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.