Arizona republican., 1921-09-18
By Frederic U Haskin

WASHINGTON, Sept. 16.-To any one who has travelled the trans continental highways from time to time in the past few years, the most astonishing phenomenon of the West is the growing procession of motor cars equipped for long journeys that follows them.
 No one seems to have gathered any figures on the number of persons it take to the Gypsy life every summer, but the number must be enormous and it is certain growing. A few years ago the automobile laden with camp equipment was novelty. Now the coast-to- -coast highways are an almost unbroken string of them. Every little town along these routes has a free camping ground which is nearly always crowded. In the less settled portions of the West every good spring beside the road has be- come caravanserai. There are sec tions where you can see more people living in tents than in houses.
 The growth of this jitney gypsying may be gauged, too. from the devel- opment which equipment for such a life has undergone. You can buy complete living furniture for your car almost as easily as you can buy it
  fort which you can achieve is limited only by your means.
 This return to the camp life has been noted painfully by innkeepers along the road. They have for some time been used to the spectacle of the Middle Western farmer who has scld out and is going farther west in his jitney, looking for a new location. He has always camped beside his jitney, just as his father camped beside a prairie schooner. But of late years even the wealthy have taken to camping. The ingenuity and amount of the equipment which they produce at night is astonishing. Many of them have trailers which are com plete sleeping compartments as com fortable as those in Pullman cars and others have contrivances thnt mysteriously unfurl from the side oi the car, evolving into nice beds with roofs over them. Cooking equipmen, is equally complete. A third type is the car which has house built on the chassis. One man had such a house, which he had built himself that contained two hunks and a table and chair, and was of such light and strong material that flivver hai successfully carried it over the trans continental divide.
 An American Tendency
 It is doubtful if any other country in the world could match this arm, of auto campers. For this countr, was peopled by ,nornads. Scientist, tell us that the nomadic impulse run, in families. It was the nomadic i'm. pulse which carried most Of our an, cestors to this shore, and which sen later generations to the conquest O the West. The same hankering t, wander is in most of us, and in .h. last few years it has found an al turing expression in this cross coun. try wandering. People who neve camped before in their lives ha <, suddenly found that it is possible t, be comfortable in a tent, and hay, felt the ancient charm of a royins life
 The transcontinental roads have |, fact become, for the warm months A least, a sort of complete wanderin, community, with all the classes rep resented. The roads have their idl rich, their middle class, their yeo marry, their vagrants and thci criminals. Here is a high powera, car with trailer containing ever, camp comfort. In it a rich man m, his wife are touring the West, as sisted by a chauffeur and a cook who occupy the front seat. It. I their boast that they have nevc stopped at a hotel. Perhaps the nex car to pass-and it will be but a littl way behiLd-is that of a bushes man and his family. They live i St. Louis, and after many family con ferences have decided to go to Cali fornia in the old family bus or bus Everybody is burned quite red an having a beautiful time. Mother i learning to make bisc its in dutc oven, the children want to keep doin this the rest of their lives, and fathe has already sampled Is different gol courses and 19 local varieties c hooch.
 One jump behind this family part Is a flivver faboring under heav load. It contains a man from Mis- souri who has sold his farm at
 high price and is going West wit his family, where he can buy thre ls times as much land for the sam money In due course he will SC out and move again. His fathe moved from Massachusetts to Nils souri is a wagon. and his grand | father came from Ireland in a sailin