ffif THE PINEHURST OUTLOOK 'Mjf 8
PAGE
A BILLION FOR AUTOMOBILES
--Ms
XTbe Sborebam;
Washington's I
Famous Hotel
Reopened December 15th, having been closed for extensive structural
alterations, improvements, re decorating and re-furnishing. All bedrooms
now have baths and running water.
W. H. B ARSE, Manager
BALTIMORE STEAM PACKET
COMPANY
(Old Bay Line)
Portsmouth, Norfolk
OR
Old Point Comfort
, TO
Baltimore
Side Trip with Stop-over at Old Point
Norlina or Richmond
TO
Baltimore
-$3.50-
DAILY STEAMERS
Special Meals and a la Carte
G. Z. Phillips, G.l'.A Baltimore, Md.
FIREPROOF EUROPEAN PLAN
NEW
Hotel Continental
Opp"site Union Station Plaza
Washington, D. C.
A. W. CHAFFEE, Manager
Rates $1.50 Per Day and Upward
The Magnolia
PINEHURSI , N. C.
Stflam Heat, Electric Lights. Excellent Tab)
SOUTHERN PINES HOTEL
J. L. POTTLE & SON. Managers
i" j&t
NEEDLEWORK NOVELTIES
EXHIBITION ROOM
HIGHLAND PINES INN
Weymouth Heights
SOUTHERN PINES, N. C.
LIFT-THE LATCH TEA ROOM
Plncbluff, N. C.
The Misses Little.
Summer-Time All The Time
AT
PINE FOREST INN
Summerville, S. C.
13 hole golf course. The best be
cause it is different from any other
course in the South. Grass fair green,
no hills, excellent natural hazards.
Gilbert S. Nichols, professional.
No golfer who is a genuine sport
should return north without spending
a few days at Summerville and Pine
Forest Inn.
Sunshine and Flowers, Riding,
Driving and Excellent Gunning
RALPH J. HERKIMER
MANAGER
Hand loom rug weaving by native weaver
Native pottpr and potter's wheel
Indian basket weaver Colored wood carver
Arts and Crafts Shop
oeneral Office Building
My Edward Iyell JFox In Illustrated I
Sunday Magazine
COPYRIGHT
THREE million auto
mobiles turn their
wheels in this country ;
one of every thirty per
sons owns his car ; and
more than a billion dol
lars is the bill. Al
ready I hear someone
shouting "Thou liar!"
You live in a city of twenty-five thou
sand. You remember the garage man
has told you there are only a hundred
automobiles in the town. You do gome
figuring. It would seem to contradict
my statement. Wait ! If To say that
one person of thirty has an automobile
is to talk in averages. But the law of
totals savs so and the law of totals does
not lie. At my elbow are the statistical
reports of the United States manufactur
ers. JNear them is a list or imports.
Marshalling the figures of the two I find
that there are three millions of automo
biles scattered through the states. I
don't mpan new automobiles just from
the factory but good serviceable ma
chines that can be bought and sold.
Now as their total is 3,000.000 and as our
population is about 90,000,000 don't they
divide one for thii ty ? Don't they ?
And moving from the basis of personal
comparison to that old iavonte oi the
statistician, distances, let me insert the
old formula. Were the automobiles of
this country to be placed end to end they
would reach half way round the world
a line of shining metal 12,500 miles long,
know this for I measured it. Also,
after gazing into a crystal ball it is pos
sible to announce that 6,000,000 automo
biles, family size, would completely
band the earth. Understand that this
allows a hump in the line caused by
climbing and descending Fujiyama.
Which statement I trust will not be taken
as free advertising for the hill climbing
powers of certain hill climbing machines.
And moving our basis of comparison
again we come to dollars bright, golden
dollars like Frank Norris wrote about in
his Epic of Money. In 1899 the value of
automobiles manufactured in this coun
try was $4,748,000. With accessories
the total reached $5,000,000. Late re
ports show the value of such products to
be a billion dollars. In other words
thirteen years has seen the value of
the industry multiplied by two hundred.
Yesterday there was only a machine
for about every twenty thousandth per
son. Today the rate is one for every
thirty. The relative values, you see, are
very lopsided.
Understand that the title "Billion for
Automobiles" was chosen because of its
solid fact. As a matter of estimate the
total value of the machines in this coun
try can be put at $3,000,000,000. The
billion represents merely money spent in
one year for new automobiles and their
parts. If you are not the chosen one in
thirty owning a car, understand that by
parts is meant tires, magnetos, carburet
ors, lamps, wind shields, all the little
accessories that make the dealers rich,
you poor. Also the bill for these acces
sories coming to about $250,000,000 every
January the rest of the billion is made
up by the cost of cars. You never real
ized there were so many cars? Neither
did I. Not until some incident comes to
you, do you acknowledge such a fact.
My incident came of a recent Sunday on
Long Island. It was at a place called
Brightwaters. A much traveled park
way ran past a club house. To settle a
bet two men had been sitting on the
porch of this club house from daybreak.
As each automobile passed that point,
they had made a note of it. As you may
have guessed it was a bet to decide how
many machines would pass that point be
tween sunrise and nine o'clock at night.'
I saw the men during the forenoon. I
don't know how many they had counted.
Neither did they. Late that night, how
ever, the totals were compiled and it was
found that ten thousand automobiles had
passed that one point during the day.
It doesn't matter which man won. As I
remember, he had a pointed beard, a look
of satisfaction, and a guess of more than
rive thousand. His opponent, unfor
tunate fellow, had wagered that the num
ber of machines would be under five
thousand. Now, if ten thousand cars
had passed through a little Long Island
village on one Sunday, figure out how
many cars would pass over the main
highways of all the different states.
You begin to realize that the three mil
lion machines is not an exaggeration?
The automobile business has grown mot
surprisingly. It is enormous and swell
ing like the tide in spring. Going back
to 1899 again we rind that the statistics
of the industry were included with those
for carriage and wagon manufacture.
Even then the total was only 3,897. Five
years later it was 22,830, multiplying
itself nearly six times. Ten years later
it had climbed to 127,287, nearly thirty
three times the number of cars reported
in 1899. Also the value of its products
then was $249,202,000, nearly fifty times
as much as ten years before, an increase
of about 4,900 per cent. And now con
sider again that this year's output is half
a million cars, at an average value of
$1,500 and allowing for parts the total,
$1,000,000,000 is obtained. In 1899 the
total was but five millions, in 1912, it
was a billion quite a jump.
Hut before going into a more specific
study of the industry let us glance at the
imports and exports. Take the imports.
They tell a story by themselves. Five
years ago we imported over $4,000,000
worth of automobiles. France alone
sent nearly $3,000,000 in cars. Last year
we imported but $1,898,843 worth.
France's total fell to $797,931. All of
which helps to explain the billion today.
We don't have to import our machines
because we are making o many and such
good ones in this country. As the im
ports fell the domestic totals rose. It
was an old law of economics working
again. Just consider that in 1911 the
total number of cars we imported from