The Greeneville daily sun. (Greeneville, Tenn.) 1918-1920, 1920-07-07
THE INDISPENSABLE AUTOMOBILE.

Possibly few yet realize the indispensable part auto
motive vehicles have come to play in the economy Of
the country If they were to be suddenly taken out of
Industries could not be maintained merchandising would
collapse agriculture would be in hopeless confusion and
mpotency and the managers of railroads would throw
up their hands in despair Of their ability to handle the
traffic of the country This great change in economic
conditions this practical transformation OF business meth
DDS and equipment has about within the short pc
rod Of two decades Twenty years ago the automobile
but experiment with its possibilities unrealized
and its possession ned to few pioneers speak,
practically all of them seeking their pleasure only The
whole Notion is virtually on automotye wheels 70;
work. for business and for peasure It has become
great necessity Of the everyday life Of the people
without which its social, industrial and commercial life
could not proceed the telephone and the electric light
Indeed from an agricultural point of vew is of far
more Importance than either Of those
The tractor, the truck and the passenger automobile
have been into the machinery Of agricultural
production and life that to take them out would be to
parayze the far mndustry Of the country They have
been the means of maintaining agricultural production
alarming decrease in farm labor If it were not for
automotive machinery and vehicles including the So
called pleasure type farm production in this country
would be restricted far below what it is at present and
the prices the people would have to pay for food would
starvation for those who could not double their
incomes. There has been too much of tendency to
look upon the automobile purely pleasure vehicle
1t is true that use of the machine for pleasure large
one but the same can be said of the indispensable ele
phone There no way to dsassocate the pleasure use
from the business use 1t is impossible to class trucks
and tractors as business vehicles and other automobiles
al pleasure vehicles it would be to class telephones
business or pleasure according 70 whether not they
were in business buildings private residences.
1t is not the fact that the making of automove We
hices gives labor to large number of persons that
makes it so important in the industrial and business
life of the nation but the use of the vehicles for pro-
ducton transportation and business activities. With
out them production transportation and business actvi-
ties Without them production and distribution would
both be paralyzed Whenever invention and science add
something of practically revolutionary nature in the
methods of doing business of general living there can
never be any step backward The steam engine, the
steamboat the railroad the telegraph, artificial gas the
electric light the telephone, the photograph the ee-
vator the multiple printing press and typesettng ma
chine the electric street car, the automotve We
hice and soon prob bly,, the flying machine, each IN
its turn has caused revolution in methods and pro-
luced new conditions which only be changed by
the substitution of something equally and revolu
tonary. There is going backward They become
absolute necessities of our economic system until SUI
oerseded,