The Daily Missoulian. [volume] (Missoula, Mont.) 1904-1961, 1918-02-10
g|lEII FACTOR
IS MOTOR CAR
The American Automobile
Has Furnished the Propell-
ing Power for Earl Reach
ing Conflict, Says Writer.
~ ISAAC T. MARcossoN.

~ ISAAC r. MARcossoN.
You men who sell Maxwell and
Chalmers cars, wherever that may be
In this country. do not realize that the
selling talk that you are getting over
every day has behind It the great me-
dunn and the great agency that has
made this war possible. Gentlemen.
history may say that this is a war OF
Contrasts. 1t may be war Of artillery.
1t may be q war Of great many other
things-a war Of advertising. such as
1t IL; but the big, supreme fact about
it-and I speak out OF contact with
every one Of the six great allied armies
OF Europe, from the Caucasus down to
the hail and snow swept Carso Of Italy
the one thing that has made this war
possible il the automobile. And let
me tell YOU that while we have sent
q lot Of junk, a great deal of bad stuff
to Europe, shoes with paper soles.
flimsy shirts and flimsier socks, the
one American article that has been 100
per cent from the first day Of the war
until. the last day that saw it in ac-
ton, has been the American automo-
bile.
I regard 1t as a very great privilege
to be associated with an industry that
has furnished the propelling power.
this great. far flung, closely organized
business Of mechanical transport. But
the average man who has not seen this
war perhaps does not realize that war
today Is the most colossal business In
the world, 1t is the most stupendous
piece OF actual merchandising that any
civilization has ever known. Instead Of
transmitting and changing raw mate
rial into fiished product. Haig and
Petain and Cadorna simply take the
raw unfinished human material, con-
vert them into trained fighting men,
and then they sell the product on the
terrible fields of war. That is what
war is.
The greatest problem that Mr.. Elan
ders today has to meet or confront,
that adds from 40 to so per cent to the
selling cost Of every automobile, is the
thing that we all know in business as
distribution. Well. distribution in bat
tie is nothing more than the deploy-
ment of these millions Of men. Haig
Is the master salesman of the war. Pc
tain Is the master salesman of war.
Hindenburg Is great salesman. Don't
get the idea-and that is one Of the
things that I want to speak to you
about before we go into the subject of
the automobile In war.
In this war have seen 15-inch guns
rumbling down the roads OF France,
hauled by automobile tractors. With
out those. tractors those guns could
never be there, and without those guns
the war would have been reduced to
a very small area, and it would have
been on a par with other wars.
The organization of mechanical
transport today Is without doubt the
finest piece Of business merchandising
Of the war. When this war began
Britain had 60 automobile trucks;
when last left France she had sixty
thousand.
1 went to mechanical transport
depot once in the north of France, and
suddenly looked on the wall, and
felt that l was back in Detroit, because
there on a great sign l read the names
of 32 American trucks and cars. yours
among them, / am very glad to say.
] said How does this happen" and
the British officer in charge said,
well, you see, we have so many Amer
lean cars that we had to set up spe-
Cial depot for them.~ 1t may interest
you men to know that on the first of
September, 1914, after this war had
registered four weeks Of its CHASTITY
horror. there were Is American motor
trucks in France. and today those 1S
trucks are still in commission. I saw
one of them myself. one night, come
down the road in Flanders. with shells
flying through the air. 1t was hub
deep In mud, and know that heard
a British Tommy say. There is some
damned thing the matter with these
matter with them, they always rum"
That car, gentlemen, had been in con-
tinuous action since the first of Sep
TENDER. 1914.
The regular truck equipment OF the
British army on the day the war began
was IS motor trucks in England. She
had to have trucks, she had to buy
them every place. She secured the
world for anything on rubber tires
The net result Is today that Grea,
Britain uses over 167 different kinds
OF cars. One big truck that she uses
has 81 different types. The result o.
all that Is that she has to use, to keel
in stock in one place in England, q.
100000 different spare parts. The trag
edy of the mechanical transport in thu
war has been that they have not {
standardized truck. that there are n,
Interchangeable parts.
Wars may come and go, but Thu
thing you are in. business, goes on for
ever. Peace will some day come, ant
the smoke will clear away from TIL