Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1919-03-02

| industry is getting more into the con-
troll of this type of business men and
away from those whose chief interest
in the business is for The purpose uf
exploiting it.
Thanks to that large majority of
dealers and manufacturers who have
given character and prestige to the
business, there is something bigger,
and finer, and more substantial to the
motor car industry than they mere
selling of cars.
The public estimate of motor car
statesmen as hot air, blue sky artists, -
is, happily, fast passing away--if, in
deed, it has not entirely passed away.
In its stead, there has developed an
other estimate which regards the
methods employed in the motor car
business, the class of statesmen at
tached to it. and its general attitude
toward the buyer, as being of a dis
tinctly efficient and creditable char
acter.
And l want to say to you. gentle
men, that the influences that have
brought about these inner changes in
the business have been an expression
of the Ideals that are in the minds Of
the manufacturers and dealers who
have wrought this transformation,
and these ideals are precisely the
forces that will be the determining
factors for the future.
For after ALL futures arc shaped
by men and not by machines, nor by
the market for them. Nothing can be
more certain than that each dealers
business, regardless of his annual
turnover or his physical equipment,
will chiefly reflect his personal atti-
tude toward honest dealing and his
Willingness to cooperate for the i'm
provement of the industry rs n whole.
I want to say most eraphatically
that principleless dealer has no
more right to adopt methods that re-
fleet dtscreditably upon the motor car
business in his community than that
same dealer would have to publicly
and persistently malign the personal
characters of other dealers.
IF the splendid work done during
the past few years in putting the sell
ing methods of the industry upon a
higher plane in the eyes of the public,
is to continue, then it may become
necessary to adopt measures among
representative dealers that will make
1t highly unpleasant for inscriptions
dealers to misrepresent by their cheap
methods, the real character of the
motor car business.
Public confidence is as big and
vital an asset to the industry as a
whole as it is to the individual dealer,
and any dealer who clearly shows that
he has no regard for such confidence
should not be permitted to profit
by it.
There are three things-tIll of
which have to do with common hon
esty-that will largely determine the
future of this business:
First, the manufacture of honest
cars, No manufacturer has a right to
mislead the public or to force the
dealer to compromise himself by rep
resenting a car to be something which
he secretly knows it is not There can
be no such thing as permanent success
for either a car or dealer that is
not based on probable merit.
Second, an honest, helpful, abso-
lutely uniform and businesslike rela-
tionship between the manufactures
and his dealers
Third, open-and-a above board deal
ing with motor car purchasers, with
no fictitious allowances on used cars
to cover up price concessions; no ficti-
tious free" service that is charged
for in advance in the price of the car;
no fictitious claims for merit or per-