The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-11-25
OWNER MAY HAVE
 SELF TO BLAME
Helps To Perpetuate Bad Service Conditions By
 Patronage

Many owners of automobiles do not fully sense the marvellous betterments which have taken place within the automobile trade in the past year or two. Many owners do not know any thing about them. The reason is plain. They continue to patronize the type of automobile establishment which has no improvements. Owners fuss about repair bills-and continue to patronize the kind Of shops which are incompetent. They fuss at the autom bile mechayic. They say he is not a skilled workman- anG continue to have their automo- piles repaired where this may be true. They turn up their noses at the dirt ans. noise and confusion of the service station--and think there is no other kind in town.
 It is rather odd that tens of thou sands of automobile owners are daily helping to perpetuate the very things about which they most complain.
 
 Take a morning off and look around your town. Visit a dozen automobile establishments Make your own comparisons. You will never say again that all of them are alike. You will never again buy your automobiles and maintenance and supplies merely from price. It will be one of the most profitable morn ings you ever spent-if you intend to keep on owning an automobile.
 Let's presume you have done this, Having put in the morning that way it is now time for lunch, Let's stop in some place an get sone-ham ana eggs. Not much of lunch dish, you say. We'll anyway, tle best kind ol dish to illustrate the point.
 You can get ham and eggs with or without service. There is d place in your town where they cost twenty five or thirty cents. You sit at d cpuu- ter. The sl irt-slceved waiter ye!ls the order at dirty, sWeaty cook, There is the din of rattins dishes. You could Kill a man 'ith the sall cellar. The dishes arc guaranteed not to break even if dropped on concrete. The smell of the place reminds you of an alley in Chinatown, a section of the tenement district and the stock yards when the wind is in the right direction-all rolled into one, But the price is only 25 or 80 cents,
 Or you can drop into cool refined cafe where the surroundings give you an appetite. Where the walters are courteous, the food inviting and the
  tractive. In this air of refinement you find that the ham and eggs cost 75c.
 Isn't it remarkable that anyone in the world pays 75c for ham and eggs when they can get ham and eggs for 25c.
 The Chiffon Automobile Trade List has published statistics on the auto mobile trade compiled as of March l, last. These figures show that there are in the United States:
 Passenger and truck dealers ..39,o3S Service stations end repair
 shops ...............- o9'you Garages .......,:... ..'..> .'t. 4'f-9
 Including charging stations and supply stores there are a total or S5,0S2 automobile establishments in tf United States, according to this list.
 It is impossible to say how many or these are fully onsible-entirely deserving of public patronage ana confidence. Nor can this be ter mineo eX ept by those who patronlIe them. Safe to say many do not de- serve. On the other hand many de' The automobile business has, in each city in the country, some Wonde 1uily fina merchants. This writer holds no brief for any other kind
 You cannot think of anything you do not know about. If you have been buying your automobiles, malnten- ance and supplies from the wrong kind of merchant, you may not know that any other kind exists.
 Times have changed. It is Tar cry back to the days wnen an auto mobile dealer was-well just an automobile ,ealer. So.Ae still are Others are merchants-a skiing liY- ing profit, perhaps, but serving in proportion Thereto.
 Copyright, 1923, by Percy Cham berlain.)
 x or Routgen Rays were discoN-