Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1915-03-16
Trucks in War Prove
Their Worth to Commerce

neutrality-suspicious. of Battle and of
Business" is the title of a livewire bull
letin now being issued by the Pack
ard Motor Car Company. 1t contains
a thought for American businessmen:
Mars is motorized.
Gasoline is greater than gunpowder.
Twentieth century war demands the
power of high explosives put into har-
ness
Never was an engine of war sub
jected to such tests as the motor truck
in Europe. That the engine in this
case was tellen from the humdrum
commercial field intensifies the tri-
umph. Truly. the great war will go
down as the automobile armageddon.
Trains of motor trucks are the chief
means of transport. They carry food
for the men and food for the cannon.
They carry also the cannon.
BY their faith in the motor truck,
the captains of war have shamed the
lesser faith of many captains of indus
try.
When the Germans poured across
Belgium, one saw storehouse, bake
shop, forge and cobbler shop setting n
pace which would have ditched Sher-
mans Atlantic Mule Express, the old
time record holder as a war special.
Compared to these massive steel car
riers, Hannibal's elephantine trans
ports were puny things They were
good in their day but a bigger day has
dawned
On the present crazy-quilt contour
of cramped old Europe, where to-day's
trench is traded tomorrow, railroads
do not stay put. What you don't tear
up in your retreat, the enemy destroys.
Bridges and tunnels are dynamitea,
embankments effaced, rails warped
and terminals razed
War was the opportunity of Amer
lean motor trucks. How did they re-
spond?
The Department of Commerce shows
that truck shipments have averaged
in value from two and one-half to
three and one-half millions of dollars
per month since last Fall. More
trucks have been shipped in thirty
days than were shipped during the
whole of 1913.
It is a war on wheels Trucks
brought up the Jack Johnsons" that
'golumpused' the forts at Liege, Maui
beuEe and Namur. Galliene motored
10000 men from Paris to MeauX. thir-
ty miles, in six hours when he heard
Won Kluck knocking at the outer
gates of the French capital. Thirty
thousand motor vehicles account for
the amazing mobility of the Kaiser's
forces in the eastern theater of war.
In the rear, in the van, rushing am
munition TO the breech of the cannon,
hurrying the thousands of wounded to
the base hospitals, the truck has
Travelled over good. bad, worse and
even no roads in every plague of
weather.
In the destructive work of wartime,
the motor truck is no longer on trial.
How long will the generals in the con-
structive work of commerce cling TO
their timeworn methods of hauling?
To-day in Europe, the tramp, tramp,
tramp-what there is of it, is lost in
the putt, putt, putt of the 'lorries.
The motor truck has even muffied
the drums of war. Along with the
fife the drum has passed to the mu-
seums. The pulse of the gasoline mo-
tor, is the only soul ignition the fighter
of to-day asks or can hear. The mo-
tor truck carries the superior force to
the point of contact.
What the motor truck has done in .
few months in war, it is certain to DO
more gradually in the more deliberate
contests of business. Never before
was the motor truck so full of inter-
est for men who are on speaking terms
with opportunity.