Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1909-04-16

knocked senseless; both wrists broken,
Claremont, n. II.
&c. Auto went over bank. Two peo-
pie hurt, Belmont, Mass.
81. Auto hits post and throws woman
out, Charlestown, Mass
3s. Auto runs into electric and stirs
things up
80. Fire chief badly hurt; wagon run
into by auto and child struck by auto
and picked up bleeding wreck in Bos-
ton.
40. Terrible accident in New York.
Woman killed; others injured.
al. Man killed in auto wreck in New |
York.
II one paper can chronicle such mass |
of fatal evidence in a period of two |
months, what must have been the record |
for the country for a year? Compare |
that with the record of accidents caused |
by horses, without auto interferences,
and the yarns about the manageability |
Of auto. disappear as do autos, over
hill. II such a record is not all-sufficent
evidence that automobiles should not be
allowed on public ways where other
people are, then no man was ever guilty
of killing, or manning another, or de-
stroying his property. If that record of
suicide, murder and carnage does not
justify "timd men and women" and all
sane people, in demanding that our pub
lie ways be made as safe as they were
before this auto.invasion, then nothing
can. 1t justifies united warfare under
the motto,
THE AUTO MUST GO.
from all thoroughfares used by other
people in any way whatsoever when
their presence carries with it the danger
to life, limb and property, as it self
evidently does. In the very worst days
of horse-rowdyism, there was no such
record of public disturbance, death and
destruction of property, as follows con-
tinually in the path of the automobile.
We are next faced with the interesting
assertion that the opponents to the auto
mobile belong "to those classes of people
who are the last to recognize
THE MARCH OF PROGRESS"
which, by inference, leads to the cCnclu-
sion that automobiles are the exclusive
representatives of progress, which is in
teresting IN that we are also told that
Highways which are dedicated to the
public use are believed to be for all the
people, and not for class" How is it
then if automobiles practically ruin the
roads for the large class of people who
once used them for healthful recreation,
and render them dangerous to all classes
using horses, and in many cases for pc
destrians?
1t all depends on what true progress is.
not. There is such thing as progress
ing backwards. Jackasses are sometimes
guilty of that. When horses meet autos
they often progress in any other than
the right direction, to the danger of
those using them. An express train
may be progressing rapidly, but if it hits
another train, the progress towards death
and disaster of the passengers may be
unanimously rapid. The same is true
of the fatality often following the rapid
course of the auto. 1t is questionable if
the progress of the auto is not as fatal, if
not more so, to those in them as to 9th
ers 1t is not questionable, that with the
progressive development of speed posi-
bilities in autos the death and accident
rate will progress in reciprocal proper
ton. Disease is generally progressive in
its course, but is not considered sin the
march of progress" by either patient OF
physician. Epidemic and pests are spo
ken of as progressing, but true progress i:
9 looked upon as steps taken towards
their prevention and ultimate extinction
That is the kind of progress which mos
. people hope to see following in the marcel
of the auto. Automobiles complain OF
the traps" set on the roads to catcf
!, them, but they do not compare with tn,
automobile as death trap. Such trap
:. are set to prevent the progress of tn,
auto in its death march. The music O.
- the death March of Saul" might be APP
propriately changed to that OF the auto
No one will deny that the presence o
the automobile on the roads has largel,
ruined pleasure driving.
Is a machine a contribution to tn
; "march of progress which thus ruins al
almost universal recreation, and is hurt
f,,l tO a c,raat in Tbat tha ~
mobile is dangerous incentive to tn,
~ Hateful tendency to extravaganza so com
mon in Americans is too well known t
= be seriously denied. While the fast trot
=, ter is being regulated to the tracks TO
sporting purposes, and to speedways 70
recreation, the use of the road horse ha
- been almost entirely abandoned on &C