Chapter VII Automotive Transportation
Automotive transportation is a matter of such recent growth that only a few of the elements entering it have as yet become fixed or standardized—the whole question is still in the experimental or growing stage. The next few years will probably see as many, if not as radical, changes in equipment and operation as have the past few. The law of evolution seems to include a period of slow growth or sort of weak feeling-out; then a period of very rapid growth, developing usually along several lines; and finally a ripening or fixing period in which standardization is reached. The automotive industries are now beginning the third period. Revolutionary changes are not to be expected, but there will be many minor ones seeking efficiency or economy. The machinery of transportation, the motor car and the roadway, are, perhaps, in a later stage of standardization than are the social and legal phases of the subject. The relative rights of the people on the street and driver of the car have yet to be determined. The relation between automotive transportation and the older forms of transportation is still in a very formative stage. Plans and organizations for operating systems of highway transport and methods of accounting which shall be fair to owner and patron have in a large measure yet to be developed.
These things must necessarily be true in a new and growing industry. Why, encyclopedias published in the ’eighties make no mention whatever of the motor car or automobile. In fact, the first practical automobiles were put on the market after 1893, and trucks were not sold as such until 1903, ten years later. This was about the period when automobiles were being made over by change of body into “business wagons.” But so rapidly has the use of the motor car grown, automobile registrations increasing from about one million in 1912 to more than eleven millions in 1922, that, so it is stated, 80 per cent of all cars manufactured are still in use.
Automotive transportation may be considered to include all conveyance from one place to another by means of motor vehicles. A motor vehicle is one which carries within itself the source of mechanical power which propels it providing that source be not muscular. This definition would include the tractor, the road roller, the torpedo, and the locomotive, which are ordinarily excluded. For the purposes of this discussion an automobile or motor car may be considered as a self-propelled vehicle which transports a burden other than itself as a weight upon its own wheels. This will exclude the tractor and the locomotive, which though self-propelled, are intended to draw other vehicles rather than to carry the load; also the road roller and the torpedo, which have no burden to transport other than their own weights. Some definitions would confine a motor vehicle to one designed to move on common roads or highways. However, motor cars are now being used on railroad tracks; they are entitled to and should be allowed the use of the name. The automobile may have as the source of power internal-combustion engines using such fuel as gasoline, kerosene, benzol, and alcohol; it may use steam generated by these fuels; or an electric storage battery charged by sources outside the engine may furnish the propelling force. The load transported will either be passenger or freight. Passenger traffic may be classified as business or pleasure. If a vehicle is used mostly for business, first cost and economy of operation may play a more important part in the purchase of the car than if used for pleasure, in which case appearance and luxurious appointments may be the deciding factor.
1. The Cugnot Steam Carriage—1770.
2. The Trevithick & Vivian Steam Carriage—1801.
3. The Gurney Steam Carriage—1827.
4. The Church Automobile Carriage (Steam)—1833.
5. Gaillardit’s Steam Carriage—1894.
(Courtesy of the Scientific American.)
Business Passenger Traffic—All machines that haul passengers for hire, that are used as a means of performing, promoting, or extending business relations, while so used, may be rightly considered business machines and the traffic business traffic. The physician who finds that he can quadruple the number of his daily calls; the traveling salesman who can double the territory covered and do it much more efficiently; the business or professional man, of whatever kind, who uses his automobile in going from one place to another in the performance of his duties; the farmer who comes to town to get his mail and information relative to markets or otherwise to assist him with his farm industry; and the multifold other uses which are for the advantage of financial or industrial enterprise may constitute a legitimate business passenger traffic. The transportation, however, by taxi-cab, jitney or bus is considered by many persons to be the type that should be classified under the term business passenger traffic.
Jitney and taxi-cab traffic are of vast importance in the cities and are of real economic use in furnishing a rapid means of transit from point to point. The jitney is usually a privately owned vehicle not especially constructed for the business, which plies with more or less regularity over a route that may or may not be set out in the owner’s license. In early days the price of a ride was a “nickel” or “jitney” hence the name.
Taxi-cabs are regularly licensed automobiles that carry passengers for hire, usually making the charge dependent more or less upon the distance traveled, which is registered by a taximeter. For example, the charge may be 25 cents plus 15 cents per mile or fraction thereof. This would make the charge for distances less than 1 mile, 40 cents; from 1 mile to 2 miles, 55 cents; from 2 to 3 miles, 70 cents; and so on. The driver usually turns the taximeter up to the fixed charge plus 1 mile, if fractions are counted as full miles, when the passenger enters, and the instrument adds on as the cab travels. Of course the taximeter may be made to register every quarter, every fifth, or every tenth of a mile, or even continuously. A special waiting charge is made if the cab is held by the passenger. Taxicabs are variable in form, from “flivvers” to limousines. Many of the larger cities are supplied with cabs owned in quantity by substantial companies which put on a line of cars usually all alike and painted with some striking feature or color. The larger ones are limousines seating five or seven passengers in the tonneau and one on the seat with the driver. Some of these cars are almost luxuriously fitted with fine cushions and special lighting. They have speaking tubes or electrical devices to signal the driver. The drivers for the large companies wear the livery of the company. Taxis, as may be inferred, have no established routes, but go wherever the passenger may desire.
The motor-bus is well established both in city and cross-country traffic. As at first made motor-buses consisted of special bodies with seats placed upon freight truck chassis. This did not prove altogether satisfactory because of their excessive weight, too much of which is “unsprung.” They also have a high center of gravity, high floors, long turning radius and rather rigid suspension. A bus, to be efficient, durable and comfortable, should be especially designed. There should be lightness and strength; small unsprung weight; a low center of gravity; a flexible control; special transmission; wide treads; ample wheel base; short turning radius; low step entrance and exit; low top clearance; curb receipt and delivery of passengers; ample brake capacity; and high lowgear efficiency.167 Pneumatic tires on account of their resiliency make the bus much more comfortable for the passengers by absorbing shocks, and for the same reason they also increase the life of the car and make it possible to travel faster. Cushion tires are next in order of merit and are an effort to combine the durability of the solid tire with the easy riding qualities of the pneumatic. Tests made by the U. S. Bureau of Public Roads show that the cushion or semi-solid tires stand between the solid and the pneumatic as regards riding comfort. With many bus operators a combination equipment is being used—pneumatics are used on the front to protect the engine and gasoline tank from vibration and cushion tires on the rear where the hardest wear comes.
Buses are made both single and double deck. The latter are in demand where traffic is large and also where sight-seeing is an important item, the upper deck being usually open to the weather.
The fare charged by the bus is either the same or in many cases a little higher than that by the trolley car, but the bus has the advantage in that it can travel over streets where the trolley is not allowed, can usually make better time, and can load and unload at the curb, thus avoiding danger from passing vehicles, a matter of no little importance to timid passengers. The trolley car is able to haul large numbers at a less expense. In such cases no passenger transportation is cheaper. But the field for the auto bus is wide and no doubt it will come more and more into competition with the street car and steam railroad lines. The former, whose single and primary business is transporting passengers, are already complaining bitterly of the inroads made upon their business by the privately owned automobile and motor bus. The automobile is the larger factor because there are more automobiles than buses. Since about every tenth person owns a machine which can accommodate from two to seven passengers, one can readily see the importance of this item to the traction companies. The result has been a falling off in passenger fares, which the companies have endeavored to offset by increasing rates, and this in turn has only accentuated the trouble by driving more men to automobiles. The only way the street car can hope to compete with the motor car is by keeping its rates low and hauling large numbers of passengers. The handiness of the automobile, going at the instant wanted, avoiding the usual walk of two or three blocks to and from a car line at the beginning and the end of the journey, the consequent saving in time, coupled with the exhilarating effect of riding rapidly through the open air furnishes a great handicap which the traction companies will have difficulty in overcoming. About the only things the street car has in its favor are cheapness and dependability. It can no doubt be shown that it is cheaper to patronize the trolley than to own and operate the average car. The street car will go in rainy or snowy weather when motor cars must be laid up. But the average American does not count cost; he thinks more of his own comfort and doing as his neighbors do, i.e., being in style. It may become necessary, as stated in another chapter, for the public to take over the street-car lines, run them at as low rates as possible for the accommodation of those who cannot afford motor cars, since their work is an absolute necessity to the community, and charge any deficit to the taxpayers.
There seems to be another feasible and legitimate use for the motor bus which may help the street car companies as well. That is extensions by means of buses at the ends of the car lines or into territory not well served by them. The bus might collect passengers from an outlying district and bring them to the car line where the trolley can take them on to the heart of the city. Thus motor buses will become feeders rather than competitors of the regularly established traction lines. The car companies should attempt to take advantage of this sort of thing, using either the trackless trolley or gasoline motor, as may be thought the more suitable for the situation in hand.
Cross-country motor service has proven quite feasible and scores of buses now leave every large city for the surrounding smaller towns. The bus seems to negotiate a 50-mile trip very easily at a speed of approximately 20 miles per hour including stops. These buses or stages carry from 12 to 20 passengers and are operated by one man; they are well sprung and equipped with pneumatic tires. For country traffic seats cross ways of the car are much more comfortable to the rider than lengthwise seats. Their usefulness seems to lie in suburban traffic or as feeders to railroads.
Such buses are also largely used as carriers of children to and from consolidated schools. The little red school house, wherein began the educational training of so many of our great men, of which silver tongues have orated, whose virtues have been painted in poetry, and praises commemorated in song, cannot stand against the superior advantages of the consolidated graded school brought near to the pupils by the advent of the automobile. Since each consolidated school with about five teachers replaces eight to ten ungraded schools, and since it is easier and cheaper to maintain and heat one consolidated school than eight ungraded schools, the advantage is economical as well as educational.
Another place where the motor bus seems extremely well adapted is in the transfer of travelers from one railroad terminal to another. Railroads contract with transfer companies to do this and a coupon, a portion of the traveler’s ticket, is detached by the bus-man when the transfer is made. To one who is not used to the city this is a great convenience. In the city of Chicago, through which many long-distance tourists pass and through which no or at least few railroads extend in both directions, hundreds of such transfers take place daily. Passengers and baggage are thus taken care of on a through ticket with despatch and little inconvenience.
Pleasure Passenger Traffic—Vast and important as may have become the business passenger motor traffic, purely pleasure travel by automobile probably exceeds it. Of the more than ten million motor cars licensed in the United States perhaps 80 per cent of them were purchased not for their use in the business of the owner, although that might have been the final excuse that consummated the deal, but for the pleasure the purchaser and his family would get from owning a car. The great car industry which has sprung up like a mushroom during the past quarter century may thank the people’s desire for personal pleasure for its tremendous prosperity. The movie picture industry is another instance of the same character; likewise the newest epidemic to attack the people—radio. It is not claimed that these have no economical uses. But the business and economical uses have followed rather than preceded the pleasurable uses. There are many who think the automobile fad, like the bicycle fad, will eventually wear out and the whole automobile question settle down to a purely business basis. Such a thing is not likely to occur, however. The automobile is a much more perfect pleasure machine than is the bicycle. The knack of riding a bicycle has to be learned and requires considerable muscular exertion. It is not the thing a tired person eagerly turns to for recreation and rest. Anyone without exertion and with complete relaxation may ride in an automobile. Soon there comes a desire to drive the machine; then complete relaxation while no longer possible is replaced by a mental effort which drives out all thought of business, all care and anxiety regarding the ordinary affairs of life. The mind for the driver’s own safety must be confined to his effort to manage the machine and make it go where and as he wants it to go—change of work is often better than complete relaxation, although the latter has its beneficial effects in the treatment of diseases.
For these reasons then, if for no other, the use of automobiles to cater to the pleasure propensities of the people will continue. There are very few persons who do not enjoy an automobile ride—they are only the timid who fear accident. The recreational and pathological benefits to be derived cannot be overestimated. During the recent war the Government gave much attention to the entertainment of the soldiers and endeavored in many, many ways to divert their minds from the serious side of war. So with the people generally. They are much better off for pleasurable diversions and the automobile furnishes these in a very high degree.
1. Panhard & Levassor Carriage—1895.
2. Duryea Motor Wagon—1895.
3. The Benz Motocycle.
4. Hertel’s Gasoline Carriage—1896.
5. The Olds Horseless Carriage.
6. Winton’s Racing Machine.
(Courtesy of the Scientific American.)
If, then, there be included under the head of pleasure passenger traffic all not purely business it may with propriety be estimated that three-fourths of all automobile travel is for pleasure. Considering ten million automobiles in use in the United States, that they average 4000 miles per year and carry two passengers each, there results a total passenger mileage of
10,000,000 × 4,000 × 2 = 80,000,000,000
80 billion miles. A number beyond ordinary comprehension. The passenger mileage upon the steam railroads is roughly speaking about 371⁄2 billion miles, a little less than half as much as that by automobile. It is evident that all this travel, even though a large percentage be local, must affect seriously the earnings of the steam and electric railway lines. Since 75 per cent may be estimated to be for pleasure purposes, it will not be possible for the steam and electric lines ever to regain it. The people who do the dancing are perfectly willing to pay the piper, and even though automobile riding cost more than trolley or train riding the people will continue to have it as a means of entertainment.168 Most men who own cars pay the expenses in lump sums and forget about them. To have the speedometer register in dollars and cents instead of miles, while it might be a deterrent on the use of the automobile, would “take the joy out of life.”
Freight Traffic—When it comes to freight traffic cost and time will be the principal factors to determine the type of performance. The element of pleasure is here eliminated and only cold economical features remain. Already horse trucking is rapidly disappearing as it seems to be able to compete with the motor only where many stops are to be made. In large cities motor trucks are utilized to haul packages to certain districts at considerable distances from the store, where they are turned over to small wagons for delivery. Ice and milk are often distributed in the same manner, thus taking advantage of long rapid hauls upon fully loaded trucks and less expensive delivery wagons where many stops are to be made and smaller loads are to be carried. Even in delivery service some merchants have by carefully arranging and timing their routes brought the cost of delivery to below ten cents per parcel. All purchasers of goods at the store whether delivered or not should be interested in reducing this cost because usually in the accounting it is spread out over the entire turnover and charged to the expense of doing business. It may be possible that in a few years horses will be barred from the streets for sanitary reasons; then it will be necessary to use motors for all sorts of deliveries, possibly large ones for hauling to the distant districts and small ones for the house to house delivery in the district.
In very congested districts motor trucks are at a great disadvantage because they cannot be used at their most efficient speed. If the congestion can be eliminated or at least relieved by such means as one-way traffic, paving parallel streets, removing buildings which obstruct passage, widening driveways, elevating railroads and street cars, supplying overhead crossings, making subways, or by careful rearrangement and planning of terminal facilities, warehouses, and other accommodations, the cost of transportation in the large cities may be materially reduced. In many such cities public service commissions are studying these questions and applying remedies which will allow motor trucks to operate at a greater rate of speed and much more efficiently.
Accurate observations of motor truck performance in city trucking business has shown that a large part of the day is given up to loading and unloading, that the truck stands still so much of the time that the cost is more nearly proportional to time than to mileage. Since certain charges such as interest and insurance go on whether the truck is idling or not, it is better to keep it moving. To do this effectively depots, warehouses, and other terminal facilities are provided to lessen the time of loading and unloading. It may be wise to hire an extra stevedore or two to assist with these operations, or mechanical devices may be installed where the saving will justify it. Usually there is not only a saving in time when a mechanical device is used but the amount of expensive manual labor is decreased.
Among the practical devices used are removable bodies. The whole body of the truck may be swung by means of a crane from the chassis to a platform where it is loaded or unloaded while the truck with another body is proceeding on its way. Other bodies are so arranged on rollers that they may be readily rolled from the chassis to the platform. Railways are also taking advantage of removable bodies for the shipment of less than car-load lots. These bodies are made to fit a truck and also of proper sizes so that several of them may be nested or interlocked upon a flat car. One of these units or containers may be left for any length of time for loading then rolled upon the truck and off it to the steam train. At the other end of its journey it is rolled from the car to the truck and from that to the unloading platform with a great saving of time at each terminal. The New York Central railway places nine containers of 6000 pounds capacity on one flat car. These are unloaded by means of a crane in less than five minutes for each container, or the whole car in approximately forty minutes. By this means the railroad is able to take advantage of what has been called store-door delivery. Instead of the consignor hauling its goods to the station and unloading them on the platform to be loaded into cars by stevedores, transported, unloaded into the warehouse, and the consignee notified to come for them, the railway leaves a container which when filled is hauled by truck to the railway yard and in five minutes’ time placed upon the car, which upon reaching its destination is placed upon a truck and hauled to the consignee. Goods shipped in these containers which may be made of steel and securely locked are considered just as safe from predacious hands and the weather as in a way car, and possibly are safer.
The demountable container which is rapidly coming into general use, and which has for some time been used by the New York Central Railroad and the interurban railways of Australia, consists of a large steel box or safe, the doors of which can be locked. When it is placed upon a steel flat-car with sides two feet high it cannot possibly be opened as the doors are on the side of the container. And it cannot be removed from the car without the use of a derrick, the top corners of the container being equipped with hooks for this purpose. The containers have a capacity of 438 cubic feet and will hold from 6000 to 8000 pounds of package freight. When the packages are locked and sealed within the containers they are safe from fire and rain as well as marauders. One flat-car will accommodate from 4 to 9 containers, depending upon their size.
In addition to the safety furnished by these containers they are economical in saving time of transportation. Re-handling is unnecessary. The transfer of the entire container from truck to car and from car to truck is very quickly made. The mileage of the flat cars is thus greatly increased—with mail cars it is claimed to be doubled. Expensive packing and crating is avoided and the checking at each rehandling of parcels is eliminated.
Mass loading or unloading, whether the whole truck body is swung off by a crane, rolled off, or even if trailers and semi-trailers are left to be worked upon after the truck has gone, save little in the way of manual labor. On the other hand they require the installment at each end of the route of special arrangements to facilitate their use.
Another class of devices are those connected with the truck itself. For example it may have a winch on it to draw up an inclined plane at its rear such heavy articles as pianos, safes, and large castings. It may have a crane with a pulley running along a central beam over it to facilitate loading and unloading heavy boxes or other things. A swinging crane is also used with some trucks. On others, hoists are arranged to tip the body backward for unloading building and road materials, grain, and so on. Many of these devices make use of the truck power for their operation. Pumps with suction hoses empty catch basins, cess-pools, stopped-up sewers and flooded cellars, pumping the fluid to a tank body of the truck, whence it can be hauled away and dumped by elevating the front end of the tank and opening a gate in its rear. Devices for lifting and dumping coal truck bodies directly into the bin save much time over hand shoveling.
Still another class of devices are entirely separate from the truck and may or may not be connected with the warehouse. For example a chain conveyor which can be rolled up to the back of a truck elevates barrels and boxes, sand and stone, and is operated by a small electric motor the lead wires of which are plugged into a suitable socket, up to the floor at the rear of the truck from which place they can be easily pushed or shoveled to proper position. Elevated bins are utilized to store road materials from which the materials run by gravity into the body of a small motor-car which then goes to the mixer where it is grabbed by a device that empties the body into the mixer, thus saving much handling of material.
Many special types of bodies are made for peculiar purposes. These often facilitate loading and unloading, for example tank ears for hauling water, milk, gasoline or other fluids; or trucks fitted with shelves on which are placed trays containing fruits and so forth. As the motor truck enters newer fields of usefulness multiple devices will be developed to lessen the time of loading and unloading. The financial importance to both the owner and the public of keeping the truck moving will no doubt lead to the adoption of these devices providing they are practical and will accomplish the desired result.
Traffic Between Towns—Wherever the roads are dependable and passable at all seasons of the year truck and bus lines have sprung up to ply regularly between the towns. The length of haul most profitable seems to be that over which the motor can make the round trip each day and have sufficient time at terminals for loading and unloading. Forty to 50 miles for trucks and 60 to 65 miles for buses seem to be negotiable and double these distances are proving to be practicable. In many of the states such enterprises have been declared to be common carriers subject to the laws governing such carriers, and must secure licenses to do business from the public service commissions. It is but reasonable that the public should be safeguarded and these concerns be required to take out insurance or give indemnifying bonds to cover loss of goods to shippers by carelessness or theft or injury to passengers by accident. On the other hand the licensed motor transport is entitled to protection against irresponsible truckers. The modern method of state regulation does not contemplate competition as an economic factor in the determination of rates and routes. The old doctrine of “everyone for himself, and the devil take the hindmost,” is certainly most wasteful. This is about the way that method worked. A starts a bus line between two towns. After he has run it a short time and built up a trade B, seeing his success, decides to put a competing bus on this same route. Then there is a period of competition. Rates may be cut and speeds quickened until each bus is running at a loss. This cannot continue indefinitely. The result is that either one man goes out of business or there is a combination of interests by actual coalescing or by a “gentlemen’s agreement,” so that there is practical monopoly anyway. The modern method is to regulate all common carriers as far as rates and routes are concerned so that each may make a justifiable profit. This may be tending toward socialism and away from individualism; it may be a violation of the Darwinian doctrine of a survival of the fittest. But that is departed from every day. Our cornfields and gardens would amount to nothing if the weeds were allowed undisputed sway.
It would seem to be the duty, therefore, of public service commissions to grant licenses to truck and bus lines, to establish routes and equitable rates, to require careful and complete accounting and to make public from time to time such items as the people may be interested in.
The Railway Commission of the state of Nebraska was, perhaps, the first public service commission to exercise the right of regulating highway transport (1918). Colorado, California, and other states soon followed. In California the matter came upon a complaint that adequate service was not given by the railway and the decision was:
“We are of the opinion that the public deserving transportation of freight and express... is entitled to a more expeditious service than that at present being given by the Southern Pacific and American Railway Express.”
It went on further to state that notwithstanding their ability to give service the evidence was to the effect that it was not given, hence motor highway transport was licensed.
The first highway transport freight rates established by the Railway Commission of Nebraska placed the freight under four classes, describing 103 items. The rates were:
1st Class 20 c. plus (11⁄2 c. per mile per 100 pounds).
2d Class 85 per cent of the 1st class.
3d Class 70 per cent of the 1st class.
4th Class 60 per cent of the 1st class.
In addition they established rules and regulations, standard bills of lading, etc. These rates have since been rescinded.
In Colorado two sets of rules were adopted, one for the prairie and one for the mountain division. For the prairie division the minimum charge was 25 c. and the mountain 30 c. per 100 pounds. The rates for motor truck hauling was made, for the prairie division, 30 c. per 100 pounds for 5 miles and for distances up to 100 miles graduated 5 or 10 c. for each additional 5 miles until they reached $1 per 100 miles. For the mountain division, the rate for 100 pounds carried 5 miles is 36 c., graduated to $1.20 per 100 miles.
Motor Bus Traffic—Suburban and interurban motor bus passenger service is growing rapidly. Buses accommodating as high as sixty persons are being used on the haul where the roads are well paved, but twenty to thirty seems more popular. At present these buses seem to be well patronized, usually bringing their passengers to the larger city in time for business or shopping and returning them home in the afternoon or evening. The rates of fare for bus travel are about the same as those for steam car travel, or approximately 4 c. per mile. The rate of travel depends upon the character of the roadway and the condition of traffic, being usually routed upon dependable but less congested roads.
Just what may be the outcome of this traffic is problematical. Can the buses compete with other forms of transportation in fares and speed? If so, they will survive; otherwise they will gradually discontinue. Some writers seem to think they will not only live but will eventually kill the older forms of transportation. Although they will no doubt take over very much of that transportation it seems highly improbable that all transportation can be taken care of by motors.
To and From the Farm—Farm trucking seems to be firmly established and very much if not all farm hauling will eventually be done by automobiles. Very many farmers now own their own trucks and the number is constantly being increased. Glowing statements by government officials, reports of investigational committees, and propaganda by manufacturers and dealers have worked up the farmers’ desire for trucks. A congressional joint committee on agricultural inquiry has recently stated that,
No single development since the railroads were first constructed has had so marked an economic and sociological effect upon productive life as the motor vehicle. Previous to its appearance the economic zone of transportation was sharply defined by the haulage range of the horse and the cost of such transportation.
There is the evidence of no less a person than Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover that the farm motor truck will be of vast importance to the agricultural interests of the country. Here is his statement:
Fifty per cent of our perishable foodstuffs never reach the consumer because the farms on which they are raised are too remote from the market at which they are sold.... Forty to 60 per cent of our potato crop is lost each year by rotting in the ground owing to poor transportation to market because of inadequate transportation over long distance.... By motor trucks the farmer will be able to reach better markets farther away than now by horse and wagon. He will be able to spend more time actually producing on his farm and be able to sell food more cheaply by eliminating the present tremendous waste. By use of the motor truck the farmer will be able to produce more and sell at less cost.
Some of the arguments advanced in favor of the farm truck are:
(a) The motor truck allows the farmer to haul larger loads, longer distances in less time, thus reducing the actual cost of haulage.
(b) That he can better take advantage of market fluctuations and thus be able to sell at high markets.
(c) That a truck on the farm will replace several horses; that the cost of keeping these horses far exceeds the cost of keeping a truck.
(d) That the truck may be used to market produce while the horses are busy in the field.
(e) That the truck will allow land otherwise too far from market to be farmed with perishable but better paying crops.
(f) By means of trucks the farmer is often enabled to put his hogs or other live stock on the early morning market in less time from the farm and consequently fresher, gaining the advantage of better prices.
While there may be some question as to the validity of all these assumptions they are no doubt, in the main, correct. The United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Crop Estimates, collected data showing that in 1918, the hauling in wagons from farm to shipping point cost on the average for wheat 30 cents per ton-mile; for corn, 33 cents; for cotton, 48 cents. For hauling by motor truck the average costs were: wheat, 15 cents; corn, 15 cents; and cotton, 18 cents. These unit costs were, consequently, reduced to less than half by the use of the truck. The same bulletin gives the average length of wagon haul for these products to be 9 miles, and of motor truck haul, 11.3 miles; furthermore the average number of round trips by wagon per day was 1.2 while by truck it was 3.4.
Whether or not the truck on the farm will release any horses will depend on what determines the number of horses kept. To do his hauling does the farmer keep more than is necessary for farm operations alone? The passenger automobile, no doubt, did release many driving and riding horses, but will the truck release many more? The thoughtful, foresighted farmer usually plans his yearly work so that he may do his hauling when the horses are not otherwise busy. This of course limits his farm operation to products which, like wheat and corn, can be stored indefinitely. This limits also diversified cropping which farmers find in the long run to be very much safer than “putting all eggs in one basket” by raising a single product. It is seldom that a wheat crop, a corn crop, a beet crop, a hay crop, an apple crop, and gardening crops all fail by drought, wet weather, hail, or other untoward events during the same season. Good roads, trucks or anything else which will lend assistance to diversified cropping are without doubt beneficial to the farmer.
Intensive farming of perishable crops can be done only where the roads allow daily contact with the market. The truck, because of its more rapid speed, will widen the zone of such farming very much over the old zone when the horse-drawn vehicle was in vogue. Because of the risk involved and the labor necessary the net returns per acre for this sort of farming are high, allowing small parcels of land to keep a family. As the distance, or rather time, the “fourth dimension,” from market increases the less intensive the farming operations and the less net returns per acre. The community as a whole is deeply interested in widening the zone of intensive farming in order that more people may profitably make a living upon this land.
Persons who are not familiar with stockyard activities will be surprised on visiting them early in the morning at any one of the packing-house industries to see the large number of hogs and other farm animals arriving for the early market in motor trucks. These animals have been brought from distances up to 60 miles, but have been on the way less than three or three and one-half hours. Careful stockyard figures show that in 1921 more than 6,000,000 cattle and very many more hogs were transported in motor trucks. These animals upon arrival are very much fresher and show less shrinkage than those that have been driven to their home station and loaded into stock cars the day previous. Other things being equal, the top of the market is accorded to the fresher animals. Also for short hauls, say up to 60 miles, the transportation costs are in favor of the trucks.
The farmer may obtain the benefits of motor transportation in at least four different ways: (a) He may own and operate his own truck. This pays when the farm is of sufficient size to keep the truck reasonably busy. (b) Two or more neighbors may coöperate in the ownership of a truck. This is applicable to small and medium-sized farms. (c) By patronizing truck lines privately owned which haul products, freight, and express upon a charge basis. (d) By the trucks of the United States Postal Service.
Whether or not it pays for a farmer to own and operate a truck depends upon the size of the farm, kind and quantity of the commodities hauled, distance from market, character of the roads, and the loading on the back trip. A small farm could not be expected to furnish sufficient hauling to keep a truck busy unless intensively farmed and producing commodities which require frequent marketing. Even a small farmer, though, might by hauling for neighbors keep his truck reasonably busy. Or several neighbors may coöperate in the purchase of the truck and arrange how it shall be operated. They may even form an express line and go into the transportation business as a side issue.
The parcel-post service has been very successful in handling packages of produce even as large as a case of eggs. The post-office department allows its carriers to pick up and deliver packages along the route the same as letter mail. Privately owned Rural Motor Express vehicles are also operated successfully which pick up and deliver all sorts of express packages, farm produce in small quantities, fruit, butter, eggs, and cream. Trucks which haul nothing but milk and cream are quite common. The farmer leaves his full cans of milk or cream at a specified place, usually a platform at a level with the truck floor, on the roadway. The driver of the milk truck picks up the full cans, leaving empties in their place. Or he may pick up the full on his way to the market, creamery, or railway station, and leave the empties on his return. Such routes are both privately owned and coöperatively owned by the several farmers patronizing them. Often these trucks deliver the milk and cream to the railway in time to catch a special milk train into the city.
Since the trucks come directly to the farmer’s gate to pick up and deliver express or freight, the convenience is much greater than the service given by either the steam railway or the interurban trolley. As a result the trucks will probably be patronized when the railways would not. The habit of sending eggs, cream, and other perishable products daily to the market is formed. The daily credit the farmer receives amounts to a considerable sum by the end of the month when he collects from the dealer. Many farmers much more than pay living expenses from the sale of small items utterly ignored before the days of the motor express.169 Even the farmer who owns his own truck could hardly afford a daily trip of several miles and the time entailed to market small amounts of cream, eggs, vegetables, and fruits, but the express man by combining the incoming and outgoing commodities of many farms can without much expense to anyone do a very good business for himself at an economic benefit to his patrons.
If the farmer, or several farmers, desire to purchase a truck it would be well first carefully to consider the question with an idea of finding out the character and amount of trucking at hand and then purchase a machine best adapted for the purpose. The kind of bodies available should be studied, remembering that he may wish to haul grain on one trip, hogs or sheep on another, then cream and vegetables. He will want, probably, to haul back groceries, flour, feed, lumber, hardware, implements, fertilizer, cement, and gravel. In looking ahead he should estimate the increase in the quantity of hauling that more rapid transportation, the going to more distant markets, and the possible raising of different products which may come about through the owning of a truck, will bring to his farm. In this connection the reader is referred to the chapters on “Highway Transport Surveys” and “Effects of the Ease and Cost of Transportation on Production and Marketing,” given later.
Terminal Facilities—Railways have found it advantageous to spend enormous sums of money upon terminal facilities. Depots and warehouses, garages and repair shops will be necessary if truck lines are to prove efficient and successful. It would be quite feasible and profitable for all the truck lines leading from a city to have a union or common terminal station. Portland, Oregon, has such a station owned by a corporation composed of bus lines that operate from there to every city of any importance within a radius of 100 miles. The terminal resembles a railroad depot with waiting rooms, ticket office, announcer, and conveniences. Buses load and unload on a platform at the rear of the building reached by a drive-in from the street. Patrons remain in the waiting room until the bus is announced. Two buses are sent out if more than enough tickets are sold for one. Under the present schedule 150 departures in 21 different directions are provided for. This gives the farthest cities two stages per day while many closer ones are served hourly.
Some of the advantages of a terminal station may be inferred from the above. Another is that the total number of clerks and employees may be cut down, for one clerk can route goods on half a dozen different lines almost as easily as on one, and there will be no competition between lines, except by service, if the public service commission has allowed no duplication of lines and establishes rates. Much of the freight and express will be brought by the shipper to the depot, where bills of lading will be made out and charges paid. To be sure, large shippers may desire freight to be picked up elsewhere, or small express trucks may be used for this purpose, but orders for this can conveniently be phoned to the central office and directions given from there accordingly. Similarly one garage and one repair shop may easily look after the cleaning, repairing, oiling, and fueling of several cars more economically than could each keep its separate shop or even go to a commercial shop.
The terminal building may be arranged, if desired, so that it can be used jointly for a passenger station, a freight depot and a storage warehouse. If for a passenger station there would be need for the agent’s office, waiting rooms, and toilet accommodations for men and women. The freight depot is a place for the collection of freight and should be arranged for convenience and rapid loading and unloading of the trucks. The installation of devices for this purpose may become advisable as the amount of traffic increases. Storage room should be provided for those articles which are to wait some little time for shipment. A check stand to care for parcels is a convenience to passengers and furnishes the company some revenue.
The Social Aspect of Motor Transportation—The change from poor roads and horse-drawn vehicles to good roads and motorized vehicles has produced in society changes quite as radical. These changes are not entirely separate from economic changes and one cannot always say that this particular thing or that particular thing is due to the automobile alone because every activity in life has its effect on every other activity. As the waves upon a pond circling about the point of shock come into contact with other waves their effect is enhanced, minimized, or transformed, and just what part of the resultant may be due to one agency or to another agency is impossible to decipher. That each has entered into a combination with the whole and affected the result there is no doubt. For example it is claimed that because of the prevalence of pleasure riding the giving and receiving of dinners and teas have very greatly diminished. No doubt the high cost of living has had its effect also. Clothiers and haberdashers complain that automobile owners finding it impossible to keep grease spots from their clothing, are now buying an inferior grade and losing the art of good dressing. Builders claim that the expense of buying and maintaining an automobile has prevented many persons from making needed repairs on houses or even building new ones. As people live most of their leisure time in the car a very small apartment will accommodate them for the remaining time. Fewer books and newspapers are read, it is claimed, and there is less attention paid to the cultural niceties of life. People go riding in the evening, so the Sunday evening church service is not attended.
An editorial in the Nebraska State Journal of August 31, 1921, puts the matter piquantly, at least:
The savage determination with which the American is sticking to his automobile despite the drop in his income is an occasion for wonderment and no little irritation with a lot of us. For the sake of economy we may have to exchange our seven passenger for a light six or one of the little fours. Beyond this we need not go. But the farmer, yelling his head off at the fall in corn prices, what does he mean by sticking to his car? Your mechanic resisting the inevitable fall in wages, would be well enough off if only he would give up trying to ride like a millionaire. These merchants, claiming they aren’t making a living, don’t give up their cars, you will observe. Why pity them, then?
Thus does the general assumption that the automobile is a super-luxury impinge upon the fact that the automobile has become a prime necessity. You laugh. Well, go inquire what are the other things the people will sacrifice before yielding up their speed machines. A sharp automobile manufacturer assured a gloomy harvester manufacturer the other day that not only would the men do without harvesters rather than lose their cars, but the women would yield up their very chewing gum. Yea, more than that, their pretty clothes. Food is, of course, a superior necessity, but even that can be reduced and simplified in favor of gasoline.
As to houses, we like to be conservative, but there is a perfectly obvious disposition to put house shelter second to automobile shelter. That is why the house shortage isn’t hurting us as we expected it to hurt. The people are in automobile camps. Observe the sudden energy in developing automobile camps. They are wise. It looks now as if half the population will have deserted houses and flats for their automobile tent within another year or two.
In winter time a corner of the garage will do well enough for a living room during the few minutes at a time we are at home. If we insist on a separate house, then the tendency is toward a very small one. What is the sense in maintaining a big house not to live in? That is the way our minds run now. This will help the lumber men to understand why building doesn’t pick up as it should. And that is how we manage to keep the car while incomes fail. It is done by cutting out such unnecessaries as houses and furniture and clothes and heavy dinners.
America has been living at a fast gait on its nerves. Isn’t that which we see now the natural reaction from the nervous overstrain of fixed habitation and the relaxing ways of the nomad? The automobile came along in the nick of time to furnish the transportation, and off we go. The universal gypsy is breaking out in us. This isn’t more than half moonshine. It is at least half solid fact, with economic and social consequences which, whatever they prove to be, will be important.
The above editorial indicates that people are beginning to notice the social changes being brought about by the automobile, and more, they are ascribing them to the automobile. Changes usually come about so gradually that, like the hands on a watch, the movement can be noticed only by comparing what is with what was some time previous.
Rapid transportation and rapid communication has extended Broadway clear across the continent. One writer by taking an automobile tour found the American world extends from ocean to ocean, that the hat she purchased in New York had its duplicate in every millinery window all the way across to Los Angeles. She further found that the people between were not all “hicks,” and that farmers did not go around with alfalfa on their chin and straws in their mouths as shown in the cartoons of the funny section. Some farmers play golf on their own pastures. The fact that the sack containing their clubs is often tied with binding twine is of no consequence.
The social intercourse which good roads and the rapid moving automobile makes possible between neighbor and neighbor and between country and town tends to produce a more homogeneous people. Each gets the view point of the other, which reacting modifies his own. Factions are largely broken up. Tolerance gains sway and more satisfaction and happiness results.
High wages and profits during and following the war led the average citizen to purchase some of those luxuries which before then he was unable to afford. He has had a taste of a “higher standard” of living. No wonder he objects to a return to pre-war conditions, no wonder he objects to giving up his automobile, the thing which has furnished him with more pleasure than his previous humdrum life believed possible. No, he will fight to maintain the new standard and new living conditions. A social revolution has taken place, and in traveling about the spiral the world is one step higher.
And while some will for a short time be content to live in one corner of the garage, as the editorial writer opines, the natural longing for a home will assert itself. By the aid of the automobile property will be bought in farther-out district where lots are cheaper, where taxes are not so high, where there is more breathing space, and healthful conditions are more likely to prevail. Men of wealth can build suburban estates, and men of less means comfortable homes leaving the downtown apartments and tenements to those who cannot yet afford motor cars, and many there be, more’s the pity.
It will be a good thing to have the farms near large centers of population divided into smaller tracts whereon by intensive cultivation can be supported many families. Here there is always a demand for garden products which by means of a small car, or through the agency of motor express lines, can be marketed daily. It does not require a very great deal of land to support a poultry farm from which there will be a continuous income. By diversifying crops something will be coming in at all seasons.
Good roads and the automobile not only make it possible to diversify farming but make the home life in the country less monotonous. No trouble to go after supper 12 or 15 miles to the town to take part in civic affairs, to attend a lecture, watch the movies or go to church. No extra horses need to be kept for these purposes, neither are the farm horses deprived of their rest. While the swift ride through bracing air rests the weary farmer after his day’s toil in the fields and gives new life to his faithful spouse upon whom the lonesomeness of isolation lies the much more heavily.
Salesmen have in great numbers provided themselves with automobiles large enough to carry their samples. With these they can make many more towns than when they were compelled to depend upon trains and the small-town livery stables. The result is either a wider territory or more frequent calls upon customers.
Hotels, during the summer season, especially, if located on one of the popular cross country roads, are seldom without tourist guests. Nina Wilcox Putnam170 states that from Washington westward the “wily tourist will always wire ahead for rooms, and preferably two days ahead. The truth is that the best places to stop are not nearly large enough to accommodate the crowd.” Speaking of these hotels she finds them well equipped, clean, and well cared for. There is no doubt but that the automobile tourist traffic has had its effect, too, upon them. Each spring they clean and spruce up with the idea of securing as much of this traffic as good service reported by the camaraderie of travelers all along the way will bring to them.
Mention has been made of the country people going to the larger cities to market their products and purchase goods wanted. It is not considered at all unusual for country and small town people to auto 30 miles to patronize the large department stores in the city. If a trade which satisfies both trader and tradee is beneficial and of economic importance to both then this would seem to be a good thing. The selling of the goods is beneficial to the store-keeper because he makes his profit. The trader has a large variety to select from and having made a voluntary selection is satisfied, because he or she may secure exactly what the city cousin gets.
But what is to become of the business of the country store-keeper? How is he to get along? The best thing he can do is to put upon his shelves goods of a standard quality. His rents and overhead are less than those of the city competitor; he, therefore, can sell at a less profit. This is so true that the writer has known of city dwellers going to the country store for these standard articles. Such interchange while of economical importance is also sociological in differentiating between city and country merchandising and in bringing together in a new way the city and country dwellers.
Consolidation of Rural Schools—The people of the United States have been justly proud of her public schools. No one has ever considered them to be perfect, but the influence exerted upon the minds of the growing children has been wholesome. The very life of a republic depends upon an educated citizenry. With thorough education along right lines there is no reason why the nation should not live forever. To obtain such an education as is commensurate with right living and with the upbuilding and maintenance of our government and civilization requires that every means at hand should be utilized. The broadening, informational, and unifying influence of the automobile should not be underestimated. Edison’s theory that the movie should supplement the textbook because visual education is remarkably interesting and effective, needs more than a passing thought. The instruction which the young people receive from parents, from associates, from newspapers, magazines, and miscellaneous books, from civic organizations of various kinds, and from Sunday school and church cannot be overestimated. Neither should be forgotten the vast and important education which comes through the hard knocks of experience.
An illustration of what the public schools may do for the preservation of the country can be drawn from the history of the Great War, the worst and the fiercest the world has ever seen. During that war the patriotism of the people shone forth with undiminished luster. The response to the President by the citizenry of the country, whether of his own or opposite political faith, by every honest organization, public or private, by business and professional men, by Congress and legislatures, was all but unanimous. This surprising unanimity was, no doubt, due to the influence of the public schools. The public schools have always inculcated patriotism and loyalty, and these lessons were potent as was evident because even before the draft many young men with Teutonic names took their places with others whose forebears were of other nationalities as well as with those of long-standing American descent. Therein went astray one of the guesses of the enemy, namely, that our Teutonic citizens with their children would prove more loyal to the “fatherland” than to democratic America. The lessons of patriotism the children brought home from school, the stories of Valley Forge and Yorktown, of Gettysburg and Appomattox, were communicated to their parents and penetrated deep, so that only a moiety of our foreign born element could be classed with the enemy. Thus have the public schools in this great melting pot of the world been the conservators of liberty.
The effect of the public school upon the ideals of peace is no less than that upon their state of mind during war. Every day examples are so plentiful they need not here be mentioned. Suffice it to say that it should be made possible for all the young people to come under the influence of the public school learn the American’s Creed, and be steeped in the symbolism of the flag that stands for true democracy.
Changing Concepts of the Public Schools—Schools have continually had to change with changing society. During the pioneer period, and that extended through many years from the first settlements along the coasts, and the occupation of the great fertile areas of the mid-west to recent efforts to subdue the semi-desert and desert regions of the farther west, the schools taught for a few months only a little reading, writing, and arithmetic. The farm and home life supplemented this with manual labor and the attainment of skill in making and repairing necessary articles and machinery by the boys, and the arts of home making, weaving, and cooking, by the girls, thereby completing a well-rounded education for the times. But with the increase in population there came a division of labor and specialization. This meant that the simple school of the pioneers could no longer fit for life, hence new and additional subjects were added to the curriculums, until at the present time no one pupil can hope to complete all the work given by the larger secondary schools. The changing character of society caused the earliest private schools to be transformed into semi-private and semi-religious schools, and these to tax-maintained schools. The graded schools in the larger communities were found to be more efficient than the ungraded. In country districts the advantages of the graded system could only be brought about by consolidating several small schools thus enlarging the districts to get sufficient pupils. This made distances from home so great that walking to and from school was no longer possible; pupils must be hauled. Considerable progress was made in such schools with horse-drawn vehicles, but not until the advent of the motor bus was attained anything like a practical solution of the problem. So rapidly has the consolidated school made its way that now there are more than 12,000 such schools served by motor buses. Since a six-room consolidated school will replace about nine small schools the greater efficiency of a graded school extending through a longer school period is gained at little if any increased cost. In the years to come the results of these schools must have a marked beneficial effect upon the entire country.
Rural Mail Delivery—The development of the Rural Mail Delivery and its relation to the better roads movement has been touched upon in Chapter V. It will only be necessary to say here that the psychological effect of a daily mail upon the inhabitants of the rural districts has been most remarkable. Through its means these people are no longer isolated, they know daily what is transpiring in the world; they are thinking of the great questions of finance, politics, and what not, at the same time as their fellows in other parts of the country. The nation is thus more or less unified, the country dweller looks and thinks of himself as an integral part of the whole. Rural mail, telephone, the automobile, modern home conveniences and, now, radio telephony are rapidly making agriculture one of the great and desirable professions. The rural home need no longer be a place where there is nothing but ten hours’ work and six hours’ chores. The farmer of to-day, with his daily paper, his market reports, his books and magazines, his furnace-heated and electric-lighted house, his automobile ready at hand, is better off, more independent, and should be more happy and contented than those who dwell in the murky city.
The Automobile and Health—“Health is something more than strength, it is a universally good condition,” according to Munger. The automobile, by inducing people to get more into the open air, may be considered to be a prophylactic, and something that will bring them into that universally good condition. The forgetting of business, the obliteration of household cares, the unstringing of high-tensioned nerves by a swift run like a swallow in its flight over smooth and undulating roads brings rest with relaxation, and cure with comfort. Then away from the mad’ning crowd, away from close poorly ventilated rooms, away from foul-smelling germ-laden cars, to the roads, to the hills, to the country with their varied shades of living carpets, with freshening winds and glad’ning brooks, with bees, and birds, and flowers into nature’s great laboratory where are brewed nectars and panaceas for the ills which infest mankind.
But all cannot have automobiles, pity ’tis, ’tis true, but all may have the benefit of fresh air and the style for an open air life set by those who can afford to drive the “red flyers,” the “quivering arrows,” the “bear cats” or the “poodle dogs,” have been followed by the less fortunate hoi polloi. Thus outdoor exercises and amusements have been popularized.
While motoring may not be the best form of exercise, may not bring into play as many muscles as walking, horseback riding, or rowing, say, it must be remembered that not many can have horses to ride or boats to row and walking is too slow. Gymnasium exercises or even home gymnastics are not exciting enough to keep one practicing, so that the outdoor life of the present day, brought about largely by the automobile, has had a more wholesome effect on the people generally than perhaps any other measure.
Styles of clothing have kept close pace, and the garments now worn by both men and women are both comfortable and sanitary, allowing freedom of bodily movement. It is to be hoped that the same influences which induced such hygienic clothing will continue and that never more may the autocratic demands of style force people into close-fitting uncomfortable, unsanitary wearing apparel. For years hygienists, health reformers, and physicians preached against tight lacing for women without results until the automobile came to their assistance. Until very recent years women’s long skirts have swept clouds of germ-laden dust into the air from sidewalks to be breathed by all passers-by. All men know that their present dressing, while it might be bettered, is so much more comfortable than formerly that they have much reason for rejoicing. Formal dressing except for an occasional party has almost disappeared. In the summer time men may be comfortable on the streets without coats. But the women, though more responsive to style changes, now go the men one better and abandon long sleeves and high collars.
Medical science, always alert to adopt modern improvements, was one of the first to take advantage of the time-saving benefits of the automobile. Its universal use by physicians and surgeons, allowing them to reach the bedside of sick patients more quickly and allowing them to visit more patients in the same time, is certainly a pathological asset of great value. Automobile ambulances called in emergency cases save the lives of many injured persons by getting them quickly to the hospitals and under the care of competent medical and surgical attention.
From a purely sanitary point of view good roads have been great agencies for health. Clean streets, clean pavements, and clean roads are much more wholesome than the mud puddles and quagmires that formerly served as passageways for man and beast. In order to get better roadways drainage was resorted to. Ponds and standing water along the side of the road were done away with, at the same time obliterating the breeding places of the myriads of mosquitoes that always abounded in summer time. Since mosquitoes are carriers, as is well known, of such diseases as malaria and yellow fever, the consequence has been a very great reduction, almost elimination, of these ailments.
Again just as the use of the horse on the highways has diminished, so has the summer pest of flies grown less. The favorite breeding place of the housefly is horse dung. When nearly every house in both city and country had its stable with a pile of horse manure by the door flies bred abundantly. The fly has been convicted of being a most energetic distributor of typhoid and other bowel complaints, hence the distruction of its breeding places will be the most effective means for its extermination, and with it one of the most virile sources of contagion.
Thus, upon analysis, it may be seen that the influence of the automobile extends throughout the whole domain of life, changing and modifying nearly all social customs. It is called into use at the birth of the babe to bring the physician to the bedside of the prospective mother. It is the correct equipage at the wedding and starts the bride and groom upon their honey-moon and, it is to be hoped, a happy journey through life. And finally, it bears the remains to their last resting place in the silent city of the dead.
The Automobile and Crime—But not always have the changes produced by automobiles been in the interest of better living. Criminals and those who verge upon criminality have been quick to employ the superior advantages of modern means of rapid transit to assist them in their nefarious work. Automobile theft has taken the place of horse thievery, and automobiles are used daily as a means of getting to and getting away from the place of the crime. Trucks are utilized to haul the loot. Since the adoption of prohibition laws motor cars have been seized upon by booze runners as a convenient vehicle for transporting liquor from one place to another, thus becoming an aid to “bootlegging.” In several of the states cars used for illegally transporting intoxicants are confiscated upon discovery and sold by the state. Drastic laws also deal with operators and owners.
Highway robbery of trucks hauling goods across country is reported. In New Jersey two trucks were robbed of $120,000 worth of merchandise. In other places express drivers have been held up and relieved of their money. One of the earliest improvements of the roadways of England was due to the prevalence of highway robbers—the brush and trees were ordered to be cut from the highway in order that their might be fewer lurking places for robbers.171
Here the results of robbery may lead to interesting possibilities. For instance if the trucks above mentioned as robbed in New Jersey were owned by the shipper the $120,000 is a dead loss to him unless he had insurance. Even if the trucks were owned by a small capitalist he would probably not be able to recompense the shipper. Had it been lost on a railway it would have been paid for. If motor shipping is to continue shipments must be covered by bonds or insurance. Even then there is a loss to the public when outlaws seize a loaded truck and drive it into wilds whence its contents can be disposed of at leisure. Shall truckers, like the ancient caravans of the deserts maintain guards with long guns to fight off marauding Bedouins? The western stages of some years ago furnished employment as guards to the quickest shots in the world. Is it the duty of the community to make its highways safe for transportation or must the shipper take the risk and employ guards and machine guns?
Vandalism—Complaints are made that those who drive or walk to the country are often guilty of vandalism and disregard for the rights of property. Note this editorial utterance in the Saturday Evening Post of June 17, 1922:172
On Sunday one dare not leave one’s farm or country place unwatched or unprotected for a moment. The whole countryside is aswarm with Nature lovers from the near by city. First come the makers of forbidden beverages, trooping across fields and lawns, picking the once despised dandelion and anything else that happens to be loose; then the happy motorists in long procession, embowering their cars in the spoil of orchards, woodlands, and wayside shrubberies. If there are no flowers near the road these free-and-easy visitors will penetrate one’s garden and break off the blooming branches of the rhododendrons or lilacs or whatever other bush happens to engage their fancy. With trowel and spade the woods are looted and sometimes, if it looks safe, an unwatched garden. Following come shy maidens, in twos and threes, daintily pulling up the woodland flowers by the roots—arbutus, azalea, and a hundred little blossoms that wilt in the hand that picks them; and everywhere are bands of half-grown hoodlums helping in the spoiling of the countryside.
The bolder spirits are usually those who come in motors. They can destroy more, steal more, and get away faster than the man on foot. They meet remonstrance with effrontery and resent the notion that a hick has any rights of property and privacy that they are bound to respect. The flowers, the shrubs, the orchards, and occasionally the unguarded gardens are their prey. They camp beside the woodland brook or the shaded spring, hack the trees, trample the flowers, and turn the spot into a garbage hole with their greasy papers, tin cans, bottles and refuse food. Then up and away to the snug flat in the big town, throwing out the wilted flowers as they go.
Spooning in automobiles parked along the roadways is a subject of regulation in the city of Omaha. An ordinance makes it a misdemeanor subject to fine.
However, the motor car will not be discarded or outlawed because unscrupulous persons put it to illegal and immoral purposes. A net cast into the sea gathers fishes of every kind, and among the wheat there will always spring up tares.
Conclusion—The world cannot now get along without the motor car. What was a luxury yesterday has become a necessity to-day. Automotive transportation is carving out a path for itself. While it perhaps will take much from the older forms of transportation it can never hope to supplant them. The final result will come only after the world has had opportunity through competitive experience to determine which is most economical in time and money and which is most desirable and comfortable from a personal or a sociological standpoint for the various purposes and various kinds of transportation.
At present it would seem as though the automobile will be used more largely than ever: I. As a pleasure and business vehicle driven by its owner for passenger traffic: (a) for local travel near home; (b) for short runs from town to town; (c) for more extended tourist traffic, and (d) for the use of salesmen. II. For pay passenger traffic: (a) Taxi-cabs in the cities: (b) Motor-bus service in the cities either in competition or in conjunction with street car service; (c) motor bus service to suburban and outlying districts; (d) motor bus service between towns up to 75 or 100 miles, with towns not more than two hours apart, (e) motor bus service between railway terminals. III. For freight and express traffic: (a) Haulage of farm products to market or shipping point in owner’s truck; (b) Haulage to market of perishable farm products in rapid going privately or coöperatively owned trucks; (c) Heavy trucking lines through farm districts; (d) Light express lines through farm districts; (e) Suburban or radial distribution of goods from large cities; (f) Short-haul traffic between towns; (g) Short branch-line or stub-end transportation to be taken over by trucks either in competition or conjunction with railways; (h) Trap car and store to door service by railways; (i) Terminal distribution allowing cars to be loaded and unloaded at a greater distance from congested centers; (j) Terminal distribution between different lines of railway or between railway and waterway either to relieve congestion or where there is no physical connection; (k) Longer hauls where there are no rail facilities; (l) Logging and lumbering formerly done by horses, oxen, or even light railway, (m) Rural mail service, and IV. By modified or combination motors: (a) Trackless trolley; (b) Rail motors.
Addendum—Since the above was written President Harding has issued the annual legislative message to Congress (December 8, 1922), in which he discusses at some length the transportation problem in the United States. Among other things he says:
Manifestly, we have need to begin on plans to coördinate all transportation facilities. We should more effectively connect up our rail lines with our carriers by sea. We ought to reap some benefit from the hundreds of millions expended on inland waterways, proving our capacity to utilize as well as to expend. We ought to turn the motor truck into a rail feeder and distributor instead of a destroying competitor.
It would be folly to ignore that we live in a motor age. The motor car reflects our standard of living and gauges the speed of our present-day life. This transportation problem cannot be waived aside. The demand for lowered costs on farm products and basic materials cannot be ignored....
Government operation does not afford the cure. It was government operation which brought to us the very order of things against which we now rebel, and we are still liquidating the costs of that supreme folly.
Surely the genius of the railway builders has not become extinct among the railway managers. New economies, new efficiencies in coöperation must be found. The fact that labor takes 50 to 60 per cent of total railway earnings makes limitations within which to effect economies very difficult but the demand is no less insistent on that account.
The President then urged merger of railroads, pooling of equipment and a central agency to aid in their financing and to suggest economies. This portion of his message was evidently inspired by the great labor strike during the summer of 1922, and the subsequent shortage of cars and inadequacy of transportation facilities. He argued that there “should be a guaranty against suspended operation. The public must be spared even the threat of discontinued service.” He then recommended an abolition of the Labor Board as not being “so constituted as best to serve the public interest.” This board is composed of three members selected by the railways and three by railway employees, and three by the Government. According to President Harding “it is inevitable that the partisan viewpoint is maintained throughout hearings and in decisions handed down. Only the public group of three is free to function in unbiased decisions.” He, therefore, suggested the abolishment of the partisan membership and that the work of the board be performed by or in very close contact with the Inter-State Commerce Commission which already has supreme authority in rate making to which “wage cost bears an indissoluble relationship.”
When a president of the United States takes up so much of his annual message with transportation and the relationship which the different forms bear to each other, when he argues for harmony between them and between them and their employees, there is certainly reason for study and legislation which will bring about just and adequate methods of administration, operation and regulation.
Selected References
Agricultural Inquiry, Report of Joint Commission on, Part III deals with Transportation, Washington, D. C., 1922.
Alden, H. W., “Automotive Obligations Toward Highway Development,” Journal of the Society of Automotive Engineers, Vol. VIII, pp. 161-162, 426-432.
Automotive Industries.—“Automobile Service Stations,” Vol. XLVII, pp. 174-175; “Automobiles in Postal Service,” 178-179; “Cost of Operation of Bus Lines,” 482-483; “Motor Trucks on the Farm,” 315; “Railroad Officials Recognize Truck as Transportation Ally,” Vol. XLIII, 1201-1203.
Baker, C. W., “Relative Economy of Truck and Railway,” Engineering News-Record, Vol. LXXXIII, pp. 52-67.
Bassett, W. R., “Avoiding Industrial Traffic,” Industrial Management, Vol. XLI, pp. 342-346.
Blanchard, A. H., “Traffic and Transportation,” Canadian Engineer, Vol. XL, pp. 129-131.
Blum, H., “Transportation of Bulk Freight,” Kali, Halle, Germany.
Bus Transportation.—“Baltimore Service,” Vol. I, p. 484; “Motor Buses,” 479-80; “Bus and Electric Railways as Essentials in Transportation,” by G. A. Green, 293-295; “Battle of the Bus and the Street Car,” by F. H. Warren, 85-88; “New Englanders Hold Meeting to Study Motor Bus and Trackless Trolley,” 124-129, 191-193; “Railway Men Discuss the Bus and its Relation to Rail Transportation,” 195-196.
Davis, F. W., “Motor Truck Transportation,” Engineering News-Record, Vol. LXXXV, pp. 1194-1195.
Donnelly, William T., “Comparison of Cargo Transportation,” Marine Engineering, Vol. XXV, pp. 899-903.
Engineering.—“Bringing the Food to the Table,” Vol. VI, pp. 387-391.
Electric Railway Journal.—“Report of Committee on Trackless Trolley Transportation to the American Electric Railway Association,” Vol. LX, pp. 576-577; “Freight and Motor Truck Competition,” Vol. LVI, pp. 157-160.
Development of the Automobile
Hiscock, Gardner D., “Horseless Vehicles,” Norman W. Henley & Co., New York, 1901.
Homans, James E., “Self-Propelled Vehicles,” Theo. Audel & Company, New York, 1902.
“History of Automobile Carriages,” reprinted from La Nature by the Scientific American, Vol. LXXII, p. 389, June 22, 1895.
Many other articles in the Scientific American, some of which are: “Ponchain’s Electric Carriage,” Vol. LXX, p. 69; “The Tachocycle,” p. 181; “Gaillardet’s Steam Carriage,” p. 200; “Simonds’ Steam Wagon,” p. 398; “Bicycle of 1816,” Vol. LXVII, p. 180; An Account of an automobile race from Paris to Bordeaux with descriptions of some of the machines participating, LXXIII, p. 40; “An English Horseless Carriage of 1827,” p. 214; “Duryea Motor Wagon,” p. 293; “Petrolium Tricycle,” p. 234; “Kane-Pennington Victoria,” p. 293; “The Benz Motocycle,” p. 315; “De La Vergne Motor Drag,” p. 377; “Steam Omnibus in London, 1833,” p. 404.
Firestone Ship by Truck Bureau, Bulletin No. 6, “Consolidated Rural Schools and the Motor Truck”; Bulletin No. 7, “The Motor Truck Terminal.” Akron, Ohio.
Facts and Figures, 1922. “Motor Bus Aids Rural Education,” National Automobile Chamber of Commerce, New York.
Greenough, M. B., “Motor Trucks and Highway Transportation,” Engineering and Contracting, Vol. XLIX, pp. 157-158.
Johnson, Emory R., “Elements of Transportation,” D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1909.
Lacy, V. E., “Inland Waterway Transportation,” Journal of the Society of Automotive Engineers, Vol. VIII, pp. 59-62.
Lane, F. Van Zant, “Motor Truck Transportation,” D. Van Nostrand Company, New York, 1922.
Mackall, J. N., “Motor Bus as a Factor in Highway Transport,” Engineering News-Record, Vol. LXXXIII, p. 234.
Mantell, John J., “Transportation Problems of the Metropolitan District,” Official Proceedings of the New York Railroad Club, Vol. XXXI, pp. 6369-6393.
Mechanical Engineering.—Discussion on Motor Truck Transportation, Inland Waterways, etc., Vol. XLIII, pp. 181-183.
Motor Rail Cars
Railway Review.—Vol. LXIX, pp. 753-755, 792-796; 860, Vol. LXX, 49-50, 191-192, 389-392, 501, 656, 669-673, 741-747, 928-929, 930.
Railway Age.—Vol. LXXI, pp. 841-843, Vol. LXXII, pp. 749-750, 886, 920, 1008-1009, 1069-1070, 1183-1184.
Electric Railway Journal.—Vol. LXIX, pp. 419, 513, 685-686.
Municipal Engineering.—“Text of Colorado Decision Affecting Commercial Use of Highways.” Vol. LXIII, sup. pp. 17-18.
National Automobile Chamber of Commerce.—Graham, George H., “The Motor Vehicle—Competitor or Ally,” 1920.
Norton, S. V., “The Motor Truck as an Aid to Transportation,” A. W. Shaw Company, Chicago.
Power Wagon.—Various articles March, July, October, November, and December, 1921, and during the year 1922.
Stocks, C. W., “The Bus Transportation Field,” Electric Railway Journal, N. Y., Vol. LVIII, pp. 517-522.
Spence, Lewis J., “New Era of Railroad Transportation in America,” Paper before the National Industrial Traffic League, Railway Age, Vol. LXIX, pp. 1153-1154.
Upham, C. M., “Car Shortage and Its Relation to Highway Work,” Engineering News-Record, Vol. LXXIX, pp. 1099-1100.
White, W. T., “War Development of Motor Transportation,” Good Roads, n. s. Vol. XIX, pp. 291-292.
Whiteside, W. J., “Motor Truck Competition,” Electric Railway Journal, Vol. LIV, pp. 981-982.
Willard, Daniel E., “Railroad Transportation. Fundamentals for developing a complete and well-articulated national transportation system,” Mechanical Engineering, Vol. XLIII, pp. 17-18.
Williams, C. C., “When Ship Freight by Motor Truck and When by Rail,” Engineering News, Vol. LXXVIII, pp. 315-316, 660-661.
Young, H. E., “Freight Movements by Motor Truck,” Western Society of Engineers’ Journal, Vol. XXVI, p. 204.
Footnotes
167 See “The Motor Bus Field as a Market for Trucks,” Automotive Industries, September 29, 1921.
168 One method of estimating cost of automobile riding, for a machine costing originally $1000, which having a life of 30,000 miles is then worth for scrap $100, may be given thus:
Original cost expressed in cents per mile (1000-100)100⁄30,000 3.0
Cost of repairs, estimated, 0.5
Gasoline and oil 2.5
Tires 1.5
Garage - 1.5
Interest
Taxes
Insurance
License
9.0
The cost is about 9 cents per car mile. If an average of two passengers ride that is 41⁄2 cents per passenger mile. The above is merely an illustration and cannot be applied generally.
169 See Bulletin 770, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Bureau of Markets, “Motor Transportation for Rural Districts,” Also Bulletin 931.
170 “A Jitney Guide to the Santa Fé Trail,” Saturday Evening Post, June 10, 1922.
171 The statute of Winchester enacted during the reign of Edward I, of England, provided “that highways leading from one market town to another shall be enlarged, where woods, hedges or dykes be, so that there be neither dyke, tree nor bush, whereby a man may lurk to do hurt, within two hundred foot on the one side and two hundred foot on the other side of the way.”
172 Reprinted by permission from The Saturday Evening Post, Copyright 1922, by the Curtis Publishing Company, Philadelphia, Pa.