthusiasm.
Enthusiasm is to man’s opposing mind what the oxyhydrogen flame is to
steel, and it is one of the potent forces that will burn itself into
mentality.
Around the period of 1893-1898, the attitude of the mass of the
people in this country toward the automobile was one of good natured
toleration, but indifference. A few of the “class” were interested and
convinced that the automobile had arrived, but the “mass” believed it
was a passing fad, and from its practical side, of particular interest
chiefly to mechanics. If, in its opinion, the automobile had any
future, it was as a luxury of the rich.
The people could not sense what they feel now—the value of the
automobile in time, health and recreation, and in its possibilities
as a factor in economics. They saw the disadvantages of owning an
automobile, but were without appreciation of its benefits.
So one of the most interesting facts in the history of the development
of the motor car is that the first American made gasoline automobile
sold in the United States was disposed of March 24,1898. The sale of
steamers and electrics had been going on for several years before, but
not very extensively.
This fact of the date of the first sale of a gasoline motor car fixes
clearly that the use of automobiles in the United States practically
increased from one car to over three million, in less than twenty years.
The first American gasoline car thus sold was disposed of by Alexander
Winton to Robert Allison of Port Carbon, Pa.
So that, while Duryea completed his car in 1892, Ford his in 1893, and
Haynes his in 1894, it was six, five and four years, respectively,
later, that the first gasoline car was purchased in the United States.
From 1898, the time of the sale of the Winton car, dates substantially
the development of the automobile industry in this country.
Beginning with this date, the first real enthusiasm was put into the
sale of cars.
Enthusiasm had not existed before. Confidence, which is the mother of
enthusiasm, had hesitated and halted. But now confidence believed the
automobile was a reality—all doubts had been resolved—and confidence
bade enthusiasm run, not creep, crawl or walk; and we see how
enthusiasm obeyed. In the enthusiasm displayed in the manufacture and
sale of automobiles today, we are disposed to think it does more than
run, that it actually flies.
CHAPTER III.
COMMERCIALIZING THE MOTOR VEHICLE.
In the production of the automobile, America did comparatively little
in the fundamentals of invention which are now found in the modern
perfected car.
Selden invented the three-cylinder gasoline engine, by which the rapid
revolution of the crankshaft of his day was converted into slower but
higher powered motion of drive wheels.
White invented a generator for steam cars.
Haynes was responsible for a discovery that caused alloy and specially
heat-treated steel to be introduced, and Knight produced a superior
motor.
But these were discoveries, inventions or improvements that were
supplemental and perfecting, not elemental.
It was chiefly the English, the French and the Germans, with the
exception of Evans of Philadelphia, who first conceived the idea of the
horseless carriage, and helped it to its final development by a series
of successive inventions. The names of Cugnot, Trevithick, James,
Pecqueur, Hancock, Gurney, Lenoir, Bollee, Benz, Daimler, Levassor and
Serpollet should form the nomenclative setting of commemorative friezes
on the walls of the grateful motor clubs of the future, as those of
Liszt, Beethoven, Wagner, Gounod, Handel, Massenet, Bach, Mendelssohn,
Grieg and Chopin take honored place in the shrines of Music, the
“heavenly maid.”
Even in the production of automobiles in any quantity for use—the
commercializing of the idea they represent—the United States did not
lead at first. This honor belongs to France, as does the original
conception by Cugnot of the horseless vehicle.
The first steam cars manufactured in the United States, on any basis
entitling their manufacture to the dignity of a business, were made
after 1894, and the names of Riker, White and Stanley are the prominent
ones in the steam automobile field. Electric carriages were sold as
commercial commodities in comparatively small quantities, beginning
with 1897, and the first American gasoline car sold in the United
States was made and sold by Alexander Winton in 1898.
Beginning prior to 1892, the French were selling automobiles by the
hundred, while manufacturers in America were selling them by the dozen.
Panhard and Peugeot were selling gasoline cars, and DeDion-Bouton was
putting the steam automobile on the world’s market.
But the race is not always to the swiftest. While France started
bravely on its commercialization of the automobile, and had in its
favor what were then good roads of an old and well settled country to
run them over, and perhaps the thriftiest people of any nation to buy
them, there were causes existing in the United States destined to make
of it the greatest automobile producing country in the world, and its
people the largest users of the new invention, while at the same time
operating to cause the United States to sell more cars outside its
confines, to Europe and elsewhere, than are sold by any other country.
And inasmuch as these underlying causes, while explaining the
supremacy of this country to this date in the manufacture and sale of
automobiles, also explain the reason for believing that the future of
the automobile business will dwarf the proportions it has up to this
time reached, they will bear analysis.
In the first place, European manufacturers of automobiles, as well as
of other products generally, with the possible exception in a degree,
of the Germans, are bound hand and foot, and therefore handicapped,
by tradition and convention. They make the automobile, especially the
French and English, so solidly, with such fidelity to tradition and
with such conscientious care as to detail, elaboration and finish,
that the price to the buyer, when it is put beside that of a similar
American made product, will not meet competition.
The American has a knack of turning out an article which is
mechanically correct, has the wearing qualities, but is simpler in
detail, and hence can be sold at a lower cost. Simplicity is the
American manufacturer’s keynote.
Back of this is business organization system, standardization of
parts used in the automobile, and that high order of constructive and
executive talent that gives the American business man the distinctive
reputation he enjoys and enables him successfully to compete in
price and quality with the rest of the world. There has been a rare
combination of inventive and business abilities in American automobile
manufacturers.
American mechanical genius has been given great credit, but wherein
is it any greater than that of the German, French or English? In one
particular—its simplicity. The Europeans are elaborate—the Americans
plain and simple.
It is possible that no European manufacturer would have conceived an
automobile embodying the essentials of small size, simplicity and
speed represented by a Ford car. His tradition and training would have
impelled him to elaboration in size and finish. In this, he is, of
course, moulded by European needs and tastes which differ, in many
respects, from those of the people of this country.
He does not possess the American’s practical vision in successful
salesmanship. Ford made his car with an eye to quantity. He was not
only an inventor, but a salesman. As he worked on his motor, he worked
on the problems of sales—producing a car that would sell to the largest
number. The larger the number sold, the smaller the price could be made.
“Large sales and small profits” has been a principle which has made
many American fortunes. Note how this same idea of Ford has been
followed by Willys in the Overland, Olds in the Reo, the makers of the
Maxwell, and half a score of other manufacturers in varying degrees,
causing the gamut of prices of the most popular cars to run from $360
to $1,200 each.
This is one reason why the American car could invade England and her
dominions beyond the seas, why Ford has factories in the British Isles
and Canada, and why our yearly exports of automobiles have increased in
the last five years over $100,000,000 in value.
Other reasons that make us an exporting country of automobiles through
their low prices are our natural resources of iron, steel, lumber, coal
and alloys, enabling us, by their plentifulness and accessibility, to
manufacture at cheap cost, thus offsetting the higher price we pay for
labor in this country than the European manufacturers pay.
But the biggest factor in the lead which the United States has taken
in the production of automobiles, both for export and consumption
within her own borders, is the universal method of standardizing in
manufacture, adopted by the automobile producers of the nation.
The manufacturers of this country shine in the field of cost
production, in the economies of purchase of raw materials, in the
method of manufacture, and in marketing their product.
ADVERTISING’S HELP IN MAKING THE AUTOMOBILE.
The extent to which economic methods of purchase of raw
materials—getting the price down—economic standardization of
manufacture, inventing short cuts as it were—affects production cost,
is shown in the fact that the automobile industry ranks almost at the
top in the manufactures of the United States in the per cent of value
added by manufacture to the cost of material.
The per cent of value added by manufacture to cost of material in
automobile production is 71 per cent, against 66 per cent in cotton
goods, 55 per cent in iron and steel products, 51 per cent in boots
and shoes, 16 per cent in flour and grist mill products, and 12 per
cent in slaughtering and meat packing.
Strange as it may sound when first stated, advertising is primarily the
base of this result. We know that the first principle of lowered cost
is buying in quantities; that if we buy for 100, the cost for each is
lower than the cost for one; if for 1,000 it is lower than the cost for
each of 100, and so on.
So, when Ford buys the materials for 533,921 cars, which was the
number he sold in 1916, he gets the price of the cost of each of these
more than a half million cars down to a less price than if he bought
material for 1,708 cars, the number he made in 1904, or even 168,220,
the number he made in 1913.
This is patent to any one who ever heard of wholesale and retail prices.
But how did Ford find a sale for 533,921 cars in 1916?
By advertising.
The first thing a manufacturer must do to lower the cost of production
of the single unit is to make in quantities.
How to insure the disposal of that quantity has been the big problem
that American automobile manufacturers have had to solve. The solution
was at hand. It was advertising. The commercializing of automobiles
with the speed and to the extent to which it was done between 1900 and
1917 could not have been successfully accomplished before this period,
because the recognition of the value of advertising had not become
widespread up to that time.
Advertising had gone through a process of development that was as slow
as that of the automobile business. Both arts emerged from darkness
into light at about the same time. Here is evidence that a very bright
and smart set of men engaged in automobile production at the very
outset.
They were mechanical, they were versed in business methods, and they
were conscious of the value of advertising.
This combination of knowledge by the men engaged in it has made the
automobile industry a record breaker in point of the time consumed
in its development. It has made it stand out as unparalleled by any
other industry in this country in the speed with which it progressed
from final experimentation to an established recognized enterprise,
involving mammoth investment of capital and huge profits.
That the automobile business has been the most extensively advertised
business of any in which we are engaged, almost anyone will concede
from knowledge gained from his own observation.
Advertising is like the rainbow—many hued. It may be one form, or
it may be another. It may whisper, or it may shout. We must concede
that the advertising the automobile promoters have done was more
largely of the shouting than the whispering kind. That is not to their
discredit—rather otherwise. The distinct injunction to advertise is
contained in the Bible. It was: “To so let your good work shine that,”
etc., and the people of scriptural days were admonished not to hide
their light under a bushel.
Newspapers are said, somewhat carelessly, to have made the automobile
business. It is not exactly fair to make this statement so sweepingly.
They did for it a good deal more than they did for any other line of
industry, and are still doing it.
They never devoted the space that they gave to the automobile to
railroads, steamboats, the telephone, street railways, oil, lumber,
mining, meat packing, or any other commercial industry. It was not,
necessarily, that the automobile manufacturers, in all cases, asked for
this liberal treatment by the newspapers.
It was that newspapers volunteered it. One started it, and others
followed. The spell which the idea contained in the automobile weaves
over men and women was cast equally over the editors and publishers in
the United States. In recognition of the novelty of the automobile,
they laid liberal offerings of free space on the altar of motordom. Its
peculiar exhilaration penetrated the editorial sanctum, and in this
distinctive exhilaration the automobile has had no parallel except in
golf.
It has been quite generally accepted as an axiom that if you give, you
receive. We see this statement proved in a hundred ways. A pleasant
smile begets a smile. A good deed is matched in kind. No better reason
for this exists, probably, than that it is ingrained in us to hate to
be under obligations to anybody. So when we get a smile we promptly pay
it back and are square, just as we invite to lunch a man who invited us
to lunch. We are very particular about this.
The automobile manufacturers were not lacking in this trait, common
to human nature. When publishers put their stamp of approval on the
motor car and unreservedly threw open their columns to the progress
made in its improvements and production, manufacturers appreciated and
reciprocated.
The result has been that more money has been spent in advertising in
the automobile business in the United States than has been spent in
any other single line of enterprise. Possibly the nearest approach to
it has been patent medicine, or the promotion of various enterprises.
And it has paid—every automobile maker, and every salesman will admit
this as a matter of course. They will admit it because they know it to
be so—a knowledge derived in their own experience.
The psychology of advertising shows that there are two principal things
involved in making advertising profitably productive. One is that it
informs, the other that it persuades. If the mind is informed of what
an automobile is, what it does, and all the advantages and benefits it
confers, it has a basis to work on, and from this working basis it will
evolve conclusions.
The state of the mind in the conclusive stage is fallow field for
persuasive effort.
In the advertising given in this country to the automobile which has
placed millions of motor cars in the ownership of people in the United
States, not counting those exported, the publishers of our journals
have supplied the information, and the manufacturer the persuasion.
It is this double teamwork which, supplementing the business ability
of our manufacturers, has put us in the front rank as automobile
producers. But baldly to say that the newspapers made the automobile
is not giving full credit to the other causes which contribute to our
success in this line of enterprise. It has been a combination of causes
working together which has made the automobile.
UNITED STATES A FERTILE FIELD.
There have been other forms of advertising used in automobile selling,
besides space in publications, and they are forms the value of which
cannot be discounted. “A satisfied customer is the best advertisement”
is one of the oldest slogans of advertising. And it is true. The
automobile manufacturers of the United States know it is true, and have
been guided by it.
Road races, speed and endurance contests, employment of racing drivers
with records, automobile shows, outdoor displays—all have been forms
of advertising employed in the industry, and all have played their
part and exerted their influence to one common end—that of putting the
industry in the United States on the highest pinnacle it has attained
anywhere in the world in seventeen years.
And while full credit must be given the vision and capabilities of the
manufacturers, and the productive value of advertising in all forms,
meed for the results can not be withheld from that element, which, in
the final analysis, makes all things possible—the people, the base and
groundwork on which all successful industrial structures are erected.
All the business ability of all the automobile makers, however great,
and all the advertising, however convincing, that could be written,
could not have made the automobile business of today if the people had
not taken hold of the automobile and put their stamp of approval on it.
“Power of the Press”—what is it but the “Power of the People” expressed
on paper? Power of the People—the force that revolves the world,
revolved the wheels of millions of automobiles, and will go on turning
the wheels of millions more.
The people of the United States supplied the fertile field in which the
American automobile grew and blossomed.
The reason France, although it took the lead in the commercialization
of the motor car, could not hold it in the race with this country is to
be found in the difference between the peoples of the two countries.
France had good roads—has had them as has Europe for hundreds of years.
The French had money—they are the greatest savers in the world.
But if you put your money in rentes or savings banks, you do not spend
it for automobiles or anything else. The reason the French have money
is the reason they do not buy automobiles.
No people in the world have learned, as have Americans, to spend money
to make money. No people in the world take the chances Americans do,
and no people win as the Americans do. In this is found one of many
causes for the commercial success of the automobile in America.
The American is good to himself as is the man of no other nationality.
He is further advanced in general knowledge, mostly gained by
experience through intercommunication with his fellows. His bon
camaraderie is effervescent, giving him opportunities to learn things
denied to the self-restrained European. His school is the broad school
of the world. He doesn’t have to travel to see the world; the world is
in America and comes to him.
So, with the opportunities natural to a new country, with the standards
of living and the mode of thought that they are in the United States,
the 103,000,000 people of continental United States are a market for
automobiles that dwarf the 464,000,000 people of Europe.
What such a market has been during the last decade and a half may be
gathered from the fact that in the last sixteen years the population of
the United States increased at a greater rate than ever in its history.
The increase of the people of the United States in the sixteen years
the automobile industry has been commercialized, was 25,887,904. In the
previous twenty years the increase was 25,838,792.
People without money can not buy automobiles, so what has been the
increase in wealth in the United States in this same period?
In the last twelve years it has been $99,221,764,315.
Staggering, you say? Rather, when you know that the increase in wealth
in the United States in the last twelve years was nearly double the
increase in the twenty years which preceded the last twelve years.
No epoch in the world’s history, therefore, was so favorable as
the period of 1900-1917 for commercializing the automobile. It was
timed just to the moment for quick and dramatic success. The period
was coincident with the high water marks reached in the increase of
population and in the nation’s money-making. Advertising had reached a
stage of development it had not attained before.
STARS IN THEIR COURSES FOUGHT FOR THE AUTOMOBILE.
We must credit enthusiasm for some of the influence in the success of
the industry. We will have to admit that it is present in the factory
and in the selling mart, in the shows and on the road. A satisfied
customer, the best advertisement, finds expression in the loyal
recommendation an owner gives his own make of car; enthusiasm of maker,
of salesman, of owner—it runs along the line, and if advertising is the
gasoline which makes the car go, enthusiasm is the oil which keeps the
bearings of the industry lubricated.
The year 1898 saw the first real attempts of manufacturers in the
United States, either of gasoline, electric or steam cars, to make them
in any quantity.
The gasoline cars that were pioneers were the Duryea, the Ford and the
Haynes, but until 1898 these were distinctly still in the field of
experimentation. Ford personally built a car run by a gasoline motor of
the two-cylinder, four-cycle type of his own construction, and this car
ran 25 miles an hour. Ford was second only to Duryea who constructed
the first gasoline car built in the United States.
Duryea persisted in producing a buggy type of car, and failed to
get any sale for it. Ford and Haynes had no better luck in finding
purchasers for their cars.
Alexander Winton entered the field after Duryea, Ford and Haynes, and
in 1898 sold the first gasoline car that was bought for use in the
United States.
Ford built his first car in 1893. It was not a perfect car, but better
than any which had preceded it. He built his second car in 1895, with
a 4 × 4 two-cylinder, four-cycle motor. In this year he organized
the Detroit Automobile Company with a capital of $50,000. Ford owned
one-sixth interest, and drew $100 a month salary as chief engineer.
In the six years Ford remained with the Detroit Automobile Company it
put out only two or three cars. In 1901 Ford severed his connection
with the company, which shortly became the Cadillac Automobile Company,
and is now the Cadillac Motor Car Company. The Cadillac has had a
successful career, and is one of the cars of which a particularly large
number has been sold.
Leaving the Detroit Automobile Company, Ford started a machine shop
of his own, and in 1902 produced a car with a 90-inch wheel base, and
which is now regarded as standard gauge, using the two cylinders, 4 ×
4, and a double opposed engine.
After much difficulty he got money from half a dozen persons and
organized the Ford Motor Company with a capital of $100,000. At first
he owned only 25-1/2 per cent of the stock, but later he borrowed
$175,000 and bought 25-1/2 per cent more, and still later by paying 700
per cent of its face value, secured 7-1/2 per cent more, which makes
his holding in the company at this time 58-1/2 per cent of the stock.
The first Ford car to be a commercial success was put out in 1903, and
the record of production of Ford cars to date is as follows:
Year. No. Cars.
1904 1,708
1905 1,695
1906 1,599
1907 8,423
1908 6,398
1909 10,607
1910 18,664
1911 34,528
1912 78,440
1913 168,220
1914 248,307
1915 308,213
1916 533,921
In 1916 the Ford production was over one-sixth of the 3,000,000 cars in
use in the United States. In that year he produced nearly one-third of
all the passenger cars made in that year.
Ford’s car was a small, low priced car from the start. Haynes’ was a
larger and higher priced car. Winton’s was likewise a large and more
expensive car.
A RAIN OF AUTOMOBILE MAKERS.
The year of the Spanish-American war—1898—saw the beginning of a
veritable rain of automobile manufacturers in the United States. In
that year the Stanley, Stearns, Thomas, Matheson, Winton, and the
Waverley Company entered the field.
In 1899, there appeared the Locomobile Company, Olds, Baker-Electric
and Pierce-Racine (later absorbed by J. I. Case and now the Case car).
In 1900, Packard, Peerless, Glide, National Electric, Lambert, Elmore,
Babcock, Jackson, Knox and Lane were entrants in the lists.
In 1901, Acme, Gaeth, Pierce-Arrow, White, Royal Tourist,
Stevens-Duryea, Waltham-Orient, Pope-Toledo, Welch, Pullman and Rambler.
In 1902, Cadillac, Franklin, Pope, Studebaker, Sultan, Okey, Walter and
Schacht.
In 1903, Ford, Auburn, Overland, Moline, Premier, Corbin, Bergdall,
Holsman, Columbus and Chadwick.
In 1904, Buick, Cleveland, American Napier, Stoddard-Dayton, Marmon,
Mitchell, Jewel, McIntyre, Pittsburgh Electric, Ranch & Lang and
Simplex.
In 1905, Alco, American, Dorris, Johnson, Jonz, Kisselcar, Maxwell,
Monarch, Reo, Studebaker, Garford and American Mors.
In 1906, Anderson, A. B. C., Cartercar, Brunn, Thomas-Detroit, Kearns,
Sterling, Mora, Moon, Pennsylvania, Palmer & Singer and Staver.
In 1907, Albany, Atlas, Brush, Bertolet, Byrider, Carter, Chalmers,
Coppock, De Luxe, Oakland, Regal, Selden, Speedwell, Interstate, Lozier
and Great Western.
In 1908, Sharp-Arrow, Pittsburgh 6, Crown Midland, Rider-Lewis,
Paige-Detroit, Velie, Cole, E. M. F. and Hupmobile.
In 1909, Hudson, Advance, Cunningham, Coates-Goshen, Ohio and Abbott.
Since 1909 to date new cars put on the market include:
Stutz (1911), Chevrolet (1912), Grand, Chandler, Saxon and
Scripps-Booth (1913), Dodge and Dort (1914), Owen Magnetic (1915),
Drexel and Elgin (1916). Other automobiles in the field are the
Maibohm, Allen, Ben-Hur, Crow-Elkhart, Harroun, Lexington and Madison.
A table giving a complete list of automobiles is printed elsewhere in
this volume.
The earlier manufacturers of motor cars included many who had been
engaged in manufacturing bicycles, and following them was a group that
had successfully manufactured wagons and carriages. Still another set
of manufacturers were machinery men.
In the list of names of automobile companies which have been organized
during the period of the industry’s development, there are some which
have gone out of business, but not many.
The industry, generally speaking, has had comparatively few complete
failures. Mortality has been lower with it than with many other
business enterprises.
This is chiefly due to the intelligence which the manufacturers brought
to the business, plus the demand which sprang up for the automobile
as soon as the people, instructed with great and liberal space by the
press, realized it was the vehicle that could give what they wanted.
Never was the value of a concerted campaign of education better
demonstrated.
That unusually intelligent study of the subject of suiting the popular
desire was given by manufacturers is evidenced in many ways, but in
none that is so typical as was the standardization of motor cars.
At one stage of the industry its very life was threatened by a lack of
uniformity in the mechanical construction of the various types of the
automobile.
The big idea that has made Henry Ford’s millions was a combination
one. It was the building of a motor and car combined which could be
constructed at a cost that would command large quantity production.
This conception by Ford, alone, simple though it was, proclaims him the
genius he undoubtedly is.
The purchase of cars between 1898, when sales first began to be made,
and 1903, when Ford put out his car, was practically confined to
people of wealth and leisure. It required both to own and operate
an automobile. Men bought them at a cost of $3,000 to $12,000 each.
Purchasers were exhilarated by auto-intoxication—with little thought of
the practical uses the invention could be put to. Snobbishness, social
impression and display of superior wealth were back of many purchases.
But for the manufacturers’ quick recognition that the future of the
automobile did not rest with the rich, that to be a great money-making
industry, they must make automobiles for the mass and not for the
class, the business would probably today be no further advanced than it
was fifteen years ago. A parallel of what might have been may be found
in yachting or motor boating—two methods of deriving pleasure and speed
which are confined to the rich, largely because prohibitive in cost to
the mass.
Popularization of the automobile demanded standardization.
Automobilization of the nation would never be accomplished if the
hundreds of manufacturers that sprang up produced hundreds of
different cars with different sizes of parts, and different standards,
requiring owners of cars with which something had gone wrong, to wait
indefinitely for a particular device used by a certain company.
Early owners of cars learned by bitter experience what it meant to have
a screw loose or a tire put out of business in a town where the supply
stores did not sell that particular screw or that particular tire.
The spread of distance, annihilated by the auto, was threatened by
difficulties such as these.
High maintenance and repair costs ate up many an automobile buyer in
the early days of the craze. It wasn’t the original cost, although that
was high enough; it was the upkeep.
Men of real ability—competent business men and expert engineers—got
into the business, fortunately, largely for the rewards it promised,
and by standardization and systematization brought the cost production
down.
GETTING THE PRICE OF AUTOMOBILES DOWN.
The engineers banded together and studied standards of hard steel,
screw threads and wheel rims. The manufacturers, preserving open
minds, co-operated, and today automobiles are the most interchangeable
of all assembled mechanisms.
But for this the farmer, the moderate salaried city man, the mechanic
and the small tradesman would not today be consumers of motor cars.
But for this the average price for passenger cars, originally in 1900
around $3,000 and by 1911 reduced to $1,000, would never have been
gotten down in 1916 to $605.
The average price of all motor vehicles, combining pleasure cars and
trucks, was, in 1916, $636. The preponderance of passenger cars at the
lower prices brought the average down, since the average price of motor
trucks alone was about $1,800. For every motor truck sold, eighteen
passenger cars were disposed of in 1916.
With standardization and the consequent lowering of cost, the
automobile industry acquired a momentum that has carried production
forward on a constantly ascending scale, as witness these figures of
passenger cars alone:
Year No. of
cars made
1909 80,000
1910 185,000
1911 200,000
1912 250,000
1915 842,249
1916 1,617,708
The manufacture of motor trucks almost doubled in one year. The number
produced in 1915 was 50,366. In 1916 the number made was 92,130.
The above table, showing the rate of increase in passenger cars made in
seven years, makes it clear that the greatest growth in the passenger
car business has been since and including the year 1911.
That was the year in which the largest number of medium and low priced
standardized cars with refinement of detail and added equipments,
selling from $1,500 down to $500, was first put on the market. Ford
almost doubled his output in that year. The next years, 1912 and 1913,
also he more than doubled each year his output of the previous year.
And in 1916 he made nearly one-third of all the passenger cars produced
in the entire United States in that year.
Could anything demonstrate more conclusively than these facts, that
if you have an article within the price of the mass of the people, it
will sell, if the people want it? The one idea of Henry Ford—quantity
sales—saved to the United States the premiership in automobile making.
For other manufacturers adopted it, some radically, others in a
modified form. Its influence was unquestioned in putting the price of
motor cars at a figure at which a person happening to have less than
the income of a millionaire could afford to buy one, so that when every
one of the many values and benefits of the existence of the modern
automobile is scheduled, let us, in giving credit for them, place the
name of Ford at the head of the list.
When we have arrived at our destination, or have attained an object
much desired, our satisfaction is such that we are in a forgiving mind
and prone to forget the sacrifices we had to make, the difficulties we
had to overcome, the strenuous work we had to do. The end justified the
means, and we don’t think long about the hardships in the means.
Preëminence of the United States in the motor field has not been gained
without hardships, sacrifices and disappointments by those engaged in
it, nor was it reached by the immediate and uninterrupted success of
all companies organized to commercialize the invention.
While, as we have stated before, the number of final failures of
companies was small compared with those in some other avenues of
enterprise in the development stage, the number of individuals and
corporations in the automobile business that started on the wrong
road and found it impassable, was not small. But here again it was
fortunate for humanity, reckoning the automobile as one of the greatest
boons vouchsafed the human race, that the mechanical perfection of
the automobile was reached at a date coincident with more enlightened
thought, a liberalism of view and a clearer vision of the possibilities
of the future by our men of business.
For automobile enterprises that took the wrong road and got mired
in the mud of mechanical and management difficulties and financial
complications were, most of them, lifted out of the slough by men
who knew the right road and were better drivers. Had the automobile
developed mechanically to near-perfection a score of years before it
did, not only would the people as a mass not have been ready for it,
but it is doubtful if business at that period had developed to the
point of efficiency where it could recognize the possibilities latent
in the motor car as a money-making machine. Where money is, the best
brains go. Capital is timid. But brains and capital want only to be
shown.
Some of the most successful motor cars and motor car companies of today
were deeply mired in financial difficulties a decade ago, but were
pried and towed out and made great successes by new brains and new
capital administered by a new set of men.
Nor was the industry immune from the bane of all invention
industries—the patent right. The man who gave it the most trouble was
the man whose name is far up toward the head of the list of men who
were responsible for the inventive ideas involved in the motive feature
of the automobile—Selden.
He kept the industry in a ferment for ten years or more, whether
designedly or not, through his patent, the mere existence of which
tended toward restraining its development by discouraging inventive
expansion, and ceasing to exercise the depressing effects of a wet
blanket on automobile growth only when the influence of his patent was
neutralized by an adverse court decision.
The earlier commercialism of the automobile was characterized by many
extravagances in expansive plans, high financing and even recklessness,
not only on the part of manufacturers, but buyers of automobiles as
well.
In getting the price down to a figure which is not excessive,
the manufacturers removed the cause which militated most against
popularization of the invention and provided one of the reasons for
opposition to it by many people. To pay the prices which originally
prevailed, men mortgaged their homes and women sold their diamonds
and went bankrupt on the upkeep of the car. Manufacturers expanded
too lavishly, overcapitalized, and attempted great stockjobbing
consolidations, while incompetent officers were paid excessive
salaries, until conservative financiers entered a protest and the banks
called a halt.
The abuses which were co-existent with one of the eras of the
automobile’s development caused the industry to be regarded by a class
of the people as a luxurious outlaw and a menace to the well-being of
the country.
Vice-President Fairbanks raised his voice to protest against the new
manifestation of human nature’s appetite for joy and comfort.
James A. Patten declared a Kansas City bank held fifty-two mortgages
on as many automobiles, and that that sort of loaning was going to be
stopped.
Certain banks blocked, as far as possible, loans for purchases of
automobiles. A prominent banker as late as 1910 declared that the
initial cost of automobiles to American users, being $250,000,000
a year, with as much more for upkeep and incidental expense, was
equivalent in actual economic waste each year to twice the value of
property destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake.
A year after this statement was made, 1911, saw the dawn of the epoch
of low priced cars, and the low priced car has reversed the condition
from an economic waste, if such it was, to an economic gain, which it
undoubtedly is.
Through all the storms of protest and criticisms, manufacturers went
on their way, just as the automobile inventors had done under similar
circumstances when men laughed and scoffed at them and called them
crazy.
The depression of 1893 came too early to affect the automobile
industry, but that of 1907 hit it at the time when it was by no means
as strong as it was later; and yet, while in that year dozens of
companies were bankrupted, and in 1910, fifty-two went out of business,
it should be said that the great majority of them were not actually
starters in the race. They were entrants that never toed the scratch.
Their failure to make a start was due to lack of capital or inefficient
organizers. A very large proportion of automobile companies that
actually started in business have survived and are successful.
Names of automobile manufacturers who are prominent today were familiar
names in the earlier stages of the industry, and more of the original
automobile makers have survived than have fallen by the wayside.
REMOVING OBSTACLES TO AUTOMOBILE PRODUCTION.
One objection the old philosopher has to the automobile is an objection
that is strengthened by the fact that he does not own one. It is that
the automobile contributes toward making the age one in which a really
short time appears to be and is generally regarded as a long time. It
destroys proportions as it annihilates space.
Seventeen years is a shorter time in the view of the philosopher of
60, accustomed to reviewing events in his past life half a century
back, than it appears to a man of 34. It is just half the length of
this young man’s years. Time, as to duration, is thus comparative to
different views.
Seventeen years is not long for a commercial industry to take the place
which the automobile business now occupies in a country as great as
this. It is a short time in which to build up a business representing
the figures of two billion on the mark of the American dollar.
But this business, which has not been a business for even a score of
years, did not arrive at its present estate without vicissitudes, and
without strenuous work in removing obstacles in the way of its progress.
The seventeen years in which the industry made its record, saw the rise
and the fall of the steamer type of car, the wresting of an Old Man of
the Sea, in the form of a discouraging patent holder from the shoulders
of the manufacturers, the electric car largely depopularized and the
gasoline car established in wellnigh universal favor.
The procession of the more important earlier pioneers in the
commercialization of the automobile started with the Pope Manufacturing
Company at its head. In 1897 this company, which had successfully made
bicycles, manufactured electric cars at Hartford, but was unable to
find a market for them in the United States. An effort was made to get
the Newport set to take them up, but the wealthy owners of Newport
villas could not be induced to be even mildly interested.
So the Pope company decided to send them abroad, and shipped them on
the steamer La Bourgogne. But this ship sank at sea and the cars were
lost. The Pope company then made electric cabs, many of which appeared
on the streets of New York in 1898 and 1899, and finally sold its
electric vehicle business to the Columbia Automobile Company of New
Jersey.
This corporation was formed by a party of capitalists headed by
William C. Whitney of New York, and included P. A. B. Widener of
Philadelphia, A. F. Brady of Albany, and Thomas F. Ryan of New York.
All were interested and actively engaged in street electric traction
development in the East. Whitney, who was in public life as Secretary
of the Navy under Cleveland, was a man of far vision in industrial
possibilities, and recognized early in its development stage that
the automobile had a future. He was as quick to see, also, that the
gasoline motor drive was the coming means of propulsion, and he caused
the Columbia Automobile Company, whose name was changed to the Electric
Vehicle Company, to negotiate for and finally secure complete rights to
the Selden patents for gasoline motors.
Having a sweeping license agreement with Selden, the Electric Vehicle
Company undertook to enforce its rights, and one of the first concerns
sued for infringement was the Winton Company, whose gasoline car, sold
in 1898, was the first gasoline car disposed of by a manufacturer in
this country. The United States court upheld the patent, and nine
of the then leading automobile manufacturers, finding they must pay
royalties, formed an association under the title of the Association of
Licensed Automobile Manufacturers.
For thirteen years thereafter, until 1911, gasoline automobile
manufacture in the United States was under tribute to a royalty of
from four-fifths of one per cent to 1-1/4 per cent of the retail
price of all cars sold. The beneficiary of this license fee was the
Electric Vehicle Company, which “split” the fees with Selden, and the
Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers itself. The fees
amounted to very large sums, and the licensees wriggled and squirmed;
but the United States District Court having upheld the Selden patent,
there was no way out, unless a deliverer appeared.
And such a deliverer did appear.
It was none other than Henry Ford.
For a pacifist, Henry Ford is about the greatest fighter the American
industrial ranks have ever produced. His history has been a succession
of fights—fights to make a motor that would go inside a hat box, fights
to get anybody to believe in him and invest money with him, fights
to convince people that nearly everybody would buy an automobile if
the price was low enough, and finally the fiercest and most prolonged
fight of all—the fight to break the Selden patent monopoly and free the
industry from serfdom, give it free rein and relieve it of the incubus
of tribute.
Ford had refused to join the Association of Licensed Automobile
Manufacturers and had gone on making his engine and adapting it to a
car which he put out, as has before been said, in 1903. The Electric
Vehicle Company, which held the reins and was driving all the gasoline
car makers except Ford, cracked its whip in Henry’s direction and
brought him up standing, and bristling as well.
In the suit for infringement against Ford the Electric Vehicle Company
won in the lower United States court, but it reckoned without its
Ford. That product of a strain of Irish-English fighting blood didn’t
consider he was whipped because one court decided against him, as all
the other manufacturers, who submitted their necks meekly to the Selden
patent yoke, had done.
He promptly appealed and fought the case like a wildcat up to the
United States Circuit Court of Appeals, and through that tribunal, and
with such success that, in 1911 this court reversed the finding of the
lower court and gave the decision to Henry Ford.
The original suit in the lower court was begun against Ford in 1903,
so that his fight against the first and only automobile “trust” was an
eight year war.
But during it all, he never faltered in his activities in perfecting
his car and making his elaborate preparations to build and market it.
His confidence in his final victory was not affected in the slightest
degree. He went on, pursuing his object with unruffled mien.
It must have been a trying brand of chagrin that the gasoline car
manufacturers, who had tamely submitted to their first setback in
the effort to slip the fetters of patent rights, had to wear around
with them. They had looked askance at Ford. They feared he was likely
to kill the automobile “game” by putting out a car that would make
automobiling common, and put a damper on the purchase of the cars
they made, by people who could afford to buy them. At best, he was
calculated to be a disturbing element in the business—probably driving
down prices to a point where there would be no profit in them.
And here he had been the savior of the automobile business.
Many men have written letters that have been their undoing. Selden had
made an entry in a personal notebook or diary that brought about his
downfall and the loosening of his grip on automobile manufacturing.
The ground on which the United States Circuit Court of Appeals decided
for Ford and against the Selden patent was that the intent of the
inventor had been to patent a motor designed after the type of a motor
invented by Brayton of which the Ford motor was not an infringement,
and not after the type of the gas engine of Otto the German, of which
the Ford motor would have been an infringement, and that Selden had
clearly disclosed this intent, as evidenced by a slurring entry in
his diary regarding the four-cycle Otto engine, characterizing it as
“another of those d—d Dutch engines.”
The Otto engine for stationary purposes was in use before Selden filed
his application for the patent, and if he did not intend the patent to
cover an engine of that type he had no hold on the manufacturers who,
with scarcely a single exception, were making automobiles, with motors
patterned after the Otto type. These manufacturers could have done what
Ford did—taken the case up and got the same decision, but they didn’t
do it, thereby making Henry Ford the emancipator of the automobile
industry.
This delivery by Ford of automobile manufacturing from patent restraint
and his quantity production idea, without any other of the many things
he has done, would have made Henry Ford what he is—the most commanding
figure in the automobile industry today.
There can be no doubt that the very existence of the Selden patent with
the rights it conferred to tax every single automobile, was a deterrent
to the growth of the business, because with the wiping out, through
Ford’s court victory, of the right of William C. Whitney’s Electric
Vehicle Company to take toll of all gasoline autocars produced,
encouragement was given to capital to invest more largely in the
business.
If, in the springtime, the season when the grass begins to sprout, you
remove an old door that has lain flat on the grass all winter, the
grass in the space covered by that door will literally spring up.
So when the lid—the Selden patent—was lifted from the automobile
industry, it sprang to the front. The year 1911 was the epochal year
in volume of production in the business. From that year dates the
present era of automobile high production. It wasn’t that many new
companies entered the field. It was that those already in it expanded
and increased their output. There was no longer an Old Man of the
Sea, in the form of a tax on production, clinging to their necks and
shoulders. The age of standardization had come, and the soundness of
Ford’s quantity production idea had been demonstrated. Thence on,
the automobile industry had a clear course, if not in all cases easy
sailing, and it has traversed it on a straight line, with a current of
popular demand running strong in the direction it has been headed.
GASOLINE CAR IN POPULAR DEMAND.
Pioneers in manufacturing gasoline cars during the period beginning
at the time—1898—when the first gasoline car, a Winton, was sold,
were Clarke Bros., makers of the Auto-car, E. R. Thomas whose name
the Thomas Flier took, Stearns, Chalmers, Jeffery, Wilkinson, who
designed the Franklin car, Olds who changed from steam to gasoline,
Brush, Ford, Leland who produced the Cadillac, Haynes and Apperson.
Many familiar cars came into the field later, or were developed and
advertised by men who became identified with them at a later date.
Although its manufacture was started in 1903, the Overland car, which
ranks second to Ford in quantity production, did not become the factor
in the industry it is today until John North Willys, a salesman,
became identified with it and gave it its remarkable vogue through his
personality and spectacular salesmanship.
The gasoline car was struggling to perfection when the electric and
steam types of cars were reasonably well established on the market.
In 1896, New England saw its first motor race of electric cars. The
names of make or makers of electric cars familiar from that date
on include those of Riker, Pope, Waverley, Baker, Woods, Barrows,
Studebaker, whose first cars were electric, Columbus Buggy, Rauch &
Lang, Detroit, Ohio and Anderson.
But the electric car industry never has reached the proportions of the
gasoline car industry. It has never advertised in the lavish manner
adopted by gasoline car makers. It has not entered races to the extent
its gasoline competitors have. It adopted conservative methods which
have given it a slow growth. It is only within the last five years that
shaft drives have been perfected in electric car construction, while
producing controllers that would not arc, whatever the provocation,
have been matters of slow evolution.
But that the electric car is a perfectly balanced piece of mechanism
and the one type of the automobile with the least fits and starts, is
conceded, and this superiority will doubtless enable the electric type
to make up in the future in the motor truck field what it has lost to
the gasoline type in the passenger field.
If the passenger automobile has not reached the length of its use and
consumption, and it unquestionably has not, what shall be said of the
freight automobile, the industry in which is yet in embryo?
The greatest future field for the automobile is without doubt in this
direction, as is evidenced by numberless indications.
The increase in motor trucks made in 1916 over 1915 was within less
than 8,000 of being double the number of the previous year. The number
produced in 1916 was 92,130, against 50,369 in 1915, with an increase
in retail value of $40,000,000. A business that nearly doubles in
product while showing an increase in total sales of only 33-1/3 per
cent, as the automobile truck business does, is seen by analysis to be
getting the price of its units down, and that is the surest means in
commercial production to insure increased consumption.
Perfected devices are operating in the motor truck field as they did in
the passenger car field to lower cost, and the lower the cost of motor
trucks is gotten down, the more people will buy them.
The field of the motor truck’s usefulness is ever widening. The
European war has demonstrated many directions in which it can be
utilized, while its adaptation to the country is as feasible and
economical as its adoption by the city. Its use by national, state and
city governmental departments is growing rapidly, and the best evidence
exists of its superior economy to the horse for many purposes. And when
the high wave of motor truck use rolls in, the electric type will be
found riding on its crest. Already there are upwards of 50,000 electric
trucks alone in use.
The electric passenger car, while far behind the gasoline car in the
race of automobiles, is distinctly in the lead of the steam type.
Never was the biblical saying, “and the first shall be last,” truer
than of the steam automobile. First to arrive at the starting line,
it was distanced early in the quarter stretch. The first steam car in
the United States was sold in 1889, the first electric in 1892 and the
first gasoline in 1898. And though it had a start over the gasoline car
of nine years, it was never able seriously to compete with it, and 1905
saw only one large manufacturer left in the steam car industry.
At one time, about 1900, it looked as though steam and gasoline cars
were running neck and neck in popular favor, and the names of Riker,
White, C. E. Whitney and Stanley were as well known almost as those of
Ford, Chalmers and a score of gasoline car makers are known today, but
the contest was a short one.
The gasoline car forged ahead. Its success discouraged the steam
car makers, most of whom changed from steam car to gasoline car
manufacturing, and the business of steam car making narrowed down to
two manufacturers—Stanley and White. Finally, in 1911, White gave up
making steam cars and devoted his facilities to gasoline cars only,
leaving Stanley to share only with Doble in the steam field.
The reason why the car buying public gave enthusiastic patronage to
gasoline cars and scant encouragement to steam cars was that the use
of the steam car requires more mechanical knowledge than does that of
the gasoline car, and the work of making repairs is more complicated.
The man of today wants to do a thing in the easiest way. His education,
through the conveniences supplied in modern life, is all along the line
of short cuts to anywhere and anything. “Why work when you don’t have
to,” is his motto, and he has never been able to see why he should take
the time to become a proficient mechanic to give himself pleasure, when
he can buy a gasoline car and escape doing so—and much work in running
his car and repairing it, as well.
The steam automobile reached the zenith of its vogue prior to 1905.
Beginning with that year, its use declined and that of gasoline cars
increased. The gasoline type is now almost universal in passenger
automobiles, and the fact that the power units in the operation of the
gasoline motor are more economical than either electricity or steam,
has its bearing on their general popularity.
AUTOMOBILE DEMAND MADE ACCESSORIES NECESSARY.
A history of the commercializing of the automobile which does not make
mention of the manner in which the development of the industry called
into being an almost endless list of incidental and accessory products,
is not complete.
The production of the finished automobile involves a multiplicity
of units, and as no automobile manufacturer makes all of these, but
depends on independent factories for certain of them, there has been
a multiplication of enterprises supplying products entering in the
construction of automobiles, whose development and financial success
have kept pace with those of the automobile itself.
Foremost in the list of accessories for the automobile are tires, and
the industry in this product is of vast proportions. The production of
automobiles—passenger and freight—having been 1,617,708 in 1916, and
the manufacturers having delivered each of these vehicles complete with
a set of four tires, the number of tires required for 1916 sales of
automobiles alone was 6,470,832.
But the tires put out with new automobiles form only a slight
proportion of the total tires sold by tire companies. It is stated
that each of the over three million cars in use in the United States
consumes an average of eight tires a year, so that automobile buyers
are purchasers of probably 20,000,000 tires a year.
The pneumatic tire was one of the greatest factors in giving the
automobile business its impetus. Charles Goodyear, in a broad sense,
laid the foundation for popularizing the automobile, when, by
accidentally dropping rubber on a stove, he discovered the principle of
vulcanization.
The development of the automobile was retarded for years, because,
while iron shod horses, it would not successfully shoe automobile
wheels. The greatest obstacle to the mechanical perfection, as well as
to the development of the automobile by general adoption, were road
shock to the automobile and mutilation by the automobile of the roads.
The pneumatic tire removed both obstacles simultaneously.
The pneumatic tire was invented by an Englishman named Thompson, who
patented it in 1845. Dunlop, an Irishman, was the pioneer manufacturer
in 1888, and Michelin of France first applied it to the automobile.
The manufacture of body parts is obviously a tremendous industry, and
while the body is a prime essential to the automobile, it was a part
that existed in horse drawn vehicles, and, therefore, did not play the
part that the pneumatic tire did in accelerating auto development.
Comparable in importance to the tire was the nonskid chain, the
invention of Parsons, an English engineer, who patented it in 1903. As
the pneumatic tire enabled the automobile to be used more successfully
and in larger numbers in good weather, so the nonskid chain enabled
it to be used in bad weather. Prior to its adoption automobiles were
used to only a limited extent in wet or slippery weather. Its adoption
is credited with having added one month a year to the possible use of
every automobile, a result which would naturally increase the number of
automobiles used, through making them more efficient, and by decreasing
the life of a car through added use.
Next in importance in extending the field of purchasers of automobiles
was the self-starter, the invention of Coleman, who, though little
known to the public, is the inventor of so many things in electrical
use as to be comparable to Edison.
The electric self-starter is credited with creating a million
automobile buyers, a large proportion of whom are women, and with
having added nearly 15 per cent to the service of the motor car.
Other aids to the successful commercialization of the automobile are
solid tires, invented by Grant in 1896; the demountable rim, invented
by Perlman in 1906; sliding transmission, the invention of Dyer; the
nonskid tread, and chambered spark plugs, the latter invented by
Canfield in 1898. Of minor improvements, of which there have been
scores, the most notable were those of side doors, introduced by Marmon
in 1902; tops to bodies, introduced in 1903; speedometer, gasoline
pressure system, carburetor, shock absorber, electric lighting and oil
gauge.
The evolution of the automobile has been facilitated by every
improvement which makes it easier of operation, and the sale of motor
cars has been increased by them.
The more one reviews the advance made by the automobile during the
seventeen years of its commercialization, the more one can appreciate
the feverishness characterizing its production, which can be seen and
felt by anyone who visits the automobile manufacturing sections of
Detroit, Cleveland, Indianapolis or Toledo. The demand is so great
for automobiles, and they are being bought in such numbers, that the
factories producing them work at a speed and under a pressure such as
are paralleled in our industrialism only in munitions of war plants.
Busy are the cities where automobile manufacturing forms an important
industry, and busy they are likely to continue for years to come, for
as a commercial industry the business of making and selling automobiles
has not yet even approached high water mark, in the opinion of those
best qualified to judge.
The country districts have yet to be heard from in louder tones. The
possibilities of the automobile in the country, from a commercial
standpoint, constitute a fascinating subject for speculation. Although
there are over 6,000,000 farm families, only 300,000 automobiles were
bought by them in 1916, indicating that the rural element so far has
not really begun to take hold of the automobile, because the normal
yearly sales of horse drawn vehicles, most of which were sold in the
country, prior to the automobile’s adoption, were over 1,000,000.
By far the greatest proportion of motor driven vehicles bought in the
country are now passenger vehicles. When the farmer wakes up to the
economic superiority of the motor truck and motor tractor over the
horse, the sales of other forms than passenger cars in the country will
scarcely have any bounds. The best grounds for this belief lie in the
fact that at present there are 5,000,000 horse drawn vehicles in use,
against less than 300,000 motor trucks.
In this development of the motor freight vehicle in the rural
districts, the matter of education will play its part, as it does in
all evolution, but slowly, as it always does.
Just as the creation of farm products as a whole is being increased by
educational means, so will the use of the motor wagon in place of the
horse be increased by the farmers’ information and knowledge of its
advantages and saving.
When the farmers all learn and realize the full extent to which
the use of the work automobile pays dividends on their labor, the
commercializing of this vehicle will be in quantities probably
exceeding those of the passenger car.
CO-OPERATION’S PART IN THE AUTOMOBILE’S COMMERCIALIZATION.
If there is any one idea more than another that is productive of
results in development of large proportions, it would seem to be that
represented by co-operation.
Individuals may make successes, but they are successes that are limited
in their proportions.
The era of greatest material development in this country has been that
in the period represented by the last quarter century. This is shown in
the fact that our national wealth during that period has increased in a
ratio unparalleled in any previous period of time.
Only a little reflection will show that same period to be that period
in which the value and benefits of co-operation in business as a whole
were realized and taken advantage of.
The principle of co-operation has been known since man learned to
reason. It was applied in the building of the tower of Babel and
of the Pyramids. The foundation of it was a fact that man early in
his evolution from the cave stage discovered—a simple fact plainly
demonstrated, when primitive human beings found that one man could
not lift a battering-ram, but that twenty men could make of it an
instrument with terrifying powers of destruction.
An aspect of co-operation that was slow in imposing itself on the
understanding of the business world was that if a man conceived a
new idea, and he concealed it from others, he was not only depriving
others of its benefits, but himself as well. In locking the door on his
idea, he locked himself in. He did not reflect that the world rests
on a foundation of co-operation; that nature is co-operative; that
without co-ordination between the planets in space, the cosmic void
would not continue to be occupied; that co-operation is the invisible
chain linking together the world, sun, moon and stars, and without the
binding twine of co-operation they would fall apart like the stalks
from the sheaf when unbound.
Almost every valuable lesson might be learned from nature if we knew
and fully understood her laws, and co-operation is one of the most
potent of these laws. But it took man a long time to learn even the
rudiments of this law of co-operation—that it supplied a force of a
hundred horsepower where one horsepower was used before; that its moral
influence was tremendous, and that it was to business what the steam
radiator, internal combustion, or the electric storage battery was
to the horseless carriage—a means of propulsion, a driving force, an
agency of high power to produce progression.
There can be no question that the automobile industry had, in the era
in which fate decreed it should make its debut, favorable conditions.
Not only did this era happen to be the era of a better understanding
of the science and value of advertising, but also the era in which a
better understanding has been gained of the principle and value of
co-operation.
Standardization in the automobile industry, as has been said herein,
was an important factor in popularizing the motor car. But how could
standardization have been brought about without co-operation?
Producers of automobiles, even, did not immediately adopt the real
spirit and practice the true principle of co-operation. They formed
an association with that purpose, but in the first meetings they
approached the matter of genuine co-operation like a man walking in his
bare feet on ground strewn with broken glass.
They kept up the practice of secretiveness; each man was afraid to “put
the other man wise,” still clinging to the ancient practice of hiding
his light under a bushel—an impulse founded on that same semi-savage
selfishness of primitive man which impelled him to hug to his hairy
breast the shin bone of his “kill,” while eyeing his fellow man with
fear, hatred and distrust.
Gradually, through the influence of minds more original, independent
and far seeing, the glacial reserve was thawed out, and automobile
producers began practicing co-operation in its unrestricted,
untrammelled form.
With the genial, warming rays of co-operation turned on the industry,
problems of vast quantity production at remarkably low cost, easy and
rapid assembling, inexpensive maintenance, and the vexatious problems
of freight movements to bring in raw material and take out the finished
product for distribution, became no longer work, but fascinating
play. Thus does co-operation make an elysium of the workshop, turn
the darkness of gloom into the light of day, and give grounds for the
belief that if the millennium ever comes, co-operation will be the
vehicle it will be transported in.
At one stage of the American automobile industry, the European cars
displayed a strength and sturdiness so superior to ours that our
manufacturers nearly despaired. This was another crisis of many in
the industry. But co-operation enabled the cause to be found and the
crisis to be met. The European manufacturers knew why their cars stood
up better than ours, but they wouldn’t tell. This was the same old
dog-in-the-manger that has helped to make the world’s progress slow.
So our manufacturers, co-operating, went to work and found out for
themselves. Tungsten, vanadium and chromium spelled the reason. The
Europeans had been using these and other alloys, and with scientific
heat treatment had been producing a special steel, and keeping it
strictly to themselves.
Trust the peeking, inquisitorial, persistent “Yankee” to find out when
he once gets well started on the scent. And when there are a lot of
them, all peering and peeking about, what chance has the poor European?
But it is to be doubted if one “Yankee” could have “tumbled” to chrome
steel. It took a combination of them to do it. They didn’t discover the
secret until they were banded together by co-operation.
Co-operation contributed to the general adoption by the motor industry
of the automatic machining of parts. What that meant in economic
production was the saving of millions in cost of construction, which in
turn got the automobile down to the level of the common people’s price.
In the adoption of the system which substituted the “machining” of
automobile parts for hand production, the industry instituted savings
of time and labor and therefore cost, one instance of which illustrates
the almost incredible potentialities in scientific economy.
A block of cylinders, which takes eleven hours to bore by hand, is
bored in two hours by automatic machinery.
WORLD YET TO LEARN THE LESSON OF ECONOMY.
Will the world as a whole ever learn thoroughly the lesson of what the
saving of time means in its equivalent of money? Full realization
of this is practically confined in this day and generation to some
manufacturers, and to most efficiency experts. But the great mass does
not acutely see it.
The farmer knows that if he takes four hours to go to town when it is
not necessary, he has lost the money represented by four hours’ work.
That is plain to him, but it does not strike him that taking four hours
to haul a load of grain to town by horses when it would take only one
hour to do it by motor truck is throwing money away, and is an economic
waste only in another form. Nor does he quickly see that a motor truck
will perform service more economically than the horse, including
cheaper cost of maintenance.
He also appears unable to get the same viewpoint on the economic loss
by bad roads, that he does of wasting four hours to go needlessly to
town.
The farmer has long had demonstration of the economic superiority of
the mechanical reaper over the hand cradle, that of the mechanical
thresher over the flail, and that of the drill over sowing by hand. But
he is slow to see that the motor truck is superior to the horse and a
factor in greater economy as the reaper, the thresher and the drill
were superior to man, while at the same time his liberator from the
hardest types of labor, and an economic saving to boot.
When all farmers learn the full facts of the superiority of motor
mechanism over horses, only one instance of which is that their cost
per mile haulage is 16-2/3 cents, against 30-7/10 cents for the horse,
a wider use will result. It is only the highly developed efficiency
expert who yet can count a minute of time in its equivalent of cents,
and an hour in its equivalent of dollars. The automobile industry has
had the benefit of the highest quality of efficiency generalship.
Chalmers was making $70,000 a year with the National Cash Register
Company when an automobile company secured him by promising more.
Flanders was offered by Ford, in addition to his salary, a bonus of
$20,000 if, in the first year of his administration, he would turn out
10,000 cars. By installing the first automatic machine tool system,
which itself was mechanical co-operation, Flanders collected the bonus.
No industry, except perhaps oil or steel, has paid men such salaries,
bonuses and commissions as has that of the automobile.
Co-operation by the automobile industry has been pursued in its public
shows for seventeen years—the period of the industry’s greatest
strides—beginning with the first one in 1900 in Madison Square Garden,
New York. The Seventeenth annual auto show was that in New York and
Chicago in January, 1917.
There are many lines of industrial production in which to this day the
factors have not gotten together in co-operation, lines in which each
producer is working alone, and it is noticeable in many of them that
development is slow and advancement tardy.
The automobile makers early applied the principle of co-operation
by formal association. They organized the National Association of
Automobile Manufacturers to advertise automobiles at the first auto
show in New York, and to “encourage general practices of mutual
benefit,” a statement of principles that is brief but sweeping.
Stimulating influences in the formation of this, one of the earliest,
and one of the most comprehensive and sincere co-operative industrial
associations, were the necessity for presenting a united front, which
legislation adverse to the automobile created, and of popularizing and
inspiring confidence in an innovation. Co-operation was further made
imperative by the necessity for better roads. Had the roads of the
United States been better than they were when the automobile first
came into being, the industry might by now be able to write its annual
production in larger figures than 1,600,000 cars made in 1916.
That the automobile associations have the true principle of
co-operation and not the semi-true or false variety, is evidenced by
the fact that their co-operative efforts have been from the start for
the benefit of the industry as a whole and not for the benefit of
members of the associations alone. They have always admitted to their
councils all manufacturers, whether association members or not, and
co-operated on a free and full basis.
Broad liberalism has been practiced. The many young men engaged in the
industry have been credited with this. Coming into the business arena
at a late date, they were not handicapped by prejudices and hardening
of the arteries of open-minded thought. They believed in the principle
of “one for all, and all for one,” which is the keynote of co-operation.
As the world has these men to thank for the constantly enlarging
pleasures and comforts of the automobile, so it has them to thank for
such good roads as there are, for it is as certain that automobiles
have improved roads as it is that automobiles exist.
The organization of the National Association of Automobile
Manufacturers was followed by that of the co-operative Association of
Licensed Automobile Owners, organized to resist the tightening of the
clasp of the licensor of the Selden patent rights, and by the Society
of Automobile Engineers, and still later by the American Motor Car
Manufacturers Association. The Automobile Board of Trade followed,
and today the trade association is the National Automobile Chamber of
Commerce. Fostering trade, reforming abuses and promoting harmony, were
steadily the aims of all the organizations, and how well they have done
it is attested by the fact that no association of producers has better
demonstrated and more completely justified the valuable principle of
true co-operation.
Standardization in the automobile business has never discouraged
individuality of the manufacturers in the essentials of form or speed.
It was confined to those directions where appearance was not important.
It never extended to bodies, stream lines or designs that would deprive
a manufacturer of distinctions and selling points.
It is standardization of detail—uniformity of screws, locks, washers,
spring and bearing parts, water connections, etc. Co-operation
has been practiced intelligently, and the result has been that
standardization favored economical manufacturing by creating a large
demand, calling for quantities that fostered specialization in parts by
manufacturers, with resulting low cost to the automobile maker. It also
left him free to center his efforts, energy and capital on production
in quantity, and himself get down the price of the finished automobile.
To the thinker, one of the most interesting features of the automobile
industry is this example it has given to the world of efficiency and
co-operation. We are not surprised at efficiency in the steel business
or the oil business, because they are industries conducted practically
by one man power; and if autocratic rule is not efficient, its last
excuse for being might appear to have ceased to exist; but to find
several hundred different manufacturers with divergent ambitions,
ideals and interests benevolently engaged in co-operative competition,
justifies, it would seem, that optimism which sees the world as growing
better.
Certainly if “by their works ye shall know them,” the progress made
by the automobile industry in the short space of time it has played
the star part on the industrial stage, has been the most splendid
demonstration of the value in commercial industrialism of the
tolerant, broad minded type of co-operation, coupled with efficiency.
It is an example of the value of harmonious co-ordination of the
differing efforts of man in advancing the material progress of the
world, and in the case of the automobile industry, the best assurance
of its continued advance as the moving force in the production of one
of the greatest and most beneficial forms, not alone of transportation,
but of mind culture, of healthful relaxation and of sane recreation.
CHAPTER IV.
AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY AS AN INVESTMENT.
A dozen years ago dictionary publishers vied with one another to be the
first to announce that new editions of their wordbooks contained the
word “automobile.”
Today the automobile industry is the fourth in magnitude—only three
others that are larger.
Is your imagination equal to the task of forming a vivid picture of the
tremendous activity that has been maintained to produce such results in
so short a time?
Do you know of any other industry in which money could have been at
work in as great a creative capacity? We will not say in a capacity to
produce immediate profits, because so far the automobile industry has
been largely in the building, in the creative state.
In 1899 we produced 3,700 automobiles, in this country. In 1915
we produced 842,249 cars, and in 1916 the production reached the
unexpected number of 1,617,708 cars.
The value of the production in 1899 was $4,750,000, or about $1,283 a
car. In 1916 the value was $972,336,400, an average of a little over
$601 a car.
In 1916, also, we produced 92,130 commercial vehicles, valued at
$157,000,000.
And this is not all. A comprehensive survey of the automobile industry
will include the industries that the automobile has created, as
manufacturing tires and accessories, and not to forget the enlarged
market for gasoline and oil. As the jokesmiths have it, “It isn’t the
original cost, but the upkeep that counts.”
For illustration, in the matter of tires, C. H. Williams, of the
Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, who is in a position to know, said
that in 1916 the motorists of the United States took from their wheels
and replaced some 9,000,000 tires, representing an expenditure in that
year of about $300,000,000 for tires.
Any motorist can draw from his experience and compare the expense for
tires with that for gasoline, and from these tire expense figures
arrive at a reasonably accurate estimate of the tremendous amount of
money that was used in 1916 in paying for gasoline to run automobiles.
By way of an interpolation, it may here be remarked that these tire
figures show that there is one problem in the automobile industry that
the engineers still have to solve, and that is to produce a wheel that
will give satisfactory service without requiring a pneumatic rubber
tire.
LITTLE ORIGINAL CAPITAL INVESTED.
The remarkable thing about the automobile industry is that, in
comparison with its present magnitude, there has been but little
original capital invested in it. Today the industry represents a large
investment, to be sure, but the bulk of it is made up of profits on
the original small investment. Companies started with small original
capitals, made money, and used some of it to enlarge plants and
increase outputs, until today we have the gigantic institutions that
some of these companies are.
The automobile industry has been and is one of the most convincing of
modern proofs of the efficacy of the science of investment in operation.
During the first few years of experimenting, before the engineers
produced a car that would run in a reasonably satisfactory manner,
the industry offered investors only what might have been called the
inventor’s chance. These years were followed by a short period devoted
to determining whether there was a market for the automobile.
During the time of experimenting and determining the market the
average person could not be expected to become very enthusiastic
over an investment in the industry. The average person has not clear
vision in matters of this kind, and, lacking vision, he can not bring
imagination to his aid.
And in those early days it required clear vision, good imagination
and exceptional ability to reason from probability to fact to see the
coming greatness of the automobile industry.
A few courageous men had this vision and this ability, and to them is
due all credit for the establishing of the industry. In time others
might have done it, but these men did it.
The making and marketing of automobiles that would run had but fairly
begun when their popularity became so manifest that even an average
person could see that the automobile industry was bound to become great
and profitable.
Here, then, was an opportunity for scientific investment that was
prodigious in possibilities.
Those who were intelligent enough to see it and progressive and
courageous enough to avail themselves of it, and did so, today form
another set of rich men.
DIFFICULTY IN GETTING CAPITAL.
The industry had great difficulty in getting capital. It was a new
line, a new venture. Bankers and other “conservatives” could see
nothing in it. They used their pet weapon of crying “speculation”,
“hazard”, “risk”, and so on, to keep people from investing in it, and,
of course, did not invest in it themselves, or aid it in any way to get
started.
But since the beginning of this century, when the automobile industry
began growing, many of our people have, among many other things, built
the great automobile industry into what it is, and made money. Not only
this, but they will build it still greater, and make still more money.
Before we get through with this little analysis we will see that the
automobile industry has not been more than half built thus far, and
that the really big profits in it are yet to come, because so far much
of the profits have been used in building the industry.
This industry is, therefore, a fertile field for scientific investment.
Many companies that are quite well established need more capital to
enlarge their activities, and there are comparatively new companies,
and there will be more, having very good propositions in which the
prudent investor can find excellent openings for putting a little money
at work under advantageous conditions.
DEALERS PUT UP THEIR OWN MONEY.
In speaking of the early financiering of the automobile industry, it
would be unjust not to mention the aid that automobile dealers gave
it. It is a fact that if dealers had not supported it in the way they
did, it would not be where it is today.
Bankers who could have furnished the money and should have done so, did
nothing. They were too “conservative” to recognize a new industry.
And so dealers stepped into the breach and became bankers to the
industry.
In the days when the automobile manufacturer was confronted with the
problem of getting money to pay for making cars for which he had or
could get orders, some financiering genius devised the plan of giving
the dealer exclusive territory for the sale of a car. In return the
dealer placed an order for a certain number of cars to be delivered in
small lots from month to month throughout the period of the agency.
Another consideration for this exclusive agency was that the dealer
made a cash deposit on each car at the time of entering into the
contract. The monthly shipments were then made C.O.D. for the balance
due on the cars in each shipment.
The advance deposit enabled the manufacturer to make cars for the first
shipment, and the collection on the shipment enabled him to make cars
for the second shipment, and so on.
To manufacture and sell 1,617,708 cars in a year, as we did last year,
appears like an impossible task, especially when we consider that only
a negligible number was sold abroad.
The fact is that nearly all the manufacturers, especially those of
popular cars, could have sold many more, had they had the facilities to
make them.
In the midst of this condition some persons of narrow vision were
wondering if there was a further market for cars, and were talking
learnedly, as they thought, about the point of “saturation” having been
reached.
In the meantime the big men in the industry were saying nothing.
Instead of talking, they were laying their plans to make and sell twice
as many cars in 1917 as in 1916.
PRODUCTION NOT YET AT ITS HEIGHT.
There will come a time when the automobile industry will reach its
height in production, but that time has not yet arrived, nor is it
within calculable distance.
Statisticians show us that there are over 5,000,000 rich people in this
country. Many of these have, and more of them will want, each several
cars, each of a different type and for a different purpose.
We have about 8,000,000 farms. Many farmers already have cars, but only
a few compared with the many who will have them as soon as they have
become convinced of their utilitarian value aside from pleasure. The
farmer is a practical person and “must be shown.” Give it time, and the
automobile will prove itself to him.
Then we have several million persons who can not be classed among the
rich, but who are in such reasonably comfortable circumstances that
gradually they will become owners of popular priced cars.
And we must not forget the element that is “keeping up with Lizzie.”
Those of this class will also pay toll to the automobile industry.
And so far only between three and four million cars, including pleasure
and commercial cars, are registered in this country.
Talk about the point of saturation. As yet it hasn’t begun “casting its
shadow before”, much less having arrived.
Nor does it require prophetic vision to say at this time that the
commercial car is destined in due time to surpass the pleasure car in
number.
So far the commercial car has but fairly been tested. In 1915 we
produced 50,369 commercial cars. In 1916 the number reached 92,130.
From now on this branch of the industry is likely to increase more
rapidly than did that of the pleasure car.
It has already been proved that the commercial car has a possible
larger field than has the pleasure car.
A man may not feel that he can afford a pleasure car, but his business
is such that a commercial car is profitable in it.
Then again a man may have two or three pleasure cars, but in his
business he may have use for two or three hundred commercial cars.
The business world is just beginning to realize the value of the
commercial car. Not only does it cost less by the ton or trip to haul
in a motor car than with horses, but more can be accomplished in the
same time. The teamster may require six hours to make a trip that the
motor car driver can make in less than an hour. Business men, great and
small, will soon learn this, and the commercial car industry will grow
accordingly. In fact, the demand is already ahead of the supply.
TRACTOR AS A PROMISING INVESTMENT.
The tractor, a motor vehicle used to haul other vehicles or machinery,
is a product that must also be classed as a branch of the automobile
industry.
It has already been demonstrated that a good tractor is the lowest
priced power that can be applied in the work of hauling tools or
machinery that must move forward to do their work. Also that it is the
only form of power with which a man can perform a prodigious amount of
work in a day.
The tractor industry is, comparatively, in its infancy, but it has
already assumed substantial proportions. It seems destined, in one form
and another, to surpass the commercial car industry.
Recently one of the Ford Motor Company’s leading engineers secured a
patent on a device to convert an automobile into a tractor. This is
done by substituting tractor wheels in place of the rear wheels of the
automobile, and by reducing the power transmission gear so that the
power of the motor will be used in pulling a load instead of giving
speed. In other words, the car in the form of a tractor will be run
very slow and the power saved in this way will be applied to pulling
the load.
The wheels may be changed in a few minutes from pleasure to tractor,
and from tractor to pleasure. With this device the farmer can have his
car for pleasure and business trips, and when he gets ready to do farm
work he can convert it into a tractor to do the work of half a dozen
horses or more, and at very much less expense.
A valuable feature of this invention is that when a car becomes worn
out for pleasure use it will still be as good as a new one to form a
tractor with this device.
The device was thoroughly tested in all kinds of farm work throughout
the season of 1916, and found to work perfectly and highly
satisfactorily in every way.
The progress of the automobile industry has surprised some of our
ablest economists, and it has given the long-faced, wiseacre,
conservative financier a clean knock-out blow.
Having no precedent to guide them but human nature, the economists were
unable to arrive at satisfactory conclusions in regard to the future of
the industry and it ran away from their estimates.
Mr. J. George Frederick, of the New York Business Bourse, is perhaps
in possession of more business facts, figures and data of all kinds
than anyone else in this country, and is regarded as one of the highest
authorities on business economics.
“Writing on this phase of the automobile industry in the October, 1915,
number of the American Review of Reviews, Mr. Frederick said:
“With 2,000,000 automobile owners today, and every indication that
the annual production will be more than the 703,000 produced this
year, we face in plain facts a probable annual sale of over 1,000,000
automobiles every year, on an average, for the next five years at
least. Until the automobile became popular there were about 1,000,000
carriages sold each year, and as these were undoubtedly sold mainly to
rural and suburban population there is sound reason to believe that
2,000,000 automobiles per year is not an extravagant future prediction
in the slightly more distant future.”
PRODUCTION RAN AWAY FROM ESTIMATES.
Note that this was written at least three months before the close of
the year 1915. The production of automobiles for that year, as we have
seen, was 139,249 greater than that given by Mr. Frederick at the time
he wrote.
The interesting thing in Mr. Frederick’s prediction for the future
is that the industry ran away from his estimate the first year after
he made his prediction. He prophesied a production of 1,000,000
automobiles a year for the next five years. The following year, 1916,
the production reached 1,617,708 cars. This is not against him, because
the automobile industry is going forward by such leaps and bounds as
to smash all conservatism. His estimate but indicates that his further
prediction of a probable production later of 2,000,000 automobiles a
year is likely to be more than fulfilled.
In this connection we must take into consideration that the earlier
made cars are beginning to wear out and are being replaced by new ones.
Also that many persons who bought so-called cheap cars at first are
discarding them and buying higher priced new ones.
The time will come, of course, when the sale of automobiles to new
users will begin to decrease, but as these sales decrease the sales of
cars to take the place of old ones will increase. When we reach the
time when the decrease of the one will equal the increase of the other
we will arrive, approximately, at the point of saturation that is now
worrying timid and unimaginative persons, and not until then. Every
feature of the industry indicates that we have not travelled more than
half the distance to reach that point. A more rational estimate is that
we have not travelled much more than a fourth of the distance.
Until we reach that point the automobile industry will be in the
formative period, in the creative state. It will be growing larger
and larger, and will be earning more and more from year to year. But
some of the earnings will have to be kept in the business to acquire
additional equipment and as a greater working capital. But earnings
used in this way will become additional assets back of automobile
securities to enhance their values—to create accretive values.
When the saturation point is finally reached the industry will settle
down to be one of our most stable and profitable manufacturing lines.
Not until then can the tremendous profit possibilities in it be
definitely reckoned.
EARLIER THE INVESTMENT, GREATER THE PROFITS.
These conditions being true, it should be clear that the earlier an
investment is made in the industry, the greater will be the profits.
Spectacular profits will be made before the saturation point is
reached, and to get all the tremendous accretive values that accrue
in this industry the investment must be made at the beginning. The
further removed from the beginning the investment is made, the more the
investment will cost and the lesser will be the accretive value as well
as the income on the investment.
This is a fundamental principle in the science of investment.
When the saturation point is reached manufacturing automobiles will
settle into an industry to supply a daily necessity. There will be
keener competition, the price of cars will be lowered, and the profit
on each will be correspondingly less. The industry will be similar to
those of making hats, plows and shoes. It will carry a substantial
profit, but not a spectacular one as now and for many years to come.
It seems, then, that, large as it already is, the automobile industry
is still in its comparative infancy—that it has before it a reasonable
possibility of more than doubling its present proportions.
While there are several large companies that will continue to produce
large numbers of cars each year, it is not reasonable to expect that
these companies will grow from this time forward as they have in the
past.
The expansion of the industry may rather be looked for in younger and
smaller companies that will put out cars to meet some particular demand.
The investor in the industry could scarcely be said to be using good
judgment if he undertook to help to build a company to put out a car
to compete with the Ford car, for illustration; that is, to put out a
car at the same price and that he would expect the public to buy in
preference to the Ford. It may be possible that the thing can be done,
but off hand it would seem like taking an undue chance.
Nor is a Ford proposition necessary to make money in the automobile
industry. This has been demonstrated sufficiently.
The Ford car fills a particular want of many people, but in the main it
is a builder of the industry as applied to more elaborate and higher
priced cars. It prepares a market for others.
The investor should seek to get into the business of supplying the
demand in that market.
CHAPTER V.
BENEFITS CONFERRED BY THE AUTOMOBILE.
That the automobile is one of the greatest boons to mankind will
probably be admitted if all its benefits are fully understood.
The best teacher, it has been demonstrated, is one’s own experience. In
learning anything, the mind can never grasp the lesson it is told, with
the same understanding it receives when the lesson is visualized by the
eye.
Travel is acknowledged to be a good educator and to broaden the mind.
This is because the eye sees and takes its own impressions, and does
not depend on the impressions of others. Reading books of travel never
instruct as does travelling itself.
The automobile is a healthful, exhilarating method of conveying people
to persons, places and scenes that, before the automobile, they knew of
only by hearsay, or by reading of them.
To estimate the extent to which this informs and instructs, we need
only go back in memory to the isolated farm of a quarter of a century
ago, and vision the limited horizon of the general knowledge at first
hand of the farmer’s family. Practically all the current knowledge they
had was from reading, occasionally going to town or through visitors
whose appearance was rare and made at long intervals. Seeing a new face
in those days was a rarity.
The situation with a majority of the people in the country, before the
automobile, was very much like the isolated farm family. It was like
that of the entire country before the advent of the railroad.
No greater agencies for instruction in first hand knowledge than the
railroad, the steamboat and the telephone had been introduced into
civilization up to the time of the automobile. Now the motor car
penetrates into places where the railroad, the steamboat, or even the
telephone does not go.
MEDIUM OF DISTRIBUTION OF KNOWLEDGE.
Exchange of ideas between people is the life of wider knowledge, as the
exchange of commodities is the life of world trade, and the automobile
is the medium of exchanging information as money is a medium of
exchange of commodities.
From time immemorial the greatest advancement of the human race has
been made in groups; and the larger the groups, the higher the thought,
and the more progressive the accomplishments have been. Big cities have
surpassed small towns; small towns have been in advance of the country.
The reason for this is the greater opportunity afforded by numbers
for the exchange of ideas and knowledge. The citizen of Rome or of
Venice had the advantage of personal contact with numbers of citizens
which the isolated rural Latin was denied, as the citizen of London,
Paris, New York or Chicago has, before his own eyes, the thought and
achievements of millions which the citizens of the country only hear of
or read about.
The railroad first enabled the resident of the country to go to the
small town, and the resident of the small town to go to the big city,
and by personal contact gather the fruits of himself seeing the results
of community or group work, which, before, had been monopolized by his
city brother.
The automobile supplements this work of the railroad, and is even
more widespread as it enables more frequent visits to be made, and
penetrates regions the railroad does not reach. What was a frontier is
now a suburb, while the suburb has become the downtown. The motor car
has opened up the far reaches as nothing else has done.
Bigotry and prejudice are the fruits of ignorance. Where knowledge is
they will not abide. In enabling people to acquire knowledge in their
own way—the way that most impresses knowledge on them—the automobile
is changing the thought and the habits of the denizens of the entire
country. It is broadening the human mind, by giving it a solid
foundation to work on.
In the courts of law, among judges, lawyers and court attendants, it
is notorious that no two witnesses ever testify exactly to the same
set of facts. There is a variation of detail, and many times there has
been such a difference in the statement of material facts that the
dispensing of exact justice has been defeated.
This condition is ascribed to the fact that few people are trained
observers. The automobile is correcting this popular defect more than
any other one agency—by education. It is educating people to exact
observation and precise knowledge.
LIBERALIZING THE PEOPLE.
The automobile is a factor in creating open minds. When one travels
extensively, notions and prejudices, based on false conceptions, are
amended and revised by observance of the facts. In this respect the
automobile is conferring on the masses a benefit which, before its
advent, was confined to the classes. Time was when broad and liberal
views were generally the possession of the rich, who alone could afford
to indulge in contact with their fellows many miles distant. Now the
automobile has aided in making broader views the possession of anybody
able to own a motor car.
The degree in which the social life of the world has been benefited
by the automobile is the favorite theme of the enthusiast on the
automobile’s advantage to mankind. This phase of the automobile’s value
is of less importance than is its benefit in informing and enlarging
the horizon of the mind, but the social advantages which the use of
the motor car confers are not to be underrated in an age when the most
favorable mental conditions are recognized as of equal importance to a
desirable physical state.
The happiness of the human race is added to by social enjoyment, and
the automobile is a most important link between isolation and human
intercourse. It has rendered the means of communication between
people so easy and pleasant that it has encouraged and increased
their association. Everybody is brought into greater accessibility
to everybody else. The farmer with his family can visit his neighbor
farmer and his family, many times now to once formerly.
What was formerly a long, arduous journey taken at the expense of
pleasure as well as of time, is now an exhilarating spin. The farmer’s
wife and daughters can now go to town more frequently, and multiply the
number of their visits to friends. The automobile is the emancipator of
the farm woman, bringing the scope of her activities out of the narrow
circle of routine drudgery and monotony into the larger circle of
inspiring activities.
Farm women’s clubs have been given an impetus, through the fact that a
woman may attend one in the afternoon with the assurance that by the
use of the automobile she can return home in sufficient time to get
dinner, which she could not do by the use of the horse.
FACTOR IN PROMOTING SOCIABILITY.
The city man’s wife in the suburbs can visit her friends oftener
and more quickly, and the facility of speedy movement has given to
suburbanites the benefit of the last acts at the theatre and the opera,
whereas, before the automobile, they missed them in order to catch the
last train.
The benefit of clergy has been immeasurably enhanced by the automobile,
which, also, in addition to being itself an educational agent, has
employed its speed and facilities in economizing time to increase the
attendance in the schools. There are districts in the United States
where children can not reach school in time without the use of the
automobile.
What the automobile does for the city dweller, in enabling him to see
the last act at the theatre or hear the last act of the opera, it does
for the people of the farm in enabling them to spare the time to attend
dances, sociables, entertainments and motion picture shows. Where
formerly the time required to drive a horse made it impossible to spare
the time, now time is scarcely a factor. The change must inevitably
react to the advantage and benefit of humanity, if all work and no play
makes Jack a dull boy.
The health advantage of the automobile is a subject on which there is
a difference of opinion among medics. The ordinary layman, however, is
disposed to cast his verdict in its favor in this respect also. Some
physicians have expressed the opinion that the only respect in which
the automobile is noticeably not a benefit is in the matter of health.
Some of them think it does not give people enough exercise, and that at
the rate its use is increasing it will not be long before man loses his
ability to use his legs!
It would be a catastrophe indeed if the human race, through the
automobile, reverted to the condition when primitive man, according to
the Darwinian theory, swung by his hairy arms from tree limb to tree
limb, using his feet only as a stabilizer. But nobody, unless a writer
for a newspaper Sunday magazine section, is likely to maintain this
seriously, and he only pretends to be serious.
Whatever man loses in disuse of his legs by riding, as compared with
walking, may be said to be made up for by his use of them on levers of
automobiles and in the other exercise or operation of a car. The fresh
air and the sunlight—the great outdoors—are the big health factors in
motoring, and man will go on taking a chance to experience these and
other delights the automobile has to give.
AS AN ELEMENT IN EUGENICS.
And as still further offsetting the possibilities of decay of the human
legs, which certain physicians predict, more constructive medical men
have discovered that automobiling is becoming a factor in one phase of
eugenics. It may not receive endorsement as a benefit in all eugenics
as long as the charge can be made that since the use of the motor
car the birthrate in Kansas has decreased, the discoverer accounting
for this alleged fact on the theory that the expense of keeping an
automobile discourages Kansans from assuming the expense of large
families, but in one direction it is attempted to prove that the breed
of certain Americans is being improved by the automobile, and in this
way:
In certain parts of the country, particularly the Southeastern states
close intermarriage is said to have been, in part, due to the inferior
facilities for transportation, before the automobile came into use.
Young men, it is said, courted and married their sweethearts, in the
days when the buggy was king of local communication, within an average
radius of five to ten miles, which accounted for people in those
sections being cousins or otherwise related to one another.
Now that the automobile makes a thirty-mile or fifty-mile radius the
equivalent of the five-mile or ten-mile buggy radius, the swains are
seeking mates further afield, thus getting away from alliances with
relatives, and there is a consequent decrease in the mixing of blood
strains.
If this is true, tally one more in the score of benefits for the
automobile, for it is the verdict of science that intermarriage between
those of the same blood does not produce the best types, any more than
does the interbreeding of other animals.
But in enumerating the benefits of the automobile its economic value
easily comes next in importance to its service in imparting knowledge.
Its health value may be a matter of difference of opinion, and its
social benefits are comparative, but there can be no dispute about its
educational value, and still less about its economic worth.
The factor time has taken on a new meaning and significance with the
automobile’s accomplishments in speed. Time is a vital element in
the affairs of life. If the automobile’s educational value can be
expressed by the adage, “Seeing is believing”, its economic value can
be similarly expressed by the adage, “Time is money”.
PART PLAYED IN ECONOMICS.
Time is likewise life under some circumstances, and because of this
fact, the professional men who were first to make practical use of the
automobile were physicians, commandeering it in behalf of life itself.
How many lives have been saved by the automobile, which would have
been lost through the slow going gig or phaeton, it is not possible to
say, because there is, of course, no exact record, but the number is
large. The mortality of today among people is greatly reduced from that
of twenty years ago. The advance of science has, of course, brought
this about, but the automobile is an important instrument of medical
science, just as are the X-ray, the stethoscope and the pulmotor.
And the same cause—the element of time—which operated in the adoption
of the automobile by the physician to the human body, has forced the
veterinarian to use the automobile. This is irony—for the horse—and
another nail in the equine coffin, but it is at the same time another
demonstration of the automobile’s superiority in efficiency over that
animal.
The farmer demands that the veterinarian shall come in an auto to
attend his sick horses or cattle, because he will not take the chance
of death through delay. And this is scarcely gratitude—by the farmer to
the horse—but it is economic pressure.
At every turn in the road of the automobile’s advance, we see its
economic value. We see in cities that the big department store is able
to cut down its delivery expense from $990 to $350 a day by using a
fleet of motor trucks instead of horse drawn wagons; that coal, ice,
groceries, feed—practically all commodities in cities—can be delivered
by motor trucks at a large saving of cost. Contractors, plumbers,
plasterers, tinners, and craftsmen in substantially all lines,
have figured it out and concluded that with the facilities of the
automobile available, the horse is a distinct economic waste in their
businesses.
The possibilities of similar economy by the farmer in the substitution
of motor power for horse power have been indicated by many progressive
farmers who have by experiments demonstrated that the cost of hauling
and cultivating with motor wagons and machinery is less than by using
horses, but the general economic saving by the use of the motor vehicle
in hauling cannot get its fullest and conclusive demonstration until
better roads are more numerous. Where roads are nearly perfect, results
have shown the cost of horse hauling to be 30 cents a ton, against 14
cents a ton by motor truck, by the mile, figuring everything.
INFLUENCE IN GETTING BETTER ROADS.
By far the direction in which the automobile has forced on conviction
most strongly its economic potentialities, is in the matter of better
roads. No greater tribute to the educational value of the automobile
could have been paid than was paid to it by President Wilson when he
signed the Federal Good Roads bill which puts $85,000,000 of national
money against an equal amount by the states, into making better
highways. It was the popular demand for better roads, following the
general use of the automobile, that gave the country the improvements
made in roads in the last fifteen years, and it was the demand from the
same source for more of these improvements that resulted in the Federal
Good Roads law.
Until the coming of the motor car the good roads issue possessed little
vitality. For seventy-five years the Federal government exercised a
passive policy toward building permanent highways. Railroads pushed
into virgin territory, cities sprang up along the right of way, but the
rural arteries of travel remained in the same hopeless condition as
when the pioneers waded through them afoot or on horseback.
With the first motor car came the first feeble impulse to the good
roads movement. The first cars were sold to city men, who very quickly
found out that where city pavements ended, there ended all hopes of
further travel. Pneumatic tires availed nothing against trackless
stretches of gumbo mud or corduroy roads. With the mechanical
improvements in motor cars, the owners chafed at their limitations and
demanded better state roads.
As a result of the agitation, many states have become active in
promoting their own road systems, and quite a little has been
accomplished in some localities; but the sum total of improved roads
in the United States today is only 250,000 miles out of a total of
2,275,000 miles of roads. The Federal roads bill will give an impetus
to state work on roads, and as its appropriation covers the next five
years, 1922 should see a large increase in the miles of improved roads
in the country.
The results in benefit to the agriculture of the country in a general
system of good roads, will be most felt through the facility it
will give the farmer in marketing his products. With the aid of the
motor truck, the farmer may be able to meet, in many cases, the
congestion-of-freight-by-railroad problem.
Adding to its other benefits, the automobile promises to be an element
in the reduction of the high cost of living, and if it does aid in this
it will be in two directions, first, as a freight carrier, and, second,
by displacing the horse.
FACILITATING THE PASSING OF THE HORSE.
A horse, it is estimated, consumes each year the production of five
acres of land. There are 21,000,000 horses in the United States, and
therefore the fertility of 100,000,000 acres is enlisted annually in
behalf of this animal. If this area, which is as great as Ohio, Indiana
and Illinois combined, were released from this burden, and the products
were human food, a very large addition would be made to the food
stuffs of which the world is in such sore need.
The elimination of the horse is progressing at a very rapid rate
in cities, and the prediction is made that it will come to an end
ultimately in the country, and that a horse in future will be only a
pet or an element in sport. Thomas A. Edison has decreed the horse’s
life for practical, general use, to be only ten years. Those who
foresee his passing on the farm say that automobile engineers are
working on small tractors which will be practicable in the cultivation
of farms as small as 60 acres, and that they will ultimately be gotten
down to a price which will not exceed the original cost and upkeep of a
horse, and will do more and better work in the field.
The list of benefits conferred by the automobile is incomplete, if its
use in war is omitted. It has been said that it saved France twice
during its latest war. When the onrush of Germans in 1914 brought them
almost within sight of Paris, General Gallieni, then Governor of Paris,
rushed troops by the thousands in motor vehicles to the aid of General
Foch. They turned the tide and made possible the victory of the Marne.
Motor trucks saved Verdun. The German advance had cut the French
railway connections. Horse drawn wagons never could have brought the
supplies. Motor trucks did. Had there been no such things as motor
trucks, nothing, it is claimed, could have saved Verdun.
In war or peace, then, the automobile is a factor. As an agent in the
advance of civilization it occupies a secure place. It has doubled the
population of at least one city, and has given new life to others.
In forcing good roads it has enhanced the value of agricultural land.
It is a well settled fact that the increase in selling price of farm
lands through good main market roads is from one to three times the
cost of the road improvements.
The likelihood is that with the increased use of the automobile,
benefits from it will multiply. These benefits are, naturally, not as
great with only three and a half million automobiles in use as we can
well imagine they would be with the use of the motor car practically
universal for passenger, hauling and farm cultivation purposes.
Much bigger things for the automobile than it has yet accomplished can
be safely predicted.
CHAPTER VI.
REPORT ON AUTOMOBILES, AUTOMOBILE ACCESSORIES AND TIRE MANUFACTURERS’
SECURITIES FROM A FINANCIAL AND INVESTMENT STANDPOINT.
Compiled specially for use in this book by THE BUSINESS BOURSE
INTERNATIONAL, INC. New York City.
(1) Economic history and its relation to stock trading in the
automobile industry.
(2) Securities of companies traded in on New York Stock Exchange.
(a) Names of companies.
(b) Amount of stocks and bonds outstanding.
(c) Par value traded in during 1906-1909-1912-1916.
(d) High and low prices—range of each class by chart.
(e) Dividends or interest paid.
(3) Securities of companies traded in on New York Curb Market
1906-1909-1912-1916.
(a) Names of companies 1906-1909-1912-1916.
(b) Amount of stocks and bonds outstanding 1906-1909-1912-1916.
(c) Number of shares traded in during 1906-1909-1912-1916.
(d) High and low prices—range of each class by chart.
(4) Securities on various exchanges in other cities and data for 1916.
(5) Principal companies whose securities are not generally traded in.
(6) Some leading examples of prices and terms and promotion plans upon
which securities were put out.
(7) Newer entrants into the security market.
(8) Security issues of tire companies.
(9) Some leading examples of appreciation or depreciation in value of
such stocks since they were put out.
(10) General comparison with
(a) Railroad securities.
(b) Steel and iron.
(c) General industrials.
(d) Mining.
(e) Chart illustrating above.
(11) Present trend of values of
(a) Automobile securities.
(b) Automobile accessory securities.
(c) Tire securities.
(12) Possible future trend in automobile industry as a basis for the
future outlook for 1917 on its securities.
ECONOMIC HISTORY AND ITS RELATION TO STOCK TRADING IN THE AUTOMOBILE
INDUSTRY.
That it may be possible to comprehend the tendencies and probable
trend of activity in the motor stock market, it will be necessary to
look back at economic conditions which prevailed at the time of the
automobile’s infancy, and at the conditions during various periods
since then.
No industry in our times has shown such phenomenal growth and in no
country has its development been so marked or reached such proportions
as in our own.
In the earliest stage of the industry, the automobile was accepted as a
fad, and it has been stated that the American people took hold of the
fad as an intoxicant, paying as high as from $6,000 to $12,000 for a
car, and reveled in all the natural resultant vices of extravagance,
snobbishness, excess and carelessness. Houses were mortgaged and ruin
was accomplished for many who paid high prices and then could not stand
maintenance and repair cost.
The relative effect on business then became apparent. Bankers protested
and entered complaint against the automobile as a degenerating factor
in life. Automobile manufacturers expanded lavishly, over-capitalized,
undertook to effect great stock-jobbing consolidations, until
conservative financiers took steps to stop the harmful waste and
inflation and many bubbles burst.
During this period, therefore, stocks of the automobile group were
looked upon skeptically, and were scarcely known in the legitimate
market before 1912, with the exception of a few scattered stocks, some
of which are now altogether out of existence or merged in new companies.
While stock trading did not come into general prominence until within
the last five years, it is agreed that economic conditions have had a
big influence in bringing about this recognition.
In further considering the outlook in this industry, it is necessary to
analyze the buying power of the population. This will have a decided
effect upon stock activity, which the remarkable history of this
industry has placed in a class almost by itself.
The people of the country never before enjoyed the money earning
possibilities now in order, but to offset this is the high cost of
all articles going to make up the necessities and luxuries of our
increasingly complex modern existence.
In 1906 there were registered (mostly by buyers of an earning capacity
of $3,000 or more) 48,000 automobiles. Since then registration has
increased 5,000 per cent, due to the changes in the average price
of automobiles. Investigation shows that the average price of an
automobile in 1907 was $2,123, while in 1916 it dropped to $820.
_The following chart shows the changes in the average price of
automobiles since 1904:_
[Illustration: Chart]
In very few years this infant industry has grown to rank as one of the
most important in this country, and it is plain to see how conclusively
the industry’s influence has produced an economic effect upon our
national life. The farmer’s life has been made more attractive. Cities
have expanded into suburbs, thus affecting and influencing values on
both urban and suburban real estate. Good highways are demanded. Thus
it can be recognized the strong hold this industry has upon the nation
at large, nor do present signs indicate that it will cease to grow.
SECURITIES OF COMPANIES TRADED IN ON NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE.
In making an analysis of this subject an expose along the following
lines will disclose a definite basis upon which to make a survey of
the history of past activity in the securities of a given industry,
comparisons with other parallel industries, the present condition of
markets for securities of these industries, and a forecast of what the
general tendencies are likely to be.
The securities of the companies manufacturing automobiles, automobile
accessories, and tires which have been traded in on the New York Stock
Exchange for the years 1906, 1909, 1912 and 1916 are shown in the
following tabulation, which gives an interesting exhibit from which it
is readily seen how this young giant of modern industry is the product
of comparatively recent growth:
1916 1912
Name High Low High Low
Ajax Rubber Co. 89-1/8 63 ..... .....
Chandler Motor Co. 131 88 ..... .....
General Motors Co. (C) 850 405 42-7/8 30
(P) 128-1/2 108 82-3/4 70-1/4
B. F. Goodrich Co. (C) 80 57-1/8 81 60-1/4
(P) 116-3/4 110 109-1/2 105
Kelly-Springfield Tire Co. (C) 85-1/4 56 ..... .....
(P) 101 95-3/8 ..... .....
Lee Tire & Rubber Co. 56-1/2 25-1/8 ..... .....
Maxwell Motors (C) 99 44 ..... .....
(1-P) 93 65 ..... .....
(2-P) 60-7/8 32 ..... .....
Saxon Motors Co. 84-3/4 63-7/8 ..... .....
Stutz Motor Co. 79-1/2 48-1/2 ..... .....
Studebaker Motor Co. (C) 167 100-1/8 49-1/2 30
(P) 114 108-1/4 98-1/8 90-1/2
U. S. Rubber Co. (C) 70-3/4 47-3/4 67-7/8 45-1/4
(P) 115-1/4 106-1/8 116 105-5/8
..... ..... 85-1/2 75
White Motor Co. 59-3/8 45 ..... .....
Willys-Overland Co. (C) 81-1/4 34 ..... .....
(P) 117 94 ..... .....
Rubber Goods Mfg. Co. ..... ..... 107 105
..... ..... .....
1909 1906
High Low High Low
Ajax Rubber Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Chandler Motor Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
General Motors Co. (C) ..... ..... ..... .....
(P) ..... ..... ..... .....
B. F. Goodrich Co. (C) ..... ..... ..... .....
(P) ..... ..... ..... .....
Kelly-Springfield Tire Co. (C) ..... ..... ..... .....
(P) ..... ..... ..... .....
Lee Tire & Rubber Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Maxwell Motors (C) ..... ..... ..... .....
(1-P) ..... ..... ..... .....
(2-P) ..... ..... ..... .....
Saxon Motors Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Stutz Motor Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Studebaker Motor Co. (C) ..... ..... ..... .....
(P) ..... ..... ..... .....
U. S. Rubber Co. (C) 57-5/8 27 59-1/2 38
(P) 123-1/2 98 115 104-3/4
89-1/2 67-1/2 87-1/2 75
White Motor Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Willys-Overland Co. (C) ..... ..... ..... .....
(P) ..... ..... ..... .....
Rubber Goods Mfg. Co. 105 105 43 42
..... ..... 108-1/2 100
Sales in
Dividends Bonds 1,000 High Low
Name Paid Outstanding 1916 1916 1916
Ajax Rubber Co. 1916—10 % None ..... .....
Chandler Motor Co. 1916— 7 % None ..... .....
General Motors Co. (C) 1915—50 %
1916—25 %
1909—150 % Stk. Div.
(P) 1911 to 1916 (inc.)—7% None
B. P. Goodrich Co. (C) 1912—2 %
1916—4 %
(P) 1912—3-1/2%
1913 to 1916 (inc.)—7% None
Kelly-Springfield
Tire Co. (C) 1915— 6 %
1916—16 % $270,000
(1-P) 1914—3%
1915-6 6 %
Lee Tire & Rubber Co. 1916—$2.25 per share None
Maxwell Motors (C) 1916—2-1/2 %
(1-P) 1915—5 %
1916—7 %
(2-P) 1916—1-1/2% None
Sales in
Dividends Bonds 1,000 High Low
Name Paid Outstanding 1916 1916 1916
Saxon Motors Co. 1916— 3-1/4%
Stutz Motor Co. 1916— $1.25 per share None
Studebaker Motor Co. (C) 1915— 5%
1916— 10%
(P) 1912 to 1916 (inc.)— 7% None
U. S. Rubber Co. (C) 1911— 1%
1912— 4%
1913— 5-1/2%
1914— 6%
1915— 3% $69,000,000—5% ..... ..... .....
(1-P) 1906-16 (inc.)— 8% 16,500,000—6% 1782 103-1/2 101¾
(2-P) 1906-16 (inc.)— 6%
White Motor Co. 1916— 5-1/4% None
Willys-Overland Co. (C) 1913— 11%
1914— 6%
1915— 11%
1916— 14%
(P) 1913 to 1916 (inc.)— 7% None
Rubber Goods Mfg. Co. None
Stocks Shares Shares
Traded in Traded in
Name Outstanding 1916 1912 1909 1906
Chalmers Motor Co. $ 464,000 36,566 ..... ..... .....
Chevrolet Motor Co. 23,909,000 660,550 ..... ..... .....
Emerson Motor Co. 7,000,000 116,990 ..... ..... .....
Falls Motor Co. 24,850 ..... ..... .....
Grant Motor Co. 2,000,000 93,240 ..... ..... .....
Preferred 1,000,000 ........ ..... ..... .....
Hupp Motor Co. 5,000,000 130,130 ..... ..... .....
Preferred 1,500,000 ........ ..... ..... .....
Imperial Carbon Chaser Co. 1,000,000 637,850 ..... ..... .....
Keystone Tire & Rubber Co. 1,000,000 137,200 ..... ..... .....
Preferred 500,000 33,800 ..... ..... .....
Mitchell Motor Co. 125,000 80,495 ..... ..... .....
National Auto Corporation 61,865 ..... ..... .....
Peerless Motor Co. 10,000,000 135,263 ..... ..... .....
Pierce Arrow Motor Co. 250,000 52,300 ..... ..... .....
Preferred 10,000,000 1,600 ..... ..... .....
Republic Motor Truck Co. 62,500 20,870 ..... ..... .....
Scripps Booth Co. 70,000 27,725 ..... ..... .....
Smith Motor Truck Co. 10,000,000 39,500 ..... ..... .....
Springfield Body Co. 1,750,000 26,481 ..... ..... .....
Preferred 750,000 11,461 ..... ..... .....
Standard Motor Co. 1,800,000 47,490 ..... ..... .....
Stromberg Carburetor Co. 50,000 72,050 ..... ..... .....
United Motors 1,195,000 1,297,355 ..... ..... .....
Studebaker Co. ......... ......... 16,973 ..... .....
Preferred ......... ......... 4,717 ..... .....
U. S. Motors Co. ......... ......... 53,393 ..... .....
Preferred ......... ......... 54,433 ..... .....
Willys-Overland Co. ......... 2,570 13,045 ..... .....
Preferred ......... 4,350 11,045 ..... .....
Goodrich B. F. Co. ......... ......... 40,846 ..... .....
Preferred ......... ......... 32,211 ..... .....
General Motors Co. ......... ......... ..... 1,406 .....
Consolidated
Rubber Tire Co. ......... ......... ..... ..... 2,843
Preferred ......... ......... ..... ..... 410
Ajax Rubber Tire Co. ......... 102,065 ..... ..... .....
Alliance Rubber Tire Co. ......... 14,400 ..... ..... .....
Preferred ......... 3,200 ..... ..... .....
Electric Vehicle Co. ......... ......... ..... ..... 1,000
Preferred ......... ......... ..... ..... 3,705
American Motor Co. ......... 24,500 ..... ..... .....
Pope Mfg. Co. ......... ......... ..... ..... 1,250
1st preferred ......... ......... ..... ..... 3,790
2nd preferred ......... ......... ..... ..... 5,450
Chandler Motor Co. ......... 40,985 ..... ..... .....
Enger Motor Car Co. ......... 7,456 ..... ..... .....
Essex Motor Co. ......... 9,950 ..... ..... .....
Fisk Tire Co. 8,000,000 1,695 ..... ..... .....
Fisher Body Corporation 200,000 20,130 ..... ..... .....
Preferred 5,000,000 3,900 ..... ..... .....
General Motor Co. ......... 89,250 ..... ..... .....
Preferred ......... 13,416 ..... ..... .....
Intereon Rubber Co. ......... 76,848 ..... ..... .....
International Motors Co. ......... 8,441 ..... ..... .....
Preferred ......... 3,626 ..... ..... .....
Kelly-Springfield ......... 435 ..... ..... .....
Kelsey Wheel ......... 4,500 ..... ..... .....
Lee Tire ......... 41,175 ..... ..... .....
Met. Motors Co. ......... 2,825 ..... ..... .....
Motor Products Co. 100,000 17,370 ..... ..... .....
Perlman Rim 100,000 119,780 ..... ..... .....
Princess Motor Co. ......... 6,362 ..... ..... .....
Republic Motor
Truck Co. preferred ......... 300 ..... ..... .....
Saxon Motor Car Co. ......... 102,226 ..... ..... .....
Stutz Motor Co. ......... 200,245 ..... ..... .....
Times Sq. Auto Sup. ......... 13,750 ..... ..... .....
Universal Motor Co. ......... 68,450 ..... ..... .....
White Motor Co. ......... 626,220 ..... ..... .....
NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE.
The rise in average price of the automobile securities traded in on the
New York Stock Exchange, as shown on the chart, is due to the general
expansion and increase of the automobile industry which was naturally
reflected in the securities.
_The following chart shows average price of all automobile and
automobile tire stocks traded in on the New York Stock Exchange for
years 1906-9-12-16:_
[Illustration: Chart]
SECURITIES OF COMPANIES TRADED IN ON NEW YORK CURB MARKET.
The securities of companies manufacturing automobiles, automobile
accessories and tires, which were traded in on the New York Curb
during the years 1906, 1909, 1912 and 1916 are shown in the following
tabulation. Some of these curb stocks have graduated to the big
exchange.
1916 1912
Name High Low High Low
Chalmers Motor Co. 39-1/2 33 ..... .....
Chevrolet Motor Co. 278 114 ..... .....
Emerson Motors Co. 4-1/2 1-1/4 ..... .....
Falls Motor Co. 13 6-1/2 ..... .....
Grant Motor Co. 14 7 ..... .....
Hupp Motor Co. 11-3/4 5-1/8 ..... .....
Imperial Carbon Chaser Co. 53 12-1/2 ..... .....
Keystone Tire & Rubber Co. 19-5/8 11 ..... .....
Preferred 18-1/4 12 ..... .....
Mitchell Motor Co. 73-1/2 51-1/2 ..... .....
National Auto Corporation 44-1/2 33 ..... .....
Peerless Motor Co. 31-1/2 18 ..... .....
Pierce Arrow Motor Co. 65 42 ..... .....
Preferred 109 101 ..... .....
Republic Motor Truck Co. 74 54 ..... .....
Scripps Booth Co. 62 35 ..... .....
Smith Motor Truck Co. 6-1/8 4-1/2 ..... .....
Springfield Body Co. 55-1/2 51 ..... .....
Preferred 139 101 ..... .....
Standard Motor Co. 10-1/2 5-7/8 ..... .....
Stromberg Carburetor Co. 45-1/4 38 ..... .....
United Motors Co. 94 42-3/4 ..... .....
1909 1906
High Low High Low
Chalmers Motor Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Chevrolet Motor Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Emerson Motors Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Falls Motor Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Grant Motor Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Hupp Motor Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Imperial Carbon Chaser Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Keystone Tire & Rubber Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Preferred ..... ..... ..... .....
Mitchell Motor Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
National Auto Corporation ..... ..... ..... .....
Peerless Motor Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Pierce Arrow Motor Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Preferred ..... ..... ..... .....
Republic Motor Truck Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Scripps Booth Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Smith Motor Truck Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Springfield Body Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Preferred ..... ..... ..... .....
Standard Motor Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Stromberg Carburetor Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
United Motors Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
1916 1912
High Low High Low
Studebaker ..... ..... 59-1/4 34
Preferred ..... ..... 104 94
U. S. Motors Co. ..... ..... 9 1/16
Preferred ..... ..... 30-1/2 3/4
Willys-Overland Co. 47-1/4 41 72 67-1/2
Preferred 106-3/8 104-1/2 101-1/2 99
Goodrich, B. F. Co. ..... ..... 86-1/2 70-1/2
Preferred ..... ..... 109-1/2 106-3/4
General Motors Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Rubber Tire Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Preferred ..... ..... ..... .....
Ajax Rubber Tire Co. 73-1/4 63 ..... .....
Alliance Rubber Tire Co. 5-3/4 5 ..... .....
Preferred 8-3/4 8-1/4 ..... .....
Electric Vehicle Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Preferred ..... ..... ..... .....
American Motor Co. 65-1/2 60 ..... .....
Pope Mfg. Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
1st preferred ..... ..... ..... .....
2nd preferred ..... ..... ..... .....
Chandler Motors 94 79 ..... .....
Enger Motor Car Co. 8 7-3/8 ..... .....
1909 1906
High Low High Low
Studebaker ..... ..... ..... .....
Preferred ..... ..... ..... .....
U. S. Motors Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Preferred ..... ..... ..... .....
Willys-Overland Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Preferred ..... ..... ..... .....
Goodrich, B. F. Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Preferred ..... ..... ..... .....
General Motors Co. 162-1/4 155 ..... .....
Rubber Tire Co. 4-1/2 3 5-5/8 2-1/8
Preferred 23 18 16 12
Ajax Rubber Tire Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Alliance Rubber Tire Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Preferred ..... ..... ..... .....
Electric Vehicle Co. ..... 18 13 .....
Preferred ..... 23 15 .....
American Motor Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Pope Mfg. Co. ..... 6 4 .....
1st preferred ..... 74 69 .....
2nd preferred ..... 21 14-3/4.....
Chandler Motors ..... ..... ..... .....
Enger Motor Car Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
1916 1912
High Low High Low
Essex Motor Co. 5-1/8 3-7/8 ..... .....
Fisk Tire Co. 168 115 ..... .....
Fisher Body Corporation 42-1/2 35 ..... .....
Preferred 95-1/2 93 ..... .....
General Motors Co. 175 117 ..... .....
Preferred 100 88 ..... .....
Intereon Rubber Co. 19 10 ..... .....
Inter. Motors Co. 25 3 ..... .....
Preferred 45 17 ..... .....
Kelly-Springfield 299 280 ..... .....
Kelsey Wheel 61 53 ..... .....
Lee Tire 66 44 ..... .....
Met. Motors 3-3/4 2-3/4 ..... .....
Motor Products 87 56 ..... .....
Perlman Rim 162-1/2 111 ..... .....
Princess Motor Co. 1-1/8 1 ..... .....
Republic Motor Truck Co. pfd. 98 98 ..... .....
Saxon Motor Oar Co. 87 60 ..... .....
Stutz Motor Co. 78 53-3/8 ..... .....
Times Sq. Auto Sup. 41 28-1/2 ..... .....
Universal Motor 9-1/8 4 ..... .....
White Motor Co. 60 46 ..... .....
1909 1906
High Low High Low
Essex Motor Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Fisk Tire Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Fisher Body Corporation ..... ..... ..... .....
Preferred ..... ..... ..... .....
General Motors Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Preferred ..... ..... ..... .....
Intereon Rubber Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Inter. Motors Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Preferred ..... ..... ..... .....
Kelly-Springfield ..... ..... ..... .....
Kelsey Wheel ..... ..... ..... .....
Lee Tire ..... ..... ..... .....
Met. Motors ..... ..... ..... .....
Motor Products ..... ..... ..... .....
Perlman Rim ..... ..... ..... .....
Princess Motor Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Republic Motor Truck Co. pfd...... ..... ..... .....
Saxon Motor Oar Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Stutz Motor Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Times Sq. Auto Sup. ..... ..... ..... .....
Universal Motor ..... ..... ..... .....
White Motor Co. ..... ..... ..... .....
Par Stock —Number of Shares Traded in—
Name Value Outstanding 1916 1912 1909 1906
Ajax Rubber Co. $ 50 $10,000,000 107,950 ....... ....... .......
Chandler Motor Co. 100 7,000,000 291,640 ....... ....... .......
General Motors Co. 100 (C) 14,985,200 43,215 55,436 ....... .......
(P) 16,506,783 129,933 48,869 ....... .......
B. F. Goodrich Co. 100 (C) 60,000,000 604,055 65,169 ....... .......
(P) 27,300,000 25,444 15,525 ....... .......
Kelly-Springfield
Tire Co. 25 (C) 4,360,100 524,329 ....... ....... .......
(P) 3,593,000 5,335 ....... ....... .......
100 (2-P) 547,100 ....... ....... ....... .......
(shares)
Lee Tire
& Rubber Co. ... 100,000 477,025
Maxwell Motors 100 (C) 12,778,058 2,009,100
100 (P) 13,764,121 20,585
100 (2-P) 10,127,468 300,935
Saxon Motors Co. 100 6,000,000 17,920
(shares)
Stutz Motor Co. ... 73,301 116,900 ....... ....... .......
Studebaker Motor Co. 100 (C) 30,000,000 3,045,440 50,652 ....... .......
(P) 10,965,000 11,411 109,020 ....... .......
U. S. Rubber Co. 100 (C) 36,000,000 1,165,881 661,765 517,411 598,628
100 (P) 59,692,100 69,147 78,734 199,512 123,611
100 (2-P) 458,400 ....... 35,695 61,790 59,875
White Motor Co. 50 16,000,000 89,300 ....... ....... .......
Willys-Overland Co. 25 (C) 38,655,710 1,852,745 ....... ....... .......
(P) 15,000,000 9,530 ....... ....... .......
Rubber Goods
Mfg. Co. 100 .......... (C) 253 150 500
100 .......... (P) ....... ....... 625
CURB MARKET.
Some of the big fluctuations shown in the charts are accounted for by
the abnormal irregularities of one or two giants of the industry, whose
volume of trading produced a marked effect upon the totals traded in,
and their average prices. Instances like United States Motors Company
and B. F. Goodrich Company may be cited as examples. The accessory
shares have seen a general rise since first traded in, in 1912.
_The following chart shows average price of automobile, automobile tire
and automobile accessory manufacturing stocks traded in on the New York
Curb for 1906-9-12-16:_
[Illustration: Chart]
SECURITIES ON VARIOUS EXCHANGES IN OTHER CITIES AND DATA FOR 1916.
Securities traded in on various stock exchanges of other cities show
very little activity or regularity.
Below is shown the trading in the great automobile center of the world.
DETROIT. 1916
High Low
Auto Body Co. 48-1/2 32
Chalmers Motor 255 90
Chevrolet 277 171-1/8
Continental Motors 42-1/8 7-1/2
Ford Motor Co. of Canada 415 275
General Motors 800 418
Preferred 127 112-1/2
Maxwell Motors 95-1/8 57-5/8
Packard Motor 260 160
Preferred 104-1/2 100-1/4
Paige-Detroit 57-1/8 32
Reo Motor 47-1/2 32-1/4
Reo Truck 45-1/4 23-3/8
Studebaker 161-1/8 120-7/8
Cleveland shows greatest activity in the tire stock on account of its
proximity to the great rubber center of Akron, Ohio.
1916
High Low
Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. 1,700 740
Goodrich Co. 78-1/2 60-3/8
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. 402 198
Portage Rubber Co. 183-1/2 62-1/2
Republic Rubber Co. 145 128-1/2
Swinehart Tire & Rubber Co. 110 79
White Motor Co. 60 47-1/4
PRINCIPAL COMPANIES WHOSE SECURITIES ARE NOT GENERALLY TRADED IN.
Until the past two or three years, motor and motor accessory stocks
were traded in but little on the open market. Even today, when these
securities are traded in much more generally, there is a large number
of companies whose stocks are very closely held and it requires some
unusual occurrence to loosen them for trading on the open market.
A notable example of this is the Ford Motor Company. The Ford car
is widely distributed, yet the two million dollar capital stock is
almost entirely held by seven men. Another case is the H. H. Franklin
Manufacturing Company, of Syracuse. This company has $1,800,000
outstanding capital stock which is held largely by Mr. H. H. Franklin.
Further, out of a total of 81 companies reported upon (including the
two above mentioned) at least 16, or practically 20 per cent, fall into
the “closely held” class. Among these companies are the following:
Apperson Brothers
Consolidated Car Co.
Dodge Brothers
Federal Motor Truck
Ford Motor Co.
Ford Motor Co. of Canada
H. H. Franklin Manufacturing Co.
Gramm Motor Truck Co.
Haynes Auto Co.
Kissel Motor Car Co.
Mitchell Lewis Motor Co.
Mutual Motors Co.
Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Co.
Republic Motor Truck Co.
Stearns Co.
Winton Co.
SOME LEADING EXAMPLES OF PRICES AND TERMS AND PROMOTION PLANS UPON
WHICH SECURITIES WERE PUT OUT.
Perhaps one of the most notable examples of plans for flotation of
securities was the 8 per cent cumulative convertible preferred stock
of the Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company, offered by prominent brokers in
1916. This stock must be redeemed at 125 up to the amount of cash paid
on common stock in excess of $5.00 a share in any year. The preferred
is convertible into common stock, share for share, at the holder’s
option (preferred stock $10,000,000) earnings five times preferred
dividends; the common shares are without par value (common 250,000
shares).
Among other issues by banking houses of New York and other cities may
be mentioned in 1912, General Motors Company’s 6 per cent first lien
sinking fund gold notes dated 1910, due 1915, $200,000,000 (since paid
off); 1913 Chalmers Motor Company of Michigan, 7 per cent cumulative
preferred stock (no bonds) $1,500,000, redeemable at $115 a share,
earnings over 9-1/2 times preferred interest; company taken over by new
company in 1916. January, 1916, Willys-Overland Company convertible 7
per cent cumulative preferred stock, redeemable at $110, interest 6-1/2
times earnings; November, 1916, Chalmers Motor Corporation of New York,
shares at no par value, at $35 a share (264,000 shares), book value $29
a share, earnings, $5.40 a share; National Motor Car & Vehicle Company
common shares at no par value (80,000 shares), no bonds, no preferred
stock. Offered at $42.50 a share, earnings old company equal to 12-1/2
per cent on new stock.
Most motor companies started with a small capitalization and business,
and to provide additional working capital, as their business expanded,
issued preferred or common stock.
Most of the better grade issues were for preferred stock, usually
carrying with it a proviso that it could be retired at will at a
stated price, some as high as $125.
Very few companies in the motor field have any bonded debt. Some
companies which incurred such indebtedness in the past have paid it
off; for example, the General Motors Company, and the Pierce-Arrow
Motor Car Company.
The issues of securities by established motor companies have, as a
rule, shown large liquid assets, and earning capacity record, and have
been of the same general class.
In the automobile accessory line many flotations were put out in 1916
and a few in 1917, among which were:
(a) Edmunds & Jones Corporation.
(b) Perlman Rim Corporation.
(c) Motor Products Corporation.
(d) Fischer Body Corporation.
(e) United Alloy Steel Corporation.
(f) Transue & Williams Steel Forging Co.
(a) Edmunds & Jones Corporation (manufacturers of automobile lamps).
This corporation issued $1,000,000 worth of preferred 7 per cent
cumulative stock (no bonds), redeemable at $120, earning over six times
preferred dividends.
(b) A somewhat unusual plan was the Perlman Rim Corporation
(manufacturers of demountable automobile rims) which issued 100,000
shares of stock of no par value, divided into two classes as follows:
Class “A,” having voting power.... 3,000 shares
Common, no par value or voting power 97,000 shares
The estimated earnings of this company for 1917 are $3,000,000.
In addition the company has been allowed claims for infringements
sustained by the courts, amounting to $2,000,000.
(c) The Motor Products Corporation issued 100,000 shares, divided as
follows:
Class “A,” no par value, non voting .. 95,000 shares
Class “B,” no par value, voting ....... 5,000 shares
This corporation has taken over five companies manufacturing
miscellaneous products, such as automobile radiators, windshields, etc.
Their earnings for 1916 were $788,000.
(d) A more usual form is the $5,000,000 issue of 7 per cent cumulative
preferred stock and 200,000 shares common stock, of the Fischer Body
Corporation. It is not contemplated to pay a dividend on the common
until the company has $1,000,000 surplus earnings. Its net profits for
the year 1916 were $1,000,000 on a total volume of business amounting
to $20,000,000. The preferred stock is redeemable at $120.
(e) The United Alloy Steel Corporation issued 525,000 shares without
par value, of which 500,000 were used to acquire United Steel Company,
manufacturing alloy steel parts for the automobile trade.
For expansion purposes to provide more adequate equipment to supply the
increasing demand for its product, $4,000,000 additional cash capital
was to be provided. The estimated net earnings for 1916 were about $7 a
share on 500,000 shares.
(f) Transue & Williams Steel Forging Company issued 110,000 shares
without par value. One hundred thousand shares and $750,000 cash was to
be paid for company subscriptions at $45.50 a share. The net earnings
for 7 months of 1916 were $648,026 or $12 a share.
SECURITY ISSUES OF TIRE COMPANIES.
Among the tire company stock issues a few leading examples may be cited.
The Firestone Tire & Rubber Company issued $5,000,000 of 6 per cent
cumulative preferred stock. A sinking fund is provided to redeem this
stock at $110, beginning 1921. There are no bonds, and the company is
required to maintain at all times total net assets equal to 250 per
cent and net quick assets equal to 150 per cent of the aggregate par
value of this stock outstanding.
The earnings for 1916 were $4,482,554.52, or over seven times the
dividend requirements on the total issue of preferred stock. This
stock was sold at $107.
Another representative issue was that of the Fisk Rubber Company,
which consisted of $5,000,000 of cumulative 7 per cent first preferred
convertible stock. This is redeemable at $110 upon 60 days’ notice.
The earnings for the year ending August 31, 1916, were $1,992,043, or
three times the dividend requirements. There are no bonds or other form
of funded debt.
One of the few instances of an issue of bonds by a tire company is the
issue of $60,000,000 of 5 per cent gold bonds by the United States
Rubber Company. Of course, tires are only a part of this company’s
output. The proceeds of the sale of these bonds are to be used to
retire certain obligations of subsidiaries, to provide additional
working capital, etc.
NEWER ENTRANTS INTO THE SECURITY MARKET.
While in the foregoing chapter are noted some of the securities of
representative manufacturers attracting the most pronounced attention,
there are several others on the border line, or that have not as yet
“arrived,” and possibly may never do so.
There has, therefore, been so little activity in these securities,
that examples of their flotations are negligible in this report.
Those most in the public eye are perhaps:
The Harroun Motors Corporation
The Emerson Motors Company, Inc.
The Ford Tractor Company, Inc., etc. etc.
SOME LEADING EXAMPLES OF APPRECIATION OR DEPRECIATION IN VALUE OF SUCH
STOCKS SINCE THEY WERE PUT OUT.
An example of depreciation in automobile stocks of an exaggerated
type was that of the United States Motor Company, a combination of
the Maxwell-Briscoe, Columbia, Stoddard-Dayton, Brush, and Sampson
Companies. With an issue of about $35,000,000 stock, New York Curb
prices in 1912 for the common ranged from 9 down to 1/16 and for the
preferred from 30-1/2 down to 3/4.
The properties of this company have since been taken over by the
Maxwell Motors Companys, which issued the following securities:
$13,000,000 1st preferred
11,000,000 2nd preferred
13,000,000 common
The prices of these stocks have ranged as follows:
1914 1917
Common 3 47-1/2
1st preferred 22 64
2nd preferred 7 32
This instance gives an extreme example of the fluctuations possible in
motor stocks in one year, in 1912 the market values reaching as high as
7,200 per cent of the value indicated at low. The re-organized company
in less than five years showed a market value of possibly 38,000 per
cent of the market value of the old company at its low, and 500 per
cent of its value at its high.
These great increases in volume and values are what have made so
many motor millionaires, and, conversely, have swept away some large
fortunes.
Another instance is the stock of the Studebaker Corporation, which
sold as low as 20 in 1914 and which now brings 102. Also the
Kelly-Springfield Tire Company’s stock rose from 50 to 299, due to
their great increase in business and consequent large earnings.
GENERAL COMPARISON.
The attached chart, showing the average high and low prices of
representative groups of securities during 1916, may be used as a
comparison of the average selling price of the motor group with that of
railroads, industrials, and mining.
It will be seen that the greatest fluctuations occur in the mining,
steel and iron stocks of the standard list, and that a similar
fluctuation occurs in the tire and automobile stocks of the motor group.
This comparison would tend to show that the tire and motor stocks are
still in the class which fluctuates considerably and therefore, except
in special cases, are more or less speculative. In this light these
figures and comparisons are very interesting and may be carefully
considered from the investment standpoint.
_The following chart compares the average high and low prices of
representative groups of stocks during 1916 with similar groups in the
automobile field:_
[Illustration: Chart]
PRESENT TREND OF VALUES.
After the great rise in prices, the trend of values of the securities
of motor accessory and tire companies, during the first quarter of
1917, was generally downward. During the past two years a large number
of such stocks have been put on the market (see table 1 and 3) and a
great deal of speculation has taken place, with the result that the
market seems overloaded at the high prices at which the public has
bought these stocks. At the time of the market reaction at the end of
1916, under various influences, motor stocks suffered considerable
losses.
A few prominent instances may be cited. Studebaker, which sold as high
as 67 in 1916, sold down to 102. Chevrolet Motor, whose high mark in
1916 was 278, sold down to 120. United Motors, which sold at 95 in
1916, sold down to 42-3/4. Similar conditions obtain through most of
the list.
Among tire companies a few instances will show the same general
downward tendency.
Lee Tire & Rubber Company’s stock, which sold for 50-1/4 in 1915, is
now selling around 23. Goodrich stock, which brought around 80 in 1915
and 1916, ranges between 51 and 58. The Kelly-Springfield Tire Company,
which sold as high as 85-1/4 in 1916, now sells around 60.
During the year 1916, the range of high and of low of 25 leading
railroad stocks traded in on the New York Exchange was between 76 and
85. Twenty-five leading industrials for the same period ranged between
90 and 113. The range of all the motor stocks traded in during this
time was from 119 to 231; while that of the tire companies was from 45
to 76.
On the Curb, motor stocks in 1916 ranged from 39-3/4 to 57-3/4; tire
stocks from 67 to 79; and accessories from 58 to 73, all of these
figures representing average high and low of each class.
POSSIBLE FUTURE TREND IN AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY AS A BASIS FOR THE FUTURE
OUTLOOK FOR 1917 ON ITS SECURITIES.
As was stated in the opening introduction, economic conditions are
perhaps the greatest factor to be considered in constructing any
forecast for the operation of such an industry as that of the motor,
motor accessory and tire group.
These economic conditions have mainly to do with:
(a) The increase of population, its effect reflected in increased
registration, and automobile production.
(b) The uneven distribution of automobiles in the United States.
(a) Following is a chart which shows graphically the comparison between
the growth of population, increased registration, and increased
automobile production since 1911.
_The following chart shows the rate of growth of automobile production
and registration compared with increase in population:_
[Illustration: Chart]
This would indicate that, while the population is gaining slowly and
consistently, the production of automobiles has taken a decided jump,
and a natural inference is that, even with so remarkable an industry
as the motor group, it is beginning to prove food for speculation
as to whether or not manufacturers, at the present increasing ratio
of production and distribution, will bring a more or less complete
saturation of the public, able to buy and support pleasure automobiles.
Many conservative judges have figured that this may not come for some
years, possible five or more. It may be that new conditions will arise
to put that period further ahead, or indefinitely postpone it.
(b) In this connection, the following chart is of interest. This shows
the ratio of voting men to each registered automobile in the United
States by states.
_The following chart shows the ratio by states of men over 21 to each
registered automobile:_
[Illustration: Chart]
Attention is invited to the diverging range of distribution.
Territorial and community economics account for this very largely. For
example, an analysis of three sections will show a decided variation,
say for New York (with one automobile for 15 voting men); Arkansas
(with one automobile for every 54 voters); and Alabama (with one
automobile for every 43 voters).
The state of New York is very largely industrial, and one might
commonly infer that, due to the great wealth represented in this state,
the ratio should be much smaller. States like Arkansas, Kansas and
Iowa are distinctively rural sections—where the population is not so
clustered as in cities like New York, and automobile transportation
is more utilitarian than a luxury or pastime. For this reason it is
estimated that practically every voter, almost, in Kansas and Iowa is a
possible prospect in figuring future consumption.
Still another diversion notably exists in the ratio shown for the
Southern states, and this is readily explained by reason of a paucity
of buying power, since the majority population is negro.
To indicate how the various types of automobiles have been distributed
in three different states, the following chart is included in this
report.
_The following chart shows the distribution of leading motor cars in
different states:_
[Illustration: Chart]
The following factors may be instrumental in the automobile industry in
preventing the reaching of an absolute saturation point:
(1) Increase in earning or buying power of those now unable to support
an automobile;
(2) A very low average price;
(3) Production finally being held at the point where it keeps pace
with the increase in population;
(4) Increase in the utilitarian need of the automobile.
In making up a quota for the possible consumption in the automobile
industry, the following chart may be considered as a conservative basis
to work on.
_The following chart shows the estimated automobile market for 1917:_
[Illustration: Chart]
There being, therefore so many elements entering into the question of
influence upon this group of securities, it is rather venturesome to
presume any prediction for their future, for fear such prediction may
prove unfounded, as have many former guesses on their probable rise and
fall.
The immediate outlook for 1917 is at present somewhat baffling, aside
from the economic tendencies, charted in this chapter, but there may
be a change for improvement at any time in the motor car industry,
especially if our government should place large orders for cars and
supplies in the event of war, or the foreign trade should take on large
quantities for the remainder of the year.
It must be remembered that the supply of parts for cars is now, and
will be more and more, an extensive business of the motor car industry.
One prominent New York newspaper which censors very carefully its
advertising is very cautious in handling offerings on motor stocks.
It might be safe to assume that motor stocks in well managed companies
making popular cars will be as secure an investment for reasonable
earnings on products as other industrials for some years to come and
possibly indefinitely.
The future of automobile accessories is possibly not subject to
fluctuations in the same degree, nor as apt to reach the saturation
point as might be the development in the automobile industry, for
the reason that with the increase in the number of cars in use, the
purchase of many accessories will be made by car owners, even though
the manufacturers should not continue to buy an increasing, or even
equal, volume.
It is natural to expect that the earnings on and the price of
automobile accessory stocks should therefore remain firm, if conditions
of trade or competition do not unduly affect them.
The future of the tire industry and stocks seems reasonably secure, as
unless some satisfactory substitutes for rubber tires are discovered,
apparently an increasing number of tires for replacements, if not new
cars, should be demanded each year.
The present earnings of the tire companies are very large and should
continue favorable. It must be remembered that the cost of material and
labor are as important considerations to this class of manufacturers as
to all industrials, and that their undue rise in cost might affect the
industry more or less temporarily. But as they have come to be classed
as necessities, the prices would naturally adjust themselves to the
cost of manufacture.
With all popular cars sold far in excess of their capacity, barring
the interference or lack of transportation, labor friction, or
other unexpected or disturbing elements, it is safe to assume that
1917 should be a record year in the motor, motor accessory and tire
industries, and that their earnings should be reflected in the
intrinsic and probably the market values of their securities.
CHAPTER VII.
PASSENGER AUTOMOBILES MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES.
The following is, as near as possible, a complete list of the passenger
automobiles manufactured in the United States, with the number of
cylinders and the retail price of each. New cars are being put on the
market so rapidly that it is difficult to keep track of them.
The prices quoted may not be exact in every case, as manufacturers are
putting up prices quite generally as this volume goes to press. They
are the prices at which the cars sold for a long time, and they are
given without the intention to be exact to the dollar, but merely as
relative figures of retail cost.
An automobile quoted at $1,195 may have undergone a price raise to
$1,350, but the former price quotation fixes the car’s retail price
status as compared with a car that sells for $360 or $550.
One hundred manufacturers are said to have raised their prices,
and forty made increases from $10 to $700 on each car, the average
advance being $146. Freight conditions and the uncertainties of the
international situation were advanced as reasons for the increase.
Practically all the American manufacturers of tires also raised prices
a second time within a year, the range of the last increase being from
6-1/2 to 12 per cent. Where price is not given, it was not available.
Cylinders Price
“Abbott-Detroit” Abbott Corporation,
Cleveland, O. 6 $1,195 to $1,820
“Allen” Allen Motor Car Co.,
Fostoria, O. 4 850 to 1,195
“Alter” Alter Motor Car Co.,
Grand Haven, Mich. 4-6 675 to 850
“American” American Motors
Corporation, New York,
N. Y. 6 1,285 and 845
“Ams-Sterling” Sterling Automobile
Manufacturing Co.,
New York, N. Y. 4 825 to 845
“Anderson” Anderson Motor Co.,
Rock Hill, S. C. 6 1,250 and 1,275
“Apperson” Apperson Bros. Auto Co.,
Kokomo, Ind. 6-8 1,690 to 2,000
“Arbenz” Arbenz Motor Car Co.,
Chillicothe, O.
“Auburn” Auburn Automobile Co.,
Auburn, Ind. 6 1,145 to 1,785
“Austin” Austin Automobile Co.,
Grand Rapids, Mich. 6-12 3,400 to 5,250
“Beardsley” Beardsley Electric Co.,
Los Angeles, Cal.
(Electric) .... 1,285 to 3,000
“Bell” Bell Motor Car Co.,
York, Pa. 4 875
“Ben-Hur” Ben Hur Motor Co.,
Cleveland, O. 6 1,875 to 2,750
“Biddle” Biddle Motor Car Co.,
Philadelphia, Pa. 4 2,285 to 3,900
“Bimel” Bimel Automobile Co.,
Sidney, O. 4 550 to 995
“Bour-Davis” Bour-Davis Motor Car Co.,
Detroit, Mich. 6 1,250 to 1,500
“Brewster” Brewster & Co.,
New York, N. Y. 4 6,500 to 7,900
“Briscoe” Briscoe Motor Corporation,
Jackson, Mich. 4-8 685 to 985
“Brunswick” Brunswick Motor Car Co.,
New York, N. Y.
“Buick” Buick Motor Co.,
Flint, Mich. 4-6 660 to 1,835
“Bush” Bush Motor Co.,
Chicago, Ill. 4 725
“Cadillac” Cadillac Motor Car Co.,
Detroit, Mich. 8 2,240 to 3,910
“Cameron” Cameron Car Co.,
Norwalk, Conn. 6 1,250
“Case” J. I. Case Threshing
Machine Co.,
Racine, Wis. 4 1,190
“C-B” Carter Brothers Co.,
Hyattsville, Md. 6-8 700 to 1,000
“Chalmers” Chalmers Motor Car Co.,
Detroit, Mich. 6 1,090 to 2,550
“Chandler” Chandler Motor Car Co.,
Cleveland, O. 6 1,395 to 2,695
“Chevrolet” Chevrolet Motor Co.,
Flint, Mich. 4-8 490 to 1,285
“Classic” Classic Motor Co.,
Chicago, Ill.
“Coey Flyer” Coey Motor Co.,
Chicago, Ill. 4 695
“Cole 8” Cole Motor Car Co.,
Indianapolis, Ind. 8 1,695 to 2,295
“Columbia” Columbia Motor Co.,
Detroit, Mich. 6 on application
“Crawford” Crawford Automobile Co.,
Hagerstown, Md. 6 1,750 to 2,250
“Crockett” The J. B. Co.,
New York City
(exported only)
“Crow Elkhart” Crow Elkhart Motor Car Co.,
Elkhart, Ind. 4 795 and 845
“Crowther-Duryea” Crowther Motors
Corporation,
Rochester, N. Y. 4 650
“Cunningham” James Cunningham Son & Co.,
Rochester, N. Y. 8 3,750 to 7,500
“Daniels” Daniels Motor Car Co.,
Reading, Pa. 8 2,600 to 4,200
“Davis” George W. Davis Motor
Car Co., Richmond, Ind. 6 1,195 to 1,795
“Detroit” Anderson Electric Car Co.,
Detroit, Mich.
(Electric) ... 1,875 to 2,475
“Detroiter” Detroiter Motor Car Co.,
Detroit, Mich. 6 1,195 to 1,495
“Dey” Dey Electric Corporation,
New York, N. Y.
(Electric)
“Dispatch” Dispatch Motor Car Co.,
Minneapolis, Minn. 4 1,135 to 1,400
“Dixie” Dixie Manufacturing Co.,
Vincennes, Ind.
“Dixie Flyer” Dixie Motor Car Co.,
Louisville, Ky. 4 840 to 1,275
“Doble” General Engineering Co.,
Detroit, Mich.
(Steam) 4-7 1,800
“Dodge” Dodge Bros.,
Detroit, Mich. 4 785 to 1,185
“Dorris” Dorris Motor Car Co.,
St. Louis, Mo. 6 2,475
“Dort” Dort Motor Car Co.,
Flint, Mich. 4 695 to 1,065
“Downing” Downing Motor Car Co.,
Detroit, Mich.
“Drexel” Drexel Motor Car
Corporation,
Chicago, Ill. 4 985 to 1,650
“Drummond” Drummond Motor Co.,
Omaha, Neb. 8 1,600
“Dunn” Dunn Motor Works,
Ogdensburg, N. Y. 4 295
“Duryea Gem” Duryea Motors, Inc.,
Philadelphia, Pa.
(3 wheels) 2 250
“Eagle Rotary” Eagle-Macomber Motor
Car Co., Sandusky, O. 5 700
“Economy” Economy Motor Co.,
Tiffin, O. 4-8 985 to 1,350
“Elcar” Elkhart Carriage &
Motor Car Co.,
Elkhart, Ind. 4 845
“Elgin” Elgin Motor Car Co.,
Chicago, Ill. 6 985
“Emerson” Emerson Motors Co.,
New York, N. Y. 4 470
“Empire” Empire Automobile Co.,
Indianapolis, Ind. 4-6 985 to 1,095
“Enger” Enger Motor Car Co.,
Cincinnati, O. 12 1,295
“Erie” Erie Motor Car Co.,
Painesville, O. 4 795
“Fageol” Fageol Motors Co.,
Oakland, Cal.
(Aviation motor) 6 9,500 to 12,500
“F. I. A. T.” Fiat,
Poughkeepsie, N. Y. 5-7 4,850 to 6,300
“Ford” Ford Motor Co.,
Detroit, Mich. 4 345 to 645
“Ford” Ford Motor Co.
of Canada, Ltd.,
Ford, Ont. 4 345 to 645
“Franklin” Franklin Automobile Co.,
Syracuse, N. Y. 6 1,800 to 3,000
“Fritchie” Fritchie Electric Co.,
Denver, Colo.
(Electric) .... 2,400 to 3,200
“Frontenac” Frontenac Motor Co.,
Detroit, Mich. (Racing) 4 8,000 to 10,000
“F. B. P.” Porter, Finley
Robertson Co.,
Port Jefferson, N. Y. 4 6,000
“Glide” Bartholomew Company,
Peoria, Ill. 6 1,195 to 1,395
“Grant” Grant Motor Car Corporation,
Cleveland, O. 6 875 to 1,100
“Hackett” Hackett Motor Car Co.,
Jackson, Mich. 4 888
“Hal Twelve” Hal Motor Car Co.,
Cleveland, O. 12 2,600 to 5,000
“Halladay” Barley Motor Car Co.,
Streator, Ill. 6 1,185 to 1,650
“Harroun” Harroun Motors Corporation,
Detroit, Mich. 4 595
“Harvard” Harvard Pioneer Motor Car
Corporation,
Troy, N. Y. 4 750
“Hatfield” Cortland Cart &
Carriage Co.,
Sidney, N. Y. 4 875
“Haynes” Haynes Automobile Co.,
Kokomo, Ind. 6-12 1,485 to 2,750
“Hewitt” Hewitt Motor Co.,
New York, N. Y.
“Hollier” Lewis Spring & Axle Co.,
Jackson, Mich. 6-8 895 to 1,185
“Homer-
Laughlin” Homer-Laughlin Engineers’
Corporation,
Los Angeles, Cal. 8 1,050
“Howard” The A. Howard Co.,
Galion, O.
“Hudson” Hudson Motor Car Co.,
Detroit, Mich. 6 1,650 to 3,025
“Hupmobile” Hupp Motor Car Corporation,
Detroit, Mich. 4 1,185 to 1,735
“Hupp-Yeats” Hupp-Yeats
Electric Car Co.,
Detroit, Mich.
(Electric) .... 1,500 to 1,750
“Interstate” Interstate Motor Co.,
Muncie, Ind. 4 850 to 1,250
“Jackson” Jackson Automobile Co.,
Jackson, Mich. 8 1,295 to 1,395
“Jeffery” Nash Motors Co.,
Kenosha, Wis. 4-6 1,095 to 1,630
“Jones” Jones Motor Car Co.,
Wichita, Kas. 6 1,475
“Jordan” Jordan Motor Car Co.,
Cleveland, O. 6 1,650 to 3,000
“Kent” Kent Motors Corporation,
Newark, N. J. 4 985
“King” King Motor Car Co.,
Detroit, Mich. 8 1,350 to 1,900
“Kissel Kar” Kissel Motor Car Co.,
Hartford, Wis. 6 1,195 to 2,100
“Kline Kar” Kline Car Corporation,
Richmond, Va. 6 1,175 to 1,195
“Lambert” Buckeye Manufacturing Co.,
Anderson, Ind. 4-6 685 to 985
“Laurel” Laurel Motor Car Co.,
Richmond, Ind. 4 850 to 895
“Lenox” Lenox Motor Car Co.,
Boston, Mass. 6 on application
“Leslie” Leslie Motor Car Co.,
Detroit, Mich. (Kerosene)
“Lexington” Lexington-Howard Co.,
Connersville, Ind. 6 1,185 to 2,875
“Liberty” Liberty Motor Car Co.,
Detroit, Mich. 6 1,095 to 2,350
“Locomobile” Locomobile Co. of America,
Bridgeport, Conn. 6 4,600 to 6,800
“Lozier” Lozier Motor Co.,
Detroit, Mich. 4-6 1,695 to 4,650
“Luverne” Luverne Automobile Co.,
Luverne, Minn. 6 1,500
“Lyons-Knight” Lyons-Atlas Co.,
Indianapolis, Ind.
“Macon” All Steel Motor Car Co.,
Macon, Mo. 4 875 to 975
“Madison” Madison Motors Co.,
Anderson, Ind. 6 1,050 to 1,150
“Maibohm” Maibohm Motors Co.,
Racine, Wis. 4 795
“Majestic” Majestic Motor Co.,
New York, N. Y. .... on application
“Marion Handley” Mutual Motors Co.,
Jackson, Mich. 6 1,275 to 1,575
“Marmon” Nordyke & Marmon Co.,
Indianapolis, Ind. 6 3,050 to 5,800
“Maxwell” Maxwell Motor Co.,
Detroit, Mich. 4 620 to 985
“McFarlan” McFarlan Motor Co.,
Connersville, Ind. 6 3,500 to 5,300
“Mercer” Mercer Automobile Co.,
Trenton, N. J. 4 3,250 to 5,000
“Metz” Metz Company,
Waltham, Mass. 4 600
“Milburn” Milburn Wagon Co.,
Toledo, O. (Electric) .... 1,285 to 1,995
“Mitchell” Mitchell Motors Co.,
Racine, Wis. 6 1,150 to 2,785
“Mohawk” Mohawk Motor Corporation,
New Orleans, La. 4-6 985 to 1,150
“Moline-Knight” Moline Automobile Co.,
East Moline, Ill. 4 1,450 to 2,400
“Monarch” Monarch Motor Car Co.,
Detroit, Mich. 8 1,500
“Monitor” Monitor Motor Car Co.,
Columbus, O. 4-6 895 to 1,095
“Monroe” Monroe Motor Co.,
Pontiac, Mich. 4 565 and 985
“Moon” Moon Motor Car Co.,
St. Louis, Mo. 6 1,295 to 2,350
“Moore” Moore Motor Co.,
Minneapolis, Minn. 4 550
“Morse” Morse Cyclecar Co.,
Pittsburgh, Pa. 2 300 and 350
“Murray” Murray Motor Car Co.,
Pittsburgh, Pa. 8 2,000 to 2,500
“Napoleon” Napoleon Auto
Manufacturing Co.,
Napoleon, Ohio 4 735 to 845
“National” National Motor Car
& Vehicle Corporation 6-12 1,750 to 2,800
“New Era” New Era Engineering Co.,
Joliet, Ill. 4 685
“Norwalk” Norwalk Motor Car Co.,
Martinsburg, W. Va.
“Ogren Six” Ogren Motor Works, Inc.,
Chicago, Ill. 6 2,500
“Oakland” Oakland Motor Car Co.,
Pontiac, Mich. 6-8 875 to 1,585
“Ohio” Ohio Electric Car Co.,
Toledo, O. (Electric) .... 2,400 to 3,250
“Oldsmobile” Olds Motor Works,
Lansing, Mich. 8 1,295 to 1,850
“Olympian” Olympian Motors Co.,
Pontiac, Mich. 4 845
“Overland” Willys-Overland Co.,
Toledo, O. 4-6 665 to 1,585
“Owen Magnetic” Baker B. & L. Co.,
Cleveland, O. 6 3,300 to 5,200
“Packard” Packard Motor Car Co.,
Detroit, Mich. 12 3,050 to 5,150
“Paige” Paige-Detroit Motor
Car Co.,
Detroit, Mich. 6 1,175 to 2,750
“Partin-Palmer” Commonwealth Motors Co.,
Chicago, Ill. 4 495 to 695
“Paterson” W. A. Paterson Co.,
Flint, Mich. 6 1,095 to 1,125
“Path-finder” Pathfinder Co.,
Indianapolis, Ind. 12 3,250
“Peerless” Peerless Motor Car Co.,
Cleveland, O. 8 1,890 to 3,260
“Pennsy” Pennsy Motors Co.,
Pittsburgh, Pa. 4 855
“Phianna” Phianna Motors Co.,
Newark, N. J. 4 5,000 to 6,000
“Pierce-Arrow” Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Co.,
Buffalo, N. Y. 6 4,600 to 7,600
“Pilliod” Pilliod Motor Co.,
Toledo, O. 4 1,485
“Pilot” Pilot Motor Car Co.,
Richmond, Ind. 6 1,150
“Premier” Premier Motor Corporation,
Indianapolis, Ind. 6 1,885 to 3,150
“Princess” Princess Motor Car
Corporation,
Detroit, Mich. 4 775
“Pullman” Pullman Motor Car Co.,
York, Pa. 4 825 to 1,150
“Rauch & Lang” Baker R. & L. Co.,
Cleveland, O.
(Electric) .... 2,800 to 3,000
“Regal” Regal Motor Car Co.,
Detroit, Mich. 4 745
“Reo” Reo Motor Car Co.,
Lansing, Mich. 4-6 875 to 1,750
“Richard” Richard Auto
Manufacturing Co.,
Cleveland, O. 4 7,500
“Richmond” The Wayne Works,
Richmond, Ind. 6 on application
“Roamer” Barley Motor Co.,
Streator, Ill. 6 1,850
“Rose” Rose Automobile Co.,
Detroit, Mich. 8 1,550
“Saurer” Saurer Motor Co.,
New York, N. Y.
“Saxon” Saxon Motor Corporation,
Detroit, Mich. 4-6 495 to 1,250
“Scripps-Booth” Scripps Booth
Corporation,
Detroit, Mich. 4-8 825 to 2,575
“Seneca” Seneca Motor Car Co.,
Fostoria, O. 4 735
“Simplicity” Evansville Automobile Co.,
Evansville, Ind.
“Simplex” Simplex Automobile Co.,
New York, N. Y.
(Chassis only) 6 6,000
“Singer” Singer Motor Car Co.,
New York, N. Y. 6 3,800 to 5,300
“Standard” Standard Steel Car Co.,
Pittsburgh, Pa. 8 1,950 to 2,000
“Stanley
Steam Car” Stanley Motor
Carriage Co.,
Newton, Mass.
(Steam) .... 2,200 to 2,300
“States” States Motor Car
Manufacturing Co.,
Kalamazoo, Mich. 4 845
“Stearns” F. B. Stearns Co.,
Cleveland, O. 4-8 1,450 to 3,500
“Stephens” Stephens Motor Branch,
Moline Plow Co.,
Freeport, Ill. 6 1,150
“Studebaker” Studebaker Corporation,
Detroit, Mich. 4-6 930 to 2,600
“Stutz” Stutz Motor Car Co.,
Indianapolis, Ind. 4 2,275 to 2,550
“Sun” Sun Motor Car Co.,
Elkhart, Ind. 6 1,095 to 1,295
“Thomas” E. R. Thomas Motor
Car Co.,
Buffalo, N. Y. 6 4,000 to 5,000
“Velie” Velie Motors Corporation,
Moline, Ill. 6 1,115 to 2,200
“Waco” Western Automobile Co.,
Seattle, Wash. 4 950
“Westcott” Westcott Motor Car Co.,
Springfield, O. 6 1,500 to 2,190
“White” White Motor Co.,
Cleveland, O. 4 4,600 up
“Willys-Knight” Willys-Overland Co.,
Toledo, O. 6 1,325
“Willys-Knight” Willys-Overland Co.,
Toledo, O. 4-8 1,285 to 1,950
“Winton” Winton Co.,
Cleveland, O. 6 2,685 to 4,750
“Woods” Woods Mobilette Co.,
Chicago, Ill. 4 380
“Wood’s Dual
Power” Woods Motor Vehicle Co.,
Chicago, Ill.
(Electric) .... 2,650
“Yale Eight” Saginaw Motor Car Co.,
Saginaw, Mich. 8 1,550
CHAPTER VIII.
GASOLINE TRUCKS AND DELIVERY CARS MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES.
This chapter is reprinted from _Everybody’s Magazine_ through the
courtesy of its publishers, who were kind enough to grant this
permission. This list was compiled so ably by the editorial staff of
_Everybody’s Magazine_ that it could not possibly have been improved
upon for publication in this volume.
A part of the information in the preceding chapter is also from
_Everybody’s Magazine_, and is reprinted here through the courtesy of
the publishers.
The cars and trucks listed have four cylinders, unless stated
otherwise. The prices are those that were in effect prior to April 1,
1917.
Capacity Tons Prices
“Acason,” Acason Motor Truck Co.,
Detroit, Mich., 2 models. Chassis
only. Hotchkiss drive 2 and 3-1/2 On application
“Acme,” Cadillac Auto Truck Co.,
Cadillac, Mich., 3 models. Bodies
extra. Worm drive 1 to 3-1/2 $1575 and $3000
“Armleder,” The O. Armleder Co.,
Cincinnati, Ohio, 2 models. Bodies
extra. Worm drive 2 and 3-1/2 2800 and 3500
“Atlas,” Martin Carriage Works, York,
Pa., 1 model. Bodies extra. Hotchkiss 1000 to
drive 1500 lbs. 750
“Atterbury,” Atterbury Motor Car Co.,
Buffalo, N. Y., 4 models. Chassis
only. Worm drive 1 to 3-1/2 1875 to 3375
“Autocar,” The Autocar Co., Ardmore,
Pa., 1 model, 2 cylinders. Bodies
extra. Shaft drive 1-1/2 to 2 $1650
“Available,” Available Truck Co., Chicago,
Ill., 4 models. Worm drive 1 to 5 1700 to $4400
“Avery,” Avery Company, Peoria, Ill.,
3 models. Bodies extra. Chain drive 2 to 5 2700 to 4500
“Beck,” Beck & Sons, Cedar Rapids,
Iowa, 4 models. Bodies extra. Internal
Gear drive 1 to 2-1/2 1080 to 2000
“Beech Creek,” Beech Creek Truck
& Auto Co., Beech Creek, Pa., 1
model. Chassis only. Gear drive 3 3850
“Bessemer,” Bessemer Motor Truck
Co., Grove City, Pa., 4 models. Bodies
extra. Worm drive 1 to 5 1075 to 4000
“Brinton,” Brinton Motor Truck Co.,
Philadelphia, Pa., 2 models. Chassis,
including Cab 1 and 2-1/2 995 to 2250
“Briscoe,” Briscoe Motor Corp., Jackson,
Mich., 2 models. Complete Shaft
drive 3/4 700 and 725
“Brockway,” Brockway Motor Truck
Co., Cortland, N. Y., 6 models.
Complete. Worm drive 1 to 2-1/2 1500 to 2250
“Burford,” Burford Motor Truck Co.,
Fremont, Ohio, 2 models. Chassis
only. Worm and Internal Gear
drive 2 and 4 2250 to 3600
“Chase,” Chase Motor Truck Co., Syracuse,
N. Y., 5 models. Complete.
Worm drive 3/4 to 3-1/2 1500 to 3200
“Coey,” Coey Motor Co., Chicago, Ill.,
1 model. Express bodies extra.
Shaft drive 1/2 695
“Collier,” Collier Motor Truck Co.,
Sandusky, Ohio, 1 model. With or
without body. Direct bevel drive 3/4 900 and 995
“Commerce,” Commerce Motor Car Co.,
Detroit, Mich., 2 models, 6 bodies.
Internal and Bevel Gear drive 3/4 and 1 875 to 1140
“Corbitt,” Corbitt Motor Truck Co.,
Henderson, N. C., 6 models. Bodies
extra. Worm drive 1 to 5 1450 to 3850
“Couple Gear,” Couple Gear Freight
Wheel Co., Grand Rapids, Mich., 3
models. Four-wheel drive. Complete.
(Gas electric.) 3-1/2 to 7 5200 to 6000
“Crane & Breed,” Crane & Breed Mfg.
Co., Cincinnati, Ohio, Funeral cars.
etc. 6 cylinders 3000 to 4200
“Crowther-Duryea,” Crowther Motor
Co., Rochester, N. Y., 1 model. Complete.
Roller drive 1/2 600
“Dart,” Dart Motor Truck Co., Waterloo,
Iowa, 3 models. Bodies extra.
Worm drive 1/2 to 2-1/2 1200 to 2470
“Dayton,” Dayton Motor Truck Co.,
Dayton, Ohio, 6 models. Chain and
Worm drive 2 to 7-1/2 2650 to 4950
“D-E,” Day-Elder Motors Co., Newark,
N. J., 3 models. Bodies extra.
Worm drive 1/2 to 1-1/2 975 to 1800
“De Kalb,” DeKalb Wagon Co., DeKalb,
Ill., 2 models. Bodies extra 2 to 2-1/2 2100 to 2450
“Denby,” Denby Motor Truck Co., Detroit,
Mich., 4 models. 1-ton complete.
Other bodies extra. Internal
gear drive 1 to 2-1/2 1275 to 2150
“Den Mo,” The Denneen Motor Co.,
Cleveland, Ohio., 1 model. Chassis
only. Internal gear drive 1-1/4 to 1-7/8 1385
“Diamond T,” Diamond T Motor Car
Co., Chicago, Ill., 5 models. Chassis
only 1 to 5 1485 to 4100
“Dispatch,” Dispatch Motor Car Co.,
Minneapolis, Minn., 2 models. Complete.
Internal chain drive 3/4 1100 to 1200
“Dorris,” Dorris Motor Car Co., St.
Louis, Mo., 1 model. Chassis only.
Worm drive 2 2185
“Downing,” Downing Motor Truck
Co., Detroit, Mich., 2 models 3/4 to 1-1/2 600 and 750
“Duplex 4-Wheel Drive,” Duplex
Truck Co., Lansing, Mich., 1 model. 3-1/2 3600
“Ellsworth,” Mills-Ellsworth Co., Keokuk,
Iowa, 1 model. Complete 1/2 695 and 720
“Erie,” Erie Motor Truck Mfg. Co.,
Erie, Pa., 3 models. Bodies extra.
Worm drive 1 to 3-1/2 1500 to 3000
“Fargo,” Fargo Motor Car Co., Chicago,
Ill., 1 model. Bodies extra.
Internal Gear drive 2 1390
“F. W. D.,” Four-Wheel Drive Auto
Co., Clintonville, Wis., 1 model.
Chassis only. Bevel Gear drive 3 4000
“Federal,” Federal Motor Truck Co.,
Detroit, Mich., 5 models. Bodies
extra. Worm drive 1 to 5 1650 to 4000
“Gabriel,” Gabriel Auto Co., Cleveland,
Ohio, 3 models. Chassis only.
Worm drive 3/4 to 1-1/2 1600 to 2300
“Garford,” The Garford Motor Truck
Co., Lima, Ohio, 10 models. Bodies
extra. Worm and Chain drive 1 to 10 1750 to 6000
“Gary,” The Gary Motor Truck Co.,
Gary, Ind., 5 models. Worm drive 3/4 to 3-1/2 On application
“Globe,” Globe Motor Truck Co.,
Northville Mich., 2 models, 6 cylinders.
Chassis only. Worm and Internal
Gear drive 1 and 2 1375 and 1985
“G. M. C.,” General Motors Truck Co.,
Pontiac, Mich., 6 models. Bodies
extra. Chain and Worm drive 3/4 to 5 1150 to 4150
“Gramm-Bernstein,” Gramm-Bernstein
Motor Truck Co., Lima, Ohio., 6
models. Bodies extra. Worm drive 1 to 6 On application
“Hahn,” Hahn Motor Truck & Wagon
Co., Hamburg, Pa., 4 models. Worm
drive 3/4 to 3-1/2 1150 to 4150
“Hall,” Lewis Hall Iron Works, Detroit,
Mich., 3 models. Worm and
Chain drive 2 to 5 2000 to 3600
“Harley-Davidson,” Harley-Davidson
Motor Co., Milwaukee, Wis., 3 models.
Cycle delivery 300 lbs. 310 to 380
“Harvey,” Harvey Motor Truck Company,
Harvey, Ill., 3 models. Bodies
extra. Worm drive 2-1/2 to 5 2500 to 4000
“Hatfield,” Cortland Cart & Carriage
Co., Sidney, N. Y., 3 models. Complete.
Bevel Gear drive 1000 lbs. 765 to 820
“Hawkeye,” Hawkeye Mfg. Co., Sioux
City, Iowa, 1 model. Chassis only.
Internal Gear drive 1-1/4 1300
“Henderson Bros.” Henderson Bros.,
North Cambridge, Mass., 2 models. 1200 lbs.
Chassis only. Worm drive and 1 ton 1225 and 1500
“Hewitt-Ludlow,” Hewitt-Ludlow Auto
Co., San Francisco, Cal. 5 models.
Chassis only. Worm and Chain
drive. Also tractors 1 to 5 1800 to 4550
“Hoover,” Hoover Wagon Co., York,
Pa., 1 model. Bodies to order.
Worm drive 3/4 1190
“Horner,” Detroit-Wyandotte Motor
Truck Co., Wyandotte, Mich., 4
models. Bodies extra. Worm drive 1 to 5 2350 to 4200
“Houghton,” The Houghton Motor Car
Co., Marion, Ohio, hearses and ambulances.
Worm drive 3/4 1585 to 1650
“Hurlburt,” Hurlburt Motor Co., New
York City, N. Y., 5 models. Worm
drive. Chassis only 1-1/2 to 7 2250 to 5000
“Independent,” Independent Motors
Co., Port Huron, Mich., 2 models.
Worm drive 1 and 2 1385 and 1850
“Indiana,” Indiana Truck Co., Marion,
Ind., 4 models. Bodies extra 1 to 5 1385 to 3500
“International,” International Harvester
Co., Chicago, Ill., 2 models.
Bodies extra. Internal Gear drive. 3/4 and 1 1225 and 1500
“Jeffery,” The Nash Motors Co., Kenosha,
Wis., 3 models. Bodies extra.
Bevel and Internal Gear drive 3/4 to 2 965 to 2850
“Kearns,” Kearns Motor Truck Co.,
Beavertown, Pa., 1 model. Complete.
Shaft drive 1000 lbs. 785
“Kelly,” The Kelly-Springfield Motor
Truck Co., Springfield, Ohio, 8 models.
Chassis only. Worm and
Chain drive 1-1/2 to 6 2250 to 4600
“King,” A. R. King Mfg. Co., Kingston,
N. Y., 1 model. Chassis only. Chain
drive 3-1/2 2600
“Kissel,” The Kissel Motor Co., Hartford,
Wis., 7 models. Bodies extra.
Worm and bevel drive 3/4 to 5 950 to 2850
“Kleiber,” Kleiber & Co., Inc., San
Francisco, Cal., 5 models. Bodies
extra. Worm drive 1-1/2 to 5 2250 to 4500
“Knickerbocker,” Knickerbocker Motors,
Inc., N. Y. City, 3 models.
Bodies extra. Worm drive. Also
3-ton tractor 3 to 5 3500 to 4500
“Koehler,” H. J. Koehler Motors Corp.,
Newark, N. J., 1 model. Bodies
extra. Internal Gear drive 1 895
“Koenig & Luhrs,” Koenig & Luhrs
Wagon Co., Quincy, Ill., 1 model 3/4 900
“Krebs,” Krebs Commercial Car Co.,
Clyde, Ohio, 4 models. Bodies extra.
Worm drive 1-1/2 to 5 2050 to 4000
“Lambert,” Buckeye Mfg. Co., Anderson,
Ind., 5 models. Also tractors.
Chain drive 1/2 to 2 900 to 2200
“Lamson,” Zeitler & Lamson Truck
Co., Chicago, Ill., 4 models. Chassis
only. Worm drive. Also tractor
and dumping equipment 1 to 5 1550 to 4350
“Lange,” Lange Motor Truck Co.,
Pittsburgh, Pa., 2 models. Bodies
extra 1 to 3-1/2 1850 to 2450
“Larrabee,” Larrabee-Deyo Motor
Truck Co., Binghamton, N. Y., 4
models. Bodies extra. Worm drive 1 to 2-1/2 1600 to 3300
“Lenox,” Lenox Motor Car Co., Boston,
Mass., 2 models, 4 and 6 cylinders.
12 to 28 tons haulage Tractor On application
“Leslie,” Leslie Motor Car Co., Detroit,
Mich., 1 model. Kerosene fuel 3/4 On application
“Lippard-Stewart,” Lippard-Stewart
Motor Car Co., Buffalo, N. Y., 5
models. Bodies extra. Worm drive 1/2 to 2 1000 to 2600
“Little Giant,” Chicago Pneumatic
Tool Co., Chicago, Ill., 3 models.
Bodies extra. Chain and Worm
drive 1 to 5 1400 to 4250
“Maccar,” Maccar Truck Co., Scranton,
Pa., 4 models. Chassis only.
Worm drive 1 to 5-1/2 2100 to 4150
“Mack,” International Motor Co., N.
Y. City, 6 models. Chassis only.
Chain and Worm drive 1 to 7-1/2 2150 to 4600
“Maxim,” Maxim Motor Co., Middleboro,
Mass., 2 models, 4 and 6 cylinders.
Bodies extra. Fire apparatus
special. Worm drive 2 2500 and 3500
“M. H. C.,” Michigan Hearse & Motor
Co., Grand Rapids, Mich., funeral
cars, etc., 6 cylinders On application
“The Menominee,” Menominee Motor
Truck Co., Menominee, Mich., 5
models. Bodies extra. Worm drive. 3/4 to 3-1/2 1295 to 2775
“Mercury,” The Mercury Mfg. Co.,
Chicago, Ill., tractor, 3 models 3400
“Modern,” Bowling Green Motor Truck
Co., Bowling Green, Ohio, 2 models.
Chassis only. Worm drive 1 and 2 1500 and 2000
“Moeller,” New Haven Truck & Auto
Works, New Haven, Conn., 3 models.
Bodies extra. Chain drive 1-1/2 to 5 2500 to 4500
“Mogul,” Mogul Motor Truck Co., St.
Louis, Mo., 4 models. Bodies extra.
Worm and Chain drive 1-1/2 to 6 1600 to 4000
“Monarch,” Monarch Light Truck Co.,
Milwaukee, Wis., 2 models. Bodies
extra. Worm drive 1/2 and 1 750 and 950
“Moon,” Jos. W. Moon Buggy Co., St.
Louis, Mo., 2 models. Bodies extra.
Chain and Shaft drive 3/4 to 1-1/2 950 and 1650
“Moreland,” Moreland Motor Truck
Co., Los Angeles, Cal., 4 models.
Chassis only. Worm drive 3/4 to 5 1290 to 4250
“Morton,” Morton Truck and Tractor
Co., Harrisburg, Pa., 1 model.
Chassis only. Worm drive 3 4250
“Nelson Lemoon,” Nelson & LeMoon,
Chicago, Ill., 4 models. Worm drive.
Chassis only 1 to 5 1700 to 4200
“Netco,” New England Truck Co.,
Fitchburg, Mass., 3 models, 4 and 6
cylinders. Bodies and fire apparatus
extra. Worm drive 1-1/2 to 2 2350 to 4250
“Niles,” Niles Car & Mfg. Co., Niles,
Ohio, 2 models. Bodies to order.
Worm drive 1 and 2 1500 to 2400
“Northwestern,” Star Carriage Co.,
Seattle, Wash., 1 model. Bodies
extra. Worm drive 1-1/2 2150
“Old Hickory,” Kentucky Wagon Mfg.
Co., Louisville, Ky., 1 model. Bodies
extra. Bevel Gear drive 1250 lbs. 825
“Old Reliable,” Old Reliable Motor
Truck Co., Chicago, Ill., 12 models.
Bodies and trailers extra. Chain
and Worm drive 1-1/2 to 7 1950 to 5000
“Packard,” Packard Motor Car Co.,
Detroit, Mich., 7 models. Bodies
extra. Worm drive 1 to 6 2200 to 4550
“Palmer-Moore,” Palmer-Moore Co.,
Syracuse, N. Y., 2 models. Bodies
extra. Internal Gear drive 1 and 2 1075 and 1675
“Paragan,” Paragan Motor Truck Co.,
Auburn, Ind., 1 model, 4 bodies 1 975
“Peerless,” Peerless Motor Car Co.,
Cleveland, Ohio, 6 models. Bodies
and tractors extra. Chain and
Worm drive 2 to 6 3000 to 5000
“Pierce-Arrow,” Pierce-Arrow Motor
Car Co., Buffalo, N. Y., 2 models.
Bodies extra. Worm drive 2 and 5 3000 to 4500
“Piggins,” Piggins Motor Truck Co.,
Racine, Wis., 4 models. Chassis
only. Enclosed Spur Gear drive 1 to 5 1750 to 3850
“Rainer,” Rainer Motor Corp., N. Y.
City, 1 model. Bodies extra. Worm
drive 1/2 875
“Reo,” Reo Motor Car Co., Lansing,
Mich., 2 models 3/4-ton with express
body. Other, chassis only. Shaft
and Chain drive 3/4 and 5 1000 and 1650
“Republic,” Republic Motor Truck Co.,
Alma, Mich., 4 models, 3/4-ton complete.
Other bodies extra. Internal
Gear drive 3/4 to 5 750 to 2550
“Riker,” The Locomobile Co. of America,
Bridgeport, Conn., 2 models.
Bodies, tractor, etc., extra. Worm
drive 3 and 4 3600 to 3750
“Rowe,” Rowe Motor Mfg. Co., Downington,
Pa., 5 models. Chassis only.
Fire apparatus special 1 to 5 2450 to 4500
“Rush,” Rush Motor Truck Co., Philadelphia,
Pa., 1 model. Bodies extra.
Bevel Gear drive. 1/2 735
“Sandow,” Sandow Motor Truck Co.,
Chicago, Ill., 4 models. Bodies extra.
Worm drive 1 to 3-1/2 1150 to 3250
“Sanford,” Sanford Motor Truck Co.,
Syracuse, N. Y., 3 models. Chassis
only. Internal Gear drive 3/4 to 2 1290 to 2100
“Saurer,” International Motor Co., N.
Y. City, 2 models. Chassis only. 5 and
Chain drive 6-1/2 4800 to 5800
“Schacht,” The G. A. Schacht Motor
Truck Co., Cincinnati, Ohio, 3 models. 1-1/2
Bodies extra. Worm drive to 3 2650 to 3200
“Selden,” Selden Truck Sales Co.,
Rochester, N. Y., 5 models. Bodies 3/4
extra. Worm drive to 3-1/2 985 to 3150
“Service,” Service Motor Truck Co.,
Wabash, Ind., 5 models. Bodies
extra. Worm drive 1 to 5 1375 to 4000
“Signal,” Signal Motor Truck Co., Detroit,
Mich., 5 models. Bodies extra.
Worm drive 1 to 5 1550 to 4000
“Standard,” Standard Motor Truck
Co., Detroit, Mich., 3 models. Chain
and Worm drive 2 to 5 2300 to 3700
“Stanley,” Stanley Motor Carriage
Co., Newton, Mass., 2 models, steam 3/4
power. Bodies extra to 1-1/4 1775 to 2200
“Stegeman,” Stegeman Motor Car Co.,
Milwaukee, Wis., 5 models, 6 cylinders.
Bodies extra. Worm drive 2 to 7 2250 to 4600
“Sterling,” Sterling Motor Truck Co.,
Milwaukee, Wis., 4 models. Chassis
only. Worm and Chain drive 2-1/2 to 7 2800 to 5250
“Stewart,” Stewart Motor Corp., Buffalo,
N. Y., 3 models. Bodies extra. 3/4
Internal Gear drive to 1-1/2 795 to 1485
“Studebaker,” Studebaker Corp. of
America, Detroit, Mich., 2 models.
With and without bodies. Shaft
drive 1/2 and 1 876 to 1250
“Superior,” E. G. Willingham’s Sons,
Atlanta, Ga., 2 models. Bodies
extra. Internal Gear drive 1 and 2 1350 and 1800
“Thomas,” Thomas Auto Truck Co.,
Inc., New York City, 1 model. Bodies
extra. Worm drive 2 to 2-1/2 2700
“Ton A Ford” (Extension Chassis),
Ton A Ford Truck Co., Racine, Wis.
Ford chassis and motor. Bodies
extra 1 685
“Tower,” Tower Motor Truck Co.,
Greenville, Mich., 5 models. Bodies
extra 3/4 to 3 1150 to 2500
“Trabold,” Trabold Truck Mfg. Co.,
Johnstown, Pa., 2 models. Chassis
only 1 and 2 975 and 1750
“Trojan,” The Commercial Truck Co.,
Cleveland, Ohio, 2 models. Bodies
extra. Worm drive 1 1500 and 1600
“United,” United Motors Co., Grand
Rapids, Mich., 4 models. Bodies
extra. Worm drive 2 to 5 2250 to 3900
“U. S.,” United States Motor Truck
Co., Cincinnati, Ohio, 5 models.
Bodies extra. Chain and Worm 2-1/2
drive to 5 2500 to 4400
“Universal,” Universal Service Co.,
Detroit, Mich., 4 models. Bodies 1-1/2
extra. Chain and Worm drive to 3 2000 to 3400
“Veerac,” Veerac Company, Minneapolis,
Minn., 3 models, 2 cylinders. 3/4
Complete. Chain drive and 1 950 to 1150
“Velle,” Velle Motors Corp., Moline,
Ill., 2 models. Bodies extra. Worm
drive 2 and 3-1/2 2250 and 3350
“Viall,” Viall Motor Car Co., Chicago,
Ill., 4 models. Chassis only. Chain
and Worm drive 1-1/2 to 5 1650 to 3250
“Vim,” Vim Motor Truck Co., Philadelphia,
Pa., 12 delivery bodies.
Complete. Bevel Gear drive 695 to 1385
“Voltz,” Voltz Brothers, Chicago, Ill.,
2 models. Bodies extra. Chain
drive 3 and 5 2750 and 3600
“Walter,” Walter Motor Truck Co., N.
Y. City., 6 models. Also tractor.
Bodies extra. Internal Gear drive 3 to 7-1/2 4000 to 4500
“Ware,” Twin City Four Wheel Drive
Co., St. Paul, Minn., 3 models. Complete.
Direct Shaft drive 2-1/2 and 5 2800 to 4800
“Watson,” Watson Wagon Co., Canastota,
N. Y. Tractor and Trailer 5 On application
“White,” The White Co., Cleveland,
Ohio, 4 models. Bodies extra. Fire
apparatus, etc., special. Chain and 3/4 to
Shaft drive 5 2100 to 4500
“Wichita,” Wichita Falls Motor Co.,
Wichita Falls, Texas, 8 models.
Bodies extra. Worm and Chain
drive 1 to 5 1650 to 3850
“Wilcox Trux,” Wilcox Motor Truck
Co., Minneapolis, Minn., 5 models. 3/4 to
Bodies extra. Worm drive 3-1/2 On application
“Wilson,” J. C. Wilson Co., Detroit,
Mich., 4 models, 5-ton haulage.
Body extra. Worm Gear drive 1 to 3 1375 to 2650
“Wisconsin,” Myers Machine Co., Sheboygan,
Wis., 4 models. Bodies
extra. Worm drive 1-1/4 to 5 1650 to 4500
“Wonder,” Wonder Motor Truck Co.,
Chicago, Ill., 1 model, 3 bodies.
(Truck and Pleasure.) 1 800 to 850
ELECTRIC COMMERCIAL VEHICLES
“Atlantic,” Atlantic Electric Vehicle
Co., Newark, N. J., 4 models. With
or without bodies. Chain drive 1 to 5 On application
“Beardsley,” Beardsley Electric Vehicle
Co., Los Angeles, Cal., 2 models. 150 and
Shaft drive 2000 lbs. 1185 and 2000
“C. T.” Commercial Truck Co. of
America, Phila., Pa., 5 models.
Chassis only. Gear drive 1/2 to 5 1500 to 3500
“Couple Gear,” Couple Gear Freight
Wheel Co., Grand Rapids, Mich., 2
models. Four-wheel drive. Complete 3-1/2 and 5 4400 and 5000
“Fritchie,” Fritchie Electric Co., Denver,
Colo., 1 model. Complete 1/2 2000
“G. V.,” General Vehicle Co., Inc.,
Long Island City, N. Y., 6 models.
Bodies extra. Worm and Chain
drive 1/2 to 5 1700 to 3700
“Lansden,” Lansden Co., Inc., Brooklyn,
N. Y., 6 models. Chassis only.
Chain and direct drive 1/2 to 6 1460 to 3500
“Mercury,” The Mercury Mfg. Co.,
Chicago, Ill., 3 models Tractor 1274 to 4435
“Walker,” Walker Vehicle Co., Chicago,
Ill., 6 models. Chassis only.
Tractors up to 10 tons. Balance
drive 1/2 to 5 On application
“Ward,” Ward Motor Vehicle Co.,
Mount Vernon, N. Y., 5 models.
Chassis only. Worm and Helical
Bevel drive 1/3 to 5 760 up
GENERAL INDEX
Page
Abbott Corporation, 96-221
Accessories; importance in the automobile industry, 120
Advertising; influence in popularizing automobiles, 83, 84, 85, 86,
87, 88, 91, 97
Aid by dealers in promoting automobile industry, 143, 144
Ajax Rubber Tire Co., 178, 179, 182, 188, 190
Alliance Rubber Tire Co., 182, 188
Allison, Robert, purchaser of first American gasoline car, 76
Allen Motor Car Co., 96, 221
Aluminum, extent of use in automobiles, 44
American Automobile Association, 35, 133, 135
American Motors Corporation, 95, 182, 188, 221
America’s part in inventing fundamentals of the automobile, 77
America’s part in the first commercialization of the automobile, 78
Apperson Brothers, 115, 194, 221
Appreciation in value of automobile stocks, 201, 202
Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers, 37, 38, 39, 109,
112, 135
Attitude of people toward the automobile in 1893-8, 75
Auburn Automobile Co., 95, 221
Auto Body Co., 193
Automobile, accessories and tire securities traded in on New York
Curb 1906, 1909, 1912 and 1916, 187-191
Automobile market for 1917, estimated, 215, 216, 217, 218
Automobiles, commercial—names, capacity, maker, price, 231-242
Automobile securities traded in on New York Stock Exchange, 1906,
1909, 1912 and 1916, 178-183
Automobiles, passenger—names, cylinders, maker, price, 221-229
Average price all motor vehicles, 1916, 100, 139, 174, 175
Average price of automobile and tire stocks traded in on New York
Stock Exchange 1906, 1909, 1912 and 1916, 185
Average price of automobile tire and accessories stocks traded in on
New York Curb 1906, 1909, 1912 and 1916, 192
Benefits of the automobile in affording first hand knowledge—social
and economic value, 155-166
Ben-Hur Motor Co., 96, 221
Benz, builder of first internal combustion road vehicle, 69, 74, 77
Blanchard, Thomas, early American auto builder, 62
Bollee, Frenchman who attained highest efficiency in early automobile
construction, 64, 65, 67
Bouton, French maker of gasoline cars, 72, 78
Brady, A. F., early automobile capitalist, 108
Brush Automobile Co., 201
Buick Motor Co., 95, 221
Cadillac Motor Co., 93, 95, 115, 222
Capital invested in automobiles, 141
Case, J. I., T. M. Co., 95, 222
Chalmers Motor Car Co., 96, 115, 118, 181, 187, 193, 196, 222
Chandler Motor Co., 96, 178, 179, 182, 188, 190, 222
Character of American people largely responsible for automobile’s
commercial success, 89, 90
Chevrolet Motor Co., 96, 181, 187, 193, 205, 222
Chromium—value in automobile construction, 129
Cole Motor Car Co., 96, 222
Columbia Motor Co., 201, 222
Columbia Automobile Co. of New Jersey, 108
Companies whose securities are not generally traded in, 184, 185
Consolidated Car Co., 194
Continental Motors, 193
Consolidated Rubber Tire Co., 182, 188
Co-operation in automobile industry, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130,
132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137
Crow-Elkhart Motor Car Co., 96, 221
Cugnot, Nicholas Joseph, inventor of first automobile, 50, 51, 52,
53, 54, 57, 77, 78
Cunningham, Jas. Son & Co., 96, 222
Daimler, Gottlieb, inventor of hot tube ignition, 69, 70, 77
Decrease in average price of automobiles, 28, 100, 175
De Dion, French maker of gasoline cars, 72, 78
Depreciation in automobile stocks, 201, 202
Detroit Automobile Co., 93
Difficulty in getting capital, 142
Distribution of leading motor cars by states, 213
Doble, builder of steam cars, 118, 223
Dodge Brothers, 96, 194, 223
Dorris Motor Car Co., 95, 223
Dort Motor Car Co., 96, 223
Drexel Motor Car Corporation, 96, 223
Duryea, Charles E., builder of first gasoline automobile in America
that ran (frontispiece), 72, 74, 76, 92, 93
Economy of factory operation, 43, 130, 131, 132
Edmunds & Jones Corporation, 197
Electric automobiles; when first sold in commercial quantities in the
United States, 78
Electric Vehicle Co., 182, 188
Electric Vehicle Co. of New Jersey, 69, 114
Elgin Motor Car Co., 96, 223
Emerson Motors Co., 181, 187, 201, 223
Enger Motor Car Co., 182, 188, 223
Enthusiasm part in industry’s success, 92
Essex Motor Co., 183, 189
Evans, Oliver, first known American experimenter with steam
automobile, 57, 58, 59, 60, 72
Falls Motor Co., 181, 187
Federal Motor Truck Co., 194, 234
Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., 193, 199
First automobile ever made, 50, 51, 52, 53
First auto race in America, 73
First auto race in the world, 73
First automobile run on a road with any success, 56
First chaise propelled by other than horse power, 50
First electric automobile built and first sold in the United States,
71, 118
First automobile built in America that ran; first sold in the United
States, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 118
First modern steam car built in the United States; first sold in the
United States, 70, 118
First use of internal combustion to drive piston in cylinder, 50
Fisher Body Corporation, 183, 189, 197, 198
Fisk Tire Co., 183, 189, 200
Ford, Henry (frontispiece), 37, 38, 39, 74, 76, 81, 83, 92, 93, 94,
98, 101, 102, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115
Ford Motor Co., 94, 95, 194, 224
Ford Motor Company of Canada, 193, 195, 224
Ford Tractor Co., 201
Franklin, Benjamin Frontispiece,
Franklin, H. H. Mfg. Co., 95, 115, 195, 224
Frederick, J. George, quotation, 148, 149
Future of automobile accessories, 216, 217
Future of automotive inventions in rural districts, 124, 125
Future of commercial automobiles, 116, 117
Future of electric automobile industry, 116
Future of automobile industry as an investment, 145, 146, 147, 149,
150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 216, 217
Future of the tire industry and stocks, 217
Future trend of automobile securities, 206, 207, 209
General Motors Co., 29, 178, 179, 182, 183, 188, 189, 190, 193, 196,
197, 234
Glide automobile, 95, 224
Goodrich, B. F. Co., 178, 179, 182, 188, 190, 193
Good roads; aid to automobile increase, 46, 47, 133, 166
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 193
Gramm Motor Truck Co., 195, 234
Grant Motor Car Corporation, 181, 187, 224
Growth, record for rapidity held by automobile industry, 173
Gurney, Goldsworthy, early English automobile builder, 63, 77
Hancock, Walter, early English automobile builder, 63, 77
Harroun Motors Corporation 96, 201, 224
Haynes Automobile Co., 195, 224
Haynes, Elwood, builder of third successful gasoline car made in
America, 74, 76, 77, 92, 93, 94, 115
High and low prices during 1916 of representative mining, steel,
industrial and railroad groups of securities compared with
similar groups in automobile field, 204
Horses, what each consumes and number in United States, 168
Hudson Motor Car Co., 96, 225
Hupp Motor Car Corporation 96, 225, 181, 187
Imperial Carbon Chaser Co., 181, 187
Increase in production of motor trucks, 100, 139, 140
Increase of population in United States in 16 years, 91
Increase of wealth in United States in 12 years, 91
Intercon. Rubber Co., 183, 189
Inter. Motors Co., 189
Interstate Motor Co., 96, 225
James, W. H., English inventor and auto builder, 61, 62, 77
Kelly Springfield Tire Co., 178, 179, 183, 189, 190, 202, 205
Kelsey Wheel, 183, 189
Keystone Tire & Rubber Co., 181, 187
Kissel Motor Car Co., 96, 195
Knight, inventor of motor, 77, 229
Lee Tire & Rubber Co., 178, 179, 183, 189, 190, 205
Leland, of the Cadillac Co., 115
Levassor, who solved problem of road shock, 72, 77
Lexington motor car, 96, 225
Locomobile Company of America, 95, 225
Madison Motors Co., 96, 226
Machining, part played by, 43, 44, 130
Maibohm Motors Co., 96, 226
Marmon automobile, 95, 226
Maxwell-Briscoe, 201
Maxwell Motor Co., 96, 178, 179, 190, 193, 201, 226
McDonald, J. B., purchaser first electric automobile built, 71
Mechanical imperfections of early automobiles, 61
Metropolitan Motors Co., 183, 189
Mitchell Motors Co., 95, 181, 187, 195, 226
Moline-Knight, 95, 226
Monarch Motor Car Co., 96, 226
Money-earning possibilities of automobile investments now the
greatest, 174
Moon Motor Car Co., 96, 226, 237
Morrison, William, builder first electric automobile, 71
Motor Products Co., 183, 189, 197, 198
Murdock, William, builder of model of second automobile, 54, 55, 56
Mutual Motors Co., 195
National Automobile Chamber of Commerce, 28, 29, 30, 38, 135
National Auto Corporation, 181, 187
National Motor Car & Vehicle Corporation, 196, 227
Newer entrants into securities market, 200, 201
Non-Skid chain, 122
Non-Skid tread, 123
Number of automobile manufacturers who failed, 30, 97, 106
Number of automobiles produced in 1903, 30
Number of automobiles produced in 1907, 33
Number of automobiles produced in 1908, 34
Number of automobiles produced in 1909-10-11-12-13-14-15-16, 30, 34,
100, 139, 150
Number of commercial vehicles produced in 1915, 146
Number of commercial vehicles produced in 1916, 28, 140, 147
Number of farms in United States, 146
Number of miles of roads improved and unimproved in United States, 168
Number of passenger automobiles produced in 1916, 28
Number of people in United States with incomes over $1,800, 41
Number of people in United States with incomes over $1,200, 41
Number of “rich” people in the United States, 145
Oakland Motor Car Co., 96, 227
Ohio Electric Car Co., 96, 227
Olds, successful American auto builder, 81, 95, 115, 227
Opposition, early, to automobile “craze”, 104, 105
Otto, inventor of gas engine, 69, 113
Output of automobile makers, how planned, 41
Packard Motor Car Co., 95, 193, 227, 238
Paige-Detroit Motor Car Co., 96, 193, 227
Panhard, French maker of gasoline cars, 72, 78
Pecqueur, discoverer of principle of “differential”, 62, 63, 77
Peerless Motor Car Co., 95, 181, 187, 227
Percentage gain automobile production 1915 over 1914, 28
Percentage gain automobile production 1916 over 1915, 28
Per cent of value added by manufacture to automobiles, 82
Period of automobile industry’s greatest development in the United
States, 76
Perlman Rim Corporation, 183, 189, 197, 198
Peugeot, French maker of gasoline cars, 72, 78
Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Co., 95, 181, 187, 195, 197, 227
Pope Manufacturing Co., 108, 182, 188
Portage Rubber Co., 193
Premier Motor Corporation, 95, 228
Present trend of automobile, accessories and tire securities, 205,
206, 228
Princess Motor Car Corporation, 183, 189, 228
Prospects when war ends for automobile industry, 47, 48
Pullman Motor Car Co., 95, 228
Quantity production of automobiles, 41, 43, 92, 98, 101
Rate of growth of automobile production and registration compared
with population, 208
Ratio of voting men to each registered automobile in United States,
210, 211
“Rauch & Lang” automobile, 95, 228
Regal Motor Car Co., 96, 228
Registration of automobiles; increase since 1906, 174
Reliability contests; value of, 34, 35, 36
Reo Motor Car Co., 96, 193, 228, 239
Republic Motor Truck Co., 181, 187, 189, 195, 239
Republic Rubber Co., 193
Retail sales of motor vehicles in 1916, 28
Riker, builder of steam cars, 78, 115, 118, 239
Rims, demountable, 123
Roper, S. H., builder of first modern steam car in United States, 70
Rubber Goods Manufacturing Co., 178, 180, 190
Ryan, Thomas F., early automobile capitalist, 108
Sampson, 201
Saturation, point of, not imminent, 31, 145, 146, 151, 176, 209, 214
Saxon Motors Co., 96, 178, 180, 183, 189, 190, 228
Scripps-Booth Corporation, 96, 181, 187, 228
Securities, leading examples of prices, terms and promotion plans on
which they were put out, 195-200
Securities, trading in, Cleveland Stock Exchange, 193
Securities, trading in, Detroit Stock Exchange, 193
Selden, Geo. B., first patentor of gasoline motor, 65, 66, 67, 68,
69, 77, 104, 114
Selden “patent”, 37, 104, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114
Self-starter, the, 44, 45, 122
Serpollet, made use of dry steam possible, 73, 77
Sliding transmission, 123
Society of Automotive Engineers, 44, 135
Smith Motor Truck Co., 181, 187
Spark plug, chambered, 123
Springfield Body Co., 181, 187
Standardization of manufacture of automobiles, 82, 97, 99, 100, 135,
136
Standard Motor Co., 181, 187, 239
Stanley, builder of steam cars, 78, 118, 119, 228, 240
Stearns, B. F. Co., 95, 115, 195, 229
Stocks of automobile companies; when they became known in the
legitimate market, 173
Stoddard-Dayton, 201
Stromberg Carburetor Co., 181, 187
Studebaker Corporation, 95, 178, 180, 182, 188, 190, 193, 202, 205,
229, 240
Stutz Motor Car Co., 96, 178, 180, 183, 189, 190, 229
Supremacy of United States in automobile industry, 79, 80, 81, 82, 102
Swinehart Tire & Rubber Co., 193
Thomas, E. R., Motor Car Co., 95, 115, 229, 240
Time payment plan in buying automobiles, 40, 41
Time required to develop automobile, 49
Times Square Auto Supply Co., 183, 189
Tires, rubber; history of, 74, 120, 121, 122, 140
Tires, solid, 123
Tractors, economical value and future, 147, 148, 149
Transue & Williams Steel Forging Co., 197, 199
Trevithick, Richard, early English automobile maker, 56, 57, 58, 77
Tungsten, value in automobile construction, 129
United Alloy Steel Corporation, 197, 198, 199
United Motors Co., 182, 187, 205, 240
United States Motors Co., 182, 188, 201, 240
United States Rubber Co., 178, 180, 190, 200
Universal Motor Co., 183, 189
Value of automobiles produced 1899 to 1916, 139
Value of automobiles produced 1907 to 1909, 34
Value of motor trucks produced in 1916, 28
Value of passenger cars produced in 1916, 28
Vanadium; value in automobile construction, 129
Velie Motors Corporation, 96, 229
War orders for automobile trucks, 1913-14, 47
War orders for automobile trucks, 1914-15, 47
War use of trucks; value in warfare, 169-170
Watt, James, inventor of steam engine, 51
When early automobile had a “vogue” in England, 63
When French began selling automobiles in quantity, 78
White, inventor of generator for steam cars, 77, 78, 95, 118, 119
White Motor Co., 95, 178, 180, 183, 189, 190, 193, 229, 241
Whitney, William O., early automobile capitalist, 108
Why early English automobiles failed, 64
Why gasoline cars are preferred, 118
Widener, P. A. B., early automobile capitalist, 108
Willys-Overland Co., 42, 43, 81, 95, 115, 178, 180, 182, 188, 190,
196, 227, 229
Winton, Alexander, sold first American gasoline car, 76, 78, 93, 94,
95, 115
Winton Co., 195, 229
Women as auto owners and drivers, 45, 46, 123
Year automobile industry entered “billion dollar class”, 27
Year of start of automobile business as a “real” industry, 33
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