Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-02-23
Alice Brady In
"WOman and Wife"
One-ffth of Population
Depends on Motor Industry
BY Walter l.. Flanders of the Chal-
merS Motor Car Co.

merS Motor Car Co.
A battle-girded nation, like a hu-
man body, has heart and a soul.
They live or die together. When one
fails the other, the structure, wheth-
BILE.
Our boys in Lorraine are the soul
of America. We behind the Atlantic
are the heart. Both need nourish-
ment, clothing and encouragement.
These are the ingredients of morale,
and morale is the price of victory.
The American Automobile indus
try, hiring and purchasing from ev-
cry state in the union, makes up five
per cent. of this so-called heart. Any
medical authority will testify that
paralysis to five per cent. of the
human heart would be beyond the
aid of science. Thus wise men eau
tion; let the motor industry go on
paying its annual wages amounting
to $14S,0O0; let these same wages
again subscribe approximately ST.
100000, as they did to the first two
Liberty Bonds; and let the entire
industry, if needs be, buckle up its
belt for longer hours and harder
Work-but in the name of common
sense and five million dependent
mouths, let us avoid paralysis.
Take France and Belgium, suffer-
ing from direct contact with the
warlords scourge. Northern France
is to-day writhinS under the very
heel of the invader and yet recent
statistics show an expansion of trade
and industry in Central and South
ern France that is astounding. DYE
stuits and other manufactured ma
terlals, practically uninterrupted be-
fore the war, have in each succeed
ing year since 1914, grow to figure in
the billions.
To-day in Belgium we find an
army of the highest morale larger
than in peace time, and equipped
with ambulances, big guns and i'm
plements of war, exceeding by fifty
per cent. the equipment on hand
the day that Liege was razed. And
in both countries every item pro-
duced has come from the skill of
the native worker.
1t is clear and obvious that only
the training and organization of in
duStry has made this possible in
stricken France and Belgium; and it
is Just as true that the workshop of
the motor industry has contributed
volumes to the speeding war pro-
gram of America.
A famous writer who has six times
visited the shell-ripped fields of
Europe, has said that of all the
supplies, comm odities and manufac-
tured articles shipped to the Allies.
the automobile is the one and only
American product that has proved
100 per cent. equal to the gruelling
usage of war.
And so 1 say, the man that would
now throw the motor industry over
board, is the same fanatic that
would dump life-preservers into the
sea to tighten the load of a ship in
storm. And there is no difference
between throwing the industry over
board or puncturing it with the knife
of ill-advised legislation.
Such a man if in charge of a big
liner would, perhaps, next order all
food and provisions over the rail-
ing, to further lessen the burden of
the tossing ship.
The great automobile business is
the life-preserver of five million
American stomachs. 1t is the thing
that must keep five million heads
above water while the war-storm
continues in it's fury.
One-fifth of the population of the
United States have their very exist
ence pinned to this vast business of
motor cars. And five million people
IS nearly twice as many as live in
the state of California.