The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1910-03-13
Famous Railroad Magnate
States that Too Much Mon
ey Is Being Sunk in This
Fast Growing Industry.
NOT ONE CENT USED
FOR RAISING GRAIN
However, the Hopeful View
That Autos, Like Electric
Lights, Will Be a Necessity,
Not a Luxury.

In his address before the Minnesota
Hardware Association, at st. Paul,
few days ago, James J. Hill said:
-Four hundred thousand automobiles
have been ordered for delivery within
the present year. Averaging the cost
of automobiles at one thousand dollars
each, this means that there will have
been paid for automobiles by the peo-
pie of the United States four hundred
million dollars in the year 1910. Not
one cent of those four hundred millions
is invested in anything that will pro-
duce one bushel of grain
Mr.. Hills statistics are possibly of
greater accuracy than is the political
economy which he bases upon these
statistics. His estimate does not diff
fer from the one given at the meeting
of the American Automobile Associa-
ton held in Washington two weeks
dress at st. Paul A fairly accurate
estimate of the number of automobiles
ordered for delivery in the year 1910
in the United States fixes the number
at about four hundred thousand. But
prolonged investigation and labor
would be necessary if an approximate
ly accurate average of the cost of the
automObiles-that is to say, the cost of
each one-were to be obtained.
f. Average Even Greater.
The best impression seems to be that
the average would be found to be great
er than one thousand dollars. For it
has been observed that notwithstand-
ing the attempt to produce automobiles
at low cost, like runabouts, is constant,
and the output increasing that attempt
has been coincident with greater and
greater demand for motor cars that are
of very high grade, of as perfect con-
struction as it is possible to make, with
luxurious fittings and costly accesso-
ries. Many automobiles are now man
ufactured costing ten thousand dollars
and more. and the tendency is to great
er elaboration and luxury in construc-
ton.
But if we take Mr.. Hills estimate as
approximately correct, then there are
momentous, possibly portentious fac
tors in the production of an article, at
first almost exclusively designed for
pleasure, for which the American peo-
pie have been paying hundreds of thou
sands of dollars every year for the
past eight years, and principally since
1906.
Demand Won't SIacken.
h.
demand for motor cars will not slack
en-, unless there be severe business de-
moralization, but instead will increase,
then it might be computed that within
the next ten years the people of the
United States will have expended four
billion dollars for motor cars.
The result of this diversion of CAPT
and that one whose product was first
designed chiefly for recreation or pleas
ure, it is impossible to forecast, or even
more than vaguely to surmise. But in
order to get fair appreciation of what
this may mean financially and econom-
ically, it is the, better part to trace
briefly the history of this sudden and
magnificent, In the sense of magnitude.
diversion of capital and income from
other fields to this one industry.
In the year 1892, Edison said that at
a rough estimate the American people
were paying about three hundred mil
lions year for electric lighting SER
vice. About ten years earlier, Edison
perfected his incandescent electric light
solving for commercial purposes the
problem of the divisibility of the cleo
trio current.
So that what has been accomplished
in the way of income to the manufac-
turers of automobiles in the United
States within five or six years required
more than ten years to accomplish in
the marketing of electricity for light
ing purposes.
Are Not a Luxury.
But electric lights are no longer re-
garded as a luxury. but as necessity,
at least in well-populated communities.
1t required more than ten years to de-
velop the highway trolley system that
the yearly income from them would
approximately equal the aggregate
amount of money spent by the Ameri-
can people in one year for automobiles.
In fact it would be difficult to compare
fayorably this stupendous yearly ex-
penditure within five or six years after
the manufacturing of automobiles in
the United States assumed large pro-
portions. excepting with the returns
received by one or two of the greater
corporation. The United States Steel
Corporation in its income account
might furnish a comparison in which
the factors of the proposition are equal.
That is to say. in the swiftness with
which great income was received after
organization. And yet that compari-
son would not be wholly satisfactory,
since the Steel Corporation represented
nothin- but the concentration under
one control of many corporations
which had been operating independ-
emily each of the other. In all prob
ability there is no record of any man.
ufactured product yielding lin so short
a time after manufacture was begun
so great yearly return as has been
the case with the automobile industry.
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