r I LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CAM iRNi.SeejPages 35, 39 to 42 and 145 { SAN L COMPLIMENTS OF E. B. GALLAHER Agent and Sole Importer Br aster Car General Eastern Distributor The Cleveland Car 228-230 WEST 58th STREET -Between Broadway and 7th Avenue Telephone 1393 Columbus NEW YORK PARIS No. 11 RUE D'ALGER Cable Addresses BRASIER, NEWYORK GALLAHER, PARIS CONTINENTAL TOURING SERVICE THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR A SUMMER TOUR IN FRANCE AND SWITZERLAND FOLLOWED BY SOME OBSERVATIONS ON KINDRED TOPICS By WINTHROP E. SCARRITT WITH INTRODUCTION By C. N. AND A. M. WILLIAMSON NEW YORK E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET ROAD NEAR VEUDREUVE THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR OR A SUMMER TOUR IN FRANCE AND SWITZERLAND FOLLOWED BY SOME OBSERVATIONS ON KINDRED TOPICS By WINTHROP E. SCARRITT WITH INTRODUCTION By C. N. AND A. M. WILLIAMSON Authors of " The Lightning Conductor " NEW YORK E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET Copyright by E. P. BUTTON & Co. 1906 Published April 1906 The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. U.S. A. " Of all inventions, the alphabet and printing press alone excepted, those inventions which abridge distance have done most for civiliza- tion." MACAULAT. To THE AUTOMOBILE CLUB OF AMERICA WHICH FROM THE BEGINNING HAS STOOD FOR ALL THAT IS HIGHEST AND BEST IN THE GLORIOUS SPORT OF AUTOMOBILING THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE The Paradise of Good Roads 2 Three Men in a Motor-Car 30 Beautiful Sainte Chapelle 50 Gardens of Versailles 57 Place de la Concorde 60 European Villa 71 His Royal Highness 78 Over Perfect Roads and Under Perfect Skies 86 In the Bernese Oberland 95 Famous Old Bridge at Lucerne 98 Waterfall 900 Feet Lauterbrunnen 101 Looking Towards Jungfrau 104 Val du Fier Ill From Orleans to Paris 194 The Times-Herald Cup Winner, 1895 247 Back to Beginnings 256 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE INTRODUCTION ix FOREWORD xi I-in. "THREE MEN IN A BOAT" 1-29 IV-XIV. THREE MEN m A MOTOR-CAR 30-143 XV. A VISIT TO THE HOME OP THE WINNER OF THE GORDON-BENNETT CUP 144 XVI. MAN'S ANCIENT FOES 149 XVII. THE AUTOMOBILE OF THE FUTURE .... 167 XVIII. THE COMMERCIAL VEHICLE AND NEWSPAPER DISTRIBUTION 174 XIX. AUTOMOBILE LEGISLATION 177 XX. GOOD ROADS 194 XXI. THE FUEL OF THE FUTURE 203 XXII. CARS AT THE CUSTOM HOUSE 224 XXIII. PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS 231 XXIV. Ths FIRST AUTOMOBILE CONTESTS IN AMERICA 244 XXV. CONCLUSION 256 Vll INTRODUCTION THOSE who like a laugh, those who travel, those who would travel if they could, and all those interested in the social revolution im- plied in the word " automobilism," will find something to their taste in this book of Mr. Winthrop E. Scarritt. A former president of The Automobile Club of America and one of the honored pioneers of the motor-car in his own country, he here undertakes to show Americans how they can extend their pleas- ure to other continents. It is the deliberate opinion of all who have tried it, that life can offer few more vivid joys than a tour in a motor-car through beautiful country. No- where can this pleasure be so perfectly enjoyed as on the Continent of Europe; and especially in France, whose roads are the envy of the world. To Americans especially, a European motor tour must appeal with a peculiar allure- ment. To travel in a train is to be hurled from place to place in a box, with little fresh air, no contact with the people, no chance of INTRODUCTION getting at the life of the country. In a motor- car you enter into its heart, its air fills your lungs; you are delightfully exhilarated; you see the people at work and at play; for the time you are one of them. You can haste when it pleases you, and linger at your will. You are free as the clouds or the birds. Mr. Scarritt, writing from a ripe experience, tells in his book how the fascinating pleasures of a European tour may be most successfully obtained. With him as guide, the way is smooth; difficulties vanish. Much as he has done for automobilism in America, he is here putting his countrymen under a fresh debt, and he is adding to the happiness and civili- zation of the world by bringing nations nearer, and teaching us better to understand each other. C. N. & A. M. WILLIAMSON FOREWORD THE Dreams of Yesterday are the Realities of To-day, and the Commonplaces of To- morrow. Morse, with daring audacity, lifts his hand into the clouds, and seizing the pen of the Almighty ticks out that first message between Baltimore and Washington, while an as- tounded world stands with uncovered head and joins reverently in the glad acclaim, "What hath God wrought!" That was Yes- terday. To-day, a young Italian genius, without the aid even of a slender wire, flashes signals across the Atlantic, and dreams that to-morrow he will send them around the world. Man's conquest over Nature, his knowl- edge of her secrets, his dominion over her forces, has been greater in the span of memory of men now living than in all the countless centuries of human history which preceded. When the history of man's achievements shall have been made up, it will be found that the xi FOREWORD coming of the Automobile marked an Epoch in Civilization. It is a curious fact that, notwithstanding our boasted nineteenth-century progress in methods, discovery and invention, up to the coming of the motor-car man had made abso- lutely no progress since the dawn of history in the transportation of the individual unit of society. We boast that we had captured the very Gods of the Ancients, Air, Steam, Electricity, and had harnessed them to our big chariots such as the Ocean Greyhound and the Lackawanna Limited Express. But these relate to the transportation of numbers of individuals or masses of freight. It remains that, so far as the transportation of the indi- vidual is concerned, until the coming of the motor-car humanity had made no progress whatever, and, in fact, had no other or differ- ent means of going about than it did when the human race left its cradle on the banks of the Euphrates and began its westward march. The horses and chariots of Pharaoh were just as fine as any we may see to-day on Fifth Avenue or Champs Elysees. Hitherto we had captured the big Gods of the An- cients and harnessed them to our big chari- ots, but the little gods, or little daimones, FOREWORD had been too spry and elusive, and had es- caped us. In the last analysis, therefore, the Automo- bile means that man by his genius has finally succeeded in segregating a little part of the giant forces of Nature and in harnessing it to his individual chariot. Man's feet are no longer leaden, creeping slowly over the earth, they have become winged with the power of the Seven Leagued Boots, and the individual may now scorn the earth and travel over its surface with the speed of the wind. Measured by what it is and by what it is to accomplish, the Automobile takes on a new dignity and is lifted out of the realm of the toy and the plaything, to become a mighty and beneficent factor in Civilization. Hundreds of Americans have already ex- perienced the joys of a motor trip over the delightful roads of the old world, particu- larly of France and Switzerland. Thousands more contemplate this journey. Many more would undertake it if they knew how easily it may be accomplished. It will be the object of the writer in the following pages to give such definite and succinct information as one needs to possess in order to accomplish the trip comfortably, together with a brief de- xiii FOREWORD scription of the things that are most worth while. But through it all shall run the fixed thread of a larger purpose, viz. : to glorify the Automobile. Yesterday a Plaything of the Few; To-day a Servant of the Many; To-morrow the Necessity of Humanity. XIV CHAPTER I "THREE MEN IN A BOAT" Outward Bound, On Board S.S. Philadelphia, July 29. THERE were three of us plain, every-day American business men, worn and tired with the grind of life, and hungry to get away from the cares of the "street," from 'phones and stock-tickers, from printing-press and knitting- mill; so we cut the Gordian knot of many difficulties, mostly imaginary, and said sol- emnly to ourselves, and to each other, "We will take a motor-car, and go away to Europe - that Paradise of Good Roads to forget dull care, and renew our youth in an auto- mobile trip through some of the grandest country the sun sees in all his journey around the globe. Hurry, worry, and responsibilities are left behind; the wireless ticks out a mes- sage of good cheer and greeting to the folks at home, and we are plowing the waves of mid-ocean, off for what every automobilist will at once pronounce an ideal holiday. i THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR And now I am to begin my story. The day is one of those perfect ones when "Heaven and Earth are in tune." The sea is as smooth as Lake Hopatcong. The air comes to your cheek as soft and balmy as though wafted from the Gardens of Paradise. My first chapter will relate first what turned my thought to the automobile, and second, how I acquired a large allopathic dose of trouble in my first motor-car. Speaking more accurately, however, my trouble was not in getting hold of the car, but in getting rid of it. A story of a raw Irishman illustrates exactly my condition. Pat, shortly after his arrival fresh from the old sod, was invited by his neighbor Mike to go coon-hunting. By the light of the moon they treed the varmint, which turned out to be a wildcat. Mike went up the tree to shake down the supposed coon. Pat was to grab and hold the beast. The animal fell, and immediately there was a terrible commotion at the foot of the tree. Mike shouted down to his friend: "Shall I come down, Pat, and help yez hould him?" "Be gob, I wish yez would come down and help me let go," screamed Pat. During the summer of '99 I had taken for my little family a cottage at Long Branch. "THREE MEN IN A BOAT" The house faced the famous Ocean Avenue Drive, and occasionally throughout the season we saw gliding noiselessly up and down a little steam runabout, one of the early types of the Locomobile. It did not seem much larger than a baby-wagon, but it got over the ground delightfully. A few weeks later that splendid pioneer Alexander S. Winton, accompanied by that versatile newspaper man Charles S. Shanks, made an automobile trip from Cleveland to New York. Mr. Shanks' clever and thrilling account of the journey was published not only in the Cleveland Plaindealer but reproduced in an attractive booklet giving a detailed his- tory of this epoch-making run. I read every word of that little red-covered booklet with growing interest, and when I came to the finish I was conscious that I had become inoculated and that the microbe automobilious had found lodgment in my system. The serious and important question which next confronted me was what particular brand of trouble I should undertake to acquire. Business, politics, social and domestic prob- lems, all sank to minor importance, and the sole and solemn business of existence was the investigation of the automobile and the pur- 3 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR chase of the best possible brand at the most reasonable price. About this time, my life- long friend H. W. Whipple, overcome by my enthusiastic eloquence on the only theme then worthy of consideration or discussion, likewise acquired the disease, and together we held many and long-continued conferences on the tremendously important subject. Finally, to- gether we visited the Locomobile Agency in New York. We carefully examined the cun- ning little runabout and were treated, after standing patiently in line, awaiting our turn, to a fascinating ride for five or six asphalt blocks outside the salesroom. At the conclusion of the demonstration, friend Whipple's enthusiasm had arisen to 110 F. He immediately produced his check- book and wrote a few hieroglyphics by virtue of which carelessness the ownership of a car passed from the company to him. Seeing that I did not follow his example, he rather suspiciously inquired the reason of my inertia. I pointed out the light wire wheels, the deli- cate and complicated system of piping, the fragile and toy-like construction of the ve- hicle throughout, and positively declined to follow his courageous example. I proposed to look over the entire field and at my lei- 4 "THREE MEN IN A BOAT" sure come to a logical and conservative de- cision. This story does not presume to chronicle the trials and tribulations my friend encoun- tered in his new possession, because I soon had troubles of my own to keep me busy. Suffice it to say that Whipple twice burnt up all the burnable part of his car that he scarcely ever went out without some mishap, that through one long hot summer he agonized - yes, that is the word over and under that car, until his robust and rotund proportions literally melted away and at the end of the season he turned up his automobile toes, gave up the ghost and said: "I have had enough. The car cost me seven hundred and fifty dollars, I have in a few months spent twelve hundred dollars in repairs. Is there any fool anywhere who will pay me two hundred and fifty dollars for it ?" There was such an one, and he, being something of a mechanic, succeeded in getting quite satisfactoiy service out of the little car. This incident shows that the per- sonal equation enters largely into the problem. I well remember Whipple' s offering to wager the intending purchaser fifty dollars that if he bought the car he could not run it a mile without something getting out of order. The THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR original Locomobile was too light and too frail. Nevertheless it was the best steam car that could be had at the time, and the sport owes much to its manufacturers, who were noble pioneers in this new and important field. However, my friend's experience with his American car was so bitter that I turned to the foreign cars as being more substantial and satisfactory. I happened one day to learn that a Mr. Jacob Sheindig, whom I will, for the purpose of this writing, locate at St. Augustine, Florida, had a foreign car for sale cheap. Imme- diately I wrote him for description and terms. A prompt reply brought the information that my correspondent possessed a fine Benz car of latest pattern and up to date in every particular. That "it was a handsome and imposing turnout and would average about eighteen miles per hour." It had been im- ported as a model from which an American company proposed to build cars, but the company had "bust up" and consequently the present owner had bought the model car very cheap. He and his wife and children were much in love with it, and were extremely loath to part with such a household treasure; nevertheless they would reluctantly do so be- "THREE MEN IN A BOAT" cause the roads were so poor in their vicinity that it was little short of a crime to run such a fine car over such poor roads. The car cost and was cheap at two thousand dollars, but as the present owner had bought it for much less I could have it for six hundred and fifty dollars, and it was really a shame to sell it at any such price. If I would look in the Horse- less Age of November 29th, I would see an exact picture of this delightful car and an accurate description thereof. Eagerly I secured a copy of the Horseless Age referred to, and the fol- lowing cut and description appeared: THE BENr DUC. 1900 MODELS "1900 models" are already beginning to make their ap- pearance. One of the first is that of Benz & Co., of Mann- 7 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR heim, Germany, of which I send you an illustration herewith. The carriage, which is known as the "Due," is rather larger than their well-known "Ideal," which will, however, still be made. The new vehicle is 5 ft. 3 in. wide and is arranged to comfortably seat three or four persons. The motive power is supplied by a 5 h.p. single-cylinder engine, with electric ignition and water jacket. A new departure is the provision of a water cooler in addition to the ordinary condenser, by means of which frequent change of the cylinder-cooling water is rendered unnecessary. The power is transmitted by Belts working on fast and loose pulleys, there being three forward speeds and one reverse. Another new departure is the adoption of wooden wheels with solid rubber tires in place of the wire wheels used in the "Ideal" carriage. What great luck was this which had be- fallen me! I knew the Benz Company to be one of the oldest and most reputable in Ger- many. Surely this car was far superior to the trappy, fragile affairs of American manu- facture. "Made in Germany" had never before looked so good to me. Like all novices I was anxious to have a car right off, and impatient of delay. I wrote Mr. Sheindig that I was attracted by his description and inter- ested in his proposition. That if he would send the car C. O. D., with privilege of exam- ination, he might do so. This suggestion he declined, and drew another pathetic picture of his sorrowing wife and disconsolate children 8 "THREE MEN IN A BOAT" standing around refusing to be reconciled to giving up the handsome motor-car. If I wanted the car I would better hurry, as others were negotiating for it. He referred to two men in New York who had ridden in the "handsome and imposing turnout." These gentlemen corroborated all the good things that had been said about this particular Benz and I decided to send my check. This I did at once, ordering the car shipped forthwith. Ten days later it arrived crated, and was placed on the dock. The next day was, much to my satisfaction, a holiday. A truckman was engaged to deliver the precious freight at my Munn Avenue residence, The House of the White Lions, in East Orange, New Jersey. Accompanied by Whipple, R. G. Du Bois, and a Mr. Adams, an expert, we sallied forth to examine my first automobile. The crate loomed large and ominous in front of the barn door. My curious peeps between the slats of the crate were not reassuring. As slat after slat was torn away, heart and hope began to sink. At last the "handsome" turnout stood stripped of its covering. One glance was enough, I had been imposed upon, and that was all that was "imposing" about the whole affair. I was immediately aroused by a 9 savage yell of ghoulish glee from my friend "Whip." He exclaimed: "You are the man who would not have an American car; oh, no, it wasn't good enough. You are the man who proposed to look over the entire field at your leisure and come * to a logical and conservative decision." The general lines of the car were the same as -those in the picture, but instead of being a new Benz car and an up-to-date model, it must have been of an old, old vintage in fact, one of the very first of that well-known make. The car was old, rickety, and almost innocent of paint. The chickens had roosted in it; tufts of hair in the back and cushions were peeping out curiously and good-naturedly to see what it was all about. The rear wheels were abnormally high, while the front ones were abnormally low, each equipped with a solid rubber band about the size of those on a good, self-respecting perambulator. Whip- pie stood by, and between paroxysms of laughter made what were supposed to be facetious remarks. He declared Noah had had this antediluvian rig with him in the ark; then he modified the statement and apologized to Noah. He said father Noah had the car but he didn't think it was worth taking into 10 "THREE MEN IN A BOAT" the ark and so left it out in the rain. Sadly I confessed its appearance justified that con- clusion. Then the expert became busy and tried to start the fine old ruin. But evidently resenting the levity it had occasioned, the engine refused to give forth a single explosion or show any sign of life. For three long mortal hours we threatened and cajoled and coaxed. It was as dead as a heap of scrap- iron. The carbureter was of ancient style, as big as a gallon bucket and intersected with layers of gauze wire. The transmission sys- tem was the belt and pulley type; the engine was a single-cylinder affair as large as a young cannon, carefully and inscrutably concealed in the very heart of the car where it was most inaccessible. There was no starting crank. The only way to start the engine was to lift the rear of the body, reach far over towards the center of the car, grasping with the hand a large fly-wheel, and give it a quick jerk towards you. When an explosion did occur there was almost invariably a back kick, and if you were not exceedingly agile in letting go the rim of the fly-wheel the tendency was to pull you violently into the car, smashing your head against the upturned framework. At length the expert succeeded in getting 11 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR the engine running. Then I was almost sorry he had; the noise was quite as loud and about as pleasing as that of a stone-crushing ma- chine. The blue smoke poured from the tiny muffler in overpoweringly odoriferous stran- gulation. But at last "she felt the thrill of life along her keel," and she moved, or rather waddled, slowly off, much like a lame duck starting out for a mud bath. Going out of the yard into the street the car had to cross the depression of the curb gutter. There she groaned and stopped, unable to lift herself out of this slight ditch. This man Whipple fol- lowed and continued his irreverent, if not wholly irrelevant, remarks. He advised me to get a jackass to pull the car out; then he said I could do the task quite as well myself. We pushed the car out of the gutter on to the crown of the street. Suddenly the " old Nick" seemed to seize the thing. It started at full swing, rushed across the street in a flash, struck a young tree, and such was the impact that the front axle bent the slender trunk and began to slide or shin up. Again the maniacal screams from my alleged friend: " Come down out that tree," he shouted; "what do you think that is, a flying-machine, or is it a patent trap to hunt squirrels?" Well, the 12 "THREE MEN IN A BOAT" engine stopped and we backed down. But why continue this painful narrative? We succeeded in getting the car straightened out on the level street and were off finally, noise, smoke, odor and all, and succeeded by actual measurements in getting up the enormous blood-curdling speed of eight miles per hour. Every horse we met danced a fandango and tried to turn circles or stand on its head; mothers heard us coming and gathered their children in their arms and ran for the cellar; cats climbed trees and every dog in the village gave chase in company with an army of small boys. That was a strenuous ride. I have a vivid picture of a blind horse running away with a milk cart, and milk literally raining down from the trees ; also of two mules hitched to a wagon trying to climb up a neighbor's front porch and the neighbor trying to beat them back with an umbrella. His language was something frightful. That ride came to an end as all pleasant ( ?) incidents must. I shall not forget it. I think I made more enemies among my neighbors in that half -hour than I can recover in the next thirty years. When I returned to the bosom of my family, the hot water was boiling out of the radiator 13 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR of the car and the steam rising in graceful white clouds. Notwithstanding these pleas- ant little idiosyncrasies of the "imposing" Benz, I invited my charming wife for a ride. She gently but firmly declined, and, secretly, I have had a greater admiration for her good sense ever since. The car was impossible. 14 CHAPTER II ONE day I heard of a Mr. Blevney, a Ger- man machinist residing in Newark, who understood foreign cars. I arranged for him to come out and inspect the Patriarch. When the barn doors were flung open, he shouted, " Mein Himmel ! dot vas mein old Benz. Look on the front spring you see where one time I patched him." So it was. He continued excitedly, "Dot was a bully car; why, mein froint, one time the German Emperor rode mit dot car in." The much excited Teuton then proceeded to tell me its history. It was one of the first turned out by the Benz factory, at Mannheim, Germany. He had sent an agent abroad to purchase this car. One day the man was driving it along the highway which ran parallel to one of the railroads leading into Berlin. The special train of the Emperor came along bearing his august per- sonage. He noticed the automobile, which was a great novelty at that time. The Em- peror stopped the train and sent an officer to 15 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR the driver of the motor-car with a message that the Emperor would like to examine the vehicle. Naturally, the German was all but overcome with this new honor. After a care- ful examination the Emperor expressed a desire to be taught to operate the car, and such was his natural aptitude that in a few minutes this able and versatile sovereign was driving the car at a jolly clip towards Berlin, the special train having been ordered to follow. My German friend brought the car to Newark, N. J. From this point he had taken it to various county fairs, operating and exhibiting it and receiving as remuneration twenty-five dollars per day. Great throngs flocked to these exhibitions and this horseless carriage created as much excitement as a successful flying-machine would to-day. My Teutonic friend finally sold the car to some manufacturers in Buffalo; they in turn sold it to the man of St. Augustine, and he, after an adventurous career with it, as I found later, unloaded the nightmare upon me. As the Oranges are really a suburb of Newark, after going around the circle, the car like the cat had strangely enough come back to its original starting-point. 16 "THREE MEN IN A BOAT" The German machinist was loath to under- take the rehabilitation of the Benz. The compression was bad, the wheels were wobbly; the ignition system was antiquated and below par, and the belts rotten. After a long and silent contemplation he said, "I advise that you keep him in a museum, otherwise run him mit the river in." I felt that I had been swindled. I had numerous letters from the man who had sold me the car, setting forth its good qualities, and scarcely one of the repre- sentations was true. I think I am a patient and long-suffering individual, but the more I thought of this "handsome and imposing turnout" and of the manner of its acquisition, the more indig- nant I became. Smarting with a keen sense of wrong and injustice, I determined to " have the law on the man." Upon consulting my lawyer, Mr. H. H. Snedeker, what was my chagrin and astonishment to hear him say: "The chances are that you will never be able to recover; the man who sold you the car is a resident of another state you would have to bring your action in his home town his friends and neighbors would constitute the jury local sympathy would be with him and against you you would have to em- 17 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR ploy local counsel, and the chances are that you would be defeated, and only succeed in throwing good money after bad." Thus my lawyer friend counseled me. If I were angry before this, you may well under- stand how this interview was like pouring gasolene on a burning flame. That night I thought the whole matter over. I admitted the bitter fact that my first automobile ex- periment was a failure and tried to reason myself into the sensible conclusion advised by my attorney, namely: charge the whole thing up to experience, and forget it. Try as I might, however, my mind rebelled at this conclusion of the matter. I was sorry for myself, and while I did not mind so much the loss of a few hundred dollars, I had that instinctive characteristic of every American, a hatred of being "done." I determined therefore, to "get even." I did not know how, nor when, nor where; I simply deter- mined to get even. I forgot to say that pre- vious to this time I had written Mr. Sheindig, telling him that he had obtained my money under false pretenses and demanding its re- turn. He wrote back a politely sarcastic letter (How I did admire that man's nerve!) in which he stated, " I do not like the tone of 18 "THREE MEN IN A BOAT" your letter. You are evidently in a frame of mind not to be reasoned with, and I therefore enclose you the card of my attorney." That letter settled it. I determined to spend ten years, and as many thousand dollars, if neces- sary, in bringing this cool gentleman to brook. At this point there began a line of inductive reasoning born of the necessities of the situa- tion, a la Sherlock Holmes, which kind and over-indulgent friends have since told me would not have discredited that great de- tective himself. The only clew upon which I could build was that this man had owned a motor-car. I thought the matter out as follows : first, any man who had once owned a motor-car and disposed of it would want to buy another; second, Sheindig has owned a motor-car and unloaded it upon an eager victim; third, he will be in the market for another car; fourth, his name suggests that he belongs to a race who always want to buy cheap, and are mas- ters of the art; fifth, if he wants to buy cheap he will look for another second-hand car; sixth, there are more second-hand cars in the city of New York than in all the rest of the country put together, and he will naturally come to this market; seventh, in order to find 19 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR second-hand cars for sale, he will advertise in the Horseless Age the only motor vehicle paper at that time published in New York City; eighth, it therefore behooves me to keep an eye on the Horseless Age and say nothing. This was my chain of reasoning. Let us see how it worked out. Several weeks passed and my adversary was as silent as the grave. One day, however, when hope had begun to wane, the postman dropped a copy of the Horseless Age on my office desk, and from force of habit I turned to the advertising columns. There, oh joy! I read the following advertisement: "Wanted: A second-hand motor-car of American manu- facture. Must be good and cheap. Address, with full particulars, Jacob Sheindig, P. O. Box 643, St. Augustine, Fla." I jumped to my feet with a joyous yell, "I've got him! I've got him!" I am sure the members of the staid old banking firm of J. & W. Seligman and Company (most of whom I rejoice to say have since become enthusiastic motorists) with whom I had at that time the honor of being connected, must have thought me suddenly insane. At last the hour for action had arrived. I lost no time in betaking myself to the office of 20 "THREE MEN IN A BOAT" Mr. R. G. Du Bois, at that time the only dealer in second-hand automobiles in New York City. I told him the history of the whole transaction, and requested his assist- ance in evening up scores with my friend Jacob. I found Mr. Du Bois most kind and quite willing to step upon the stage and take part in the play. He looked over his list of available cars and found he had a second- hand Winton which might be used as a tempt- ing bait to decoy the shrewd Sheindig into the meshes of our snare. The fast mail that night took South a letter offering for sale a fine second-hand, single-cylinder, Winton motor- car in first-class condition, which had been used but slightly. The price was seven hun- dred and fifty dollars. The return mail brought a letter from Sheindig saying that he liked the description of the car, but that he would not pay over seven hundred dollars for it. He also stated that he had sent a check for seven hundred dollars to a friend who was an engi- neer on a North River tug-boat ; that his friend was quite competent to judge all kinds of machinery, and that if he examined the car and approved it, he was authorized to make the purchase, turning over the check for seven hundred dollars. 21 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR The tug engineer the following day came and examined and approved the car. The question then arose as to the character of the seven-hundred-dollar check. On investiga- tion it was found to be the draft of a local bank drawn on its New York correspondent, the National City Bank. Mr. Du Bois stated to Sheindig's representative that while he had no doubt the check was good, yet he was acting for others in the matter, and suggested that they go to the bank and have the check certified. This was done forthwith. The trap was now about ready to be sprung when suddenly it occurred to me that perhaps Jacob Sheindig would claim that he was purchasing the car for some one else, and thus thwart all our deep-laid plans. Consequently the fol- lowing telegram was sent him: "It has oc- curred to me that you may be buying this car for some one else. If so, I will not sell it for less than seven hundred fifty dollars. An- swer. R. G. Du Bois." Back came a prompt reply: " I am no agent. The car is exclusively for my own use. Jacob Sheindig." That was the final nail in Jacob's coffin. At two o'clock Mr. Du Bois and Sheindig's agent met at the garage. The check was en- dorsed and passed over to Du Bois and the "THREE MEN IN A BOAT" car delivered to Sheindig through his agent. Just as he was about to take the car from the garage a deputy sheriff stepped up, tapped him on the shoulder and said, "I am sorry, sir, but you cannot take that car from here, I have an attachment on it," and immediately served the necessary papers. The rest of the story is soon told. The engineer of the tug on the North River was "mad as a March hare." He stormed and cursed until the officer threatened to lock him up, when he subsided and rushed off to wire his principal the situation. I must say Jacob Sheindig took his medicine philosophically and like a man. He wrote Mr. Du Bois: "I acknowledge that I have been beaten, I see now that I was too independent, but I thought I had the drop on Scarritt; now I discover that he has the drop on me and that makes all the difference in the world. I really think he would make a bright and shining ornament to our race. Please tell him I will promptly, if not cheerfully, pay him his money back and take the car." The last I heard of the historic old Benz, it was again on its way South. Perhaps it is reckoned now as only old and abandoned junk falling into final decay beneath the 23 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR shadow of some lone palmetto in the distant South land. Alas, it deserved a better fate, and even now I would like to know its where- abouts that I might rescue it and place it in some automobile museum, for coming gen- erations to study as one of the ancestors of the horseless tribe. Since I parted with my old Benz, the mem- ory of which is not distasteful to me because I "got even," I have had twenty-two differ- ent automobiles, but I state a simple fact in saying that all the twenty-two combined never furnished me the kind of thrills or quantity and quality of mental excitement afforded by my genuine and only original Benz. 24 CHAPTER III PRIMITIVE man lived in caves. High up on the side of a cliff was the door of his domicile, with a huge stone rolled before it to keep out the savage beasts. There was no lack of fresh air and ventilation. Later, our barbarous ancestors became lake-dwellers, and built their rude shacks on long poles over the waters of a lake. They were a healthy and sturdy race; they knew nothing of sani- tation ; they lived a natural life, near to nature's heart, as did the beasts of the field, and she, old Dame Nature, was their cherishing mother. The centuries and the ages roll on; savagery, semi-savagery, civilization, modern progress - each in turn and in panoramic procession, pass across the stage of Time. Once more man becomes a cliff-dweller, but we call the cliffs Apartment Houses, or Hotels, or Sky- scrapers. These modern caves, however, are not properly ventilated; they are the home of the prolific microbe, and the dwellers therein, whatever their attainments otherwise, have 25 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR far less stock of physical health and stamina than did our savage ancestors in the dawn of history. Hurry is the great American disease. The scientist who identifies the microbe, and dis- covers the antidote, will take his place in the Hall of Fame. In these days of keen competition in every department of human activity, of Tariffs and Trusts, of artistic Shipbuilding swindles, of Insurance scandals that cause us to reflect "How the mighty are fallen," -I- repeat, in these days of Frenzied Finance, and constant competition, there are few enough things of surpassing interest to draw men away from the treadmill of busi- ness and from their apartments and much bedecorated caves. But the automobile aye, that is the thing, - the automobile, to woo weary men away from City street, to country lane, Where, to the music of murmuring brook and singing bird, The tides of life and health set in again. No one has yet begun to catalogue, or fully anticipate, the blessings that are to follow in the train of the motor-car. Thus the auto- mobile wooed us weary men away to France. Before continuing our story, a few words 26 "THREE MEN IN A BOAT" may not be amiss as to the personnel of the "Three Men in a Boat," later to be "Three Men in a Motor-Car." The president and mechanical genius of the party is Mr. John A. Hill, a well-known member of the Automobile Club of America, and at one time chairman of its Contest Committee. Mr. Hill, a few years ago, was driving a locomotive on the Rio Grande Rail- road. No man on the road could drive an engine better than he. Later, he wrote some railroad stories, several of which were pub- lished in McClures Magazine. These thrill- ing tales of adventure on the rail were written in a style that showed their author to be a clever master of his pen. Subsequently, Mr. Hill came East and purchased a controlling interest in the American Machinist, a paper well known in the mechanical world. Later he secured control of Power, another paper in the same field, and later still purchased the American Mining and Engineering Journal. By his genius and ability Mr. Hill has devel- oped these papers, until they are to-day rec- ognized as the foremost publications of their class in the world, and worth, to their owner, an independent fortune. Mr. Hill may be taken as a fine type of the independent, self- 27 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR made American. The car which he takes abroad with him for the journey is a fine model 18-24 horse-power French car. No. 2 in the party is Mr. Charles H. Kavanaugh, a wealthy manufacturer of Waterford, New York. He is a man who has fought his way through adverse circumstances and bitter struggles to a position of standing in the commercial world. Mr. Kavanaugh has a holy hatred of being robbed, and it was he who compelled those responsible for his losses through subscribing for bonds of the defunct United States Shipbuilding Company, to make restitution. The writer of these letters is the third member of the automobile trio. He pleads guilty to the indictment of having been one of the original American cranks on the subject, and rejoices that he has had a small part in the promotion of the gospel of auto- mobiling in America. He is second to no living man in the largeness of his faith as to the economic revolutions and the beneficent results which are to be accomplished by the universal use of the automobile. And now the delightful week on shipboard has ended. For seven days the good vessel has steadily ploughed eastward, with never a stop of the great engines. The last night on 98 "THREE MEN IN A BOAT" board, the customary concert was given. There were so many automobilists present that the entertainment had a decidedly motor- car trend. One of the company gave "An Apostrophe to the Automobile," in which the glories of the tireless steed were enthusiasti- cally sung. At eleven o'clock, July 29, we touched at Plymouth. The Paris edition of the New York Herald looked good enough to eat. What impressed us most in the paper was a column of space given up to short paragraphs of automobile news, a number of these telling of the purchase of French cars by well-known Americans. Soon we were skirting the shores of Merry England, and who could stop in a stuffy cabin and write, under such circum- stances ? So, Auf Wiedersehen. 29 CHAPTER IV THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR To come off a stuffy transatlantic liner, after seven days of murky, foggy weather, to feel the sunshine until you can taste it; to take your motor-car out of its crate and have it start with the first turn of the crank; to glide out of Southampton, and within an hour find yourself in a country so beautiful that if it were any more so it would be Paradise this single experience is worth the whole time and expense of crossing the ocean. Chief of Transportation Hill and the writer are Jer- seyites, and accustomed to traveling over the best macadam roads in all the dominion of your Uncle Sam. But when the three men in their motor-car really got straightened out on a typical English highway, with its well- trimmed green hedges on either side, illumi- nated with a fringe of deep red poppies, "the sunshine and the shadows chasing each other over billowy fields of golden grain," the boy spirit broke forth and "Uncle John" opened 30 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR her up. The only reason he did not go faster over that smooth white highway was because the motor-car simply didn't have it in her to do more. The poet sings of "a perfect day in June," but it was left to us to find a perfect day in July on which to drive to London. Being familiar with Jersey roads (as well as Justice), we could but compare them with the English highways. The latter are much narrower than ours, but that is the only point to their disadvantage. They are smooth, hard, and kept in admirable condition. In the eighty- mile run to London we did not discover a single spot that needed attention. In Jersey we build a good road, then neglect it until finally it becomes impossible to properly repair it, forgetting that in the care of roads, as well as of motor-cars, and other things besides, a stitch in time saves nine. Much of the Eng- lish highway is built on, or below, the natural level of the ground. In America we build the road-bed far above the natural surface, and leave a ditch on either side. The English road has but one point to freeze from the top. Our American roads freeze from three points, the top and both sides, and, therefore, the edges are constantly breaking away. As 31 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR a result, it is extremely difficult to keep the roads in condition. Our English brothers have had about nine hundred years the start of us in road-building. Why not take a leaf out of their book? I wish I could paint for you the picture that presented itself in unbroken panorama on that delightful run. The summer clouds were floating lazily in a soft, deep blue sky; the small, perfectly kept English farms were each outlined by the inevitable hedge; the whole landscape was a great checker-board, beau- tiful enough for angels to play upon. Occa- sionally, in some deep and distant wood, we would catch a glimpse of baronial castle and lofty tower, and floating above all the Eng- lish flag. Sometimes there would be waving with the English emblem the glorious Stars and Stripes. God grant that these two flags may always float together in every land where Civilization has a home or Freedom a banner. The farmhouses were neat, modest brick buildings, their lawns and gardens being as well kept as, the lawns of any of our suburban districts at home. In fact, the whole country gives one the impression of being finished, with not another blessed thing to be done until Gabriel blows his trumpet. 32 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR Our route took us through Aldershot, the famous military rendezvous. Here we saw Tommy Atkins in his red coat, and wondered why it was red a color, the writer remarked to "Uncle John," which furnishes the easiest target in the world. But "Uncle John" was wiser than I, and gave me this interesting bit of information. Years ago, a commission was appointed to determine what color, in uni- forms, was the least conspicuous. A number of soldiers were dressed in different colored suits, and marched away together. At short range the red was most conspicuous, but at a distance of a few hundred yards it grew much less so. First to fade from sight was the brown Khaki, then the red uniform, and last of all the blue, showing the blue to be the most conspicuous color of all. Perhaps this story may suggest why so many motor-cars are painted red, and so few blue. All too soon London looms up in the dis- tance, and our first ride on foreign soil is almost at an end. We crossed Waterloo Bridge and went down the Strand to St. Paul's Cathedral. At this point our atten- tion was attracted to an American automobile - a saucy little Franklin, bowling along within the shadow of the great edifice. Noth- 33 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR ing we have seen since has made us feel quite so much at home as did that neighborly little Franklin. The following day we presented our cre- dentials to Mr. Johnson, the popular Secretary of the Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland. He is a fine type of the English gentleman, and extended us a most cordial welcome. I also had the pleasure of renewing my acquaintance with Henry Norman, M.P., a cultured and able man and an enthusiastic motorist. To both of these gentlemen we are indebted for courteous suggestions and infor- mation concerning our future journeyings. A word about motor buses in London. As yet, they are "conspicuous by their fewness." Nevertheless, a dozen or more were moving up and down the crowded Strand. They are driven by the internal combustion engine, varying in horse-power from 20 to 30. Most of them are shaft-driven. They go at twice the speed of the horse-drawn bus, and carry twice as many passengers. They have solid rubber tires and are handled by drivers of the greatest skill, going along frequently at from fourteen to sixteen miles per hour. The "Bobbies" do not frown or threaten the drivers, and I am beginning to regard the 34 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR London "cop" as a very decent sort of an officer. In the country districts, however, English motorists have to contend with police traps and country constables who are just about as prejudiced and pusillanimous as the Long Island genus. Invective could surely go no further than this. And now a word of information as to the procedure for getting one's motor-car from New York to its destination abroad. By all odds, the best plan is to go to what is known as a "Forwarder" (Forwarding Agent) and put yourself in his hands. Such a one is E. B. Gallaher, 228 W. 58th St., New York. Our car is of French manufacture, and weighs twenty-two hundred pounds. By appoint- ment, your New York "Forwarder" arranges that your car shall go to the Custom House. An official examines it, makes a record of the number of its engine, and other details. This record is kept, and enables the owner to bring his car back into the country without incon- venience, delay, or the payment of duty. The "Forwarder" now takes possession of the car, and crates it in a strong crate put together by bolts. He trucks it to the dock, and con- signs it as you may direct. The total cost, in- cluding freight, crating, and "Forwarder's" 35 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR charges, in our case, was two hundred and twenty dollars. The crate is preserved for the homeward shipment. The next chapter will give further instructions. I have already referred in this letter to Hon. Henry Norman. This enthusiastic Eng- lish motorist is the editor of The World's Work and Play. In a recent issue of his paper, he has an exceedingly interesting article on "Motor Racing and Motor Pleasure." He thinks the Gordon-Bennett races have had their day, and should be abandoned. He also gives an account of the last of these races in France. His reference to the American cars - entirely unprejudiced will be of interest. He says: "The American cars, as heretofore, were a negligible quantity. America does no better in the manufacturing of racing cars than in that of touring cars, which are still a long way behind European models. The only American prominence is in steam touring cars, of which much the best, indeed practically the only one that need be considered, is the White." Mr. Norman will find at no distant date that the American cars are not a negligi- ble quantity. 36 CHAPTER V IT is said that we live and learn, but by the time we have learned it is too late to live. This thought ground itself thoroughly into our minds at Havre, that cold rainy Thursday morning when we three enthusiastic motorists landed on French soil and spent the entire day trying to get our motor-car through the end- less red tape of the Custom House. We had come by boat from Southampton, and had slept in narrow, shallow troughs resembling so many coffins. These semi-coffins were in the extreme aft of the vessel, overhanging the water, and in close proximity to the screw. The boat was crowded and we were thankful to get even these poor accommodations. In- deed, had we not wired in advance, we would have had the experience of sitting up during the long night, while crossing the Channel. I will not discourage motorists who are following my story, by detailing the aggra- vating experiences of that nightmare day at Havre. All our delay and troubles could 37 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR have been avoided if we had been properly instructed in time. The last chapter told how to proceed to get a 'motor-car shipped from New York. In addition to what has already been said, let me suggest further: First of all, send your car on a week in advance of your coming. This is important; there will be delays enough, at best. Second, consign it to a responsible correspondent. Third, write well in advance to your cor- respondent, stating plainly that you have con- signed the car to him; that it left a certain port on such a steamer and on such a date, and will arrive probably on a given date. Also send the consignee your bill of lading. Further, give him the name of the car, manu- facturer's number of engine, horse-power, where built, style of body and weight. Fourth, instruct your correspondent to get the car through the Custom House and pay the amount of deposit required for duty. (This sum will be refunded when you leave the country.) Request, further, that he have the car, on a given date, at a garage, filled with oil and water, and ready to go on the road. Again, ask that he make arrangements with the local official examiner to meet you at the garage 38 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR at the hour of your arrival, that he may examine you and your chauffeur, and at once issue you a certificate of capacity to drive your car in France. Fifth, be sure to take with you three small unmounted photographs (1J x 2 inches) of yourself. One of these will be attached to your certificate for purposes of identification. If these instructions are followed exactly, and the correspondent does his full duty (for which a fee is charged) there is no reason why, within two hours after you land, you may not have your temporary cer- tificate in your pocket, and be driving out of the city for delights that lie beyond. Havre is, for a number of reasons, the best French port at which to land your car. Cherbourg is the worst. The information here set forth would have been as manna to a hungry man, indeed priceless, if we could have had it just one month earlier than it came to us by the hard and thorny path of experience. Later on, however, I struck a vein of in- formation that was even more valuable and comprehensive than that already set forth. It came about in this way: after arriving in Paris, I met that human dynamo of enter- prise and energy, E. B. Gallaher. I described 39 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR to him the troubles we had experienced in getting started out of Havre the utter impossibility of getting the Frenchmen to move quickly. I told him in emphatic lan- guage what I thought of the foreign officials as a class, and ended by stating that when a man was dead, and knew he was dead there was still some hope for him, but the foreign officials were dead and didn't know it, and here was really the foundation of all our troubles. Mr. Gallaher listened patiently to my tale of trouble and then informed me that he had come to Paris to solve these vexatious prob- lems confronting American tourists. I found that he had established an extensive bureau at No. 11 Rue D'Alger where the American automobile tourist could come and be put right. I discovered that this gentleman had been spending a goodly portion of his time the past few years in helping fellow members of the Automobile Club in particular, and Americans in general, in getting straightened out when they got into trouble in the French capital, and, finally, such was the increasing demand for such services, he had decided to establish a European headquarters in Paris, 40 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR with branches in London and Stuttgardt. This he has done, and he is prepared to do absolutely everything for the automobilist that is now being done for the ordinary tourist by the great express companies and the tourist companies, viz., shipping their cars from America to any point in Europe, supplying chauffeurs, obtaining licenses and insurance, looking after repairs and spare parts, and, where desired, even supplying both car and man to meet parties anywhere in England or on the continent. My satis- faction at hearing all this can only be meas- ured by the thought of what our party would have escaped had we known of my friend Gallaher's scheme before leaving America. The idea of being able to turn over our worry, annoyance, and expense to some one who would attend to it all made me feel that I would like to start right out again, if only for the pleasure of seeing some one else do what we, only a few weeks ago, had looked upon as the impossible make the French- man hustle. I should state that this bureau is the first and only thing of the kind in existence and it certainly fills a great need. Mr. Gallaher has had the good judgment to lay this new 41 department out on the broadest lines. Any American is welcome to its services. No matter what car a man may own or prefer - his automobile creed does not enter into the question. If the traveler is an American, that is sufficient. We will now take up again the thread of our narrative at Havre: We spent the day and night at the famous Hotel Tortoni, where we were very comfort- able and were not overcharged. Because of Regatta Week, Havre was gorgeously deco- rated. For unbroken miles the long streets, on either side, were hung with red, yellow, and blue globes containing electric lights. Over the streets, in arches and semi-circles, at close intervals, had been arranged the same artis- tic decorations, while the tri-colored flag of France was in splendid evidence everywhere. In the daytime the effect was beautiful; at night it was simply a dream of fairy-land. Long did we three strangers walk the streets and admire the brain that had conceived and the hand that had executed this marvelous display of dazzling beauty. A few years ago, Andrew Carnegie wrote a Christmas letter of greeting to his lifelong friend, Thomas A. Edison, the Wizard of 42 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR Menlo Park. In their youth they had been telegraph boys together. At the close of Mr. Carnegie's letter, he added: "P.S. The net profits from my five steel plants last year were $35,000,000. How is that for a little bum telegraph operator?" As I looked down the miles of streets in Havre that night, and feasted my eyes on that wondrous scene of beauty, I thought that every light was a shining token of Edison's genius, and then I thought of what that won- derfully eloquent speaker, Creswell Mac- Laughlin, from Cornwall-on-the-Hudson, had said at the last annual banquet of the Auto- mobile Club of America, of this man, Thomas A. Edison, whose name and fame are known wherever civilization has a home --"He touches a pin, and the solemn night bursts into stars." Carnegie and Edison " little bum tele- graph operators." Both are great men; both have writ high on the wall of fame their names, but I doubt not Mr. Carnegie would be the first to say, "I would not attempt to weigh my paltry millions against the undying achievements that Thomas A. Edison will leave to the ages." Before leaving Havre we visited an exhi- 43 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR bition of commercial vehicles, numbering some forty or more. These vehicles, princi- pally trucks, were engaged in a contest cov- ering one thousand kilometers, Havre being one of the points en route. At different towns the cars were halted for a day or more, in some suitable building, and an entrance fee of one franc charged for admission. The cars were covered with dust and mud, and showed plainly that, heavily loaded, they had under- gone some severe tests. Speaking generally, these trucks were built much nearer the ground than our American vehicles, and, apparently, much more care had been observed in working out the details of construction. I think the same observation could be made in regard to the pleasure motor-cars manufactured in France and Germany. But that a la Kip- ling, is another story, and one which will be discussed in another chapter. At length the long blue Thursday at Tor- toni's (the home of the Tortoni biscuit) came to an end. After a good night's rest and a breakfast of ham and eggs, at nine o'clock we em-cared, if I may venture to coin a new word, and found ourselves, in high spirits, rolling out of Havre on the road to Paris. After our party had embarked at New York, 44 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR that able lawyer and good sportsman, Mr. Max Pam, came aboard with an armful of maps (Tarida Cartes), which he generously placed at our disposal. We had not been out of Havre half an hour before one of these maps had to be consulted. The first town we were aiming for was Harfleur. The road was plainly indicated, but so rapid had been our progress that before we had appreciated the fact we had passed through the town. What was our dismay and confusion when we found, in response to our inquiries in the most horrible French (but the best we could com- mand), the peasants kept pointing backward, along the route we had come. At last it dawned upon our alleged American intellects that we had already passed our first objective point, and, rather shamefacedly, we turned our motor-car about and retraced our way into the town, having lost a full half-hour through our error. At length we were set right, and started out, with a straight road and an open country ahead of us, for Rouen. Oh, these roads! I wish I might make the reader view the scenes and taste the delights that came to the "Three Men in a Motor- Car" on that never-to-be-forgotten day. The writer has spun, up to the limits of the speed 45 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR law, over the beautiful state roads of Massa- chusetts, but the best of any of these is not to be compared to the shining roads that slipped away in uncounted delightful miles on our way to Rouen. Imagine, if you please, a road for fifteen miles as straight as a gun barrel ; so smooth that you could play billiards upon it; so wide that four cars could proceed abreast (Have autos breasts ? Let us say a-radiator), with grades of negligible degree, and you have an idea of the highway over which we were traveling, with throttle wide open, muffler cut out, and on top speed. Our good car seemed to catch, with us, the spirit of it all, and rejoice. The engine purred and sang and hummed to us that day as it never had before, and this was its refrain: "This is - glorious ! " " This is glorious ! " " This is glorious!" In England, the roads sug- gest to one a band of narrow white ribbon. In France, the top dressing is frequently a bright yellow sand, and the roads seem a broad golden band, fringed on either side by great green trees, stretching away to some unknown paradise. August here is the month of harvest; oats and wheat and barley were being cut, for the most part with old-fashioned scythes and 46 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR hand sickles. Such abundant crops never had I seen before. The enormous shocks of wheat seemed like small hay-stacks. So thickly did they cover the ground that one could almost leap from one to another. Side by side, at work in the field with the men, were the women; then, over the harvest field came the children, actually picking up single straws of grain, that nothing be lost. As mile after mile of these matchlessly rich acres flew by, and we noted everywhere the economy and thrift of the peasants, we thought of Bismarck's enormous demand for indemnity at the close of the Franco-Prussian war, and we appreciated, for the first time, how it could have been so quickly paid. The entire country, from the seacoast at Havre across to Paris, is beautifully rolling and undulating. The variety of crops raised is amazing. In the one-hundred-and-fifty-mile drive I did not see (and I observed closely) a single idle man or woman, and rarely was there a child, a horse, an ox, or a dog unemployed. Is it any wonder that enormous as is the debt of France, it is owned at home ? The interest is paid at home and remains at home. Is it any wonder that such a people, characterized by such thrift, industry, and economy, living in a land 47 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR as fertile as the valley of the Tigris or the Nile, are able to lend Russia and other governments billions of dollars ? The interest on these vast loans comes back to France and becomes new and permanent capital, which, in time, brings in more interest, and thus the French people are piling up credit upon credit, and com- pounding interest upon interest. Give France another century of peaceful industry, and it may be that the financial center of the world will have shifted from London, via New York, to the city of Paris. The luncheon hour found us wheeling into Rouen. Thus far we had no trouble, with the aid of our Pam maps and the splendid sign- boards, in finding our way, excepting through the towns, where we were all at sea, and where we lost time, temper, and patience. We were all anxious to reach Paris by seven P.M. So much so, that, after a hasty luncheon, we decided not to attempt to visit the famous cathedral, with its priceless stained glass. Going out of Rouen, we overtook a bright- looking young man on a bicycle. We inquired the way, and found that he could speak Eng- lish perfectly. He was en route for Paris, and knew every inch of the road, so we sug- gested that he attach his bicycle to the side 48 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR of our car, and ride with us as guide and interpreter. This he agreed to with alacrity, and, from that moment, our troubles were at an end. We had an excellent guide, and one who could swear most effectively at the cart drivers who demanded more than their share of the road. On and on we flew, through an ever-changing panorama of field and forest, and sun-kissed landscape, to the city of Ver- non, thence to Nantes, and on up the Seine valley, crossing again and again that clear cool running stream; through St. Germain, up the Avenue Grand Armee to the Arc de Triomphe, and then down that matchless boulevard, the Avenue Champs Elysees. Our rooms had been engaged for us at the Elysee Palace Hotel, and from this rendezvous we shall proceed to see and do Paris, unless Paris sees and "does us first." 49 CHAPTER VI THE automobile is a comfortable way to go about Paris. It is something to get away from dependence on the fiacre and the tax- imeter. Then, too, you travel much faster and consequently see much more in a day. The Parisian brand of days are all too short at best. I propose to give some impressions about Paris and a few of the things to be seen which are most worth while. As a prelude, I desire to suggest that the old and hardened traveler who may perchance be following this narrative would better skip this part of the story. He will not find here anything new to him. But to those of my readers who have never been in Paris, to those to whom there is still " some- thing new under the sun," to those who have, happily for themselves, not yet lost the bright illusions of youth and hope, to these I have something to say. First, then, how shall I write about the unwritable Paris? That is the question 50 Beautiful Sainte Chapelle, Twelfth-Century Stained Glass THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR which confronts me. It is a large subject, an overwhelming subject. It is not the two million four hundred and fifty thousand people who constitute its in- habitants that overwhelms you; it is not the broad avenues, twelve of these radiating like the arms of a star from the Arc de Triomphe - although they are magnificent in their width and most beautiful with their double rows of delightful trees on either side; it is not the stately churches and cathedrals, al- though they represent some of the noblest specimens of architecture the world contains; neither is it the many lofty columns commem- orating heroic death, if not heroic life; it is not the wealth of statuary which adorns and beautifies every avenue and square and public place ; it is not the palaces which like Versailles startle you by their vastness and magnificence ; it is not the matchless canvases of Rafael and Da Vinci and Murillo and Rembrandt and Veronese, although they stretch away in un- counted miles; it is not the great feats of engineering skill, some of which, like the cloud-piercing Eiffel tower, are unapproach- able; or the delightful Bois du Boulogne with its endless miles of perfect drives and lovers' retreats, or the presence of flowers everywhere, 51 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR from the poor window-sill of the peasant to the Garden of the Tuileries; it is not the homes of splendor, although many of them are more than oriental in their luxurious appointments; it is not the Bastille Column with its associations of horror; nor is it the Great Triumphal Arch before which every real Parisian glorifies himself and France; nor is it Mont Martre or Valerien, although their heads are hoary with history; it cannot be the Cafe Chantant giving as it does a glimpse of the semi-outdoor life of the Parisians; it can- not be Pere la Chaise, for our own Greenwood and Laurel Hill are more beautiful; it is not the catacombs with the uncoflSned bones of more than four million mortals; it cannot be the famous sewers so graphically described by Victor Hugo in his Les Miserables ; it is not the fountains of Moliere or Innocents or St. Surplice, although they are beautiful enough to adorn the Gardens of Paradise; it is not the great schools of learning which have contributed so much to the sum of scientific knowledge in this and former centuries; it is not the Gobelins tapestry, or Sevres china, or the Limoges enamels, each in its way the perfection of human attainment; it is not the great National Library with its three million 52 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR five hundred thousand volumes and its many manuscripts beyond price ; it is not the French banks which rank with the largest and strongest on the globe; it is not the enormous magasins which like the Bon Marche and the Louvre cannot be found outside the walls of Paris ; it is not the Champs Elysees which from the Arc de Triomphe to the Obelisk is by common consent the finest avenue in the world; it is not the Seine or the great bridges which span it at every stone's throw; neither is it the French people themselves, careless, curious, nervous, inflammable - always dining, going to a meal, or just com- ing from one - - what then is it, I repeat, that puzzles you, that overwhelms you, as you try to write about Paris and the French people ? As the bee flits from flower to flower, taking something from each, so must we appropriate something of the subtle spirit of each of all these things, treat this aggregate by the alchemy of our own imagination, and we will have the Paris which the American knows and sees and talks about on shipboard and at home in the States. But alas, it is far, very far from the real Paris of the Frenchman. As far from it as 53 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR a chromo from a Corot, or Yankee Doodle from the Marseillaise. What shall we add to the superficial Paris of the American to make the genuine Paris of the Parisian? Watch the real Frenchman as he stands uncovered before the tomb of Napoleon; how the muscles around his lips quiver as he passes through the Place de la Concorde, and stands before the forever draped monument of Stras- burg. Watch him again as he kneels before the high altar in Notre Dame; follow him to St. Denis as he passes with reverent step and slow, in pale silence, before the graves of French kings and queens, from Dagobert to Louis XVI, and as you and he come from those dark and gloomy sepulchral vaults and stand once more in the sweet, cool air and golden sunlight, you look on his face again and catch a glimpse of another Paris, the real Paris which you and I can never know. To the stranger visiting Paris the first thing to rivet his attention is the majestic Arc de Triomphe de 1'Etoile. It is located two miles from the Royal Palais, on high ground, and marks the eastern terminus of that wonder- ful avenue, Champs Elysees. It is called 54 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR 1'Etoile from being the center from which radiate twelve splendid avenues. The plan of the new Paris was executed by Baron Hausman under orders from Napoleon III, whose reign extended from 1851 to 1873. The Arc de Triomphe was built by order of Napoleon I in 1806, but really not completed until 1836 by Louis Philippe. It is one hun- dred and sixty feet high, one hundred and forty-six feet broad, seventy-two feet in depth, and cost the enormous sum of two million dollars. This splendid arch is most imposing. It commemorates the victories of Napoleon Bonaparte. Many groups of statuary are carved in high relief and enormous propor- tions on the arch. The names of Napoleon's great victories are spread upon a roll of honor and the names of his chief officers are carved on the inner side of the arch. My first view of this noble structure was near sunset. We were driving our motor-car along the Champs Elysees and, chancing to look back, beheld the golden sunshine pouring through the hollow of the great arch, lending to it a charm and dignity indescribable. The broad sides of the structure shut off the light completely, save where it poured in lavish floods through the center. We stopped our car and gazed 55 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR in silence on this spectacle as unique as it was beautiful. It needed but slight prompting of the imagination to believe that this radiant gate- way opened into the unseen world whose beauties may be thought but never told. 56 CHAPTER VII ONE thing in Paris that disturbed our Western ideas was the terrific speed with which three fourths of the motor-cars are driven about the city. It is not an uncommon occurence to see cars driven up the Champs Elysees at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour, and occasionally, under the very nose of the police, one is seen going at the rate of from thirty to thirty-five miles an hour. This speed I consider reckless. I hazard the pre- diction that some day a prominent man will lose his life, and then all this recklessness will be dealt with in the summary manner that is characteristic of the French people. Not only is Paris itself, but the suburbs as well, full of subjects of surpassing interest for the touring automobilist. A day at Versailles is a treat to every lover of the historical and the beautiful. Particularly is this true if one is fortunate enough to secure the services of the only English guide. He has been there, he asserts, twenty-five years, and he certainly 57 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR looks it. He has never been seen on the premises without a boutonniere. His father, when the young man was only twenty-one, left him a fortune of seven hundred eighty thousand francs and a decided tendency to play the races. The reader can perhaps sup- ply the subsequent chapters of the young fellow's career. This I can say for him - he is an able and instructive guide, and tells one a lot of things not to be gotten out of the guide-book. To St. Germain, to St. Cloud, and to St. Denis, are some of the short but exceedingly interesting tours we made, but which I cannot dwell upon. One petty annoyance I mention here. When an automobile first enters Paris through a city gate, the essence (gasolene) is carefully measured. We had about a gallon and a half in our tank, and we were mulcted to the tune of one franc, fifty centimes (thirty cents) in the way of duty. When you pass outward, you make a declaration of how much gasolene you have in the tank, and receive from an official a ticket. Should you return with a greater amount than when you go out, you are taxed on the difference. I have already dwelt briefly upon the glories of the Arc de Triomphe, which marks the 58 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR eastern terminus of the Champs Elysees. The western terminus is the Place de la Concorde, perhaps the most impressive spot in Europe -yes, I venture to say, on the globe. Near by is the Garden of the Tuileries. The place is an immense open square sol- idly asphalted throughout. The obelisk of Luxor, a companion monolith to Cleopatra's Needle, in Central Park, New York, marks, possibly, the most tragic spot in French his- tory. And what a number of historic places one can see from this point the Arc de Triomphe, the Madeleine, the Palace of the Louvre, the House of the Assembly, and other public buildings. Around the boundaries of the great square, and facing toward the center, are groups of statuary, heroic figures of draped women representing the chief cities of France. That representing Strasburg, the capital of Alsace and Lorraine, is forever kept draped in the emblems of mourning. This reminds the passer-by that down deep in the French heart is constant grief over the loss of their provinces, as well as a silent but unchangeable resolve that some day they will wrest these provinces from the iron grasp that now holds them. I have said this place was tragic with 59 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR historic interest. On May 30, 1770, at a display of fireworks to celebrate the marriage of the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XVI, with Marie Antoinette, from some cause never understood a panic arose, and twelve hundred persons were crushed to death, while two thousand were sadly injured. In 1793, during the Reign of Terror, the guillotine was erected on the spot where now stands the peaceful obelisk. Ill-fated Louis XVI and his wife were the first to be executed. Between Jan- uary 1793 and May 1795 more than two thousand heads were cut off. In 1871 the Prussian army was encamped in this place; here, also, much bloody work was done by the Versailles army in attacking the com- munists in 1871. A banker told me that at that time he had actually seen blood in streamlets flowing down the streets of Paris. Place de la Concorde! Place of peace, of quiet, of concord, and yet almost every thought of it is associated with the guillotine, and blood, and war. On a perfect night our quiet car scurries along over the smooth pavements, as the fountains play merrily in the moonlight. The solemn past rises before me. Ah, those are fountains of human blood and tears; the cabs 60 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR have turned to dead carts, slinking away in the night with their headless victims ; the whirr of the fleet motor-car has changed to the swish of the quickly falling knife; and as I ride on, the whole place seems swarming with the spirits of dead men. Oh, call it not a Place of Peace. Call it rather a Place of Blood, of Butchery, of Revenge, of Human Nature Mad. The old Obelisk bears witness that in Egyptian lands, in the morning of history, no more savage things were done than these that have been told. And thus, in this so-called Place of Peace, let this cold monolith bear silent but enduring testimony, reproachful testimony, to those dark days when the spot upon which it stands, and shall stand through coming centuries, was PLACE DE LA MARS. 61 CHAPTER VIII "BEYOND the Alps lies Italy," and beyond the Place de la Concorde lie the priceless treasures of the Louvre. In former years I had not infrequently visited this "Garden of Delight," and so was quite prepared, after nine years' interval, to again enjoy it. No picture of a living artist may be hung in the Louvre. Here one need not waste time over second-rate paintings. The works of the masters engross your attention, and thrill even the blase traveler during every moment he is in their presence. Side by side hang the deathless works of Murillo, of Veronese and Daubigny, Jevyon and Rafael, of Van Dyck and a score of others. Many of these pictures beggar description, and I shall not attempt the impossible. It was gratifying to see a number of Amer- ican students at work in the great gallery. One of these, Miss Isabelle Sheehan, of At- lanta, Georgia, a talented young painter, and a favorite pupil of Bouguereau, has won 62 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR marked distinction, even in Paris. No Amer- ican can look upon her latest work, a copy of Murillo's famous "Beggar Boy," without a feeling of pride that she hails from his native land. But one cannot stay always, even in the Louvre, though he may have a great hunger for fine paintings and for beautiful colors laid on canvas by master hands long since still. Then one turns away, filled with a shrinking fear that this may be the last time, that he may never be able to come again. Perhaps you can understand something of the pain of deliberately taking a final look, and the wrench that comes to one's heartstrings as one turns one's back upon it all. There is one injunction in particular that I want to deliver to the motorist visiting Paris for the first time, and that is, no matter how eager he may be to enjoy each and every one of the beautiful runs for short distances out of the city, let him not leave without paying a visit to the Tomb of Napoleon. Next to the Taj-Mahal, it is without doubt the most impressive tomb in the world. As I gazed down upon the last resting-place of the Great Emperor, my thoughts traveled backward through many years to a little country school- 63 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR house in the village of Baylesstown, Illinois, where, as a barefoot boy, I learned my first lesson of Napoleon's sad ending, and the words came to me again, stalking forth like dusty ghosts out of the long ago: "Wild was the night, yet a wilder night Hung round the soldier's pillow. In his bosom there waged a fiercer fight Than the fight on the wrathful billow. "A few fond mourners were kneeling by, A few that his stern heart cherished; They knew by his glazed and unearthly eye That life was nearly perished. "Again Marengo's field was won And Jena's bloody battle, Again the world was overrun, Made pale at his cannon's rattle. "He died at the close of that darksome day, A day that shall live in story, In the rocky land they placed his clay And left him alone in his glory." But Napoleon's clay was not left alone in a hostile land. One of his last utterances - the only sentence written on his tomb, is, "I desire that my ashes shall repose upon the banks of the Seine, among the French people I have loved so well." 64 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR And so, at last, there peacefully sleeps Na- poleon Bonaparte, careless of the sunshine of praise and the rain of criticism. So he will sleep until the resurrection morn, when all tombs shall give up their dead, and he shall come into final judgment, and be judged ac- cording to the deeds done in the body, when each one shall go to his own place. Of course we ascended the Eiffel tower and sent home from this cloud-piercing pile a French postal card. During the descent, a curious coincidence gave us a frightened mo- ment. While less than three hundred feet from the top, our elevator, with a blood-curd- ling jar, came to a full stop, and, exactly at the same instant, a cannon from some near-by point was fired, indicating the noon-hour. The shock of stopping the car quickly, and the simultaneous discharge of the cannon, made us think the machinery had gone wrong, and that we were all on our way to that land where all good automobilists ultimately go. I wish I might devote a goodly portion of this story to the amusements of the French people. I refer to the hoi polloi. They are the most excitable and the most easily amused people in the world. Paris abounds in little out-of-the-way joints for the amusement of the 65 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR common folk, and, incidentally, the profit of the proprietors. One place will illustrate: it is called "Heaven and Hell." A dingy cavern- ous room, without windows and gloomily lighted, furnishes the setting; the ceilings are low and the walls are made with ragged pro- jecting sides of papier-mache in imitation of a cavern. Skeletons are half hidden in the dark recesses; rubber snakes, with gleaming eyes, hang from the ceiling ; red and green and blue lights in succession dimly illuminate the ghastly interior, and all of this, to the accom- paniment of bad music, is called "Hell." "Heaven" isn't much different, or much better. The room is more cheerful, however, and there are no cavernous effects. Three French girls in tights pose in living pictures; the music is livelier and louder than in "Hell," and this is "Heaven." It is all childish, simple, silly, and ridiculous, and yet throngs daily crowd the place, to breathe the heavy, musty air and drink absinthe, and to have a Heaven or a Hell of a time as the case may be. In this connection I am reminded of the story of the Chicago man who died and went to the Land of Spirits. Arrived there he was met by a friend, another Chicago man who 66 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR had preceded him. The older resident at once offered to act as guide. After they had visited all the wonderful temples and palaces, and splendid avenues, and enjoyed the entran- cing scenery to the point of satiety, the new arrival turned to his friend and said, "After all, Heaven isn't much different from Chicago, is it?" The friend looked at him in amaze- ment and exclaimed, "Heaven! Why, man, you are in Hell!" The Cafes Chantants are still a feature of Parisian life. From four o'clock in the after- noon until one or two in the morning, men and women throng these restaurants, the majority of the diners sitting at small tables under a great awning outside the building on the side- walk. Wine is the national beverage, and he is poor indeed who cannot afford a demi-bottle at his dinner. As to the morality of the Frenchman well, that is a mooted question. Is it not true that the moral view-point of all Latin races is very different from that of the Anlgo- Saxon? I do not think the French compre- hend the idea of morality as do the people of England or America. I am informed that not infrequently Frenchmen of standing and prominence keep two establishments openly, 67 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR one for the wife, and another for the mistress, the two being equally pretentious; that the wife, driving through the Bois, meets the mis- tress driving in her carriage. This condition of affairs, I am told, is recognized and accepted as one of the established customs of the country and "what are you going to do about it, anyway?" The Frenchman says: "We are no worse than many of your four hundred in American life. We have no terrible scandals and sepa- rations, as do you. Your men are immoral, secretly. Call us immoral if you choose, what we do is in the open." There are many sayings and acts, however, that are in that shadowy borderland between good taste and morality. In this realm we are far away and beyond the French in their manners and customs. The French are cour- teous, polite in form I grant you that, but this politeness is a veneer, and not a solid growth such as can only spring from refined tastes and the highest and purest motives. Before leaving Paris, I was interviewed by Mr. Dickin, the able sporting editor of the Herald, which splendid paper has done much for automobiling on both sides the Atlantic. I frankly confessed to Mr. Dickin, as I have 68 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR repeatedly stated during all the years that America has been building automobiles, that we are still behind the French in the character of the motor-cars made by us. This inter- view, together with an editorial commenting on the subject, was cabled to the New York Herald. The Herald, however, inadvertently I am sure, failed to give the reasons why I believed America would yet lead the world in the manufacture of automobiles, as she has in so many other directions. The best known and most successful motor- car builders in France are making their motors with American machinery, imported from the United States. Why, then, with a few more lessons learned in the hard school of expe- rience, should we not be able to make motors quite as well as we do the machinery that is used to make the French cars ? I had the pleasure of meeting in Paris Mr. and Mrs. R. J. Burdette, and their son. " Bob " Burdette, of Burlington Hawkeye fame, I regard, next to Mark Twain, the prince of American humorists. With his family, Mr. Burdette had been motoring in England. He vowed to me that he was not afraid to ride in an automobile, even though the pace was rapid. Then he frankly admitted that it took 60 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR him half an hour every night, after he got his shoes off, to "uncurl his toes" with the assistance of his hands. Both he and his wife, after an engrossing year's work at Los Angeles, California, where they are building a large and beautiful church, and where they are accomplishing a work as unique as it is noble and uplifting, felt the need of abso- lute quiet and rest. They went to Harrow- gate, England, and got what they were looking for. The Hawkeye man wanted to know if I had ever spent a night in the quiet town of Salem/ New Jersey. I pleaded guilty, and felt sure it was the quietest place on the foot- stool, whereupon Mr. Burdette solemnly as- sured me that a night in Salem would be a riotous debauch after a night at Harrowgate. Illustrating the provincial character of a small banking-house in this Rest Cure Village, he said that a friend of his wanted to get a five pound Bank of England note changed. The banker insisted that Mr. Burdette's friend endorse the note. After considerable argu- ment the man reluctantly consented to do so. After affixing his endorsement, however, he added the words "without recourse." The local banker said, "Why do you sign * without 70 , European Villa THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR recourse' ?" The foxy and prudent endorser, without even the suggestion of a Yankee smile, said: "Why, the confounded old Bank of Eng- land might 'bust up' and I am taking no chances on getting stuck." 71 CHAPTER IX WE left Paris on Monday, August 13, and six days later arrived at Lucerne, having made the run via Basle, Switzerland. To the blase motorist, and they are not uncommon, this seems a lot of time to take in coming so short a distance. But the truth is we traveled by a very roundabout route, and so interesting were the towns in which we stopped over night, that with one exception it was always noon before we continued our daily journey. At this point I want to emphasize the fact that the temptation to the American motorist to "keep a-going" and to neglect sights that it is little less than a crime to miss, and for which he will revile himself later, is almost irresistible. The roads are so good that the "fever of going" possesses one in a terrible way. It is a constant temptation, therefore, to pass at a twenty-mile clip through towns that contain cathedrals centuries old, and works of art that are beyond all price. Before leaving Paris the motorist, if he has 72 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR not attended to the matter in America, should visit the office of the American Ambassador and secure a passport. He may never need it, but like the man from Texas, with his gun when and if he does need it, he needs it very badly. The receipt received from the Custom House officials at Havre for our deposit of five hundred forty francs duty (to be returned to us when the car was taken from the country) embodied a description of our car and the manufacturer's number. This acted for us as a "Descriptif Passavant" and was a most important document when we came later to cross the frontier into Germany. Many Americans buy new cars in Paris. Let me advise them, before leaving the city, to go to the Custom House, and secure, for a small fee, a "Descriptif Passavant." It will save them much vexation of spirit and annoy- ing delays later on. Another suggestion: Unless at least one of your party speaks French, it is important that you have a chauffeur who speaks both French and English. We were fortunate in finding an active and alert young man, Alexander Perroux, who spoke fairly good English and excellent French. It is much better, in ar- ranging the chauffeur's compensation, that 73 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR you name a lump sum per day which shall be your total liability. The chauffeur will not then be in a position to live extravagantly, and charge the bill to you. From twenty to twenty- five francs per day is about the average wage paid a competent chauffeur; out of this he pays all his expenses, including his lodging and meals. Although there is scarcely a village in France where one may not secure essence (gasolene), it is much the safer plan to carry an extra can, and also one of lubricating oil, on the car. Accidents may happen by which a pipe is broken, and the vital oil be lost midway be- tween towns. Again, be sure to have a good supply of small change, as you are expected to tip everybody who does you the slightest service. Not infrequently we gave away franc pieces when centimes would have been more appropriate, simply because we had not the smaller change. This over-feeing is de- moralizing, and makes it hard on the travelers who come after you. On the car we carried only dress suit cases strapped to the running-boards, our trunks having been forwarded by freight, to our hotel, a week in advance. One must not fail to telegraph for rooms during the tourist season, 74 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR especially at the principal resorts, otherwise you may have to sleep in your car, or travel at night, neither of which is pleasant. Above all things, the automobilist must learn to "travel light." With a cravenette automobile suit to wear while riding, a dark suit to put on at the hotel in the evening, changes of linen and underwear, a compact case of toilet articles, a linen duster, a water- proof coat, and a pair of goggles, you are equipped for a long journey. If you are a devotee of the weed, either learn to smoke a pipe, or take your cigars with yoi;. Those you buy in France are simply vile beyond polite language to describe. Here I will anticipate and say a word about our expenses. We stopped at the best hotels, engaging wherever possible three single rooms and a single bathroom. We had the best of everything in way of food, cigars, etc. At the end of our journey we found our expenses had been, including chauffeurs, wages, and gasolene, twelve dollars each per day. This we considered very reasonable. Thus equipped, on leaving Paris, the Three Men in a Motor- Car, at the date and hour aforesaid, turned the bonnet of their craft up 75 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR the Champs Elysees, and amidst the parting salutes and good wishes of friends started on their journey. It is surprising how bad the roads are out of Paris. They are as bad well, let me make it strong almost as bad as they are up Seventh Avenue, going out of New York. Alexander, our chauffeur, knew every foot of the way, and so we turned and twisted and dodged about through the crooked, narrow streets of St. Germain, and up the long hill to Versailles. The Three Men in a Motor-Car, before leaving Paris, decided on their respective duties. "Uncle John" Hill, the owner and driver of the car, was unanimously elected Chief Engineer and Master of Transportation. "Uncle Charley" Kavanaugh was appointed Treasurer and General Financier, his duties being to pay all bills and to do all the growling necessary that he performed his duties faithfully and to the letter, in a most successful and artistic way, subsequent events fully proved. To the writer of this narrative were assigned the duties of Historian, Advance and Press Agent, and Negotiator Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary. At Versailles we were bowling along under 76 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR a blissful sun when the Historian discovered that some one had blundered, and that we were far off our course and on the wrong road, headed in a direction entirely different from that in which we desired to go. It is embarrassing and humiliating to con- fess that we had been so stupid as to start out southwest of Paris, when we wanted to go exactly east toward Coulommiers, Sizanne, St. Dizier, and Nancy. We discussed the advis- ability of going back to the city and starting all over again the next day, but were not quite able to persuade ourselves to face the jeers and jokes of our friends there, and so deter- mined to make a detour around the city, and work back and up to our original route. Therefore we drove on. A few miles beyond Versailles, going toward Dourdan, we took some of the longest and toughest hills any of us had ever negotiated in a motor-car, but our little French car did nobly; she plowed bravely upward, with a rhythmic hum of the motor that was as music to our ears. We arrived at Dourdan hot and hungry. At the Hotel de Lyon we had a very fair luncheon, with a bottle of native wine just one degree more palatable than American vinegar. 77 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR The landlord was a character. As we were about ready to go out and do the town, he drove up in a small delivery wagon. He was so big and jolly and fat that he seemed to fill up the entire front seat, and, like a fat jelly-fish, some parts of him ran over the sides of the cart. Immediately I requested the distinguished favor of being permitted to take a kodak of his royal highness (I had forgotten to mention the important fact that he is a Prince), to which he assented, taking a seat in our motor-car beside "Uncle John." Our chief engineer is no dwarf, weighing one hun- dred ninety good American pounds, but he looked like an undersized kid beside the three hundred fifty pounds of his royal highness, who seemed greatly amused at the picture- taking performance. There was an old chateau at Dourdan, with a splendid high wall and a deep business-like looking moat inside, in which are now growing peaceful apple trees. On knocking for ad- mittance, we were informed that the chateau could not be inspected, as the "Proprietor" was then living on the premises. We con- soled ourselves, however, by taking surrep- titious peeps over the head of the pretty French maid who said us "nay," and con- 78 His Royal Highness THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR eluded that it wasn't much of a chateau any- way. If there was any lingering trace of disap- pointment, it was dissipated as we entered the old church of Dourdan, begun in the twelfth century and completed in the seven- teenth. Going from the hot atmosphere into its cool depths was alone refreshing; but when we began to take in its beautiful columns, its lofty ceiling, its splendid arches, its magnificent organ, and, best of all, its wealth of stained- glass windows, we were satisfied. Oh, those windows! The sunlight of that peaceful afternoon fell through them as though a thousand rainbows had been taken captive, and were being poured out of the hand of a great angel into the sacred place. Two thoughts will always remain with me the matchless beauty of it, and the pain of leaving it. When we took our seats again, and Alex- ander turned the engine over, the day was far spent. Fontainebleau was our objective point, and it was still forty miles away. How the motor sang to us on that delightful ride in the late afternoon. The country we were traveling was as beautiful as the most per- fectly kept garden, while the roads were so 79 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR fine that I felt inclined to get out and smooth and pat them with my hand as I would the back and head of my pet collie. At seven o'clock, the deep green forests of famous Fontainebleau were in sight, and fifteen minutes later we were at the Hotel of the Black Eagle. Fontainebleau is a town of eleven thousand people. Its chief attractions are the neigh- boring forests, and the Palace, not forgetting the splendid monument in the square to Rosa Bonheur, who was born near this place. Our odometer showed that we had come seventy-seven miles, but our guide-book told us we were but thirty-five miles from Paris. I shall not undertake to describe the treas- ures of the Palace, which we visited next morning. The paintings, the tapestries, the rare china, the splendid ceilings, the apart- ments of Napoleon and Marie Antoinette, the table at which Napoleon signed his abdication - these and many other like treasures present food for reflection so fascinating that they detain many tourists days, and even weeks, in this historic place. Tuesday morning dawned bright and fair. A good breakfast at the Black Eagle, a bad cigar which cost two francs, a hurried visit to 80 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR the Palace, and at twelve o'clock we were again out on those dream-roads, headed for Sens. Blessed is that country, it is said, which has no history; so, blessed be the motor voyagers who have no heart-thrilling expe- riences to relate. From Fontainebleau to Sens is fifty-six miles good American miles, not little skimpy kilometers. From Sens to Troyes, our stopping-place for the night, is forty miles, making the distance traveled for the after- noon ninety-six miles. The country through which we passed was level, occasionally rolling, and wonderfully fertile the garnered fields of wheat stretching away to the horizon. In some localities the wheat had been gathered into stacks, veritable artistic cone-shaped works of art, that delighted the eye of the Historian, who had been reared on an Illinois farm, and fully appreciated the difficulty of combining the artistic with the utilitarian in stacking wheat. Along the perfect highway, on either side, stretched unending rows of tall shade trees; for unmeasured miles the clean, smooth, white road extended ahead, as straight as a sunbeam. How our engine laughed in glee to us on that perfect day; how it seemed to be a thing alive, and to enter into the spirit 81 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR of our enjoyment; how our car seemed to seize the on-rushing miles in her teeth, and fling them behind her in scorn, like a terrier a despised rat. Too soon Troyes came in sight, and we were in front of our hotel, bargaining with the manager for "three rooms and a bath." And this reminds me that the automobilist must always make his bargain before taking any of his luggage from the car. He can arrange much better terms, because the landlord un- derstands that although the traveler may have telegraphed for rooms, the victim may go to another hotel if the price asked is ex- orbitant. At Troyes we counted ourselves fortunate in meeting fellow tourists, Mr. S. F. Ra- phael and his charming wife. They were traveling from the Black Forest of Germany to Paris, in a twenty-four horse-power French car. Mr. Raphael is a fine type of the cour- teous English gentleman and sportsman. He ascertained that we were not properly equipped with route books and maps, and at once handed his over to us, insisting that we accept them. They proved to be most valuable, and his courtesy to his American cousins will never be forgotten. Many times later we had 82 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR occasion to bless him for his kind thought of our needs. The cathedral at Troyes is a beautiful ex- ample of architecture. With the exception of the stained-glass windows in the matchless St. Chapelle in Paris, I think the windows in Troyes Cathedral were the most beautiful I had thus far seen. You look at them, and leave them, and want to look and look again, as long as daylight lasts. The next morning when we arose we began to realize that Paris is a city difficult for an American to get away from. Here we were at noon, the third day out; we had traveled one hundred seventy-three miles and found ourselves still within three hours' easy ride of the French capital. We left Troyes at noon on Wednesday, and drove to Chaumont for luncheon (fifty-five miles). Our next large town was Neufchatel, and thence to the old city of Nancy. The ride for the afternoon was one hundred twenty- four miles, through a charming farming country. We did not admire the piles of manure flanking the front of every house in the villages but we will let that pass. It is simply a little way of theirs. One hundred and twenty-four miles in a 83 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR motor-car in an afternoon means a fine appe- tite for dinner and a longing for a good bed. At Nancy we found both. By nine o'clock next morning we were ready to "do" Nancy, and while Alexander was fixing up the car, we called a fiacre and sallied forth. I wish I might tell all about our experiences in Nancy, but a few must suffice. The Carnot monument, the fine city gates, another old cathedral with fine clustered col- umns, and an old Friars' School, were the objects of interest to which we devoted the forenoon. In the old school referred to was a lock of the great Napoleon's hair. It was in color a rich brown and seemed as soft and silky in texture as that of a little schoolgirl. Here, too, we saw the old rusty leg irons and various instruments of torture which were used a little while ago to persuade people to be good - which meant, "Think as I think or I will brand you with hot irons, twist your limbs out of shape, gouge out your eyes and then you will be damned." As I looked on these instruments of cruelty, and the bloody axe and block, I heard the dying groans of the tortured and suffering. I shuddered and thought that Guizot was 84 I THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR quite right in his History of Civilization when he declared that it took men a thousand years to learn that physical force had no place in the domain of conscience. As we boarded our car to leave Nancy we noticed that the big burly brigand-like porter who had brought down our hand-luggage did not look happy. The treasurer, "Uncle Charley," had tipped everybody in sight; his hand had gone to and from his pocket until the muscles controlling it were a-weary, and still the big porter looked ugly. Finally, he said, "More money; more money." Then Uncle Charley was sublime and arose to the full height of the occasion. He got up slowly and solemnly in the car as though he were about to perform a great function. He took off his coat, folded it carefully and laid it on the seat of the tonneau; then he laid his pocket-book on that; last of all he laid on the altar his watch and chain, and in a silence that was befitting the occasion, with a pro- found bow, offered all to his royal nibs of the scowling countenance. There was a moment of tense silence, then an explosion of laughter from the by-standers, under the shadow of which the robber slunk away and we made our escape. 85 CHAPTER X THE last chapter of our story left us fleeing from fresh memories of the rack and branding irons, and other instruments of torture, in the old Friars' School at Nancy, and the immediate presence of the modern highwayman in the guise of the head-porter at the nameless hotel from which we congratulated ourselves on having escaped with our clothes, watches, and a few francs, inadvertently, doubtless, over- looked by the petty despoilers of travelers - a special fondness being had for the English and American brands. It was nearly noon before we got away from Nancy, noted for the manufacture of various fabrics, as well as for the toothsome macaroon. Our road pointed straight away southeast and our destination was the old town of St. Die. Over perfect roads, and under perfect skies, with our motor keeping time to happy heart-beats, we ascended the valley of the Meurthe. Approaching St. Nicholas-de-Pont from the west, we saw, looming before us, 86 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR the lofty outlines of the church of that name, and right well were we repaid for our visit thereto. About the time that Columbus was engaged in discovering America, the foundations of this noble edifice were laid. The high, double towers, the vaulted and lofty ceilings, the splendid clustered columns and the fine organ, are its most impressive features. I remember, too, an enormous cross probably fifteen feet long, on the interior above the main entrance, with a figure of the Saviour hanging thereon. It was all gruesome and terrible, and I fail to understand how such portrayals of suffering are conducive to the devotional spirit. I re- member, also, a contrasting picture in this church that will abide in my memory. Two tiny, poorly clad little girls, with sweet, roguish faces, which smile upon me still, were kneeling on a hard, wooden, cushionless stool, evidently set to the task of committing to memory a long prayer, printed on a big card-board, in honor of some saint or other. It came to me most forcibly, that that good old saint, if he could be consulted in the matter, would much prefer to have had those dear children playing under the blue sky and in the golden sunshine of that perfect day, rather than cooped up in 87 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR a solemn cathedral, saying prayers in his honor, or in that of any one else. I shall not soon forget the time we had in getting out of this old town. The narrow, crooked streets were fine old labyrinths, seem- ingly built for the express purpose of stirring up the righteous souls of motorists who had lingered too long enjoying the local sights, and were anxious to make up their schedule. Alexander dropped nimbly off the car at every street corner, and held long and animated converse with numerous natives, inquiring the route to Luneville. After much cap-touching, "Pardons," "Mercis," and gesticulations, such as would have aroused the envy of a panto- mimist, Alexander would pop back on his perch, and in broken English tell us we must turn around and go back four streets, turn to the left, and go two blocks and cross a bridge, and "then we would be all right." Notwith- standing a multiplication of counsels, we, oftener than otherwise, got all wrong, and had to return from some country road and start afresh. This exasperating experience was re- peated until we were fairly desperate. Hie fabula docet: The motorist, on entering a strange town, would do well to pick up some bright small boy to show him through the THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR place; then give the lad a franc, and send him back by tram. This method accomplishes not only the original purpose of getting you quickly through the town, but makes that boy and his family friends of motorists always thereafter. At length we were through the St. Nicholas town, and reeling off the miles to Luneville. This latter place contains a fine old church, St. Jacques, erected by Boffrand, a pupil of Mansart, in 1730. To be entirely truthful, we did not stop, but hastened on through Baccarat (containing the largest glass-works in France but not open to visitors), and Raon-1'Etape, to St. Die. This is a splendid town of twenty-two thou- sand inhabitants, on the left bank of the river Meurthe, surrounded by picturesque hills or small mountains. The place is named for a pious old monk, St. Diendonne, who as early as the sixth century (1350 years before our coming) founded a monastery there. Mr. Stanislau Lesczinski (please get this name right, because he seems to have been a big gun in his day) wa,s Duke of Lorraine, and built the western part of the city only a little while ago (1757) as time is reckoned in these towns hoary with history. The Rue Stanis- 89 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR lau is the principal street of the new quar- ter. The cathedral is built of dingy sandstone and is much older than it is imposing. It is partly Gothic and partly Romanesque in architecture; part of it was built just one thou- sand years ago. Walking up and down in the cloister was a handsome black-gowned young priest intoning a prayer which, in that very place, thirty generations of priests had said, before him. The Church of Rome seems indeed founded on a rock. It is serving a great mission of usefulness in the world. May the Gates of Hell never prevail against it. While passing along the street, my attention was attracted to an artistic shop window. There I saw a beautiful marble copy of a well-known French artist's allegorical figure, entitled "Candeur." I at once had a great longing for it. The price was most reason- able, but I did not see how it was possible to bring it home without great danger of break- ing. Expressing these fears to the owner, he immediately said, "You are an American traveler. I will trust you. I will deliver it at your home, and when it is there safely, send me your check." I mention this incident 90 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR for the benefit of others who would gladly purchase pictures or works of art abroad which particularly appeal to them, if they could be relieved of the difficulty and risk of taking them home. Friday morning, August 18, found us, after many polite adieus from the landlord of the Post Hotel, and from every attache who had been tipped, en route to Basle, Switzerland. We started out whistling, to keep up our courage, for we felt in our very bones that trouble was brewing, and that there were "lions in the way." We had heard dreadful tales of tedious delays, the searching of bag- gage, etc., in crossing the frontiers, first into Germany, then into Switzerland. Then, too, we had the Vosges Mountains to cross. Our Master of Transportation is one of that sturdy type of Americans who, when there is anything difficult to be done, believes in getting at it quickly and having it over with, and so we were off early. The day was fine, and our car was singing to us the old song we loved to hear. Beyond Wisembach we began the ascent of the longest climb I ever saw negotiated by an automobile. At first the ascent was gradual, but soon we had to drop to our hill-climbing gear. Up, 91 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR up, up, our brave engine carried us, without a moan or a murmur. The road-bed was perfect, and this was well, for we drove along the edge of precipices which drop straight downward for hundreds of feet. Glad indeed, and thankful, were we Three Men in a Motor- Car, that on that long climb to the summit of the Vosges we met with not a single horse- drawn vehicle. During the ascent, the views back into the valley and beyond, into retreat- ing France, with its variegated landscape of ripening field and dark green forest bathed in the warm summer sun, formed pictures in our memories that time can never efface. In the language of that clever writer, Mrs. F. C. Dumont, "the place is a fit setting for a dream-life and the spirit of content broods over it. To go in a motor-car up these grades is like an apotheosis in a heavenly chariot." The descent into the valley, with engine cut out and brakes set, was even more "skeery" and hazardous than had been the upward climb, but at length we arrived safely at St. Marie. From there, a short run brought us to the German frontier at Rappoltsweiler. At this point, a fine-looking German officer halted us. We pulled out to one side of the 92 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR road, gave the military salute (which pleased him), stopped our engine, and produced our " Descriptif Passavant." This the officer care- fully examined, asked a few simple questions, and seemed satisfied. A paper was made out, embodying a receipt, and handed to our Mas- ter of Transportation, on payment of one hundred twenty francs. The officer then at- tached a lead seal (the impression on which was made by the antiquated method of a die and a wooden mallet) to the front spring of our car, and told us we were at liberty to depart, the whole performance having taken less than twenty minutes. With a friendly warning not to go "too quickly," the officer bade us good-day, and we were off on German soil. As we proceeded, we noticed that the signs over the shop doors were now written in Ger- man. The harsh guttural of the Teutonic soon fell upon our ears, and what, to us, was most strongly emphasized, the roads were not nearly so good as those in France. At Colmar we had an excellent lunch, and found some real Henry Clay cigars that certainly looked good to us, and tasted better. From Colmar we had a delightful ride to Mulhausen, thence on to the Swiss frontier near Basle. 93 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR At the border, just out of Basle, we pre- sented our documents at the German Custom House. The officials carefully examined them, removed the seal from our car and returned to us the amount of duty we had deposited at Rappoltsweiler. Less than a hundred feet away stood the Swiss Custom House, and the modus operandi of getting through it was the same as that on passing the German frontier, already described. Thus, in one day, we had climbed the Vosges Mountains, traveled eighty-two miles, enjoyed a charming variety of scenery, passed through two custom houses, and driven our car under the protection of three flags, without the slightest friction or discomfort. Soon we were enjoying a bath at Basle, and after a fine dinner and a good cigar retired to dream of delights that were yet to come. 94 CHAPTER XI STANDING on Swiss soil, one seems to get an uplift of soul, which causes him to think more highly of his race. All the history and traditions of the Swiss people ; her pure moun- tain air; her rugged fastnesses; her lofty peaks; her sturdy citizenship; her lakes and rushing streams; her avalanches and glaciers; in short, all the forces of heredity and nature in her wildest settings, have combined to produce an intelligent, thrifty, liberty-loving people, unique in the history of nations. I was told that it was impossible to find in Switzerland a man or a woman of sound mind, who could not read and write. However this may be, I am sure the percentage of illiteracy is less than that of any other nation in the world. Every sound male, between twenty-one and forty-five years of age, has to give a certain time to military service, unless excused for sufficient reason. Switzerland, however, is a peaceful Republic; there has been no war 95 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR since 1848, and that was a domestic one. The integrity of the nation is guaranteed by Ger- many, France, Austria, and Italy. Political corruption is unknown, and, so far as human wisdom can foretell, the foundations of the Swiss government are as sound and lasting as are those of her mighty Jungfrau or Matter- horn. The Swiss people seem undersized. To most of them life is a stern battle for existence. The unwilling, stony soil yields grudgingly; early and late toil men, women, and children in the fields ; far up the mountain sides, as well as in the valleys, the soil is carefully cultivated, and so steep are some of these fields that from the lower levels it appears almost impossible for human beings to maintain a foothold, to say nothing of cultivating the ground and harvesting a crop. A striking, yea, a pitiful fact, is that the children have faces old beyond their years. Rarely does one observe a childish looking face. Then, too, they are subdued and silent in manner. One seldom sees in Switzerland the bounding, rollicking, playful spirit of American childhood. One of the most prolific sources of income is that derived from tourists, who spend here 96 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR thirty million dollars per annum. There are over two thousand hotels in Switzerland. For the most part, prices are very reasonable. The great attraction, of course, is the unsur- passed mountain scenery. Many persons mistakenly credit Mt. Blanc to Switzerland. This is wrong. Mt. Blanc is the great attrac- tion of the French Alps, and belongs to La Haute Savoie range. Northeast is the Walliser Range, chief of which is the famous Matter- horn. Around Interlaken is the Berne Ober- land, which boasts such noble peaks as Eiser (the old woman), Monch (the monk), and Jungfrau (the young wife). Farther east is the Gotthard group, ancT a little northeast of that is the Glarner Range, while to the south- east lies the Grison Range, of which the beautiful Bernini Mountain is the bright particular star. But to return to Basle; it is a most beauti- fully located city, on the banks of the raging Rhone. One of the finest bridges in the world spans the river at this point; artistic bronze groups adorn the entrance, and from its arch is obtained a beautiful view of the old cathe- dral, begun in the fourteenth, and completed in the sixteenth century. Some fine glass is to be seen in this edifice, but it did not seem 97 7 * (\i,- *** THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR to me as beautiful as that in the churches at Troyes, Dourdan, and Nancy, in France. It is certainly not equal to that in Saint Chapelle. The marching schoolboys, clean, intelli- gent, well-behaved, bare-headed, and all wear- ing a loose, blouse-like overshirt, greatly interested me. Perhaps the reason for my keen interest in the Swiss boys was a mental picture of three sturdy American schoolboys trudging away to school from the House of the White Lions, in East Orange, New Jersey. The ride in a motor-car from Basle to Lucerne was most interesting. Just before coming to the town of Olten, we had a tre- mendous climb, first speed all the way, and no power to spare at that. Our first day's ride in Switzerland was a constantly unfolding panorama of surprises. Up long hills and down we traveled, one after the other, in rapid succession. And yet, be it said to the honor and glory of the Swiss government, the roads were so fine, and the grades so gradual, that we did it all easily, and without any feeling of doubt as to the final issue. The deep, black forest on one hand; and on the other, the dropping away of a sheer precipice for two thousand feet, to smiling valleys where green grass was growing, with patches of 98 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR garden here and there; and between, our smooth white road, leading ever on to new scenic beauties, formed a picture that cannot be adequately described. At Lucerne we had the pleasure of meeting those excellent Americans, Judge E. L. Scar- ritt and wife, of Kansas City, and Miss Helen Hendrix, who, with Miss Edna Morris, of St. Joseph, Mo., were "doing Europe" in the highly proper and conventional way. While the Judge pretended not to care very much for automobiles having over two horse-power, yet I am sure that, secretly, he envied the Three Men in a Motor- Car their independence of stuffy railway trains, mysterious time-tables, and all that kind of horrible slavery. After a delightful Sabbath with our friends each party went its separate way. Of course we saw the Lion of Lucerne, visited the Glacier Garden, heard that won- derful organ in the old cathedral, and spent a most enjoyable night on Rigi-Kulm. When we were ready to start next morning for Interlaken the rain was pouring down. Every motorist knows that it is no fun to drive an automobile over any sort of a road when it is wet and slippery. Imagine one's feelings, therefore, in undertaking the task 99 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR when a skid of the rear wheels may mean a drop of car and passengers two thousand feet. Our Chief Engineer comforted us with the old saw, - " If it rains before seven, 'twill clear before eleven." The old adage, how- ever, must have slipped a cog, as our cars sometimes do, for at eleven it was still coming down in a steady pour. The clouds around old Pilatus were thick and heavy, and our spirits went down to the vanishing point. Finally at twelve it lightened a bit, and we ventured forth. There was no fair maiden to warn us not to try the Pass a la Excelsior. As a matter of fact, the authorities had taken charge of that, and because of reckless driving by motor- ists who had .preceded us, Brunig Pass, on the direct route to Interlaken, had been closed a few days previously. At twelve-fifteen, however, the horn sounded, and in a drizzling rain we rolled over the slippery streets and were soon away in the open country. We were compelled to take a roundabout route, and owing to the condition of the roads did not average more than twelve miles an hour. We passed through the old towns of Lignan and Thun, and then skirted the south side of the beautiful Lake Thunersu, directly 100 Waterfall 900 Feet Lauterbrunnen THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR into Interlaken. We had come seventy kilo- meters, and glad enough were we to get through that rainy afternoon without accident to man or machine. At the Beau Rivage hostelry we were made most comfortable by mine host, Herr Doepfeur, whom we found most courteous and solicitous for our comfort and welfare. "As the mountains are round about Jeru- salem," so are they in lofty grandeur round about Interlaken. When the sunlight burst through my window, the morning after our arrival, I looked out and up to a matchless scene of beauty. There Jungfrau lifted her mighty brow, crowned with the snows of centuries and bathed in the glory of the morning sun. We took the motor-car and rode out to Lauterbrunnen, where the railway up the first mountain towards Jungfrau begins. This road climbs to an altitude of six thousand seven hundred and sixty-five feet, and ends at a station called Kleine Scheidegg. Here begins the famous Jungfrau road, a piece of engi- neering so audacious that it interests the whole civilized world. It is a cog-wheel affair, and the cars are propelled by electricity generated by waterfalls in the valley below. Strange, 101 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR is it not, that the gently melting snow should really furnish all the tremendous power neces- sary to operate this mountain railway ? The road has been in process of construction for several years, and is now open to the public to Eismeer (Ice Sea) station, at an altitude of ten thousand three hundred sixty-two feet above sea level. Its completion will require an additional five years. The last three hun- dred feet of the ascent to the summit will be by elevators. Think of man's mastery over nature, in thus building a road which will enable any one, without hardship, or even discomfort, to ascend to the very summit of Jungfrau, hitherto all but inaccessible, one of the great mountain peaks of the world, almost fourteen thousand feet in height! The views to be enjoyed on this superb climb are perhaps unequalled anywhere else on the globe. As we ascend, the valley drops lower and lower, and still we climb, higher and higher toward the clouds. It is growing cold, and we don our overcoats. Now we are at the snow line, and can plainly see the dark blue ice of the glaciers. Oh, how wild and rugged is all the earth that lies about us. The lofty Eiger, Monch, and Silberhorn are just before us. Here are we at last, more 102 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR than ten thousand feet in air; here amidst the silence of eternal ice and snow. A mote in a sunbeam; a grain of sand on a river's bank; a drop in a shoreless ocean; forgotten atoms on the rim of the world, are we midgets, creatures of a flying hour, who have dared to climb these dizzy, dizzy heights, and from the bosom of Jungf rau look into the unveiled face of the burning sun ? We look out upon a scene of awful grandeur. Here are the glaciers of unnumbered ages. In the snow are great fissures, irregular and broken. It is as though the gods, in some terrible paroxysm of grief or rage, had, with enormous flails, slashed and beaten the land- scape into horrible scars. The best view-point of the whole range is from Kleine Scheidegg. The snow lies above and below you; your near neighbors are the cracking glaciers; the sun shines down on lofty Silberhorn with her perfect cone-shaped peak, all white in spotless mantle clad. You can easily imagine her a great white goddess, cold and chaste, and all the other mountain gods coming to pay homage, and worship at the shrine of her immaculate beauty. The train quickly carries us around to Grindelwald, where our motor-car meets us. 103 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR The next morning we left the city among the lakes for Geneva, traveling one hundred twenty-six miles, via Thun, Berne, Freiburg, and Lausanne. The scenery was the most varied and beautiful we had yet driven through, especially the last thirty-five miles, when we skirted the lake between Lausanne and Geneva. Away in the west, where the King of Day was dying, great clouds, like white-winged angels, were gathered about his golden couch. A little nearer, a noble moun- tain range, with soft blue peaks, marched by our flying car in stately procession. On our immediate right, pleasant vineyards smiled in the softened sunlight, while on our left Lake Leman's turquoise blue lay as a gem among the mighty hills. Still farther eastward the Bernese Alps lifted their hoary heads into the realms of silence and of space. In front of us, as straight and shining as an arrow, lay a perfect road, over which our good car carried us swiftly and safely, through the "gathering gloom. Then came the lights of Geneva, and with them our glorious ride was ended. 104 CHAPTER XII ONE of the pleasantest features of traveling in a motor-car in Europe, or in any other country for that matter, is the pleasure of meeting fellow Americans. As we were dis- mounting from our car after that delightful run from Interlaken via Lausanne to Geneva, our attention was attracted to a fine sixty horse- power French automobile. After the driver had alighted and removed a few goggles, coats, and other impedimenta of motoring, we rec- ognized Mr. George Isham Scott, of New York, a prominent member of the Automobile Club of America, and chairman of its Racing Committee. Mr. Scott related an unpleasant experience he had had that afternoon at Evonette, on Lake Geneva. He was driving very slowly through that insignificant village, while the street was perfectly clear, when a constable rushed out and placed him under arrest for exceeding the speed limit, which was the ab- surd rate of four miles an hour. This is 105 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR about the rate at which a man walks. Never- theless Mr. Scott was mulcted twenty-five francs to satisfy the demands of Evonette justice. The following day I accompanied Mr. Scott to the Swiss Club. Here we were informed that the officials of this moth-eaten village have an organized system of graft, and that no matter how slowly a motorist drives, he is seized and promptly fined, the officials dividing the amount of the fine with the municipality. At Geneva I also had the pleasure of meet- ing Mr. and Mrs. H. Sellers McKee, who, with Mr. and Mrs. Hart McKee, were touring Europe in a fine French car. Mr. McKee related an odd experience which might have had a serious ending. Near the Swiss border of France they were going along over a perfect road at about forty miles an hour. On reaching a fork in the road they stopped. Suddenly, from inside the car, twenty or more bees arose, and began buzzing savagely about their ears. Both men and women were compelled to alight quickly, and for a time abandon the car. Mr. McKee' s explanation is that the car, which was provided with a hood, had been going so rapidly that, one by one, these bees had been overtaken, 106 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR and gathered into the vehicle, falling to the bottom, where they lay quietly until the car stopped. After some time they rid them- selves of their unwelcome visitors and pro- ceeded on their way. The incident had been forgotten, when suddenly a bee stung the driver on the hand. On account of the sud- den pain he removed his hand for an instant from the wheel, when the car at once shot off the roadway and into an adjoining field, trav- eling a considerable distance before it could be brought to a stop. Had there been an embankment or a precipice at that particular spot, terrible injury or sudden death would have been the ending to what happily proved a harmless though exciting incident. I regret that the limitations of time and space are such that Geneva must be dismissed with a single paragraph. It is rich in historic interest, and is nestled among the Savoy hills on Lake Leman's banks, on which "Old Chillon" stands, dear to the memory of every schoolboy. As we rode away we feasted our eyes upon the beautiful view, and upon peerless Mt. Blanc, standing, a cold and lone sentinel, over the city by the lake. A few minutes out of Geneva we crossed the Swiss border and were once more, to our 107 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR great satisfaction, on French soil, and upon French roads, which are superior to those of any other country in Europe. We were thankful to have made our trip through Switzerland without the slightest annoyance or persecution. We had nothing thrown after us worse than a few ugly looks. We consid- ered ourselves fortunate, as not a few tourists have been pelted with stones and threat- ened with pitchforks in the hands of angry peasants who claim that their crops are damaged by the dust stirred up by motor-cars. Switzerland profits largely by the trail of gold left in the wake of American and English travelers. Is she going to be so foolish as to kill the goose that every year lays for her citizens a nest full of golden eggs? The ride to Aix-les-Bains was over a suc- cession of hills, but our good car never once flinched, no matter how heavy her load, or how steep the grade. Our tire troubles were a negligible quantity. Our front wheels were shod with Michelins and they gave perfect service during the tour, although run some two thousand miles before we started on our long trip abroad. Our rear tires were Michelins reinforced with Sampson covering; not only did they prove loyal through every mile of our 108 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR journey, but showed scarcely any sign of wear at the finish, notwithstanding the hard treat- ment to which they were subjected. Reliable tires contribute as much to the enjoyment of an extended automobile tour as does a good and reliable car. Aix-les-Bains is a town of some eight thou- sand permanent population, forty-five miles from Geneva, in France. It is noted for its sulphur baths, which are among the most famous in the world. Aix (pronounced X in France) was a favorite resort of the late Queen of Blessed Memory, - - Victoria. Aix is pat- ronized by kings and princes and noted men from all parts of the world, the season begin- ning in March and ending with the close of October. Because of the many sick people who come to Aix-les-Bains it is often face- tiously called " Aches and Pains." Probably there is no resort in this or any other country offering so much in the way of natural scenery, or of mineral waters so efficacious. The springs are numerous, there being two thermal ones that yield one million gallons per day. These have a wide reputation for the cure of rheuma- tism, gout, sciatica, neuralgia, etc. There are other springs in this Savoy district which are rich in iron and arsenic, and the debilitated 109 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR from all lands and climes flock hither to par- take of the healing waters. Many come too late in life, and with George Eliot must say, "Death is the only physician; the shadow of his valley the only journeying that can cure me of age and the gathering fatigue of years." These baths of Aix were famous in Roman times, the Romans calling them Aquae Gra- tianse. There still remains standing a Roman arch known as the Arch Campanus. It is a mural monument erected about sixteen cen- turies ago. It is thirty feet high and twenty- two feet wide, and is in an excellent state of preservation. Eight niches contain the ashes of Roman gentlemen. As we stopped our motor-car near by, and took a snap-shot at the old arch, I could not but think of what strange contrasts this old world of ours presents, and I wondered what Julius Caesar would say could he have been able to examine our "Devil Wagon." Quite likely he would have regarded it as some new- fangled war chariot and would have ordered out a body of his trained guards to shoot our tires full of arrows and jam javelins into our gasolene tank. Thirty thousand visitors throng Aix every year, and all of these must be entertained as no Val du Fier well as bathed and fed. The Casino is one of the most beautifully ornamented places of amusement to be found in Europe, and to gaze upon some of its highly decorated ceilings makes one think he is back at Fontainebleau or at the Palace at Versailles. At nine-fifteen the following morning, and in a rain-storm, we bade good-by to our cheery host of the Albion Hotel, who had most comfortably provided for us and to whom we were indebted for many courtesies, and turned our bonnet toward Macon, France. Our route lay through the famous gorge known as Val du Fier. I possess exceptional ability in the art of forgetting French names, but the Val du Fier, because of its wild and rugged beauty, is burnt into my memory forever. A French road, which means a perfect road, leads through it. On the left, five hundred feet below, rushed a mountain stream, on the opposite bank of which arose beetling crags to a height of a thousand feet. On our imme- diate right stood a bare, grim mountain of stone, and in front of us, turning and twisting like a great white snake, lay our hard smooth road. The rain had gone and the sun poured down his genial rays from a deep blue sky, The wine of life was in the air and we ill THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR were young again. More than that, we had captured one of the gods and were driving him through the wild gardens of his ancestors. We reached at length the plain beyond and continued for an hour upon our way. Ab- sorbed in discussing the wild beauty of the gorge we had given little heed to direction or distance, until, the Historian came to earth again and discovered that we were thirteen miles off our route. We consequently re- traced our rubber steps and soon were right again. A few miles further brought us to the village of Artmare, where we stopped to re- plenish our tanks with essence. And now a new and delightful experience was awaiting us. It was August 30th, and the hour being one P.M., the eclipse of the sun was coming on. At every turn the villagers were out in the streets with pieces of smoked glass, gazing heavenward. We stopped our car, and find- ing a piece of broken window-pane, with the aid of some matches were soon equipped with a proper medium through which to view the glorious spectacle. A few miles farther on we entered the far-famed Albarine Valley. I must here call attention to a combination of fortuitous circumstances which rendered 112 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR our ride for the next two hours, not only most enjoyable, but thoroughly unique. First of all, the day was a perfect one, like our own days in June, of which the poet sings, "Oh, Happy Day, refuse to go, Hang in the Heavens, forever so, Forever in mid-afternoon, Oh, Happy Day, in Happy June." Next in importance, to the motorist, our car was behaving perfectly. Again, the road was as smooth and as hard as human skill could fashion a highway. This was enough, but the crowning delights are still to be related. The scenery of the Valley of the Albarine is the most picturesque and altogether en- trancing of any it had yet been our happy lot to travel, and may my motor never turn another wheel, if I forget Switzerland. Never- theless, I recant not. Not in angry or in petulant mood, but with calm judgment and dignified purpose, had the giant forces of Nature walled in this causeway for the footsteps of their little brother, the com- ing man. In this valley, high up on the rocky sides, one might easily believe dwelt, in cliffs, prehistoric man. Through this valley, again and again, came the pillaging barbarians of early Europe; through this valley Julius 113 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR Caesar marched his invincible legions, and through this valley, on that memorable day, echoed and re-echoed the rhythmic song of our good motor-car, the last best gift of all the gods to man. To all this add the weird spectacle of the sun's eclipse, almost total, as viewed from the Albarine Valley, it being eighty-two per cent, and you have a combination of cir- cumstances contributing to the most fascinat- ing ride mortal man ever had. It was as though the great Day King, jealous with rage, or mad with fear that midget man should mock him with his modern motor-car, mount- ing with mighty strides his rocky fastnesses, where mortals hitherto had come only with great labor and difficulty, had screened his shining face to shut out a sight he could not well endure. On leaving this Valley of Delight we paused awhile beneath a sheltering tree, and were eating our simple luncheon of sandwiches, with a bottle of good red wine of the country, when two peasants passed us on their bicycles, and showed their friendly interest and sym- pathy by their cheerful salutation: "Bon ap- petit, Messieurs." It was a pleasant incident, coming unexpectedly to strangers in a strange 114 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR land; it touched our hearts in a strange way, and in the treasure-house of the memories of our journey will long remain one of its brightest gems. It would seem as though our cup of enjoy- ment had been filled, and that nothing could be added. But strenuous Americans were we Three Men in a Motor-Car, with insatiable appetites for seeing things; besides, but a few "to-morrows" remained to us before our date of sailing, so from the wonderful works of the Creator we turned to view the handiwork of the created. We came in the late mellow afternoon of that glorious day to the old town of Bourg. Its chief object of interest is the old Church of Brou, celebrated in a poem by Matthew Arnold. Again were we under a lucky star, for a bright young Italian priest, with features as finely cut as a cameo, who spoke English well, offered to show us over the historic place. The church, he told us, had been erected in 1115-36, by Margaret of Austria, whose husband, Philibert II, was the noble Duke of Savoy, in compliance with a vow made by the Duke's mother. The portal is highly ornamental, and the interior is cheerful (which cannot be said of many of the old 115 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR churches) as well as simple and dignified. It contains the tombs of the Duke, as well as those of his wife and his mother Margaret of Bourbon; the tombs are of Carrara marble, and surmounted by recumbent figures of those in whose honor they were built. Richly orna- mented pillars and statuettes, carved in the most delicate and beautiful way, adorn these magnificent tombs. There are also some old stained-glass windows, and some paintings which are three hundred and sixty-five years old. Out into the soft sunlight from the presence of the royal dead we came. It was but a short ride, some twenty miles, to Macon, which was to mark the end of this splendid day's journey, but the atmosphere of that sacred place seemed to accompany us and we rode on in silence. As we proceeded, each of us lost in his own thoughts for the time being, the Spirit of the Past rose before ine. I saw empires rise, flourish, and fall into decay; I saw the pomp and pageantry of kings and queens, and the end a handful of ashes in a forgotten crypt at Bourg. Sic transit gloria mundi. But I recalled the Albarine Valley, with its towering cliffs, and I said: "This shall en- 116 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR dure"; then there came to my mind those lines of Shakespeare, carved on his tomb, which I had read only a few weeks before in Westminster Abbey: "The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, yea, the great globe itself, And all who it inhabit, shall fade Like the baseless fabric of a vision, And leave not e'en a wreck behind." 117 CHAPTER XIII LIKE an arrow in its shining flight, like a swallow on swift wing, like a % thistle driven down the wind, came we that glorious Sep- tember day into Paris, and our long and happy journey was ended. The last chapter quite inadequately de- scribed the eventful ride from Aix-les-Bains through the Val-du-Fier, and the Albarine Valley to Macon in Southeastern France. Any ride after that matchless one, on which we witnessed through the clear mountain air the sun's eclipse, would be commonplace if not wholly uninteresting. At Macon, an unimportant town of eighteen thousand inhabitants, we crossed the Saone River and journeyed westward for twelve miles to St. Cecile. The next twelve miles to a junction with the National Road leading into Charolles was straight across country, with highway marked poor. Aside from some steep grades, the road was about equal to the best in America. Poor in France good in 118 /y /.* THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR America. What a commentary on our boasted western civilization! At La Motte, a few miles further on, we came to the banks of the Loire River and the famous valley of that name. The air was soft and balmy, the sun played hide-and-seek with the clouds, and peek-a-boo with the mortals in the motor-car, as we sped on our way on the north side of ~ , the river over perfect roads to Nevers, where we stopped for luncheon. An easy run of thirty-eight miles brought us in the late after- noon to the old city of Bourges. It is a place of forty-six thousand inhabitants, located in the midst of a flat plain at the conjunction of the Yevre and Auron rivers. It contains a .,, large gun factory, and is the headquarters of the Seventh Army Corps. This city is the Avaricum described by Caesar in his Com- mentaries, which he captured and pillaged a half century before the beginning of the Christian era. There must always be a climax, and in cathedrals we reached the ne plus ultra at Bourges. As Jungfrau to the Alps, as Niagara to a streamlet so Bourges Cathedral loomed large upon our horizon. Truly it is in the nature of spiritual thought to manifest itself. 119 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR Thus the worshipful spirit projects itself into lofty tower and majestic dome and splendid arch and nave and transept; and through the material we catch a glimpse of man's struggle to express his concept of the Majesty and Dominion and Power of the Infinite. But Majesty and Dominion and Power are not all the attributes of the Supreme. Mercy and Pity and Tenderness and Love are His; and so human skill taxes its highest powers, and splendid fresco, and delicate carving in imperishable marble, and beautiful stained- glass windows, strive to comfort the worship- ing soul by suggesting these tender qualities of the Infinite. Thinking these thoughts, and with un- covered heads, we approached the beautiful fapade of the Cathedral of St. Etienne, one of the finest churches on the globe, dating from the thirteenth, fourteenth, and sixteenth cen- turies. The front of this superb structure is one hundred and eighty feet in width, and com- prises five portals ornately decorated with groups of sculptures, the chief and center of which is The Last Judgment. Above this is a matchless circular rose-window thirty feet in diameter. The tower on the south, called 120 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR Tour Sourde, one hundred and ninety feet high, was erected in the fourteenth century and is still uncompleted. The north tower, called Tour de Beurre, was constructed during the sixteenth century with money received from the sale of indulgences to eat butter during lent. The interior of this structure is most noble and imposing. It is three hundred and seventy feet long, one hundred and thirty feet wide, with the splendid arches of the nave lifting themselves one hundred and twenty feet above the level of the marble floor. The majestic proportions of this huge struc- ture are so fine that all parts merge into one harmonious whole, and you stand lost in won- der and admiration, overwhelmed by its simple dignity and solemn grandeur. Then the stained-glass windows, dating from about 1250 A.D. ! They are said to be the finest in France. It has been said that thought is deeper than all speech feeling deeper than all thought. These windows are feeling in color. There are sobs and prayers and tears. There is grief and despair and sorrow. There is joy and faith and hope. Struck out in lines of living light is every note in the gamut of life with its mystery and its 121 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR tragedy. But the high lights of Faith are triumphant over the somber light of Fear, and from this holy place go you away comforted. The next morning we were up betimes and on our way. About noontime we arrived at Selles-sur-Cher. At this place we had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Charles T. Edgar and family, of Boston. They were touring Europe in a fine American car. The fates put it within their power to do us a kind and neighborly service for which we were exceed- ingly grateful. We were somewhat behind our schedule and I was a bit anxious because I knew an important telegram was waiting me at Tours forty miles distant. I finally decided that I would telephone the Hotel d'Univers at Tours and ask the clerk to repeat the message over the 'phone. But again, alas ! The telephone service throughout France is as rotten as it is within the possibilities of human language to express. It is as though Satan, by a supreme effort of his will, had concocted the subtlest device within his power to tempt mortals to break all the command- ments at once. Then having created the system he ransacked all the lunatic asylums, - chose the choicest specimens of chuckle- headed, blithering idiots he could find and 122 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR put them on as managers and operators. What is the result ? You undertake to get a number. There are two others ahead of you, therefore your number is "Three." You wait twenty minutes and then make further inquiry. Now there are six others ahead of you, and your number is "Seven." You may inquire, protest, yea do worse; you can get neither satisfaction nor explanation. Finally, when forty minutes have gone by, courage, strength, and patience gone with them, you are ushered into a padded cell. Now this cell, padded two inches thick, is the only sane provision of the whole system. The object of it is to pre- vent suicide, for which the company would be held responsible. By the time you are ad- mitted to this padded cell, you are in despera- tion, but your tribulations are only beginning, and in fifteen to twenty minutes after you enter this living coffin, your collar is gone, the Turkish bath is on, you have held the re- ceiver to your ear until you are sure it will grow there then you find you have been given the wrong number. Then and there everything inside of you seems to break at once, and you make a desperate effort to bat your brains out. No difference if you are a big Bishop or a perfect lady, you say things 123 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR out loud right then and there, in a way that to hear under normal temper would curdle your young blood while all the devils in Hell clap their red-hot hands and yell in ghoulish glee that another saint has gone wrong. After a heroic attempt to telephone Tours I gave up in sheer despair and decided I could get the information more quickly by going after it by train. Upon inquiry I found that the railroad station was three quarters of a mile away, and the Tours train due in seven minutes. To catch that train meant the saving of at least one whole day. And who wouldn't do and dare and die almost - for an extra day's motoring in beautiful France ? My resolution was taken instantly. I dashed out of the telephone office, having recovered my temper sufficiently to talk with- out breaking the third commandment, and inquired of the first passer-by the way to the station. That man was deaf and I wanted to throttle him. Getting the general direction, I took the middle of the street, my raincoat flying on one arm, a handful of road-maps and a copy of Baedeker's Southern France tightly clasped in the other. Then began the 124 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR most strenuous seven minutes I ever put in. In college days I had won a prize as sprinter, but I am sure I beat my early record. Shout- ing to every one I met, " Chemin-de-fer pour Tours ?" without pausing a moment, I dashed on. Once I turned a wrong corner and lost a hundred precious yards. "Chemin-de-fer pour Tours ? " and a schoolboy put me right. Doubtless the inhabitants of that quiet village thought a crazy man was loose in their midst. Meanwhile a gust of wind had blown my cap into the river and I was bareheaded. The train whistles for the station. Can I make it ? Never did Grecian runner long for laurel prize as longed I to catch that train for Tours. We arrived at the platform together. I fell exhausted into the first compartment and lay down on the floor panting like a water spaniel, the perspiration starting from every pore, but victorious. Seventeen minutes later the train ||% started. Much to my joy I found the precious tele- gram and caught a train back in one hour and twenty minutes. That night I slept the sleep of physical and spiritual exhaustion, comforted, however, in knowing that early on the following day we would be on our happy way into the chateau country. 125 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR By eight o'clock the next morning our car was at the door and we were ready to depart. We felt keen sympathy for some fellow- motorists, Mr. and Mrs. De Malglaive and their son and daughter, a cultured family from Mustapha, Alger, who were touring France in a fine limousine car. The gears had broken and for three long tedious days they had been detained in that stupid little town whose hotel accommodations it is char- itable not to mention. They were living in expectation of getting away the following day, and every motorist will sincerely trust their hopes were realized. 126 CHAPTER XIV WE were now traveling through the de- lightful country along the north bank of the Cher. In the cliffs of soft stone beside the roadside, wine cellars were cut. It was a novel experience to see a stovepipe coming through a flower-bed or garden, indicating an artificial cave or room beneath. Although the day was chilly and forbidding, our hopes and expectations were high. We were at last on the route of the "Lightning Conductor," that clever story blessed to the heart of every automobilist in the world and to many thousands who have not joined our glorious company. From Montrichard it is but a few minutes' ride until we stand at the gate leading up the broad, splendid tree-lined drive to Chenonceaux. We left our car be- neath a huge tree outside the handsome iron grilled gate, and with a copy of the " Lightning Conductor" proceeded up to the donjon, the relics of an old castle, on the right. Here we left our raincoats and other impedimenta of 127 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR travel preparatory to visiting the chateau. We also bought here a collection of pictures, not only of the chateau itself, but of Francis I and Francis II, Mary Stuart, Catherine de Medicis, Diana of Poitiers and the other leading actors on the stage of their time, the setting of which we were now about to see. At the threshold of the chateau, our party was joined by two charming American motor- ists, Mr. and Mrs. W. S. Gaylord, of Chicago. Just at this point I propose to tell a story, an incident of my boyhood hunting days. I had a young dog with long silky ears. One bright winter morning we went out to hunt. Presently a rabbit popped up and dashed straight for an osage orange hedge fence. Now to those farmer boys who are wise in the lore of fences, it is known that this hedge is full of thorns. The rabbit dashed through a small opening, and Bre'r Dog, nothing daunted, followed hard after. Presently he returned without the rabbit, and with those beautiful ears pricked and torn and bleeding. Soon another rabbit jumped up and ran through this pernicious hedge. Bre'r Dog ran boldly up to the hedge, stopped, turned around, barked once, then looked at me with a half-foolish, half-pathetic 128 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR expression which seemed to say quite as plainly as words: Please excuse me, I am a wiser and a sadder dog, and my lesson has been learned. Hie fabula docet, don't under- take the hedge even the first time; and I shall not be so unwise as to try to describe Chenon- ceaux or any other place, person, or thing which has had its beauties illuminated by the matchless genius of the authors of the "Light- ning Conductor." If you want dimensions and accurate his- torical facts, Baedeker brims over with them. If you want to see all these places peopled with the real living characters which have made them famous if you want to walk through the gardens and palaces, and breathe the very atmosphere of the times, summon to your side, as did Molly Randolph, the most brilliant historical imagination of our time, and then you will see it all and know it all and feel it all, as you can in no other way. Thus guided, we walked through Chenon- ceaux. We saw Diana of Poitiers bidding a tearful farewell to the beautiful chateau, taking a last morning walk in the gardens before going away to Chaumont. In imagination we saw the pure-souled Tasso repeating his verses to the cruel Catherine. We saw the moonlight 129 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR falling on the Cher, and on the stone veranda above it the happy bride and groom, Mary Queen of Scots and Francis II, plighting anew their vows long before the cruel shadows fell athwart their pathway. Reluctantly I turned away from Chenon- ceaux, and, shall I confess it, a bit disappoint- edly. The philosophy of the disappointment will develop later. On to Amboise was our cry, and again with "Lightning Conductor" in hand we climbed the slope and entered its gloomy portals. This imposing castle is located on a hill. Its lofty walls and ramparts are de- fended by three great round towers. We stood on the balcony where Francis and his young bride and Catherine de Medicis, who was always present when mischief was brew- ing, and others of the royal household, wit- nessed the slaughter in the yard below of more than a thousand Huguenots. For many years this huge castle was used as a state prison, and I could but feel that it was more suggestive of a prison than a royal home. The little chapel over which Molly Randolph wrote* so ecstatically measures up to her de- scription of it. Higher praise than this can no man give it. 130 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR As at Chenonceaux so at Amboise, I turned away with a shade of disappointment. The day was far spent when our good car brought us to the door of the Hotel d'Univers at Tours. In this hostelry made famous by the " Lightning Conductor," we found every cour- tesy and comfort automobilists could desire. Sitting in the dining-room where Molly Ran- dolph, in a sparkling glass of Vouvray, in the presence of her aunt, christened the one and only "Lightning Conductor," Brown, I heard the charming story which gave me the key to the secret power of that book, and incidentally explained to my own consciousness why I had been disappointed at Chenonceaux and Am- boise. If these lines should ever fall beneath the eyes of Mr. and Mrs. Williamson, I am sure they will forgive me, because the world is always interested in knowing every incident concerning those whose skill or literary genius has charmed them for some happy hour or day. The fact that this pretty story fell upon my eager ears from the lips of a charming young woman, herself interested in the place, added not a little to its enjoyment. One day there drove up to the hotel in a 131 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR fine motor-car a man and a woman: he, a fine type of the stalwart English gentleman; his bride, a tall, beautiful, vivacious, cultured American girl. They were on their honey- moon. Both were enthusiastic motorists. They spent a week at the hotel, making excur- sions in their car to points of interest. Quietly they came, quietly they went away, but when they had gone, a considerable part of the material for that superb story, " The Lightning Conductor," was in hand. At this point my historian produced a copy of the English edi- tion of the work, containing a most excellent picture of Miss Randolph, and one of the only genuine original Brown. As I turned away from this delightful tete- a-tete, memory and imagination were busy, and it came to me then why I had been disappointed at these chateaux. We get out of everything in this world exactly what we put into it, no more, no less. Here were a man and woman educated, cul- tured, refined. The sunlight of the morning was on their countenances, and before them stretched the whole world illuminated by the spirit of Youth and Hope. But above and surpassing and beyond all this, they looked out upon life through the 132 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR atmosphere of love. Oh, there is the secret! Small wonder then that Chenonceaux, which to the Wall Street business man seemed a fairly respectable mansion of the second class, should, to this charming bride's eyes, seem like a beautiful and capricious woman turned into a chateau. Yes, she got much out of all these places, because she put much into them. Thus these two clever spirits with glowing hearts visited the valley of the Loire and saw a shining chateau country which those less favored by the gods can never know. To their keen sympathy and quick imagi- nation a blacksmith shop or a miner's hut would still be beautiful, and if they described it in any story, you and I would count it hard- ship if we could not visit it the very next day. The city of Tours is most interesting. It impresses one as clean, healthful an up-to- date business-like town of sixty-five thousand inhabitants. It is located in a fertile plain on the banks of the river Loire. Its genial cli- mate and healthful surroundings make it attractive to many English residents. During the Franco-Prussian War, G ambetta escaped, September 13, 1870, from besieged Paris by balloon, and established at Tours the Government of National Defense. 133 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR One of the great battles of history was fought at Tours that in which Charles Martel broke the power and drove back the oncoming horde of savage Saracens in 732. Balzac the novelist was born in the city of Tours, 1799. Its cathedral and other beautiful places I cannot linger to describe. I can only .dis- miss Tours with the declaration that it was one of the most satisfying places of our jour- ney. From Tours to Blois is a delightful ride of thirty-six miles through the Loire valley. The chateau was the most gorgeous of any we had visited. We were particularly interested in the room where the Duke of Guise was assas- sinated by order of Henri III, two monks praying meanwhile in an adjoining chamber for the success of the plot. We were also interested in the secret panel closet where Catherine de Medicis kept her poisons. After a hasty visit to the old Abbey-Church of St. Nicholas, the finest in the city, built 1138 to 1210, we turned our car towards Orleans. At Mer we crossed the Loire and visited the chateau of Chainbord. It is situated in a park containing twenty square miles, and 134 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR surrounded by twenty miles of stone wall. It is admittedly one of the finest palaces of the Renaissance in existence. It was built in 1526 by Pierre Nepven for Francis I, whose favorite residence it was. The chateau is five hundred and twelve feet long and three hundred and eighty-five feet in width. The building is of light stone. On each corner is a handsome round tower, having conical roofs surmounted by lanterns. There are also many turrets, pinnacles, handsome carved chimneys, besides moldings and sculptures beyond number. For example, there are three hundred and sixty-five chimneys; as one of our party facetiously remarked, "one for every day in the year." The double spiral staircase is most inter- esting. It is so arranged that one may ascend and another descend at the same time and not meet. This magnificent castle contains four hun- dred and forty apartments. Architecturally, I regard it as one of the finest productions ever created by the brain of man. There is not a single discordant note. It looms aloft into the blue sky, with its splendid towers and tall turrets and carved chimneys and proud pin- nacles all blending into one harmonious satis- 135 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR fying whole, a dream of beauty etched into the soul forever. The sun was falling rapidly against the west when we tore ourselves away from Chambord and with throttle wide open, on top speed, started for Orleans. That was an exhilarating ride. Passing through Clery we remembered the reference to it in the "Lightning Conductor," and were more than repaid by stopping to visit it. At seven-thirty we drove into Orleans, and were soon satisfying our automobilist appetite, which is no small undertaking. The fine steak we had that night is one of the mem- ories of our trip. To us eager Americans, Orleans, a city of sixty-seven thousand inhabitants, was most interesting because of its historical associa- tions. Originally it was the Gallic town of Cena- bum, taken by Julius Caesar and burned in 52 B.C. in revenge for the death of some Roman tradesmen. In those days it meant something to be able to say, " I am a Roman citizen." The name Orleans came from Aure- lianum, which was the name given to the town after it had been rebuilt by the Roman Emperor Aurelius. 136 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR The location of Orleans has always ren- dered it a place of great strategic importance in Southern France and it has often been under siege. In 451 St. Aignan, at that time Bishop, saved it from the attack of the great barbarian general Attila. The greatest historical event in the history of the place, however, is the siege by the English in 1428-29. The student will remember that this siege was raised by Joan of Arc the Maid of Orleans. On May 8 she forced the English to withdraw, which event is still celebrated on the anniversary of that day. In 1563 the Duke of Guise attacked the Huguenots here. On October 11, 1870, it was captured by the Germans, retaken by the French, and again captured by the Germans. The Cathedral of St. Croix, destroyed by the Huguenots in 1567, was rebuilt 1601-1827. It is not especially well spoken of by the books, but as a matter of fact it is an imposing edifice of the later Gothic style. On either side arise two massive towers two hundred and eighty- five feet high, between which are handsome portals surmounted by splendid rose-windows. The length of the church is four hundred and 137 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR eighty-five feet. Many of the beautiful stained- glass windows depict scenes from the life of the Maid of Orleans. The Hotel de Ville is an interesting building erected in 1530. At one time it was the King's residence, and here, in the arms of his devoted wife, died Francis II in 1560. In the center of the town is a public square containing, on a lofty granite pedestal, a heroic equestrian statue of Joan of Arc, done in imperishable bronze. It is one of the most realistic productions I have ever seen. Every line and curve of Maid and Horse is sentient with life and power and action. On the sides of the huge pedestal, on solid bronze tablets, are portrayed scenes from the stirring life of Joan of Arc. There are depicted the Maid having her vision in the fields, leading her victorious army, her trial, and, last, the cruel flames circling about her head as her pure soul took its flight from its earthly tenement. Thus it is scourged and burned at the stake by the generation of to-day, by the generation of to-morrow crowned with laurel and com- memorated in lasting bronze. From Orleans we turned the bonnet of our good motor-car towards Paris. It was a question whether we should go the route by 138 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR Chartres, in order to visit the famous old cathedral there, or take the straight road for the capital city. But as we had friends ex- pecting us in Paris, as we knew a "bushel of mail" awaited each one of us, and as we had seen from one to six churches and cathe- drals per day for several weeks, until our brain tissue felt saturated with lofty towers and solemn columns and "dim religious light," we felt that we could afford to let Chartres go by (which decision the Narrator frankly confesses he now regrets) and so took the direct route to Paris. Every good and faithful motor-car either came from Paris or expects to go there. All of us farmer lads have keen recollections of how it used to rejuvenate the veriest "old plugs" to turn their heads homeward. So our motor-car seemed to know that we were at last on the homeward stretch. The motor sang to us that day her cheeriest song of happiness and rich content. She seized the dusty miles in her clean teeth and literally ate them up. The Master of Transportation, he of mechanical fame and face, suddenly began a cruel parody on some well-known lines: Turn round my wheel, turn round and spin, The motor-car is bound to win. 139 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR In fact there was not wanting evidence that he was about to burst into song. But the Treasurer and the Historian, remembering another occasion on which trouble followed his musical attempts, begged, and finally persuaded, him to desist. Our route lay through a wonderfully fertile level plain much like those the traveler sees about Topeka, Kansas, or Watertown, South Dakota, with this difference, that every square foot of ground is cultivated even as a garden of roses. The harvests were all gar- nered and the fall plowing had hardly begun. It was the first open day of the hunting season. Pot hunters with their shotguns and fine- looking bird dogs swarmed every field and highway. We found not infrequently that a jolly party of hunters had utilized the motor- car as a means of transportation to convey them to the fields. Arrived at the desired location, the men and dogs would beat the field, the automobile meeting them on the farther side. In a ride of eighty miles we saw groups of huntsmen, the total aggregating at least two hundred, but we did not observe that a single one had bagged even a solitary bird. We concluded that the French must be truly real 140 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR sportsmen, and that the hunting was much better than the shooting. A few years ago there was published a popular little volume entitled "Ships that Pass in the Night." The book was as pathetic as its title was weird and suggestive. The antithesis of "The Ships that Pass in the Night" is the "Autos that Pass by Day." You are on a French road a perfect road; your car is bowling along say at thirty miles per hour. You look down that shining silver pathway as straight as a plummet line and three miles away you can see a dark moving object. It is a big motor-car with a jolly party coming down the highway. That car is also traveling at thirty miles per hour. At first it is no larger than a baby cart, but it is grow- ing larger every second. A touch of automo- biliousness makes the whole world kin. The occupants of the car are strangers to you; perhaps they hail from the other side of the world. No difference, they are motorists and you have a common interest, a common bond of sympathy. You wish them well. If they had even a slight mishap you would be quick to tender aid. They feel the same toward you. Now the cars are roaring at each other only a hundred rods apart; now a hundred 141 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR feet; now a dozen feet. It seems as though the monsters are vindictively rushing at each other for a deadly conflict. As the cars pass you catch a glimpse of happy faces, feel the impact of a current of air against your cheek, and the gulf of Time and Distance is widening between you. A thrilling chapter of impres- sions and sensations has been registered, and yet less than two minutes have intervened since the cars came in sight of each other. Not the least of the joys of motoring is the meeting of these unknown yet "kindred spirits. The Cars that Pass in the Day. I suggest to all American tourists that before beginning their journey they join the Touring Club of France. The fee is a nomi- nal one and the splendid maps the club fur- nishes are invaluable. This club has marked the danger places on all the roads in a splen- did way. Often you come on such warnings as Ralentir (go slowly), Passage aniveau (grade crossing), Tournant brusque (sharp turn), and Descente dangereuse (dangerous descent). The shadows were slanting far to the eastward when the forests of St. Germain came in sight. Soon we were threading its narrow roads and then over the rough paved streets into Paris. 142 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR There may be a decent roadway going into Paris, but we did not find it. It is strange, when one reflects that the city streets are so finely paved and the country roads so perfect, that the streets leading out of the city should be so wretched. Six o'clock found us at our hotel, dusty, tired, and happy. A bath and fresh clothing prepared us to enjoy "the bushel of letters" from the States, the congratulations from friends on the happy conclusion of our long journey, and their cordial invitation for dinner. Over our fragrant Havanas that night we lived once more every incident of our journey, and decided that after all one of the joys of a motor trip on the continent is getting back to Paris. 143 CHAPTER XV A VISIT TO THE HOME OF THE WINNER OF THE GORDON-BENNETT CUP PARIS is pre-eminently the home of the motor-car. There it is on its native heath. There are more fine cars made in Paris and its suburbs than in all the rest of the world. Before leaving the city I determined to visit one of the representative French fac- tories. Which one? Naturally I wished to see the best. The good Book says, " By their fruits ye shall know them." I thought this a good rule to apply to the manufacture of motor-cars. Judged, then, by what the prod- uct of their factories had accomplished, there was but one thing to do, and that was to visit the Richard-Brasier works. This fa- mous car had only a few weeks before won the international Gordon-Bennett cup, the world's blue ribbon of motordom. Not only this, but the previous year it had won the same trophy in Germany. Thus two years in succession had this car won the Gordon- 144 WINNER OF THE GORDON-BENNETT CUP Bennett cup, a record unequaled by any other make. Naturally, therefore, I was eager to see the home of this great car. But would I, a stranger, and an American, be permitted to go through the factory? Fortunately I hap- pened to notice in the morning Herald that Mr. E. B. Gallaher, the able American repre- sentative of the company, was in Paris. I communicated to him my desire, and he at once arranged the matter and later the same day escorted some American friends and my- self to their enormous works at Ivry-port. Arrived there, I had the pleasure of meeting Messrs. Brasier and Perrot and that great and unsurpassed driver, M. Leon Thery, the winner of two Gordon-Bennett races. These gentlemen were most kind. The entire fac- tory was thrown open for my inspection. Carefully I observed every step from the raw material to the finished product. Here I can only generalize briefly. The first thing that impressed me was the character of the em- ployees. There were nine hundred of as bright, clean-cut, intelligent-looking workmen as I ever saw assembled together. Many of them were trained experts and they certainly looked the part. The next point that attracted 145 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR my attention was the kind and quality of the raw material. Nickel steel is expensive. Some of it, I was informed, costs pound for pound just about what pure silver would, but nickel steel is used in every portion of the car where it is appropriate or possible for this metal to be used. This means that the axles, the knuckles, the steering lever, the crank- shaft, in fact every part of the car subjected to great strain or wear, is built of the most perfect grade of nickel steel. Alas, when will America learn that the best material is none too good for a car upon the integrity of which human life depends every moment it is in use ? With such material and such men as I have de- scribed, there remains to add only the match- less genius of that great engineer, Brasier, in designing a car, and you have a combination which is not only superb but unequaled. I found also that the greatest possible care was used in assembling the cars, and that each one was subjected to a test more severe than it could ever meet in the hands of a private owner. As I stood with M. Thery beside that highest product of human skill and genius in motor- engine building the motor that won the Gordon-Bennett cup I thought of its mar- 146 WINNER OF THE GORDON-BENNETT CUP velous performance and felt like lifting my hat to that superb piece of mechanism. I do not hesitate to say that the best French motor-cars are at present ahead of our Amer- ican product. In the first place, the French manufacturers have had much larger expe- rience than ours. Again, the German and French steel used has been far superior to ours. Let me quote America's foremost steel builder, Charles M. Schwab. In a recent interview in the New York World Mr. Schwab says : "Take the automobile business, for instance. It is one of the largest and most active phases of modern development. It affects the convenience and the pleasure of all civilized countries. It involves vast capital and armies of workmen. Yet it is notorious that American automobiles have not ranked as high as European automobiles. "Considering our matchless supply of raw materials and the energy, intelligence, and practical ingenuity of our people, it has puzzled some people to account for our failure to keep abreast of Europe in this distinctly modern industry, an industry well adapted to our resources both of men and material. "The truth is that we have hitherto made no genuine effort to produce forged steel working parts of automobiles of the highest quality. That is one of the reasons why our automobiles have not ranked with those of foreign make. "Why, in Germany this summer I saw them making automobile parts of the same fine steel used in guns. Now, how can our products compete with that sort of thing ? 147 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR "It is a common saying that there is no demand for high quality in this country; that there is no market sufficient to justify first-class standards in manufacture. "Let us see. When I returned from Germany, not so many weeks ago, I had a large shop for the making of high- grade forged automobile parts set up beside the Bethlehem Steel Works. What I had seen in Germany was the decisive influence in a long considered project. I could see no reason why the United States should not attempt to take the lead in the manufacture of automobiles. "What is the result? We already have orders for the full capacity of that shop for a year ahead, and my manager informs me that the plant must be quadrupled in size if we are to take care of the business in sight. "That seems to me to be a practical and complete answer to the claim that it does not pay to turn out the highest type of finished product in this country." In view of the kind and quality of material Mr. Schwab is now making, our manufac- turers will ultimately be able to equal the French product. Indeed, I believe the car of the future will be built in this country and it will be the product of American skill, American genius, and American enterprise. Indeed, since the above chapter was written a prominent French manufacturer has volun- teered to me his opinion that there are to-day four American manufacturers whose products are equal to those of any foreign make. 148 CHAPTER XVI MAN'S ANCIENT FOES SINCE man's existence on the earth Time and Space have been his uiiconquered ene- mies. All the powers of the human intellect have been arrayed against them. Man's latest weapon of assault is the automobile. The automobile is both an evolution and the material expression of a revolution. The primordial germ of the modern auto- mobile was born on the banks of the Ganges six thousand years ago. The first type was a crude axle on either end of which was a rough wooden wheel chopped by a stone ax from a huge log. It is a far cry from that rough wooden ox-cart of our ancestors to that last word of engineering skill, as represented by the winner of the Gordon-Bennett race, the Richard-Brasier motor-car. " Life has not many better things than this," said the fat Dr. Samuel Johnson a century and a half ago, as he leaned back in the luxurious upholstery of an old-fashioned Eng- 140 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR lish chaise. Living at that very moment in that very town of Litchfield, England, was Dr. Erasmus Darwin, a friend of Dr. John- son, who went about practising medicine among his patients in a sulky. Dr Darwin's imagination conjured up the image of a chariot propelled by steam which would take him about rapidly and comfortably. A generation before this one hundred and eighty-three years ago the great religious mystic and teacher, Swedenborg, wrote to his brother that he would build a harp that could be played by pounding keys; that he would build a boat that would sail under water and destroy the enemies' ships; that he would invent a gun that would fire a thousand bullets a minute, and that he would build a carriage that would run without horses twenty miles per hour. Those vagaries of a dreamer have become the realities of to-day. Going back still farther, or two hundred and fifty years ago, Sir Isaac Newton had dreamed of a self-propelled vehicle that would far exceed the horse-drawn chariot, but the thought of these men had forged ahead of their times. The earliest record of a self-propelled vehicle is a carving on one of the old Egyp- tian monuments. A horseless chariot is shown, 150 MAN'S ANCIENT FOES apparently being driven by a repellent jet of steam. Centuries later one of the Roman emperors had a curious car driven by a system of wheels and springs. Slaves ran along beside it and wound up the propelling mechanism. Mr. W. J. Lampton is authority for the interesting facts which follow: The first prac- tical horseless vehicle to go by its own power on land was invented in 1769 by Nicholas J. Cugnot, a French army officer, the primary object of which was for use as a gun carriage. At its first trial it ran away, butted into a stone fence and turned over. A second carriage was made, but it was not practical and it may be seen to-day in a Paris museum. Very little progress was made during the next sixty years, but in 1830 an Englishman by the name of Walter Hancock built several car- riages, one called the Automaton, another called the Autopsy (which latter name is very suggestive). These cars ran for several months between Stratford, Paddington, and Islington, covering a distance of over four thousand miles and carrying more than twelve thousand passengers, but prejudice and bad roads proved too much for these cars. The iron track for the railway was constructed and this 151 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR became the death-blow to the motor-car as built by Hancock in England and as designed and operated by Oliver Evans in America. Mr. Evans in 1786 secured from the Maryland Legislature the right to operate his steam- carriages on the roads of that state. This is certainly the first automobile legislation in the western world. Mr. Evans, the first American automobilist, was born in Newport, Delaware. I quite agree with Mr. Lampton in the sug- gestion that the automobilists of America should erect a monument to his memory. The steam carriage had reached such a point of perfection that when a suitable road- way was provided it was easy and natural to combine the two, and from the opening of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad on the 4th of July, 1828, the development of railroads in America began and the automobile was dropped ; however, the needs of the people for better means of travel over the highway could not be forever suppressed. After sixty years of inactivity, in 1888 the French began to turn out self-propelled vehicles. The pneumatic tire was not forthcoming until two years later. About the year 1893 the first American ma- chines were produced. Progress was slow and as late as 1899 there were not over fifty 152 MAN'S ANCIENT FOES automobiles in the United States. Since then the development of the new industry has been rapid, and in 1902 there were twelve thousand motor-cars in this country. The number of automobiles in the United States to-day is approximately seventy thousand, representing in value probably seventy millions of dollars. The United States leads the world in the number of automobiles manufactured. Every civilized ruler of a great nation, including King Edward, the Czar, Emperor William, and the President of France, are devotees of the sport. The exception is President Roose- velt; but President Roosevelt is too good a sportsman to long withstand the temptation. The automobile has gone all over the world. As Mr. Lampton strikingly puts it: "The traveler may find an automobile to take him to the shadow of the Pyramids, and a line of automobiles extends from Jaffa to Jerusalem. They have crossed the Alps and the Cordil- leras, they have tracked the sands of Sahara, they have rattled over the streets of three thousand years old Damascus, they have climbed the Chinese wall of obstruction, they have gone into regions of ice and sun, and they are following the equator and heading for the North Pole." 153 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR Going back to the original proposition, I desire to emphasize it; viz., that Time and Space are the inevitable enemies of man. Let us analyze the situation. The human mind has always been in revolt against the limitations of the body. The more intelligent the mind, the greater the revolt. A sponge is satisfied to grow on a rock and be content with the food which drifts over it, but not so with that trinity of being we call man. He is constantly going somewhere or wanting to go somewhere. This impulse characterizes the tribe, the race as well as the individual. "Westward the course of Empire takes its way; The four first Acts already past, A fifth shall close the Drama with the day: Time's noblest offspring is the last." The constant effort of the intellect has been to forge weapons to place in the physical pos- session of man in order that he may conquer his old enemies, ---Time and Space. How does this effort find expression ? What is the electric telegraph but the length- ening of the human arm and fingers until a man writes his messages across the length of a continent or over the width of the un- f athomed sea ? What is the telephone but the enlargement of the capacity of the human ear 154 MAN'S ANCIENT FOES until the sound of the voice is distinctly heard across two thousand miles of space ? What is the telescope but the multiplication of the power of the eye by which distant worlds are brought so near that a baby's hand can almost touch them ? These triumphs are some of the outposts which have been captured from our enemies, and part of their dominion has been conquered. In these realms Time and Space are already annihilated. Disturbed but not disheartened still sit, however, our old ene- mies on their throne in the center of the citadel. How then shall not only an eye, an ear, a hand, but the whole physical man, best strive to conquer Time and Space ? Back in the days of old civilization were the swift- footed runners, and marvelous was the speed they attained; then the horse with its flight as swift as the wind. For a thousand years the world slumbered until the young boy Watt saw and understood how the teakettle lid was lifted from its place. It was a quick evolution to the steam-car on rails and the thundering lightning express. Next came the bicycle, which turned men into human swallows, so swiftly did they skim the air. Each one of these epochs was a distinct step towards the annihilation of Time and Space, but it was 155 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR reserved for the twentieth century, the best of all the centuries, to see a New Richmond in the field. It is the modern motor-car, the last product of mechanical man's highest endeavor, to conquer Time and annihilate Distance. A mile in twenty-eight and one-fifth seconds, the record made by Mr. Frederick Marriott at Ormond Beach, marks a new and memo- rable epoch in the flight of the individual. This, too, when automobiling is yet in its swaddling clothes. What may we not expect when it shall have attained to the stature of the full-grown man ? I cannot do better at this point than repro- duce a striking editorial from a recent issue of the New York Sun, entitled THE SHOES OF SWIFTNESS "Man has to acknowledge himself to be a primitive vehicle by the side of the tremendous automobile. He may have come up from all fours, he has improved his personal means of transportation to that extent. These new creations transcend already the most fantastic dreams of the story- maker. The domestication of the horse was the greatest jump of civilization for many ages. But what are those ' daughters of steeds swift as the storm ' to these new devourers of space and conquerers of time ? Already the auto prepares to ride triumphant the azure depths of air; and the ultimate pole may be reached some time by motor skis. "It is a very few years since New Yorkers saw the first 156 MAN'S ANCIENT FOES automobiles with about the same curiosity with which the Akka pigmies would look upon a steamboat. Now they dash over the world. They are mighty carriers of freight. They are omnibuses. They may yet monopolize the trucking business. With the improvement of the roads they will enter more and more into widely useful, practical activities. The rural letter-carrier will scoot along on his motor-cycle. The ridiculous system of transportation of the mails in American cities by eocene plugs must yield to these irresistible superior forces. They run to fires. Already they do duty as patrol wagons. There are toy baby automobiles, we believe, and there may yet be electric and gasolene hearses. " If chiefly developed as yet as pleasure carriages for the wealthy and well-to-do, they are at least a healthy out-of-door pleasure; and in spite of enormous progress in their construc- tion, they are still in the infant class. The prejudice they have to meet is mild, after all, to that which raged against the first locomotives. The excessive racing spirit of a few owners, the recklessness and brutality of a few drivers, are only the expected dose of evil which comes with every new momentous application of power. To compare small things with great, one does not have to be venerable to remember when bicyclers were regarded as a nuisance and a curse with a passion for manslaughter. The human nerves have not yet become thoroughly adjusted to the use of these shoes of swiftness. "A great and growing industry has sprung into life. A large capital and a large force of skilled workmen are em- ployed. The American manufacturers are turning out more and better machines every year. The automobile industry is going ahead with much of the energy of the impetuous machine itself; and yet it is only the beginning." 157 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR A few months ago there occurred in New York city, under the auspices of the Automobile Club of America, the first competitive pub- lic service test of American-built commercial motor- vehicles. Seventeen delivery wagons were placed in actual practical service of the Adams Express Company for the period of one week; fifteen of them survived the ordeal and performed the allotted task rapidly, safely, and economically. But why is a motor-vehicle better than a horse-drawn one? I cannot do better in this connection than to quote the words of a keen "Observer" from an article in the Automobile Magazine, entitled WHY IT CAN'T LOSE The points of superiority upon which the motor-propelled commercial vehicle makes its claims for superiority over the horse-drawn conveyance to a progressive age and people are briefly as follows: It is considerably cheaper for transport. It is more expeditious in delivery of goods. It has a larger range of action. It is a first-class advertising medium. It can work at its maximum all day, every day, and even longer if necessary. It can do more work than any horse, and a single car can replace, in fact, as many as seven horses. It does not require days of rest between two hard days' work. 158 MAN'S ANCIENT FOES When not in use it requires practically no attention and no keep. It only takes fuel when actually working, and does not eat its head off in the stables; after standing without work it is not given to being frisky and hence dangerous to property and life. With a car work can be done at the highest pres- sure, and no charge of cruelty to animals can be brought in. The fuel used is to do useful work, and the work done is a measure of the cost. The speed can be accelerated in case of need to at least four times that of the horse. It does not die suddenly. It can be manipulated with much greater ease and cer- tainty, and in cases of emergency can be stopped in a space equal to its own length when traveling at a speed of ten miles per hour, without excessive exertion on the part of the driver. Only half the room is required in traffic, it can be manipu- lated more readily than any horse, and can travel safely at . four times the animal's speed. Thus it will be seen that if motor traffic were universal in our large cities, the street obstruction problem would be solved and blockades cease to exist. Less damage to the roads, since with the car the action is a rolling one, and tends to smooth and level the surface instead of breaking it up, as the pounding action of horse's hoofs must always do. The enormous charges on the taxpayers for street repairs and cleaning would be considerably re- duced. Mud and dust accumulations would be considerably reduced. More sanitary, as unburnt gasolene vapor and lubricating oil are gaseous, innoxious, and quickly disappear, while the 159 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR solid excretions of the horse are permanent, unsanitary, and dangerous to human life. Less attention and stabling cost. Less storage room, and no manure heaps. It does not run away, kick, or shy at strange objects or passing trains. Can any one deny the modesty or the truthfulness of the foregoing claims or, admitting them, question the certainty of the motor-car's speedy and complete triumph in the realm where so many years the horse has been supreme ? Let us now consider some of the modern problems which the motor-car will solve. First. The congestion of traffic in our city streets. What would it mean to the city of New York if all the horse-drawn vehicles could be supplanted by motor- vehicles ? In the first place, the space occupied by the horses would be saved, thus practically doubling the width of our streets; second, the motor-car would carry double the load in hah* the time, thus again doubling the width of the street; third, the city would be clean and sanitary and healthful. Indeed, I believe the automobile is the key, and the only key, to the solution of the problem of over-congested traffic in our city streets. Second. It will solve the problem of over- crowding in the tenement-house district. 160 MAN'S ANCIENT FOES Automobiles will become cheap when manu- factured in enormous numbers, following the course of the bicycle. The laboring man, when the factory whistle blows and the work of the day is done, will step into his own car and in an hour's time be twenty miles away in the country beneath the blue sky, breathing God's pure air, listening to the music of the murmuring brook and the singing birds. He will have his own little plot of ground, where he will raise his vegetables and flowers and bring up his family in peace and plenty. Be- cause of these healthful surroundings his chil- dren will grow up to be happier, better, and more intelligent and patriotic citizens than would be possible under tenement-house con- ditions. This happy result is to come about through the modern motor-car. Third. The motor-car will become an im- portant factor in checking the tendency in rural districts for young people to leave their homes and flock to the city. This is a problem which is causing the thinkers of our country great anxiety. I think no one knows better than I the awful loneli- ness and desolation of the isolated farmhouse, miles away from towns and villages. I was 161 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR reared on a farm in the middle West and know that through the long dreary months of winter the farmer boy is virtually a prisoner on account of the bad condition of the roads and the inadequate facilities for getting about from place to place. The bicycle has done much for the improvement of our roads; the auto- mobile is doing much and it will do more. Make the roads good and the farmer boy with his low-priced automobile will be able to break the prison bars and go out into the adjoining counties, visiting his fellows, holding personal intercourse with them, thereby becoming more alert, more cheerful, and more contented with his home. Fourth. The automobile is to become a powerful factor in the promotion of Good Roads. The motor-car is practically useless unless it has good roads upon which to travel. The automobilist is a live citizen and he will agitate this question until the people will become educated to an appreciation of the advantages of good roads, and then they will come. Fifth. The automobile is to emancipate the horse. A story is told of an old white-headed country darky who visited New Orleans 162 MAN'S ANCIENT FOES shortly after the mule-drawn, ramshackle street-cars had been supplanted by the electric trolley. Standing on the street corner, Uncle Sambo, in open-eyed astonishment, saw the street-car move off. Reflecting a moment he ejaculated, with his eyes turned heavenward: "Bress de Lawd. De white man freed de niggah, now he done freed de mule." If there were no other argument for the self-propelled vehicle than that suggested by the existence of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, it would be enough. The horse, man's best friend, is to be free. The day of his emancipation draweth nigh, when Horse-drawn carts are seen no longer, And the poor dumb beast is freed, And the motor-car has conquered Price and prejudice and greed. Sixth. The automobile will do much to annihilate Time and Space and will greatly increase our knowledge of our own country. That distinguished American citizen and fine sportsman, Judge James B. Dill, was the first to penetrate the Maine woods with a motor-car. He states that by the use of his automobile he has been enabled to visit de- lightful quaint out-of-the-way places, become acquainted with the people, and acquire 163 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR knowledge of various phases of American life possible in no other way. Mayor Weaver America's most popular mayor says that in a single year's use of the automobile he has learned more of the outlying country within forty or fifty miles of Philadelphia than he had in his whole previous life. In the use of the automobile, especially those of the electric type, many ladies have become skilful and enthusiastic devotees. As an illustration, Mrs. W. E. Scarritt, of East Orange, New Jersey, has driven her Wa- verly seventeen thousand miles without the slightest accident or mishap to any one. Seventh. The automobile may revolution- ize methods of farming. Speaking at a banquet one time, I had been holding forth on my favorite theme and glori- fying the automobile. The Toastmaster said : "The last speaker is an enthusiast. He has claimed about everything for the automobile except that it would make two blades of grass to grow instead of one." When he had taken his seat I arose, and begging pardon for the omission, called atten- tion to the fact that some recent experiments had been made near Washington, upon the 164 MAN'S ANCIENT FOES Potomac Flats, which are covered by a rank growth of weeds. These experiments were conducted by the Agricultural Department of the United States Government. A steam auto- mobile had been constructed to drag a harrow with hollow iron teeth. These hollow teeth were connected by rubber pipes with the boiler in such a way that superheated steam was injected into the soil. The result was that every weed in the ground was killed and the chemical action on the soil was such that it became much more fertile and produced double the crop it had previously, so that literally this steam-car caused two blades of grass to grow where there was but one before. The results of this experiment are very sug- gestive and open up a very interesting field of possibilities. Who knows but that the farmer, utilizing superheated steam, may yet be able to inject into the soil not only that which destroys obnoxious weeds, but by the same operation chemicals as fertilizers, in the exact proportions needed to produce precisely the crop wanted. Farming will then be reduced to an exact science and the husbandman will order his crops of the kind and quality he wishes, just as he now orders a suit of clothes. The above are only a few of the things the 165 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR motor-car will accomplish. I do not believe the wildest dreamer of us all has begun to comprehend what this new force is to do for civilization. The imagination staggers and falls back upon itself at the impossible task, and I cannot better close this chapter than by paraphrasing the remarks of Professor Tyndall on another subject before the British Scientific Associa- tion a few years ago: " But here I must quit a theme too great for me to handle, but which will be handled by the loftiest minds ages after you and I, like streaks of morning cloud, have melted into the infinite azure of the past." 166 CHAPTER XVII THE AUTOMOBILE OF THE FUTURE The chariots shall rage in the streets, they shall jostle one against another in the broad ways; they shall seem like torches, they shall run like the lightnings. Nahum ii. 4. IN the foreword to this little volume the author sought to define what in the last analysis the motor-car really is, viz. : a segregation of a little part of the giant forces of Nature har- nessed to man's individual chariot. There is no plummet line to measure this last triumph of human skill. The automobile industry has grown with amazing rapidity. Five years ago there was in this country one automobile to every fifteen hundred thousand inhabitants; two years ago there was one to every sixty-five hundred; to-day there is one to every twelve hundred, and by the close of 1906 there will be one motor vehicle to every eight hundred inhabitants. Undoubtedly the great future of the auto- mobile industry is in the enormous field of the commercial vehicle. One uses his pleasure 167 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR car when the weather is fine, or he feels the need of fresh air, or the mood to be going seizes him. But "the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker" must come to our door every day, rain or shine. The best brains in the business are trying to devise a practical car at low cost that will do just this thing. In the line of pleasure vehicles, up to the present hour, there are handicaps which have greatly restricted its use. In the first place, the initial cost has been too great for the general public. It is only the exceptional individual that can afford to pay from one thousand dollars upwards for a car carrying four people. But after the car is acquired, like the man that got married, the owner is at the end of his troubles the beginning end. The repair bills are the thing which tends to bankrupt an automobile owner spiritually as well as financially. Fragile material is used. Under the terrible strain of traveling over our vile American roads something quickly gives way. Some of our manufacturers charge from four hundred to twelve hundred per cent profit for supplying and attaching a broken part. That the industry, under such terrible handi- cap, not only survives but actually prospers, is conclusive evidence of its wonderful inherent 168 THE AUTOMOBILE OF THE FUTURE vitality. Again, our motor-cars have not been reliable. They could not be depended upon. When a man takes hold of the knob of his office door he knows that year in and year out the knob will perform its proper function. When the housewife sits down to her sewing- machine she knows that hardly once in a thousand times will it refuse to do its work and do it well. Can we say so much for our automobiles ? Unreliable is an indict- ment to which our cars must too often plead guilty. Mr. Thomas A. Edison, "the wizard of the twentieth century," is greatly interested in automobiles. Mr. Edison will yet lay the world under as great a debt of gratitude to him for his electric storage battery as he did for the electric light. Mr. Edison points out a strange paradox in the automobile, viz.: the thing which has made the motor-car pos- sible is its weakest point the pneumatic tire. Mr. George F. Chamberlin, one of America's most honored pioneer automobilists, without a record of whose work the true history of automobiling in America could not be written, puts the tire question in a most striking way. He says: 169 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR "Aside from the annoyance of tire punctures, consider what the annual cost is per wheel for keeping shod a motor-car of even moderate power! For a heavy car an outer shoe and an inner tube will cost sixty-two and a half dollars. The life of these will not exceed one year of constant service even on good roads. For the four wheels, then, a sum of two hun- dred and fifty dollars is required. That means, at the least calculation, to take care of the four wheels of a motor-car, the income from an investment of five thousand dollars at five per cent. How many men in a com- munity can afford any such expense for the upkeep of wheels alone? "Perhaps some day we may be freed from the grip of a Tire Trust and prices may become liveable, yes, possibly reasonable." We in America have done a lot of foolish things in motor-car building, but we are com- ing towards saner methods and right lines. The car of the future is not yet laid down. The car for the average man, for Abraham Lincoln's plain people, has not yet been built. It would be a bold prophet who would under- take in detail to describe that car. Neverthe- less, reasoning a priori there are some features of it we may prognosticate. In the first place, 170 THE AUTOMOBILE OF THE FUTURE it will be built of better steel than any we have to-day in America. In the next place, the cars will become standardized, and when stand- ardized they will be built by machinery in enormous quantities at an exceedingly low cost. The wheels will be large, built of wood and of the artillery type. Hard rubber, or some enduring substitute, will take the place of the present trust-inflated, uncertain pneu- matics. The car will be light, simple, strong, and easily kept in repair. The clumsy and wholly unsatisfactory system of change-speed gears will be supplanted by a variable-speed device. The writer has recently seen such a device which is simple and efficient and which he believes will prove immensely valuable, especially for commercial vehicles. The fuel will be kerosene or grain alcohol. Thirty-five per cent of the population of America are farmers. The farmer will be the chief auto- mobile owner and user. The maximum speed of his car may be only twenty miles per hour, but that is twice as fast as his present mode of travel. The car will be an invaluable adjunct to his work on the farm. The adjustment of a belt, the turn of a crank, and the automobile engine furnishes power to thresh his grain, to cut his wood, to chop his feed, and to pump 171 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR his water. After being in constant use all day the car is ready to take the entire family to the social gathering in the village at night, or to church on Sunday morning. The farmer will use the automobile because he can in no other way get the same amount of work done at so low a cost. In other words, the automobile will pay. The farmer will then become the earnest champion of good roads. He will insist on fair legislation for motor-cars ; he will tolerate no police traps in his bailiwick, and what the farmer wants "goes" sooner or later. It requires no prophetic vision, therefore, to see that the motor-car is peculiarly adapted to the needs of the farmer, and that it is to become his faithful ally and friend while he in turn will become its champion and defender. No, not defender, for by the year 1910 the automobile will need no defender; it will have conquered all opposition, won all hearts, and taken its fixed place as one of the beneficent factors in modern civilization. There will always be motor-cars de luxe for the rich, but they will be merely the fringe to the garment of a great industry. The countless millions of tons of freight, now slowly and painfully dragged over country roads and through city 172 THE AUTOMOBILE OF THE FUTURE streets by poor dumb brutes, will go spinning along, the motors of the heavily laden trucks humming a tune of rich content, and all the thousand tongues of Commerce will sing the praises of the motor-car. 173 CHAPTER XVIII THE COMMERCIAL VEHICLE AND NEWSPAPER DISTRIBUTION SPEAKING broadly, it may be said that newspaper work falls under two divisions: first, the creation of the paper itself, second, its distribution to the public. Both in the creation and distribution of the newspaper, time is an essential element. The newspaper which can get a "beat" of five minutes on its rivals is the paper of the future. It is some- thing more than good luck that our great Metropolitan daily paper, the New York Herald, had a correspondent standing beside Admiral Dewey when his flagship, on that ever memorable morning in May, steamed past the guns at Cavite and swept Spanish tyranny forever from the Eastern world. It was some- thing more than chance that the same paper had a quick-witted, keen-eyed correspondent aboard a ship lying in the harbor at Port Arthur the night the Japanese made their daring attack on the Russian squadron. 174 THE COMMERCIAL VEHICLE But of what avail would it be to get the news set in type, the complete paper from the press, if the precious time gained were to be lost in the distribution of the issue to the pub- lic ? Or put the case a little differently. Sup- pose two rival papers get the important news from the wires at the same moment; suppose one of them has a means of distribution twice as rapid as the other; the "beat" through effi- cient distribution is just as creditable, and just as satisfactory, as though it came through the medium of earlier information to the editorial rooms. All this leads me to note that the day draweth nigh when no first-class newspaper office will employ any other means of distri- bution than that of the self-propelled vehicle. Of the three factors which enter into auto- mobiling, speed, economy, and reliability, only the first has been definitely determined. The world-breaking records at Ormond Beach have forever settled the question of speed. The factors of economy and reliability have not yet been fully established. Nevertheless, in newspaper work, the factor of economy is of minor importance; the factor of reliability is of supreme importance. It is not a question of how much it will cost to deliver your paper, 175 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR but how surely and quickly can you deliver it. The "quickly" item is settled beyond perad- venture; the "surely" item, I regret to say, is yet on trial, with the leaning of the jury rather against the defendant, with a recommendation to the court for leniency. However, the wide-awake newspaper, by having reserve motor-cars to take the place of those temporarily out of order, may be able to conserve the wonderful advantage of the system without peril from its unreliability. 176 CHAPTER XIX AUTOMOBILE LEGISLATION "They'll jail you an' they'll flail you, An' they'll bust your bloomin' 'ead, They'll iron you and brand you An' w'en all is done an' said, After havin' broke you, With a rope they'll take an' choke you, 'Cause you 'aven't chose obligingly To be already dead." IN the beginning of this discussion, and as a "common ground from which to reason and to which refer," let us start with the propo- sition that the automobile is a new factor in civilization, in short, an innovator; that it has rights upon the highway equal to those of any other method of transportation ; that it not only has come to stay, but that its manufacture is a growing industry and its use one that will need to be reckoned with in all future consider- ations of public travel on the highway. With these considerations in mind, it will be seen that we are not dealing with the rich man's toy, to be used to-day and discarded to-morrow 177 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR but that we are facing new conditions in modern life in the way of transportation. Any economic innovation always produces hard- ship to a portion of the community. The public mind does not take kindly to new things. The first people who carried um- brellas in the streets of London were hissed, jeered at, and stoned. Concerning the legal status of the automo- bile on the public highway, in the case of McComber v. Nichols, 34 Mich. 212, Judge Cooley, writing the opinion, said: "Persons making use of horses as a means of travel or traffic upon highways have no rights therein superior to those who make use of the highways in other modes. It is true that locomotion upon the public roads has hitherto been chiefly by horses and similar animals, but persons using them have no prescriptive rights and are entitled to only reasonable use of the ways, which they must accord to all others. Im- proved methods of locomotion are perfectly admissible and they cannot be excluded from the existing public roads provided their use is consistent with present methods. The highway is open to all suitable methods of travel, and it cannot be assumed that this will be the same from day to day, or that new means of making the way useful must be excluded merely because their introduction may tend to the inconvenience or even injury of those who continue to use the road in the same manner as formerly. The highway shall be for the general benefit. All passage and traffic must admit of new methods of use when it is found that the general 178 AUTOMOBILE LEGISLATION benefit requires them, and if the law should preclude the / adoption of their use to new methods it would defeat in greater or less degree the purpose for which the highways are established." Judge Weand of Pennsylvania also laid down the law as follows: "A man has as much right to run an automobile on the public road as he has to run any other vehicle, and if making no more noise than required to operate it, even though a horse shied and an accident happened to the driver, the automobilist, if running at reasonable speed, cannot be held liable. "It is only when an automobile is operated carelessly that the owner may be held liable. It is common experience that horses will take fright at street cars or even wheelbarrows. If a horse shies at a wheelbarrow the man who pushes it is not liable for the consequences. So with automobiles." The language of these opinions is practically an embodiment of the common law upon the use of the highway, and is so logical and rea- sonable that it will undoubtedly be followed by the courts wherever the matter comes up for decision. The average man who drives an automobile is a man of average substance and is the average American gentleman. Ninety per cent of these are decent, careful, and consid- erate of the rights of other users of the high- way. A small per cent, however, are the 179 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR reverse. They drive their cars recklessly and often at dangerous rates of speed. The public mind is not discriminating. It sees a few automobilists disregarding the laws of com- mon sense and common decency, and therefore they at once, without reflection, condemn automobilists as a class. Those who do this are as unjust and unfair and unreasonable as the automobilists who drive recklessly on the highway. Let us draw, therefore, the line of demarcation clearly between the legitimate user of the highway and the abuser of the highway. An argument against the abuse of a thing is never an argument against the proper use of a thing. The decent driver feels as deeply and is as strongly opposed to the harum- scarum, devil-may-care driver on our public roads as the most rabid anti-automobilist. It seems as though some men who own automo- biles and some chauffeurs who drive auto- mobiles have become " speed-mad." It is this class of automobilists that we, no less than the anti-automobilist, are anxious to curb and punish. This to the extent even of very drastic punishment. The question then is, how can the exceptional reckless driver on the highway be brought to book and controlled 180 AUTOMOBILE LEGISLATION without the passage of laws so universally drastic that they will become a hardship to the decent user of the highway and a detri- ment to this new and growing industry ? The present law governing automobilists in the State of New York makes it illegal to drive within the city limits at over ten miles per hour, and in the country at over twenty miles per hour. These limits of speed are ridicu- lously low; in fact, they are absurd. Under certain conditions of traffic in our city, five miles an hour would be a reckless rate of speed ; and under other conditions of traffic in the same street twenty miles an hour would be perfectly safe. As a consequence of the unjust discrimina- tion in the arrest of automobilists in Central Park (sixty arrests having been made during two months for alleged speeding), it was determined by the Governors of the Auto- mobile Club of America to ascertain the speeds of horse-drawn vehicles in the Park and cer- tain parts of the city. One-eighth-mile courses were carefully laid out by a surveyor in Cen- tral Park, on Fifth Avenue, and on the Riverside Drive. Two expert timers were employed for parts of fourteen days, at various hours of the day, from nine o'clock in the 181 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR morning until five-thirty in the afternoon. The data thus obtained are summarized as follows : Total number of horse-drawn vehicles tuned 437 Highest rate of speed 22.5 miles per hour. Lowest rate of speed 8.03 miles per hour. Average rate of speed 12.28 miles per hour. The exceedingly high rate of speed of 22.5 was a one-horse runabout. There were also several other runabouts which ran at a speed of from eighteen to nineteen miles per hour. These were in the morning hours, when horsemen were undoubtedly trying out their trotters. During the same period one hundred and six automobiles were timed over the same courses, showing an average rate of speed of 16.65 miles per hour, the highest being 21.42 miles per hour, and the lowest 8.83 miles per hour. The above data are furnished under oath by expert timers, and the courses chosen, as already stated, were accurately measured and certified to by a surveyor. Some interesting facts may be gleaned from this report: First. That every one of the four hundred and thirty-seven horse-drawn vehicles, as well 182 AUTOMOBILE LEGISLATION as the automobiles, was traveling in excess of the legal speed limit. Second. That the average rate of speed traveled was 12.28 miles per hour, which rate is more than fifty per cent in excess of the legal limit. Third. No arrests of drivers of horse- drawn vehicles were made, showing that, so far as applied to horsemen, the law is a dead letter. Arrests of automobilists were of daily occur- rence, and although the average speed of the horse-drawn vehicle was 12.28 miles per hour, no one will claim that the horsemen were driving at a reckless rate. When it is con- sidered that at this rate of speed a motor-car is under much more perfect control than a team of horses, and that it can be stopped in one third the time and in one third the dis- tance, it seems absurd to limit all motor-cars to a speed less than is admittedly safe for a horse-drawn vehicle. The New Jersey law of 1905 was a com- promise measure agreed upon by both the automobilists and the anti-automobilists. Its provisions for reckless driving on the highway are drastic, while the minor offenses are dealt with in a reasonable and sensible way. It 183 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR follows along the lines of some of the best practise in foreign countries. It has regard to the manner of driving on the highway. If a man in London is seen driving his car skilfully through the streets at fifteen miles an hour he is not molested; if a man following him through the same streets is seen driving his car unskilfully at ten miles an hour he is immediately brought to book. If he is not considerate in passing teams, and if he is not careful to avoid by a large margin the foot passengers on the highway, he is at once taken in hand. The point I am trying to make is this: that speed is only one element in the problem. The New Jersey law referred to permits a man, under proper conditions, to drive in the streets as fast as twenty miles an hour, having regard always to the "common danger" and the "condition of traffic on the highway." I am free to confess the difficult problem involved in framing a law that will steer safely between the Scylla of burdensome and oppres- sive and repressive legislation to the decent automobilist and the Charybdis of lax legisla- tion which will prevent us from stamping out the exceptional "Terror of the Highway." The motorphobiac says, let us draft a law 184 AUTOMOBILE LEGISLATION which will be a drag-net. The little and in- offensive fishes may go through; the sharks will be caught and dealt with according to their deserts. This is very plausible in theory; but in practise how does it work out ? In the towns of Rye, Yonkers, and Babylon police traps have been set, and gentlemen with their wives and children, driving along the highway at decent rates of speed and considerate of the rights of others, have been summarily arrested like common criminals, dragged before a petty Dogberry, and on the unsupported testimony of some over-zealous official have been pun- ished. The fine is the least of the punishment. The outrage done to their feelings, the fact that they have been treated as criminals, is a punishment far more severe than the imposi- tion of a fine. I doubt not that in some cases the imposition of punishment has been entirely justifiable. I am not speaking of this class at the present moment. On the other hand, there are not wanting many instances where the punishment was an outrage done under the protection of a law that was special legislation, and the imposition of a fine was little short of legalized robbery. We are now looking at the shield from the standpoint of the average decent automobilist. 185 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR The anti-automobilist retorts that there are very few decent automobilists. This state of mind shows him to be prejudiced and therefore entirely unfit to give a judicial opinion in the matter, and his evidence, therefore, should be ruled out. Now comes the man down the street who has bought a new high-powered machine and who has but recently learned to manipulate his new toy. He rushes through a village street at thirty, possibly forty miles per hour; he is a danger and a menace to every one in his vicinity. If the man should lose his presence of mind the machine might easily run amuck and the consequences would be horrible to contemplate. That man deserves punishment so drastic that it will not only teach him a lesson but be a warning to others of his ilk. The Automobile Club of America, and decent automobilists everywhere, are as bitterly opposed to this class of drivers as the most rabid anti-automobilist. If a member of the club should be guilty of such conduct, and it were brought to the attention of the Governers, he would be summarily dealt with. Not only that, but the club has gone further, and in cases of reckless driving, where serious damage has resulted, although the offender 186 AUTOMOBILE LEGISLATION was not a member of the club, the Governors have offered a reward for the apprehension of the culprit and have offered to put at the disposal of the authorities the club's special counsel to assist in the prosecution. As re- peatedly stated, the Automobile Club of America stands for good roads, good laws, and good behavior. The automobilist has more at stake in obedience to the spirit of reasonable laws than any one else. He has at stake not only the peace and safety of his own family, neighbors, and friends, and all that the anti- automobilist has, but in addition to these he has at heart the prosperity and growth of the great sport and industry in which he is inter- ested. The automobilist is an American gen- tleman. An appeal to his sense of decency and justice and fair play should be made. The press can do a great service by a cam- paign of education. The trouble in the past has been largely that so many papers have denounced automobilists as though they all ab initio belonged to the criminal class. Their columns have teemed w r ith denuncia- tions which in some instances were well- merited, but which the press applied to automobilists both good and bad alike. Dis- crimination has been sadly lacking. 187 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR Ordinarily, under our system of government, an accused man is supposed to be innocent until he has been proven guilty. The excep- tion to that rule is the automobilist. If he is arrested, the whole machinery of the law, from the officer making the arrest to the last Court of Appeal, apparently presupposes the man to be guilty, and he must prove his innocence or suffer the consequences. Gentlemen of highest business character, whose word would be taken anywhere else under any circum- stances at full value, are put under immediate suspicion when arrested for a supposed viola- tion of the automobile law, and the word of any petty, prejudiced, pin-head officer allowed to offset the sworn statement of the accused. Is this just ? Is this fair ? Is this right ? A prominent member of the Automobile Club of America once wrote to former Presi- dent Shattuck and inquired, "How near do you imagine is the time when we serious, responsible men, who operate automobiles, can feel that we have been taken out of the criminal class?" However, in the present condition of the public mind perhaps it is quite as well that we should have legislation and endure certain evils rather than fly to those we know not of. 188 AUTOMOBILE LEGISLATION A few automobilists misuse their rights and run recklessly over the rights of others. We suffer for the sins of a few. The tension be- tween the public and the motorist grows tighter with every accident upon the highway. Disaster which it will take years to remedy will result unless the responsible users will themselves undertake to control the irrespon- sible users, and that very soon. Responsible gentlemen do not make the operation of their cars a menace to life and limb upon the public highway. Ninety per cent of the trouble arises out of the fact that responsible gentle- men allow irresponsible chauffeurs to run amuck, frightening people out of their wits and leaving a trail of blue smoke and profanity in the wake of their cars. Some chauffeurs are careful and considerate, but most of them are a law unto themselves. It is quite possible for owners to stop all this. As long as repre- hensible behavior is permitted, the odium will rest upon the sport as a whole. I take it that the object of sound legislation is to protect the public, and yet not be so drastic that it will retard the development of this new and important industry. Such a law must be definite in its provisions, easily under- stood, and the penalties must fit the offenses. 189 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR Such a law must be fair, so that it will have back of it the power of public sentiment. I will now suggest what I regard as the most important provision of such a law. I submit that experienced automobilists who are fair and open-minded are far better quali- fied to draft such a law, and one that will be practical in its workings, than those who know nothing of the automobile. This proposition is self-evident. Analyzing the situation, we find that ninety per cent of the automobilists are careful in the use of their cars on the public highway and such need not the restraining influence of any law. The ten per cent who bring us all into disrepute are composed for the most part of two classes: First, the rich, reckless driver to whom the imposition of a fine is no hardship, and, second, the reckless dare-devil, harum- scarum chauffeur who seems to delight in seeing how reckless and spectacular he can be in the use of his car. Therefore, no law will ever be effective that does not have special regard to these two classes of offenders. Public sentiment will not justify locking these men up for a first offense where no actual damage has resulted. A fine is paid and for- gotten five minutes afterwards. How, then, 190 AUTOMOBILE LEGISLATION are these two classes of flagrant violators to be reached ? I believe that the result may be .obtained by a revocable license. First. Let every driver of a car receive a certificate or license from the Secretary of State. On conviction, in addition to other penalties, for a first offense let the certificate be revoked for a period of fifteen days, the trial magistrate endorsing on the certificate such revocation. For a second offense, a re- vocation of thirty days; and for a third offense, a revocation for one year and imprisonment. For the rich owner to be deprived of the use of his car in this way would be humiliating indeed. Every driver of a motor-car realizes the chief pleasure of motoring is in driving one's own car. The rich culprit would be exceedingly careful not to lay himself liable to a second or a third conviction. In the case of a conviction of a reckless chauffeur, he would be out of employment and his means of livelihood be taken from him, so that he, the most prolific source of trouble, would have strong reasons for not getting into difficulty. The sentiment of the entire community would back up such a law as this. Second. Public garages should be under the supervision of the law. 191 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR (a) They should be required to take out a license. (6) They should keep a record of each machine, showing the exact time it was taken out and the exact time it was brought back. (c) The duplicate of this record should be furnished the owner of the car once a week. (d) They should allow no machine to go out without written order from the owner. Third. CONCERNING CHAUFFEURS. The following requirements : (a) They should take out a license. (b) They should keep a record of the car when it leaves and when it returns to the garage. (c) They should notify the owner of the car immediately when it becomes disabled. Fourth. All cars above five horse-power should be required to have two separate brakes, one of which should be double acting. Fifth. No car should be permitted to run with muffler open in the corporate limits of a village, town, or city. Sixth. The speed within corporate limits should be twenty miles an hour, and thirty miles an hour in the open country. But no speed should be allowed greater than is safe and consistent with conditions of traffic on the 192 AUTOMOBILE LEGISLATION highway. These, in the main, would, I take it, be the general provisions of a sane and sensible law. One that in its practical work- ings would, if fairly and honestly enforced, protect the public and do no violence to the new industry. We automobilists of America are more keenly interested in this matter than anybody else. Our intelligence must provide for the protection of the public, or the public will provide for us in a way that will not be pleas- ant and thus set back this new industry a dozen years. We must make good and effect- ive laws before the public make laws for us that will be unendurable. 193 CHAPTER XX GOOD ROADS WHAT strange contrasts this world of ours presents. Midnight and noonday, summer and winter, disease and health, are in no greater contrast than the conditions we find in our so-called civilization. St. Paul finds his antithesis in Nero George Washington in Benedict Arnold. The Prince of Peace stands on Mt. Tabor, and later, on the same mount, stands Napoleon Bonaparte with his wasting cannon by his side. The hovel of the poor stands within the shadow of the palace of the rich. The clanging of the church bells is heard by the condemned awaiting execution. Our mighty railway systems, which in efficiency and physical equipment have not their equal in the world, represent the high- water mark of engineering skill and scientific perfection. But for thousands of miles paralleling these great railways are public highways of sand I; and mud and mire that would be a disgrace to the blackest civilization of the dark ages. 194 GOOD ROADS We have the largest rivers, the highest moun- tains, and the greatest trusts of any of the civilized nations of the world, and be it said to our humiliation and our shame, the worst roads. ij The advance or retrogression of a nation // may be measured somewhat by the character ' of its highways. The great historian Momm- sen says: "It was Appius Claudius who in his epoch-making cen- sorship (442) threw aside the antiquated rustic system of parsimonious hoarding, and taught his fellow-citizens to make a worthy use of the public resources." He began that noble system of public works, - of general utility, which justifies the military successes of Rome, even from the point of view of the welfare of nations. To him is the empire indebted for her great military roads. "Following in the steps of Claudius, the Roman Senate wove around Italy that network of roads without which, as the history of all military states from the Achsemenidse down to the creator of the road over the Simplon shows, no military hegemony can subsist." Gibbon, in his Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, dwells at length upon the Roman highways, and calls especial attention to their 195 fy'rtf'f-* **?*' ;/.., M"***- . / *>Ve SJ>. THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR enduring construction. One great Roman highway, four thousand and eighty Roman miles in length, extended from Rome to Jeru- salem, Palestine being at that time a province of the Roman empire. Speaking of these highways, Gibbon says they are "Accurately divided by mile-stones and ran in a direct line from one city to another, with very little respect for the obstacles either of nature or private property. Mountains were perforated and bold arches thrown over the broadest and most rapid streams. The middle part of the road was raised into a terrace which commanded the adjacent country, consisting of several strata of sand, gravel, and cement, and was paved with large stones or, in some places near the capital, with granite. Such was the solid construction of the Roman highways, whose firmness has not yielded to the effort of fifteen centuries." "The firmly jointed stone slabs of the Roman streets," says Mommsen, " their indestructible highways, the broad, hard, ringing tiles, the everlasting mortar of the buildings, proclaims the indestructible solidity and the energetic vigor of the Roman character." By this test we should not like to have the great Historian pass judgment on the Amer- ican character. In the United States, outside of the cities and towns, we have about three thousand miles of Macadam roads. We have single 196 GOOD ROADS States in the American Union that are as large as the Republic of France, and yet France has one hundred twenty-six thousand miles of Macadam highway. The United States is the only civilized nation in the world that does not assist her people in the building of good roads. Since the Civil War the National Government has expended four hundred and fifty million dollars on the improvement of our rivers and harbors, and yet a thousand times as many people travel over the land and a thousand times as much freight is hauled over the land as traverse our water ways. Every time the sun sets in the west the bad roads of this country have cost our people one million five hundred thousand dollars. The waste is exactly as great as though every time the sunset gun was fired at Governor's Island a ship containing a cargo of one million five hun- dred thousand dollars in gold went out to sea and dumped its precious freight in the ocean where it could never be reclaimed. How long can a country, even one so rich and prosperous as ours, endure such a drain upon its resources? Our forests are fast disappearing. Our Government domain in the way of free lands is practically exhausted. Some of our great mining properties have been worked out. 197 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR California does not begin to produce the gold she once did. Is it not high time that the nation should begin to husband her resources ? Old General Mud levies his tax on all our people and it is becoming exceedingly burden- some. The best brief speech I have ever read on the subject of Good Roads is one from Mr. Irving Bacheller, that brilliant and versatile writer whose quaint optimism and cheerful philosophy have made the world a happier and better place in which to live: "I have seen gardens spring up where there were mud flats, mansions where there were ruins, roses in place of weeds, and people where once were pollywogs. I ask for this appropria- tion. A bad road tends to profanity and if extended long enough would lead to Hell. This resolution is in favor of public morality. It will enhance the beauty of the township and induce cheerfulness in the day of taxes." At one of the banquets given by the Auto- mobile Club of America, the distinguished Senator Gallinger, of New Hampshire, face- tiously described some of the country roads in his native State. He declared that at the entrance to one particularly abominable piece of highway was this sign: 198 GOOD ROADS "This road is impassable, Not even jackassable; But if you must travel Carry your own gravel." A thoughtful writer in that splendid publi- cation the Good Roads Magazine points out that a few years ago the total receipts of all the railroads in America for a certain twelve months were seven hundred million dollars, and that seventy per cent of these receipts were left in the country, going back into labor and material, thus adding to the wealth of the nation and benefiting the whole people. During the same year one billion dollars was consumed in transporting passengers and freight over our dirt roads. This enormous expenditure did not return a cent in dividends and was indeed a tax and a source of loss to both producer and consumer. Our consuls have gathered statistics from twenty-three European countries regarding the cost of hauling freight over the roads of Europe, and find that it is about ten cents to twelve cents per ton per mile. From care- fully prepared statistics, it is found the cost of hauling a ton of freight over the roads of America is twenty-five cents per ton per mile. The following figures are an interesting 199 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR object lesson from the Good Roads Magazine, and show the power necessary to haul a load over different kinds of highway: To haul 6,270 pounds on iron rails requires J horse-power. To haul 6,270 pounds on Macadam requires 1 horse-power. To haul 6,270 pounds on gravel requires 2 horse-power. To haul 6,270 pounds on dirt requires 5 horse-power. To haul 6,270 pounds on mud road requires 10 horse-power. The National Good Roads Association is doing a splendid work in arousing and edu- cating our people to the importance of good roads. Among the many good things they have accomplished was the execution of a plan a few years ago for equipping a train to trav- erse the country, giving practical lessons in scientific road-building and stopping at central points for the holding of district and state conventions. This plan was submitted to Mr. Stuyvesant Fish, one of America's three great railroad presidents. The Good Roads Magazine states: "After careful consideration President Fish of the Illinois Central placed at the disposal of the National Association a 200 GOOD ROADS fine train of eleven cars and an official car supplied with commissary for the entire crew. This splendidly equipped train, having aboard a full complement of modern road- making machinery and with expert road builders, made a three months' tour of the Southern States, during which time sixteen conventions were held and as many object-lesson roads built. Similarly equipped trains have been sent out through various parts of the country and the farmers have been given the best of lessons." At the present time New Jersey has over one thousand miles of Macadam roads. This is more than any other State in the Union. /-^*^ " '+~t (, New York and Massachusetts are next in order, but their combined mileage scarcely equals that of New Jersey. At the recent election in New York State the people voted to issue bonds in the sum of fifty million dollars for the purpose of building good roads. This is an epoch-making event in legislation in America, and its beneficial results will be felt by uncounted generations yet unborn. To Albert R. Shattuck, chair- man of the Good Roads Committee of the Automobile Club of America, more than to any other individual, is this great achievement due. Would that America had more of such far-seeing, broad-minded, self-sacrificing citi- zens as Albert R. Shattuck. From time to time efforts have been made 201 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR to interest the United States Government in good road building, but without success. That able statesman, Hon. W. P. Brown- low, of Tennessee, introduced into the Lower House of Congress, two years ago, a bill appro- priating twenty-five million dollars from the funds of the National Government to assist the various States, in proportion to their popu- lation, in the building of good roads, and although this bill was championed by that public-spirited senator, Hon. A. C. Lattimer, of South Carolina, and others, it failed of becoming a law. All sorts of foolish and silly objections were made to the passage of this most important bill. I venture the opinion that the time is not far distant when public interest will be so aroused to the importance of good road build- ing in America that any representative or senator who dares to oppose national aid for this worthy purpose will be sent to his political grave "unwept, unhonored, and unsung." 202 CHAPTER XXI THE FUEL OF THE FUTURE WITHOUT good roads the automobile is im- practicable. Without proper fuel it is useless. The automobilist is vitally interested, there- fore, not only in good roads but in an unfailing supply of cheap and efficient fuel. Thus far gasolene has been used almost exclusively. It is practically the only motor fuel now available, and its rapidly increasing .demand is steadily advancing the price, which demand, unless some other fuel is found, will soon render the price prohibitive. Gasolene is a by-product resulting from the refining of illuminating oil. Less than five per cent is obtained from the crude petroleum from the Eastern oil-fields, and practically none from the petroleum found in California, Texas, and other States from which the largest part of our supply is procured. Mr. F. H. Oliphant, of the United States Geological Survey, the author of a special report on the production of petroleum in 1904, 203 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR issued by the Department of the Interior, in response to an inquiry respecting the quanti- ties of gasolene and kerosene annually pro- duced in the United States, makes the following statement : " The approximate quantity of naphtha, etc., derived from the crude (oil) in the United States in 1904 can be found by multiplying the quantity exported, found on page 28, by 1.85. The quantity of illuminating oil (kero- sene) can also be approximated by multiplying the quantity on page 29 by 1.6." Upon reference to page 28 of said report it will be found that the United States exported of naphtha, benzine, gasolene, etc., 24,989,422 gallons, which quantity multiplied by 1.85 gives a total production for 1904 of 46,230,430 gallons. Of the total production of naphtha, including benzine and gasolene, it is esti- mated that only about 30,000,000 gallons are gasolene. The quantity of gasolene produced depends largely on the amount of illuminating oil which can be marketed. The demand for illuminating oil does not begin to increase in the same ratio as the demand for gasolene. During the last ten years the demand for gasolene has increased enormously and the 204 THE FUEL OF THE FUTURE price has doubled. To the users of motors throughout the land these facts would be most discouraging and disquieting, were it not that a simple and effective remedy is at hand in the form of ethyl or grain alcohol. Alcohol is a satisfactory substitute for gaso- lene as a motor fuel for internal combustion engines, and with certain changes in the engines can be used for operating motor vehi- cles. It is clean, odorless, and free from danger of accidental explosion. The vapor given off is not inflammable unless closely confined, and naked lights can be used around the machine with impunity. The worst dan- ger to be apprehended from a leak in the pipe .or storage tank would be the loss of the fuel, or a slow fire if a flame came into actual contact with the alcohol. The supply is absolutely unlimited. Alco- hol can be obtained from all substances con- taining sugar or starch, or compounds which can be transformed into sugar, such as corn, grains of all kinds, potatoes, cane and beet sugar refuse, grape skins and refuse of wine making, etc., etc. Increased demand can only have the effect of increasing production, and stimulating efforts to perfect and cheapen processes of distillation and distribution. 205 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR The European countries have been far wiser than ours in respect to this important matter. In 1896 Belgium exempted alcohol from taxation when used for industrial pur- poses. Her example has been followed by Germany, France, Austria, Hungary, Italy, and Russia. Mr. C. J. Zintheo, of the TJ. S. Department of Agriculture, calls attention to the fact not generally known, that industrial alcohol was at one time extensively used in the United States. " Special documents show that in the United States alcohol was used for lighting, cooking, and industrial purposes in the early sixties. Before 1861 the manufacture of spirits was free from all special taxes and supervision, as much on the part of the Union as on the part of the States which compose it. It resulted from this freedom that alcohol served a multi- tude of industrial uses. The production was enormous, amounting to ninety million gallons, coming especially from the distillation of corn. For lighting purposes enormous quantities were employed. In 1864, the city of Cincin- nati alone utilized twelve thousand bushels of corn per day for distillation. Because of its low price alcohol was also used as fuel for the 206 THE FUEL OF THE FUTURE domestic kitchen, for bath and laundry. The establishment and successive increases of the tax on spirits had the result of upsetting all these industries and in some cases of destroy- ing them. In 1791, when every nerve was strained to furnish sufficient revenue to estab- lish the public credit, there was imposed upon alcohol a tax of from eleven to thirty cents per gallon, according to proof. When Mr. Jeffer- son became president, he denounced the sys- tem of internal taxation as * an infernal one ' and one which could not be resorted to in a government like ours. Consequently, in 1802, the tax upon alcohol was repealed. No fur- ther tax was levied until 1813, when it became necessary to resort to extraordinary methods in order to carry on the war between Great Britain and this country, which began in 1812. The taxation of alcohol was then renewed. In 1817 this tax was repealed, and from that time until the outbreak of the Civil War no recourse was had to internal taxes of any kind. When at the breaking out of the war in 1861 it became necessary to resort to every possible means to make money, a tax was levied on alcohol at twenty cents per gallon. From that time until the present the tax has been con- tinued, the rate at one time being as high as 207 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR two dollars per gallon. There are statutes in the United States which permit the use of alcohol free of tax, by colleges and scientific institutions." As regards the efforts in recent years to use alcohol as a motor fuel, I quote from The Revue Technique, December 10, 1903, a report of the results of some interesting experiments : "The employment of alcohol as a motor fuel has had a rapid development in France, where exhibitions have been specially organ- ized with a view of testing the economy of its use in motors for various purposes. These exhibitions, and particularly that of automo- biles at Paris and Rouen, and of stationary motors at Halle-sur-Saale, have demonstrated the highly practical value of alcohol for motor use, and the investigations and reports of Messrs. Brille, Chauveau, Perisse, Ringel- mann, Sorel, Trillat, and De la Valette have explained the superiority of alcohol over other liquid fuels. "These advantages may be summed up as follows: first, freedom from danger; second, absence of disagreeable odors; third, capable of high compression; fourth, low initial heat and discharge of exhaust gases at relatively 208 THE FUEL OF THE FUTURE low temperature; fifth, the explosion is less sudden and more prolonged than with gaso- lene; sixth, more perfect ignition and com- bustion; seventh, the cost is lower than for other fuels. "Engineers who have not made a special study of the fuel action of alcohol have as- sumed that it could not be as efficient as gasolene because of its lower thermal efficiency. The fact, however, that alcohol mixed with water is a better fuel than pure alcohol com- pletely explodes the idea that the fuel which has the highest thermal value is necessarily the most effective in use. "What determines the practical value of a fuel is not the total number of heat units it contains, but the number of heat units which are converted into useful mechanical work. The conditions in the combustion chamber of an explosive motor are such that only a small percentage of the heat energy of a rich fuel is utilized, whereas the conditions are highly favorable for the transformation of a large percentage of the heat energy of a fuel of the characteristics of alcohol, and especially so when it is hydrated (mixed with water). "As early as 1887 Messrs. Salanson and Debauchy demonstrated by experiments that, 209 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR with the same explosive pressure, the thermal efficiency increased with the decrease of tem- perature produced by the explosion. A priori this law would seem to be erroneous, for as heat is the origin of power it would seem that with a lower temperature the power must also be reduced. The anomaly only appears in the case of an explosion motor working on what may be termed a superheated cycle. "For any particular mixture the limit of compression is fixed by the risk of premature explosion by self-ignition, or of excessive vio- lence in the explosion. An explosive mixture of gasolene will not stand high compression, and the importance of this in diminishing the effectiveness of this fuel is well known. On the other hand, an explosive mixture of alcohol will stand a high degree of compression, and when the alcohol is hydrated the compression can be carried still higher, with the result that a very large percentage of the heat energy of the poorer mixture is converted into useful work. "M. Chauveau concludes with this sum- mary: ' * In view of the results of the last exhibition of alcohol motors, results which, because of the careful manner in which the experiments 210 THE FUEL OF THE FUTURE were conducted, cannot be suspected of error, we prove beyond dispute the following facts : " * First. That the results from carbureted alcohol are inferior to that of alcohol of ninety per cent purity. ' * Second. That the results from alcohol of ninety per cent strength show an efficiency value of thirty-eight per cent of the theoretical value. * The best efficiency results obtainable from different fuels is shown in the following: Gas 24 Gasolene or petroleum 20 Alcohol carbureted 33 Alcohol 90 per cent pure "38 'The alcohol motor using hydrated alco- hol is therefore the motor of the greatest effi- ciency.' ' The movement to secure the adoption by this country of a system of tax-free denaturized alcohol for industrial purposes, similar to that in force in Germany, France, Great Britain, and other foreign countries, is one of special importance to all users of gasolene engines, and particularly to farmers, whose use of these engines would be greatly increased if alcohol were used for fuel instead of gasolene. "The advantages of these engines, espe- 211 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR cially in small units," says the Iron Age in a recent issue, " are so obvious that it is only a question of time when every farmer will have one to aid in all the varied work on the farm.' The leading agricultural implement manufac- turers are making extensive arrangements to manufacture engines of this class on a large scale, and the prominent thresher manufac- turing companies are experimenting to produce the most perfect internal combustion portable farm engine, and only await favorable motor- fuel conditions to adopt this type of engine entirely." Not counting the motors used in automo- biles, the annual output of gasolene engines in this country is over one hundred thousand. Gasolene is, however, practically the only motor fuel available to-day, and the increase in the use of these engines is retarded by the high cost of this fuel, which, under the growing demand, is steadily advancing in price. Alco- hol is in every way a suitable fuel for this purpose, being free from all dangerous quali- ties, and with the tax removed would soon come into general use. Alcohol is easily and cheaply procured. The internal revenue tax on it is, however, nearly $2.07 per gallon, and this enormous 212 THE FUEL OF THE FUTURE tax makes impossible its use in this country for fuel and many other industrial purposes. Writing in favor of the movement to secure the removal of this tax from alcohol when suitably denaturized, that is, made undrink- able by the addition of obnoxious substances, Professor Elihu Thomson, the eminent scientist, says: "There are some facts which are not generally known which ought to be known, namely: that alcohol is produced and sold in Cuba for from twelve to fifteen cents per gallon, and that it is an excellent fuel, as I have found by tests, for the running of engines for automobiles taking the place of gasolene. At fifteen cents or twenty cents a gallon I think it would eventually displace gasolene. Burned in similar -engines it produces no smoke or soot, nor disagreeable odor. Since alcohol mixes with water freely, a fire started with alcohol is one of the easiest to extinguish. This is not the case with gasolene or even kerosene, both of which float on water and continue burning. To my mind the farmer should be the most deeply interested in the production and use of alcohol for industrial purposes, and especially in its use for automobile and motor-boat propulsion. It would give the farmer a sort of a balance wheel. A crop that is not easily marketable, or a crop partly spoiled, be it a fruit, grain, or other product, could be made the source of cheap alcohol for industrial purposes. Alcohol can be stored in tanks for an indefinite period without deterioration. Whether denaturized or not, as I have stated above, at a reasonable price it is the natural fuel for automobiles, inasmuch as the amount which 213 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR can be produced is practically unlimited, whereas with the increasing use of gasolene the price is sure to rise." Dr. H. W. Wiley, Chief of the Bureau of Chemistry, United States Department of Agri- culture, writes in regard to this subject: " This is a question in which I am greatly interested, both from the agricultural and economic points of view. I have long been convinced that the free use of alcohol for technical purposes would not only give immense impulse to manu- facturing industries now languishing in this country, but would also prove of great benefit to agriculture by providing an outlet for a great many starchy materials unfit for, or unnecessary to, consumption, and which would find a ready market in the form of alcohol for technical purposes. The waste potatoes, or excessive crops of Indian corn, the immense quantities of cassava, yams, and sweet potatoes which can be so easily grown in the South, could be used in this way, but are not well suited for the manufacture of potable spirits. I do not believe that there would be any loss of revenue by granting the free use of alcohol in the arts." The farmers' interest in this movement for cheaper alcohol is twofold. First, as the pro- ducer of the raw material from which the alcohol is distilled; and, second, through the possibilities of cheaper light, fuel, and power which would be afforded them through the adoption of the proposed legislation. Corn is the principal raw material from which alcohol is made in this country. It can 214 THE FUEL OF THE FUTURE also be made from other materials, such as potatoes, beets, unmarketable fruit, damaged grain, etc. A large industrial consumption of alcohol would, as Professor Thomson says, give the farmers a sort of balance wheel, guaranteeing them a sure market for their surplus and otherwise unsalable crops. Com- menting on this phase of the alcohol question, a recent article in the Farmer's Voice says: "The official figures for 1902 show that the total produc- tion of alcohol in Germany for that year was 223,899,120 proof gallons. Of this enormous production a small part was exported, but a very large proportion was used in manu- facturing, and on the farms as fuel for light, heat, and power. "The United States has one and one-half times the popu- lation of Germany, and with equally favorable laws American manufacturers and farmers would use at least one and one- half times as much as Germany, and probably a great deal more, as in all things in which conditions are equally favor- able American consumption is on a much larger scale. Then, too, this country is growing much more rapidly than Germany, and the development of the internal combustion engine is opening a new use for alcohol which even in Germany has only begun. "To produce the enormous quantity of alcohol that would be used if the tax were removed, would create a new market for corn so large that it would have a powerful effect in maintaining good prices. Alcohol can be kept for years with little loss, consequently in those years when an extra large crop created a surplus tending to depress prices this 215 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR surplus could be converted into alcohol, and thus prevent any market reduction in prices. And, reversely, when corn was high, on account of the small crop, or extra demand for other purposes, very little alcohol would be distilled, and the alcohol in storage would be drawn upon to supply the demand. "The farmers are thus seen to be particularly interested, for in addition to the benefit they will derive from the use of alcohol on the farm, and from the additional home market of the thousands of workmen who would be employed in new industries which would be created by a policy of cheap alcohol, they would have what would be of the utmost value in maintaining good prices for their corn, namely, an ex- panding and contracting market to absorb the surplus." The influence on all other alcohol-produc- ing crops would be similar. But more impor- tant still is the fact that with tax-free alcohol available no region would be remote from a cheap fuel supply. The farmers would raise the corn or other materials, which would be made into alcohol in a distillery only a short distance away. The freight charges on trans- porting the farmer's crop and his fuel long distances would both be saved. And in addi- tion the farmer would supply the fuel, or rather the material for making the fuel, for the towns and villages near by. One acre of potatoes will produce 255 gallons of alcohol. But these potatoes are of the best flavor and raised for food. There 216 THE FUEL OF THE FUTURE are other varieties, coarse and undesirable for food, which yield twice as large a crop as the table variety. It is entirely practical to raise potatoes that would yield 500 gallons of commercial alcohol to the acre. One acre of good corn land will produce sufficient corn to make 140 gallons of commercial alcohol. But this is not all: Hon. James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture, at a recent Congressional hearing on this important sub- ject, says: " The stalks of Indian corn, at the time when the grain is sufficiently hardened to be perfectly sound, when harvested contain a large quantity of starch. If the stalks of Indian corn could be utilized at that time for the manufacture of alcohol, they would produce a quantity which would be almost incredibly large. There would be approximately 10 tons of stalks to the acre of Indian corn yielding 50 bushels the acre, or 20,000 pounds, and of this at least 12 per cent, or nearly 2,400 pounds, is fermentable matter, 45 per cent of which can be recovered as alcohol, equivalent to 1,080 pounds of absolute alcohol, or approximately 170 gallons of commercial alcohol. The average yield of Indian corn is only about one half the above, but the heavier corn lands of the country that would be used for growing corn for alcohol average easily 50 bushels to the acre. It is safe to say that the average amount of sugar and starch which goes to waste in the stalks of Indian corn annually would make 100 gallons of commercial alcohol per acre. When we consider the vast number of acres cultivated in Indian corn, approximately 217 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR 100,000,000, it is seen that the quantity of alcohol that is lost in the stalks is so large as to be almost beyond the grasp of our conception. " Of course, it must be remembered that there would be very great difficulties attending the saving of these stalks and the manufacture of alcohol from them, and as long as there are cheaper sources it is evident that they will not be utilized for this purpose. But the time is doubtless coming when technical and commercial skill will be able to utilize this immense source of energy. Our coal mines are definite quantities and are being rapidly used up. Our forests are disappearing and many of them have disappeared. The same is true of the sources of mineral oil and natural gas. In the future it may be some time in the future the time will certainly come when the world will have to look to agri- culture for the production of its fuel, its light, and its motive power. It seems to me that through the medium of alcohol agriculture can furnish in the most convenient form for the use of man this absolutely necessary source of supply. I believe, therefore, that the utilization of alcohol in the arts and industries, under such restrictions as would safeguard the fiscal rights of the United States Government, would prove not only a great stimulus to manufactures, but a great benefit to agriculture." The rapid growth in the demand for liquid motor-fuels has more than doubled the price of gasolene during the past ten years, and the fuel bill for a five horse-power engine, ten hours per day, has been increased from a hundred to a hundred and fifty dollars yearly. If this advance is not checked by the introduc- es THE FUEL OF THE FUTURE tion of a satisfactory substitute there is every reason to expect that the fuel cost will increase even more rapidly in the future, and in a short time reach a point prohibitive to all but the rich owners of automobile and pleasure boats. The desirability of alcohol for motor fuel purposes is beyond question and the enact- ment of legislation providing for its industrial use free of taxation would have the immediate effect of checking the advancing price of gaso- lene. The effect of the enactment of a tax- free denaturized alcohol law on the price of gasolene is further shown by the fact that alcohol would largely take the place of gaso- lene for cooking, heating, illuminating, and many manufacturing processes, and the pres- ent enormous consumption of gasolene for these purposes would be discontinued. In this way such a law would prevent the increase in the price of liquid fuel beyond the cost of alcohol. The supply of alcohol is absolutely unlimited, and to a large extent it will be produced near the point where it is to be consumed. It has been estimated that making alcohol available as fuel by removing the tax would double the power uses of this country. This would mean an aggregate increase in engines 219 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR of over ten million horse-power, and if these were only employed one third of the time an addition to the working force of the country of a thousand million horse-power hours. At one tenth of a gallon per horse-power this would require the annual consumption of one hundred million gallons of alcohol. The internal combustion engine is only in its infancy. It is the simplest and most eco- nomical of prime movers and is destined to an enormous growth. In the automobile form it will cover our highways and streets, the pleasure vehicle being outnumbered a hun- dred-fold by the commercial machines, which will handle loads many times heavier than is now possible with horses. These conditions will be duplicated on the water. The alcohol engine will become the auxiliary of all small sailing vessels, and in fishing boats and small craft on our rivers, coasts, and harbors will supplant all other forms of power. The farmer will find the alcohol engine the cheapest and most efficient of all hired help, and no farm will be without one or more engines. In manufacturing the increase in the use of these engines will be equally great. With gasolene as the only fuel such a development would be impossible. With alcohol it is 220 THE FUEL OF THE FUTURE assured. The alcohol fuel can never be monopolized, as the materials from which it is produced can be furnished in unlimited quantities by the farmers. It is important to note in this connection that when the farmer begins to supply the raw material out of which the fuel is distilled that drives the motor-car, he will cease at once to dislike and decry it, and become its earnest champion and advocate. Not infrequently the policy of our govern- ment is short-sighted and unwise. The taxing of industrial alcohol is a shining example of this fact. Every automobilist has a personal interest in seeing to it that this stupid policy is changed. In this matter how much more sensible is the policy of our baby sister republic Cuba. The following interesting extract is taken from our United States Consular Report, 1904: "Matanzas, a city of about 40,000 inhabitants, has water connection in 1,700 out of 4,000 houses, which use about 100,000 gallons a day. The water-works, operated by an American company incorporated in the State of Delaware, are located a few miles distant from the city, where there are springs giving excellent water in sufficient quantity to supply a city of 100,000 people. "The alcohol motor pump, used on Sunday last for the first time, is of German manufacture, and cost, complete 221 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR with installation, $6,000. This motor-pump is a 45-horse- power machine and is operated at a fuel cost of about 40 cents an hour, or $4 a day of ten hours, pumping 1,000,000 gallons of water. "As alcohol here is very cheap (10 cents a gallon) the running expenses of these motors are at the minimum. The Germans are selling in Cuba many such motors for electric-lighting and water plants at very low prices. One firm has a contract to put in an alcohol motor-pump at Vento, for use in connection with the Habana water supply, which is expected to develop 180 horse-power, to cost, with installation, about $25,000 and to pump 1,000,000 gallons an hour at a fuel cost of $1.60. The same firm has installed an electric plant alcohol motor of 45 horse-power, which sup- plies 138 lights (Hersh lamps) at a fuel cost of 5 cents an hour. "I call the attention of those who are interested in our Cuban trade to the fact that at the breakfast which followed the installation there was not one article on the table of American origin except the flour in the bread. "H. G. SQUIERS, " United States Minister to Cuba." The manufacturers and owners of automo- biles are directly interested in the enactment of legislation freeing industrial alcohol from taxation, even though such alcohol should not be used as a fuel for motor vehicles, since there is no question but that untaxed alcohol would take the place of gasolene to a very large extent for burning, lighting, cooking, and similar purposes, and as a motor fuel for farm 222 THE FUEL OF THE FUTURE engines. This would greatly relieve the de- mand for gasolene and would leave just so much more for use as a motor fuel for auto- mobiles. 223 CHAPTER XXII CARS AT THE CUSTOM HOUSE THROUGH the courtesy of the Automobile Magazine, I am permitted to reproduce Mr. James R. Allison's interesting article: In the whole world there are only three nations that bid the tourist welcome and per- mit him to pass the Custom House without exacting tribute or security therefor. And these are the three: The United Kingdom, Persia, and Siam. For the rest, there are some sixty countries that either exact a toll varying from five per cent ad valorem up- wards, or demand a deposit on entry to be refunded at departure. The following table should be of interest and value to touring automobilists : Great Britain: Motor-cars are admitted free. France: On entering France the custom dues must be deposited; $10 for every 100 kilogrammes (about 250 Ibs.) if the car weighs more than 125 kilogrammes, $23.75 for every 224 CARS AT THE CUSTOM HOUSE kilogramme if the car weighs less. The de- posit will be refunded by any frontier custom office, against the deposit receipt, within six months. Germany: The duty, if levied, is as is on a vehicle, $37.50 without regard to size or weight. In order to secure free entry the driver must possess an authentic document proving that the motor has been the property of the owner for a length of time. The time and all other circumstances are at the discre- tion of the customs authorities, each case being examined on its merits. Belgium: The import duties of 12 per cent ad valorem must be paid, but they will be refunded within a year, on production of the receipt. Holland : The duties are 5 per cent of value, but the tourist can enter without payment at the discretion of the collector of the customs, who can demand a deposit equivalent to the duties, to be reimbursed on leaving the country, providing the driver possesses a permit from the Secretary of Public Works. This can be obtained in advance. Italy: The duty is as on carriages with four wheels, about $24. This must be deposited, accompanied by a declaration of the facts of S25 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR ownership and intention; but it will be repaid at any frontier Custom House on leaving, on production of the deposit receipt. Switzerland: A deposit of duties is needed, $4 for every 250 Ibs. gross weight. Against this receipt a permit is given valid for one year. The amount deposited is returned on the motor leaving Switzerland by any frontier station. Denmark: No deposit is required if the touring motorist makes a declaration that the motor is to stay only a limited time for touring purposes. Otherwise the duties range from $5.12 to $15.50. Finland: As carriages with a motor they are dutiable as railway carriages, 15 per cent ad valorem. Norway: Motor carriages are subject to a duty of 15 per cent ad valorem, returnable on leaving the country. Spain: The duty varies from $40 for an ordinary touring car to $150 for larger vehi- cles. The money is regarded as a deposit, returnable during any period up to six months. Portugal : The duty for each complete motor is about $100, repayable on leaving. Greece: Four-wheel vehicles, $60. Servia: 50 dinar per 100 kilos. A dinar 226 CARS AT THE CUSTOM HOUSE is equivalent to 100 paras, of about 19 cents value, and 100 kilos, equal about 250 Ibs. avoirdupois. Bulgaria: 8 per cent ad valorem. Russia: Carriages for four persons, each 198 roubles. A rouble is 100 kopecs, and is equivalent to about 80 cents. If on exami- nation of a motor-car the motor is found to be undetachable, the duty is fixed on the motor by estimating its weight as 30 per cent of the aggregate of the weight of the car and motor, and the rate for that is 1 rouble 70 kopecs per pond. A pond is 36 Ibs. avoirdupois. The duties must be deposited, but will be reimbursed after being kept from two to ten months. Turkey: 8 per cent ad valorem. Austro-Hungary : $35 and $6.75 for every 250 Ibs. of engine weight; but these duties will be repaid on production of receipt on leav- ing. Egypt: 8 per cent ad valorem. Morocco: 10 per cent ad valorem. Algiers: Same duties and regulations for deposit and refund as in France. South Africa: 25 per cent ad valorem. India: 5 per cent ad valorem. Persia: Free. 227 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR Siam: Free. China: 15 per cent ad valorem. French Cochin China: (See France.) Japan: 10 per cent ad valorem. Philippines: Motors for passengers, Australian States: 20 per cent ad valorem. New Zealand : 20 to 30 per cent ad valorem. Fiji Islands: 12^ per cent ad valorem. United States of America : The import duty is 45 per cent on the value, but a tourist from beyond the borders need not pay the duty in cash if, after a careful examination and ap- praisement has been made, a satisfactory bond is given, providing for the re-exportation of the motor within three months from the date thereof. Canada: Entering Canada, motor-cars are liable to a duty of 35 per cent of their value, as determined by the purchase invoice, which must be produced to the collector of the customs; but the owners of motors, not new, in use by tourists coming temporarily into Canada, may deposit an amount equal to the duty, and this will be refunded if the motor is re-exported within six months. In the mean- time the machine must not be used for gain or hire. 1 1 Newfoundland: 40 per cent of the value. 228 CARS AT THE CUSTOM HOUSE Mexico : In Mexico the motor-car is ranked as a carriage, and the duty is fixed by weight. A motor weighing below 100 kilos, (about 250 Ibs.) is charged at the rate of 62 cents per kilo., net; the rate per kilo, grading down to 37 cents per kilo, for machines weighing 2,500 Ibs. and upward. Salvador: 20 centavos per kilo. (2 Ib. 3 oz.). Nicaragua: The duties are the same as Salvador, but the Nicaraguan dollar is only worth about 16 cents. Honduras imposes only 2 centavos on a half kilogramme of weight. Guatemala: 17 to 30 pesas per kilogramme of weight. Argentine: 50 per cent ad valorem. Bolivia: 35 per cent ad valorem. Chili: 60 per cent ad valorem. Paraguay: 55 per cent ad valorem. Peru: 45 per cent ad valorem. Uruguay: 48 per cent ad valorem. Venezuela: 25 per cent ad valorem. Brazil: 3,000 reis per kilogramme. Ecuador: 5 cents per kilo. British Guiana: Each car $80. Bermuda: 5 per cent ad valorem. Cuba: 25 per cent ad valorem. Jamaica: One sixth ad valorem. 229 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR Bahamas: 20 per cent ad valorem. Windward Islands: 15 per cent ad valorem. Barbados: 10 per cent ad valorem. Trinidad: 5 per cent ad valorem. 230 CHAPTER XXIII PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS THE locomotive which pulls the Empire State Express is a marvelous piece of mechan- ism. It accomplishes easily the task it is set to do. It may not be wholly without interest to note and compare the conditions under which it operates with those under which a steam motor-car performs its work. The locomotive is the product of the best mechanical brains and experience of three quarters of a century. It does not leave the round-house to begin its day's task until it has been carefully in- spected by a trained mechanic and found to be in perfect condition. A skilful engineer then takes charge and the engine is steadily at work for not more than four or five hours. Observe the conditions under which it oper- ates: In the first place, it runs on two heavy parallel steel rails which in turn are attached to cross ties not over eighteen inches apart. These ties rest on a ballasted road- 231 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR bed the grades and curves of which are re- duced to a minimum. The railroad is fenced in and has its own private right of way. The engineer runs under orders on a clear track which is protected by the block system. At the end of a four or five hours' run the locomotive is turned over to a trained in- spector who examines every part of its mechan- ism, tightens any nuts that may require attention, makes any adjustments that may be necessary in short, puts the machine in perfect condition for the next day's work. Note the conditions under which the auto- mobile works: It has practically as many parts as the locomotive. In this country it is scarcely a dozen years old. As a rule it is taken out on the highway with only the most cursory examination if, indeed, any at all. It is operated, not on solid, smooth, level steel rails, but on our rough American roads, subjected to every variety of tort and strain and twist, one wheel often ten or twelve inches higher or lower than the other three, one moment dragging through sand or mud, the next crossing over ruts and chuck holes, now with all brakes set descending a steep hill, then climbing a ten or fifteen per cent grade. Under these trying conditions the 232 PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS car is expected to run, not four or five hours, but ten or twelve or twenty. Then it is placed in a barn or garage and the next day it is expected to repeat the performance. All this, too, without any special care, inspec- tion, or adjustment, in the hands not of a trained expert but of a novice of an operator who a week before did not know the differ- ence between a carbureter and a differential, a spark plug and an exhaust valve. Little wonder that our cars do so badly. The wonder indeed is that under these condi- tions they operate at all. The writer has owned and himself operated twenty-two automobiles. He regards two weeks spent in a factory at Lawrence, Mass., working in the shops studying the construction of the car, as the most profitable experience in his auto- mobile career. The chief pleasure in automobiling is in understanding and being able to operate one's own car. The owner of a motor-car will fall far short of its perfect enjoyment unless he will take the time to study its con- struction and familiarize himself with its operation. He must be able to detect the minor troubles that are liable to occur, and to make the necessary adjustments or repairs 233 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR on the highway. All this is easy to accom- plish if one will but give a little patient study to the problem. The Young Men's Christian Association in New York City has established an Auto- mobile School, which is not only turning out scores of decent, intelligent, clean-cut young men as competent chauffeurs, but many owners have availed themselves of the oppor- tunity to take the course of instruction, much to their subsequent advantage. A knowledge of all the parts of one's car and their proper uses not infrequently prevents imposition on the part of chauffeur and mechanic, and is well worth the slight expenditure of time and application necessary to acquire such knowl- edge. Nowhere else is better exemplified the truth of the old adage, "A stitch in time saves nine," than in promptly making adjustments to a car when it begins to go lame. Psychologists tell us of a law which they call the law of the Association of Ideas. A knowledge of this law and of its operations is most valuable to the motorist. The human mind performs a mental act easier and more quickly the second time than it does the first, and more easily and quickly the third time than the second, and so on. Therefore, the 234 PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS constant thought of the man beginning to operate a car should be, what must I do to stop it? Throw out this clutch; put on this brake. Throw out this clutch; put on this brake. Throw out this clutch; put on this brake. The mental act of constantly repeating this thought, and going through the process in imagination again and again, will ultimately train the mind so that in some sudden emer- gency it will promptly act in the proper manner without any apparent command of the will. There is no hurry about starting a motor-car. One may have all day in which to start, but human life will depend on the promptness with which one is able to stop. Therefore the importance of training the mind to act instantly automatically as it were cannot be overestimated. Conscientious automobilists and ninety per cent of them are included in this class - are exceedingly anxious to avoid frightening horses or causing annoyance or inconvenience to other users of the highway. The Psalmist said, "The horse is a vain thing for safety/' No one appreciates that fact more than the automobilist. By watching a horse's ears as he approaches, one may be enabled to 235 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR know the animal's state of mind, and decide whether it is becoming frightened and whether it is prudent to try to pass on the highway. A horse's ears, his manner of throwing them forward and twitching them quickly and nervously, tell to the careful observer, in un- mistakable language, what is liable to hap- pen. If the horse appears badly frightened, the motorist should drive his car to the ex- treme right of the roadside and stop his engine. If the driver of the horse then undertakes to pass, he does so entirely on his own responsibility and the motorist is in no wise responsible in the event of accident or disaster. In the case of women or children driving, the motorist should hasten to alight and offer his services in leading past the offending car the nervous animal. When the motorist is approaching an animal showing signs of fright, it is important to speak to him in a clear, sharp tone of com- mand, "Whoa there!" A human voice com- ing from out the frightful object is not only reassuring to the animal, but attracts his attention, and nine times out of ten he is quieted. The philosophy back of the result is this: A horse can think of only one thing at a time. Your sharp tone of command 236 PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS arrests his attention and he forgets his fright at the car until you are safely past. The writer believes that the practice of the above simple suggestions has saved him from causing many a runaway. It may not be generally conceded, but it is nevertheless true, that riding in a motor-car is much safer than in a horse-drawn vehicle. Comparative tests have shown that a motor vehicle can be stopped in one third to one fifth the distance required to stop a horse- drawn vehicle traveling at the same speed. As long ago as 1825, a British writer said: "It is reasonable to conclude that the nervous man will, ere long, take his place in a carriage drawn or impelled by a locomotive engine, with more unconcern and with far better assurance of safety than he now disposes of himself in one drawn by four horses of unequaled powers and speeds, endowed with passions that acknowledge no control but superior force, and each separately, momentarily liable to all the calamities that flesh is heir to. Surely an inanimate power, that can be started, stopped, and guided at pleasure by the finger or foot of man, must promise greater personal security to the traveler than a power derivable from animal life, whose infirmities and passions require the constant exercise of other passions, united with muscular exertion, to remedy and control them." Who has not known instances where the old family horse has jogged on for years, a 237 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR perfect pattern of docility and propriety, carrying the women to church and the children to school, suddenly shying at the most familiar objects, a piece of paper or a wheelbarrow, bolting and scattering the vehicle in bits along the highway, while the bucolic owner lifted his hands and piously exclaims, "Ah law, who'd a thought it!" That trenchant writer Mr. Rene Bache not long since published in Benjamin Frank- lin's old paper, The Saturday Evening Post, of Philadelphia, an article entitled "The Terrible Horse; Why He is the Most Danger- ous Animal in the World." This article is so pertinent to the subject under discussion, that a part of it is reproduced. Mr. Bache, after stating that the horse is the most danger- ous animal in the world, and that it kills and maims more human beings than are slain or injured by any other beast, continues: "Owing to its great usefulness to man, and to long habit of familiar intimacy between the animal in question and our- selves, the destruction it accomplishes has come to be regarded as a matter of course, not in any way to be avoided, and, therefore, not provocative of special attention. Nobody, indeed, seems ever to have investigated the subject, or to have taken the trouble to get together in a comprehensive way facts and figures bearing upon it. "Yet, of all accidents to human beings, fatal or disabling, 238 PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS including mischances of every kind and description, not less than twelve per cent are caused, directly or indirectly, by this fear-inspiring creature. Just think of it twelve out of every hundred mishaps involving physical injury more or less serious! These are official accident-insurance figures, accepted as approximate by all of the companies, and it must be confessed that they present a very serious indict- ment against man's 'noble servant,' the horse. "Alas! yes; it is the horse that is accountable for all this mischief. Indeed, the statement that it is the most danger- ous animal in the world may be thoroughly substantiated by reliable figures. To say that it ' kills and maims more human beings than are slain or injured by any other beast' puts the truth in the case inadequately; for the fact is that not all the tigers, lions, and other destructive creatures in existence, wild or tame, including venomous snakes, do more than a fraction of the amount of damage that is inflicted in the way of maiming and killing by horses. "Now it is reckoned by the accident-insurance com- panies that one in every seven men meets with a disabling accident of some kind in the course of each twelvemonth. On this basis it is easily calculated that more than six and a half millions of people in this country experience annually some sort of disablement. "Taking this as the total number of disabling accidents, and assuming that horses cause twelve per cent of them, it appears that these animals are accountable, directly or in- directly, for about 780,000, or say three quarters of a million, more or less serious mishaps in the United States every year. If these mischances result fatally in only one per cent of all cases certainly a very conservative estimate the number of deaths annually in this country, attributable to horses, 239 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR cannot be far from 8,000 a loss of life greater than would be likely to occur in a considerable battle. "In no battle in the history of the world have one third as many persons been wounded as were disabled by horses in this country during the last twelve months. There were engaged in the campaign in Manchuria, including both Russians and Japanese, the largest forces that have been opposed to each other in modern times, numbering about 750,000 a total less by some thousands, it will be noticed, than that of the people injured by horses, directly or in- directly, in the United States during a twelvemonth. "The chief cause of horse accidents, however, lies in the fact that this noble animal beautiful, docile, affectionate; man's faithful friend and patient servant is born a fool, and never gets over it. Its intelligence is overestimated. "One of the accident-insurance companies recently pub- lished a statement, based upon its own returns, which showed that out of one hundred average accidents caused by the horse, the railroad, the automobile and the bicycle, eighty- two are attributable to the equine brute, nine to the railroad, five to the motor-car, and four to the 'silent wheel.' One reason why physicians are rated as bad risks is that they use horses so much for driving about, an idea the justice of which is indicated by the fact that, out of 972 accidents to doctors recorded by another concern, 267, or considerably more than one fourth, were due to horses. "Statistics show that nearly half of all the runaways are delivery wagons. The teams are left unattended in the street, something frightens the horses, and off they go. When carriages are run away with this is a point well worth considering the serious consequences are nearly always due to the foolishness of jumping out. If such a thing ever 240 PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS happens to you, remember that you have nine chances out of ten of escaping uninjured if you hang on. "The accident companies do a great deal of business in what they call ' team insurance ' a branch of policy- writing which presents many curious and eccentric features. One of these concerns, for example, will, for ten dollars a year, become responsible for all mishaps to human beings that may be caused by a horse and buggy. The annual premium is forty-five dollars, however, for an ice-wagon, which is rated as almost the most hazardous of all vehicles. It is open at the back, with a step, upon which children are tempted to climb for the purpose of getting pieces of ice, and, as an additional element of danger, the wagon is so heavy that, if it does run over anybody, the consequences are likely to be fatal. "Next in the scale of hazard after the ice-wagon comes the express wagon. Being heavy, and moving at a rapid trot, it is a notoriously dangerous vehicle. "The only vehicle rated as more dangerous than the ice- wagon is the newspaper delivery wagon, which is considered such a hazardous risk that most of the companies regard it as practically non-insurable. Especially in the handling of afternoon papers these wagons take extraordinary chances, the bundles being thrown into them at the last possible moment, to be transported in the least number of minutes to the railroad stations, or to distributing centers miles away. Fast horses are used, and the driving is utterly regardless of the lives and limbs of pedestrians. In New York City such wagons appear to enjoy, without being in the slightest degree entitled to it, the same right of way that is possessed under the law by ambulances, patrol wagons and fire engines. 241 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR "It is interesting to consider, for the sake of comparison, that, whereas one out of every nine disabling accidents is due to horses, only one in about five hundred is attributable to dogs. A dog-bite, though it may be inflicted quite in- tentionally by the brute, is classed as accidental by the in- surance companies. One accident in eight hundred, or thereabouts, is met with in the handling of cattle, the victim being knocked down, run over, or hooked; one in two thousand is contributed by the kick of a mule, and one in fifteen thousand by the bite of a rat. Record is obtain- able of only one cat mishap to an insured person ; but in this case the policy-holder kicked at the animal, and, missing it, broke his leg against a sofa. Blood-poisoning set in, and he died. "A discussion of dangers attributable to horses would be incomplete without some reference to the fact that they are responsible for the existence of the multitudes of house flies, which, apart from the discomfort they cause in summer, are known to be carriers of disease germs. Every stable in warm weather is a fly factory, in active operation night and day. It is safe to predict that within a few years say a quarter of a century hence at furthest this nuisance, which continues to exist simply because we have not taken the small amount of trouble necessary to suppress it, will have been practically done away with by the adoption of preventive measures. "When the annual fly plague ceases to recur, a serious menace to the health of the community for which we ourselves and not the poor horse are really to blame will have been removed. "Meanwhile let us acknowledge that the horse, after all, is the most useful of all animals to man, barring none, and 242 PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS that if, owing to its timidtiy and lack of cleverness, it is a cause of many serious and not a few fatal accidents, the ser- vices it renders to the human race are so valuable as to com- pensate many times over for all the mischief it commits." These are true words, and they are just as true when applied to the automobile. It has been in the past, and will continue to be, the cause of terrible disasters. Nevertheless, its services to humanity are so great that it will compensate a thousand fold "for all the mischief" it may occasion. 243 CHAPTER XXIV THE FIRST AUTOMOBILE CONTESTS IN AMERICA ELEVEN years ago Automobiling in America was at its beginning. What wonderful prog- ress has been made in a single decade. A brief description of those first two mem- orable automobile contests one in Chicago and one in New York may prove of in- terest. It is to be noted that all horseless vehicles were then known as motocycles. In July, 1895, H. H. Kohlsaat, proprietor of the Chicago Times-Herald, offered, through that paper, valuable prizes, to be awarded after a contest or competition for motor vehi- cles, to take place at Chicago, November 2d, -which date was changed to Thanksgiving day as follows : "With a desire to promote, encourage, and stimulate the invention, development, perfection, and general adoption of motor vehicles or motocycles, the Times-Herald offers the following prizes, amounting to $5,000: "First Prize: $2,000 Gold Medal, same being open to competition to the world. Second Prize: $1,500, with a 244 FIRST AUTOMOBILE CONTESTS IN AMERICA stipulation that in the event the first prize is awarded a vehicle of foreign invention or manufacture, the prize shall go to the most successful American competitor. Third Prize: $1,000. Fourth Prize: $500. The third and fourth prizes open to all competitors, foreign and American. "It is the earnest desire of this paper that this contest shall add to the sum of our mechanical knowledge in this, the new branch of the science of transportation. "In making awards judges will consider the various points of excellence, rating them of value in the order named: "First: General utility, ease of control, and adaptability to various forms of work. " Second : Speed. "Third: Cost, which includes the original expense of the motor and its connecting mechanism. "Fourth: Economy of operation, average cost per mile of power required at the various speeds which may be developed. "Fifth: General appearance and excellence of design. "Hour of start, 7.30 A.M. "Race International in character. "Vehicle to carry two passengers. "Route: Midway Plaisance, Chicago, to Evanston, 111., and return, covering a distance of fifty-two miles. "A time limit of thirteen hours will be set." It was especially stated that speed was not the only requisite. To govern the contest, thirty-two elaborate rules were drawn up. There were eighty-six entries. The following report is condensed from that 245 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR old and reliable pioneer paper, The Horseless Age: "THROUGH SNOW AND SLUSH CONTESTANTS STRUGGLE ALONG A SEVERE TEST AND A SIGNAL TRIUMPH "Snow and slush lay from six to eight inches deep over the course. "Only six wagons put in an appearance, as follows: "The Electrobat of Morris & Salom. "The gasolene wagon of the Duryea Motor Wagon Company. "The Benz wagon of the H. Mueller Manufacturing Company. "The Benz wagon of the De La Vergne Refrigerating Machine Company. "The Roger wagon, owned by R. H. Macy & Co. "Electric wagon of Harold Sturges. "Four gasolenes and two electrics. "The Duryeas came to the scene of the race and returned after the finish by their own power. They were obliged to enter the old experimental wagon, which was built two years ago and has been run several thousand miles over ordinary roads. This car was first at the winning post. "The Duryea wagon led from the beginning of the race, but the steering apparatus broke, causing a delay, during which the Macy wagon passed the competitor and led until Evanston was reached. The Duryea machine arrived at the finish ten hours and twenty-eight minutes from the time of starting. Taking into account the delay for repairs, the Duryea car made an average of about seven and one-half miles an hour, the actual time the vehicle was in motion being seven and one-half hours. 246 The Times-Herald Cup Winner, 189.3 FIRST AUTOMOBILE CONTESTS IN AMERICA "The Duryea Motor Wagon Company of Springfield, Mass., was awarded first prize for best performance in the road race, for range of speed and pull, with compactness of design. "$1,500 to H. Mueller & Co., motocycle of Decatur, 111., for performance in the road race and economy in operation. "$500 to R. H. Macy & Co., for showing made in the road race. "An award of the Times-Herald Gold Medal to the Morris & Salom electrobat of Philadelphia for best showing made in the official tests for safety, ease of control, absence of noise, and vibration." The Duryea vehicle was the only one able to leave the stable (there were no garages in those days) to go to the starting-point, cover the course, and return to the stable the same day under its own power. The Mueller wagon, a modified Benz, was abandoned near the finish, because the operator had fainted. The Macy wagon, made by Roger, of Paris, a Benz licensee, remained on the course all night, finishing the next day. A brief description of this first notable American Cup Winner will not be out of place. The car was designed, in 1893, by that emi- nent pioneer motor-car builder, Mr. Charles E. Duryea, and built under his personal super- vision, in the winter of 1894. It was used 247 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR almost daily in 1895. From 1892-1897 Mr. J. F. Duryea was associated with his brother Charles. It is claimed that these gentlemen have had a longer experience than that pos- sessed by any other American builders of gasolene vehicles. The fact that this four horse-power car, weighing twelve hundred pounds, was able to run over the course of fifty-two miles of deep, crusted snow is indeed remarkable. It is a feat many of the higher- powered modern vehicles could not possibly accomplish. The one-hand control, double- cylinder motor gear and transmission, giving three speeds forward and reverse, pump cir- culation, water tank forward under the floor exposed to the air, and parcels receptacle in the hollow dash, were features of this vehicle. It further included bevel gear transmission, the motor being placed with crank shaft lengthwise the vehicle. The engine had a variable governor acting on the inlet valves and an ingenious means for throttling. The car had a live rear axle and large driving sprockets. The weight of the motor was one hundred and twenty pounds. The front wheels of the car were thirty-four inches in diameter, the rear wheels thirty-eight inches. The car had three speeds ahead five, ten, 248 FIRST AUTOMOBILE CONTESTS IN AMERICA and twenty miles per hour. The fuel cost was less than half a cent per mile. The following extract from a Chicago daily paper of October 29, 1895, when read in the light of history, provokes a smile: "On the very track where Joe Patchen won his laurels not many weeks ago, in a race with Gentry, a new rival appeared yesterday to make a new record against horses of a different caliber from those pitted against each other on the turf. A horseless carriage swung into the track devoted to equine racing, and, with a gasolene motor as its motive power, rushed around the mile circle in four and one-half minutes." Think of the blood-curdling speed of the "Gas Wagon," going at the rate of thirteen and one-third miles per hour! That we may not become too enthusiastic, however, in our prophecy that the horse will soon be displaced by the motor-car, another passage is quoted from the same paper. Remember that this was in 1895: "Before the Twentieth Century is five years old, the horse will be a very scarce article upon the highways in the civilized and densely settled parts of the world, at least so far as a means for the transportation of persons is concerned." The article continues: "At present, however, the prices of these vehicles seem absurdly high, ranging from $950 for a plain, two-seated carriage, to $1,375 for a four-seated carriage. There seems 249 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR no reason to the uninitiated, unless it be that an enormous proportion of this is for patent rights, why vehicles of this kind should not be produced for less than half these figures. The time for mechanical carriages is evidently close at hand, and if our inventors are alive to their important interests, they will exert themselves to take it by the forelock." Apropos the price of cars the following is taken from a recent issue of The Mail: "Some interesting facts and figures have come out in the course of the suits now in progress against manufacturers, dealers and users alleged to be infringing the Selden patent. "From January 1, 1903, to January 1, 1906, there were made, imported, and sold, under Selden patent licenses issued by the A. L. A. M., 41,696 gasolene vehicles of the value of $63,141,437.22, on which $814,183.52 royalty was paid. The increase of 1904 over 1903 in number of vehicles was 30 per cent, and in gross value of sales 58 per cent. The increase of 1905 over 1904 in number of vehicles was 32.5 per cent, and in gross value of sales 66.2 per cent. The gross business in 1905 was 17,840 vehicles, valued at $31,814,758.99. "The average price for 1903 was $1,170, for 1904 $1,422, and for 1905 $1,784. The average selling price for the last three years was $1,429 for cars made in the United States, and $6,710 for imported machines." Mr. Charles E. Duryea writes, regarding the first English automobile contest, as follows: "I think in the matter of history you will find the first English event also interesting, particularly to patriotic Amer- icans, for this was won by a Duryea vehicle, clearly proving American superiority at that time. "In the London to Brighton run, held to celebrate 'Liberty 250 FIRST AUTOMOBILE CONTESTS IN AMERICA Day,' Nov. 14, 1896, the distance was fifty-four miles. A certain promoter, who was promoting a Horseless Carriage Stock Selling Company, tried to arrange everything so that the vehicles controlled by his company should win. There- fore the contest was not run as a race, but simply as a parade, but the front end ran away from the rear as fast as it could. There were nearly fifty entries but only about half that many starters. The two Duryeas, not being in the favored crowd, were placed at the rear, or nearly so, with an electric bath chair, good for four miles an hour, in front. The run was well advertised locally, so for ten miles it was impossible to pass the bath chair because of the crowd. After that the Duryea quickly passed to the front, reaching Reigate first. Here a stop for lunch was ordered, and everybody stopped except the Bollee tricycles. They continued on to Brighton without stopping, and consequently arrived first. The pro- cession left Reigate in the original order and not as per arrival. This brought the first, second, and third winners, with their successful drivers of the '96 French race, to the front a second time, and compelled the Duryea to again pass them. The Duryea made better running time by more than an hour, which you will admit was quite a victory for the distance, considering the conditions." THE COSMOPOLITAN RACE, RUN ON DECORATION DAY, 1896 In 1895, Mr. John Brisben Walker pub- lished several articles in the Cosmopolitan calling attention to the probable early devel- opment of automobiles. The beginning of 1896 he offered a prize of three thousand 251 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR dollars for automobile carriages to be started from the City Hall in the city of New York, to run to Irvington-on-the-Hudson, making the turn in front of the Cosmopolitan Build- ing, and then return to the Ardsley Country Club for the decision. The judges were President Frank Thompson, of the Pennsyl- vania Railroad, General Craighill, Chief En- gineer U. S. Army, Lieutenant-General Miles, Commanding U. S. Army, Chauncey M. Depew, Vice-president Webb of the New York Central, Colonel John Jacob Astor, and Mr. John Brisben Walker. Vice-President Webb had his inspection locomotive awaiting the judges at Kings- bridge, to which point they had accompanied the automobiles in carriages. The locomo- tive conveyed these gentlemen to the Ardsley Country Club, where luncheon was served. About the time luncheon was over, 3.15 P.M., amidst great excitement of five hundred in- vited guests, Duryea No. 1 arrived, thus win- ning the contest. The prize was awarded for the following points, maximum being one hundred: Speed, 50; Simplicity and Durability of Construc- tion 25; Ease and Safety of Operation, 15; Cost, 10. 258 FIRST AUTOMOBILE CONTESTS IN AMERICA The route passed along Broadway to Cen- tral Park, through Central Park to Washing- ton Bridge, then along Broadway to Yonkers; thence to Irvington, paralleling the Hudson, passing through one of the most beautiful regions of America. The roads were fine. An editorial on this race was as follows: "Great precaution should be taken to prevent accidents on the road; attendants along the line should be advised in advance of the approach of each vehicle so that the streets may be clear, and the danger of running over sightseers, or the colliding with other vehicles, reduced to a minimum." The contest started at twelve o'clock. Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4 were Duryea wagons; No. 5, Roger wagon; No. 6 was a wagon belonging to Dr. Booth. Broadway was crowded with sightseers. Immense and intensely interested crowds were encountered at Fourteenth and Twenty- third Streets. At Twenty-third Street the Roger wagon struck a pedestrian, without serious results. At One-hundred-and-twenty- fifth Street, Duryea No. 4 came in collision with a bicycle rider, and demolished his wheel, precipitating the rider. The automobile driver was placed under arrest; the car dropping out of the contest. At One-hundred-and-seventy-fifth Street, 253 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR the water-tank of Duryea No. 3 sprung a leak, and the wagon was delayed for some time in consequence. Duryea No. 1 pushed on to Kingsbridge, which was reached at 1.05 P.M., making the running time one hour and five minutes from City Hall. Duryea No. 2 arrived a few minutes later, and the Roger wagon about fifteen minutes after the last car. Here the water tanks were refilled. At 2 P.M. the real start began. The distance from Kingsbridge to Irvington is thirteen miles, over a hilly road. The Peabody hill in Yonkers has a grade of fifteen per cent. Duryea No. 2 stuck fast on the hill; the water tank leaked; belt became wet, stretched, and gave much trouble through the journey. Duryea No. 1 arrived at Ardsley Country Club at 3.15, as already stated. This was the opening day of the Ardsley Country Club. The drive leading up to the Ards- ley House was covered with broken stones, unrolled; part of the way was up a steep hill. Not one of the contestants was able to climb it, and the cars had to be pushed up. On the return trip, Duryea No. 1 reached City Hall at 7.13 P.M., Duryea No 2 reached 254 FIRST AUTOMOBILE CONTESTS IN AMERICA City Hall at 9 P.M., Duryea No. 3 lost a wheel in Yonkers when bowling along at a good rate of speed, spilling out the passengers and putting the car out of the race. The Roger car was out of commission at Dobbs Ferry, owing to some trouble with its mech- anism. Dr. Booth's car abandoned the trip. That evening Mr. Walker gave a dinner to the judges and some forty friends, and much merriment was indulged in and a good deal of fun poked at the horseless carriage. It was stated that the speed maintained was almost as good as that of an ordinary farm horse. The menu cards, instead of bearing any date, were inscribed, "The first day of the first year of the Horseless Age." The length of the road was but twenty- six miles. The distance covered at the rate the Stanley car made at Ormond Beach recently, would require less than thirteen minutes; yet this contest was only so long ago as 1896. Never before have prophets lived to realize so quickly the fulfilment of their predictions. 255 CHAPTER XXV CONCLUSION FROM the time to which the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, nature has been his most inexorable foe. We have been told that nature is a cherishing mother. It is a mistake. "She sends her noisy brood of children out to play, careless alike of sunshine and of storm." Nature is invincible, inexor- able, remorseless. Violate her law and she will punish you, be you saint or sinner, down to the last drop of good red blood in your beating heart. All that nature does for us is to let us live. We come into the world with a cry and go out with a moan. From the beginning of time man has had to struggle with his environment. At first he was heedless of nature's laws, if indeed he did not oppose them; but in the hard school of experience he learned that it was better to coax the old tyrant and to work in harmony 256 CONCLUSION with her to have her laws working with his forces rather than against them. The Indian rubs two dry sticks together and has a fire to warm his tent. He lifts a sail and drives his canoe even against the wind, thus saving himself the labor of paddling his boat. He saws two strips from the end of a round log, places one on either end of a rough, axle, and forms a rude cart to draw his burdens. Thus in the childhood of the race man began in a crude way to utilize the forces of nature. The history of discovery and invention down to the present hour is but a record of how man has either worked in harmony with nature's laws, or, what is quite as important, has learned how to accomplish apparent mira- cles by opposing one of nature's laws against another. Why does not the law of gravity chain the balloon to the earth ? It is because the gas is lighter than the air, and so opposing this law to the law of gravity, man climbs the unseen steps of air and gazes into the face of the burning sun. But what of the Discoverer, the Inventor, the Pioneer? Alas! the treatment of these is 257 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR a record of shame and an indictment against all history. Galileo was threatened with torture because he declared that the "world moves." Thank heaven it has moved far since that day. Columbus, of whom it has been well said that "to reward a faith like his the Creator would have raised a continent out of mid-ocean," what was his reward ? A dungeon and chains and a crown of disgrace. Morse walked the streets of New York de- spairing and penniless, thinking his thoughts and dreaming his dream. Back in his great brain there lay coiled all the telegraph wires which to-day bless and encircle the globe. But men laughed at the dream and pitied the dreamer, until one glad day that first message flashed over the wires and men learned what God had wrought. It has been stated that man has had to struggle with his environment as expressed in the terms of nature's inexorable and hostile laws. But stern and difficult as has been this struggle, it has been but half the battle. Igno- rance, Prejudice, and Custom make up the hydra-headed giant which has ever blocked the onward march of the progressive spirit. The ignorant man is afraid of the unknown; the 258 CONCLUSION prejudiced one is the fool of the Bible who discusses and prejudges that about which he knows naught; the slave of Custom finds his exponent in the Chinaman who does exactly as his ancestors hence China has slept the sodden sleep of stagnation and there has been no progress in forty centuries. Gladstone defined a Conservative man as one who saw more of evil in human nature to fear than of good to hope for; a Radical as one who saw more of good in human nature to hope for than of evil to fear. Conservatism is a virtue, but it is a negative one. The most conservative man in the world is a dead one. This is true literally and figuratively. It is the easiest thing imaginable to get a company of men to vote not to do something if the action suggested is contrary to custom. Custom is to society what habit is to the individual. First we possess it, then with hooks of steel it possesses us. It requires a strong character, a heroic soul, to break the bands of custom and rise into an atmosphere where he deliberately sets his belief against universal dogma or opinion. But here and there in the background of his- tory loom mountain peaks of heroic mold - very Jungfraus and Mt. Blancs, in the Alps of 259 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR existence. Were it not so, "unfilled with westward wind Columbus' sails, and in a dream undreamed would slumber still this mighty Civilization of the West." It is a far cry from that first hand printing- press of Benjamin Franklin to that last word of mechanical and engineering skill as ex- pressed in the Hoe Printing Press. This modern press with its forest of levers and cogs and wheels has a score of points at which the pressure of an electric button will stop the entire mechanism. But there is only one man and one button which will start it again. This aptly illustrates the workings of the complex machinery of human progress. There are many who can object and hinder and criticise and delay. There is a lonely one who can stand out from among his fellows and make things go. One of the greatest problems that has ever taxed the brain of man is that of transportation. Civilizations have come and gone, Empires have risen, flourished, and passed into oblivion. The panorama of history is full of moving figures, and through it all the measure of man's Civilization is largely that of his power to move through space and to move other things through space. 260 CONCLUSION "All is action, all is motion, In this mighty world of ours, Like the current of the ocean Man is moved by unseen powers. "Steadily but strongly moving, Life is onward ever more; Still the present is improving On the age that went before." A large part of man's work in the world, after moving himself, is to move other things through space. It has been said that GOD CREATES MAN ONLY MOVES. Recently I visited the Congressional Li- brary in Washington. It is perhaps the finest, the most perfect specimen of all our modern architecture. This colossal and exquisite structure, . so perfectly adapted to its use, is an illustration of the great fact that man creates nothing but only moves something. The plan in the brain of the architect was transferred to paper. This in turn to the contractor. Then came men with plow and scraper, and the earth, to make place for the foundation, was moved away. Then to the marble hills of Vermont and the granite hills of New Hampshire came other workmen. The soil was moved away and the rough 261 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR stone exposed. Then with sledge and wedge and powder the rough marble was torn from its place where it had been planted by the Creator. Then came other men, and with defter touch and more skilful hand the outer surface was removed until in polished column and carved capital it was fit to adorn a palace. Later the blocks were moved by boat and rail to the Capital. There other men moved them into their place, and the building grew day by day until at length it became the frozen dream of beauty that it is. Thus it transpires that in all the great achievements of mankind, wherever they are of a material nature, whether it be a pyramid in Egypt, a Taj -Mahal in India or a St. Peter's in Rome, a Brooklyn Bridge or a modern sky-scraper, all these are the products of man's intelligence and his power to move something. The Pyramids suggest to us a colossal civil- ization. The great Egyptian King said upon the completion of the first Pyramid : " As long as the sun shines upon the earth this monument shall endure." We know that for uncounted centuries it has defied the gnawing tooth of Time. I do not hesitate to reiterate that King 262 CONCLUSION Edward, until the coming of the motor-car, had no other or different means of individual transportation than had the Rameses, or Cheops, the great King who built the first pyramid. Small wonder is it, then, that human nature, constituted as it is, circumscribed for thou- sands of years by the custom of using the horse, the mule, or the ox, should look with disfavor upon this innovation of a self-pro- pelled vehicle. I may be pardoned if I paraphrase some well-known lines: The Auto, monster of such hideous mien That to be hated needs but to be seen, But seen too oft, familiar with its face, We first endure, then get one, and go the pace. Our opponents say the horse was here a thousand years before the motor-car came; true, indeed, but the motor-car will remain a thousand years after the horse is gone. The motor-car is fighting its way into gen- eral use because it is from every standpoint better than the old antiquated method of the horse-drawn vehicle. The motor-car is the mightiest fact of modern life, and it will soon become a necessity of humanity. The efforts put forth by puny and prejudiced men to retard its development through hostile legis- 263 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR lation and otherwise would be ridiculous if they were not pathetic. One would quite as well undertake to thwart the law of gravity or stay the rise of the tides. When Whitney invented his cotton-gin and McCormick his reaper, opposition was fierce and bitter because the workmen claimed they would be displaced by the machine and starve to death. But every cotton-field of the South and every wheat-field of the West is teeming with contented laborers, better housed, better fed, better clothed than in the good old days. When the history of the human race and the triumph of mechanical skill shall have been written, high up on the roll of fame will be found the name of Gottlieb Daimler, who, toiling long and patiently yonder in the father- land, gave to the world the first practical modern motor. It must not be forgotten, however, that the automobile has its dangers as well as its delights. The power and potency of any agent for good is an exact measure of its power for evil under changed conditions. The slow-moving ox-cart could transport only a small load at a slow speed. If the ox ran away not much damage was done. A 264 CONCLUSION modern motor-car has in it the power of forty or fifty or sixty ox-drawn carts. It moves with the speed of the wind or the carrier- pigeon, and is a power for good while acting under normal conditions. But should it be misused or get beyond control it is a corre- spondingly terrible agent for evil. This grave fact should be taken into account by every automobilist. Before my final word I want to pay a tribute to the Automobile Club of America. Under the able administration of President Dave Hennen Morris it has reached its present high mark of prosperity and useful- ness. It now numbers almost a thousand members and will soon occupy its handsome home in the city of New York on Fifty-fourth Street. The catalogue of the club's achieve- ments in behalf of automobiling in America is too well known to need rehearsal here. Without its work the sport would not enjoy the freedom it does to-day. Long life to the pioneer Automobile Club of America. You remember the story of the old Roman Senator who was so anxious for the destruc- ., tion of Carthage that he never closed an address on any subject without adding thereto, "Carthage must be destroyed"; so on every 265 THREE MEN IN A MOTOR CAR occasion where opportunity affords, in private or in public, in season and out of season, I must iterate and reiterate, again and again, that it should not be forgotten that while we automobilists have rights, we also have re- sponsibilities and a great obligation the obligation which by every instinct of gentle- manly courtesy and of common humanity is laid upon us, viz. : to operate our cars with the greatest caution and with the utmost care and consideration for the rights of other users of the highway. Not only is it important that we have our cars always under perfect control, but we must so operate them that the public will see and appreciate this fact. I cannot better express my thought on this most important subject or bring to a close this final chapter of this little book than by quoting the closing paragraph of my annual address on retiring from official connection with the Automobile Club of America: "I wish, as a final word, that I might im- press on you, and through you upon automo- bilists everywhere and that great army of recruits which in imagination I see even now coming up from all over this fair land to join our ranks that the perfect key to the solu- 266 CONCLUSION tion of the difficulties and differences which unhappily exist between us and the great public is to be found in the spirit of the Golden Rule: Do unto other users of the highway as you would that they should do unto you. "If we, automobilists of America, will but act in this spirit, the time will speedily come when we will look back on the trials and trib- ulations of to-day as but the harmless vagaries of an unpleasant dream." 267 APOSTROPHE TO THE AUTOMOBILE O winged horse! O steed of steel! Long centuries thy coming have awaited. Into thy vitals hath been poured The deep distilment which the Sun-God made Ages ago, when, in the morn of Life, He kissed the tropic forests with his heated breath, And Bloom and Beauty hid themselves in sleep Till Time should make them fitted for thy need. O thou new King of Time and Space! In the hot furnace of forgotten fires Were forged thy nerves of steel, thy heart of iron, Awaiting but the magic touch of man To fit thee for thy true and destined place In the procession of the triumphs of the ages. Go forth upon the Earth in benediction. When Sunrise Bell calls toiler forth to new day's work, Be thou present to transport him and his burden. When weary man in city street has spent his vital force, Be thou present to carry him to country lane, To flower and field and forest green, Where tides of life and health set in again, To music from the rippling brook and singing birds. Again, and yet again, and thrice again, I greet thee, O thou last, best gift of all the gods to man. On thy countless missions of peace and helpfulness Speed onward to Time's latest day, O thou Emancipator of the Human Race! 268 23480