Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1911-01-13
ADVOCATES INCREASE IN
AUTOM OBlLE TAX.
Jefferson de Mont Thompson
Urges Car Owners to Cooper
ate With Authorities.
TALK TO HIGHWAY SOCIETY.
AUTOS RUIN ROADS AND SHOULD BE
TAXED FOR DAMAGE, HE SAYS
ADVISES LICENSING OWNERS.

ADVISES LICENSING OWNERS.
Declaring that almost every part of
Europe has become within the present
season unfit and unsafe territory for
American automobiles, Jefferson de
Mont Thompson, who has just returned
from Continental tour, stated yester-
day that radical change on the part of
American car owners and drivers toward
the State Governments was the only
thing that could prevent similar
situation here.
Instead of trying to weaken State
control and to keep down the tax on
cars, he declared that it was time for
automobilists to join in making the tax
es higher and the laws and penalties
more rigorous for bad driving, allowing
cars to smoke, and disregarding the
rights of the pedestrians and wagon
drivers on country roads.
Mr.. Thompson is a member of the
Automobile Club of America and once
was holder of a Vanderbilt Cup. He
has spent his last five summers touring
Europe, but does not intend to try it
again until conditions change.
He said the new trouble over there
was due to the fact that the automobile
associations have persistently failed to
tell the Government the truth about
many things. The result has been that
the authorities have investigated for
themselves, and in strengthening the
laws have acted in the belief that car
owners would not cooperate with them.
''There is tax on everything this
year." he said, "a tax on your lamps,
on your spare parts, on your spare tires,
on your horse power, and on your seat
ing capacity.
In some cases the taxes are punitive,
but mostly they have been levied to
raise funds to rebuild the hopelessly
ruined European roads that for
centuries have been the pride Of several
Governments.
"What the automobiles did to de-
ceive the Governments for time was
to claim loudly that automobiles did not
harm the roads-that the wide tires
really benefited them, and that the
narrow tired wagons really did the harm
that each year became more visible.
"Well, when the Gov eminent began
really to look into it they found the
finest boulevards so bad that one 5
teeth would almost be shaken out in
any riding of over twenty miles an hour,
1t is so in the Bots de Boulogne 1t is
so everywhere, and find it on my re-
turn exactly so in our own Central Park
Commissioner Slower, | understand
is now asking for several hundred thou
sand dollars to repair the park roads.
He hasn't learned the whole truth yet
the roads can never be repaired. They
have got to be rebuilt from the bottom
up, and after they are thus built it viii
have to be done all over again in a year
or two.
The automobilist must admit the fact
and work in harmony with it, that
automobiles do ruin roads and that the
cost of keeping them in condition is d
proper charge against the business OF
running cars either for pleasure OF
sport.
Mr.. Thompson made his statements
to the officers of the National Highway
Protective Society for the purpose, he
said, of letting them know the exact
condition abroad and the reasons which
brought these conditions about
Mr.. Thompson said that the Original
draft of the automobile law now ir
force in this State contained many pro.
visions that automobiles succeeded in
eliminating in the mistaken idea that
they were thus helping their cause He
said the provision requiring owners tC
be licensed was one of these.
In Paris, he said, as an illustration of
the strict enforcement of the law, he
recently tried to get through town with
new car just from the factory. II
smoked, and policemen stopped hin