Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1909-03-09
AUTO FORCING
HORSE TO QUIT
PROGRESS OF AGE D00MS
FAITHFUL BEAST
LUXURY OF TODAY NECESSITY
OF TOMORROW
Horse and Buggy Differs from Jinrik-
isha Only in Kind of Animal Be-
tween the Shafts-Motor
Car Is Here to Stay

Civilization is a condition of posi-
tive action, not a state of passive eX-
istence. Its truest index is progress,
for progress is inherent to those ma
tions which are living in the light; the
peoples which do not know what MOD
ern civilization is are standing still and
are today where they were hundreds
of years ago. China is the Oldest coun-
try we know of; yet China today is
where she was a thousand years ago;
conditions obtaining in the twelfth cen
fury exist today America is nearly the
youngest country we know, yet in the
twelfth century this continent was un-
known and only a century ago dld tnlS
government take on it's present torm'
And while civilization marches on, we
watch with interest it's effect on the
individual member of society. lie pro-
crosses with the rest OF Things. NO
where is this more clearly pointed out
than in the fact that what were lux
uries Yesterday are necessities today;
what yesterday man INDUCED in today
he has to have. Fifty years ago the
steam railroad was pronounced chi
merical; where would we be without 1t !!
Fifteen years ago the extraVagant had
private telephone wires stretching from
their house to their stable. 1t was
suggested that some day the country
would be criss-crossed with network
of wires, that the Bostonian and the
New Yorker. the Philadelphia and the
man in California could converse from
their offices. Amused smiles of incre-
dulity greeted the suggestion, yet To-
day if by some mysterious power the
telephones and wires were swept away,
the country would be Frustrated.
The luxuries of five years ago Will
be the necessities of five years hence'
When the century opened strange con-
trivances called automobiles OCCASION
allv ran on the highways. Three years
later a general standard of design was
practically adopted, but so unreliable
were they and so apparently unneces-
sary that he who owned one was pro-
nounced extravagant and often more.
Yet forging ahead to perfection, they
are slowly but inexorably forcing
themselves into the national life with
an irresistible power born of a uni
versal demand, a power which nothing
can thwart. Can we say, then, that
the automobile is doomed to the fate
OF the bicycle? A more ludicrouS par
allel could not be drawn, yet it is what
many skeptics offer. Rather the auto
mobile is destined to occupy the gio-
rious place in modern society held by
the locomotive and the teiepnone'
America is not China, where jinrik-
ishas have been the national means or
personal transportation for centuries,
and will be for centuries unless modern
enlightenment breaks down the iron
conservatism of the Celestials. The
horse and buggy will not do for Amer
icans-after all it differs from the
jinrikisha only in the kind of animal
between the shafts. The people of this
country demand a method of travel
consistent with their advancement in
other spheres, and this demand they
find answered in the production of the
automobile, a logical machine now
being produced at logical price. No
wonder the bicycle-citing skeptics are
dwindling and dwindling in numbers,
for they with the rest are beginning
to see that the automobile is here, and
here to stay.-The Co-Operator.