The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1909-09-25
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| his Bertillon measurements. This card
may be called for by an inspector of
motor traffic at any time, and If 1t can
not be produced or is in improper
hands the automobilist is forthwith ar
rested and held until the matter is
| thFashed out If a car owner or en-
ployee breaks the law, the infraction,
the accusation or the penalty is indors-
ed on the card. In certain cases the
license may be revoked and the card
taken up. These continental regula-
tons have been proposed by some as
| an adequate remedy for the evils of
| speeding, but such action is opposed
by others as being too stringent for
American owners who drive their own
cars. If the automobile killings con-
tinue, however, 1T is quite likely that
public opinion will force the enactment
of some such rigid regulations, no mat
ter what plutocrat's toes are trodden
on.
There is one evil that at present the
automobile owners feel themselves
helpless to cope with. That is the
practice of certain garages renting out
for their own profit cars that have
been been left with them for repairs.
If a car that is brought in to be fixed
up seems particularly desirable the
owner is told that the repairs Will
take about week. They actually take
but few hours. Before the car is de-
livered to it's owner, however, the ga
rage keeper makes a hundred dollars
or so by renting it out. 1t is not known
how widespread this practice is. but
the automobile associations are keep
ing tabs pretty closely now with a
view of putting a stop to it If possible
It seems likely that the law in regard
to the unauthorized use of cars by
10y riders" would cover tkis phase of
the situation also.
The automobile problem is not one
which will be settled in a year or
day. The automobile is a new fnven-
ton which has not yet been adjusted
to it's proper place. When the bicycle
first came into use in the early nineties
there were similar crusades and agita-
lions against the bicycle "scorchers."
Men, women and children were struck
down on the streets and left by reck-
less persons who suffered from the
same speed mania. Who now hears of
the scorcher? The very word is pass
ing out of the popular vocabulary, and
the bicycle has been adjusted to its
proper place. Likewise the time will
doubtless come when automobile
speeding will become lost art and
the word disappear from our vocabu-
larry. Nothing will hasten the coming
of that time more than an increase in
thoughtfulness for the rights of others
on the part of automobiiists and mod
Grafton and common sense on the part
of the public.
Automobile history to many would
read like fairy tale, but to the manu-
facturers who were in at it's birth and
followed the evolution through many
phases of adversely, it's leaps and
bounds into 'faddish" popularity and
ultimately it's establishment as a per-
manent industry bearing directly on
the economic condition Of the country
the story should be told in epic. A BIZ
ographer of the automobile recently
said, "In a sense the history of the rise
of the automobile has been history of
some of the foremost inventors, me-
chanical engineers and active business
men,"
In the development Of no other art