The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-05-14
WHAT COLONEL POPE SAYS.
An Interview With the Head of the Grea

An interview With the Head or the Great est Bicycle Business in the World. 4 few days before the announcement of 1 the transfer of the holdings of the American Bicycle Company to tine new organization which he heads, Colonel Pope was asked
 to give some outline Of his campaign pans. II hay'nt any cut and dried plans,' he said. If had, wouldn't give them away.
 It Is not good generalship on the field of war or in business to advertise what one
 is going to do. Besides, any plan is held ! subject to change with changing conditions. What is good business policy to-day may be
 misfit tomorrow.
 Let me, then, say briefly that prefer to stand on fulfllment rather than promise. What have done is the best assurance
 can give of what will try to do or am 1 likely to do.
 I have sought, in the past, to run the
 bicycle manufacturing and selling business on sound bushes principles. I have tried
 to let no chance slip to promote and expand it. I have pushed through every opening in sight and never stopped searching for new ones. I have worked year after year 1 Tor the extension of good roads and tried
 to forward in every way the interests of the | | riders generally in every country. l have never aimed to get ahead by pushing others down. Stirring competition is constant spur to improvement and to the advance of an industry in popular appreciation and demand. have tried to keep faith with the public and do as l would be done by. In the Pope Manufacturing Co.'S. works at Hartford, we had notices that we tried to live up to::One for All-and All for One Men not Things. In no works in the world think were there ever more willing and able workineD. This was to be seen in their output, for it might be said of our stand
 ards in the words of old, Ezekiel the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels We never expected to sell our wheels-no 1 matter how good they were-without tell ing. people what we had to sell. So we adyer- | tised from the start 'n the daily and weekly papers and magazines, and we kept on spreading our advertising and the more we advertised, the more we sold. Nobody | can value more, highly than do the service
 of printers ink arousing and fixing pubic | interest and creating demand. would
 as soon try to pull myself up by tugglng l my bOot-straps as to try to pull my busi' ness up without advertising.
 l am not worrying over the sickness of the bicycle business. A healthy recovery IS bound to come with common, sense treat l ment. The bicycle is indispensable. It will carry weight with less resistance and travel faster with less power than any other form of vehicle. Legions of riders are using 1t to-day for cheap and swift conveyance, nn- spiriting exercise and sport. Its useis sure to grow with the spreading of good roads and the growth of pepulation, regardless of any caprices of fancy or fluctuations of demand. It will appeal more and more strongly to 1 wolnen-wlth the certain extending of thelr out door exercise-for recreation, at their
 ready command, is so healthful and ex- hilarating.
 Out of fashion. Who put it out? It's standard thing now-not the novelty that attracts for a fieeting season. Were
 Prince Henry of Germany and his wife ruled
 out of fashion, the other. day, when they were riding two new Columbia chainless and were held up for running their wheels on the sidewalk out of the mud? Was there ever so big an attendance at bicycle races as there has been at Madison Square test? Who can shut out of fashion what priuces purchase and crowds applaud?"