The Coconino sun., 1925-08-21
HOW DO WE DO IT?

/ Two and a half billion dollars according to semi
offlcla estimates, ,Wl be spent this year by motor
campers and automobile tourists Not millions.
but billions. These figures, stupenduous as they
are, do not include the cost of the cars that will
be used. They represent the estimated OUTLAY for
gas, OIL, repairs, requirements, food, hete bills,
souvenirs and other expenses incident to motor
travel According to report submitted to the
gathering OF the international chamber of COM
merce at Brussels, we have seventeen and . half
million cars IN use.
The staggering sums that Americans are SPEND
ing Tor outdoor enjoyment of one sort and another
run well into ten figures. The items which make
up this total seem less like statistics than like the
raylngs OF mad statlstician whose mind has been
unhlnged by too much figuring. Let us nsnect
these professions of numerals to see if some I'M
authorized noughts have not eboWed their wav in
by mistake
In 1924, according to the best estimates. no
fewer than II million persons went in for real
motor camping and slept in their own tents or
ears at night The total for 1925 will be even
greater The campers of last year used camp
equipment which cost them four hundred and
fifty million dollars The old-tmers got out their
1873 gear and replaced lost and outworn articles
at an average cost Of fifty-eight dollars for each
outfit. One-third of the 1924 motor campers were
nrst-tlmers, debutants of the open road Their
camp gear was new and cost one hundred and
llnety-eight dollars for each party No less is be-
ing spent this year.
season are members of sl1oTt-tlip parties. which
go away for few days only and whose travel does
not exceed thousand miles. More than six mil
hon are long-tralers, who will do more than a
thousand miles and will spend an average of not
ess than 33 days under canvas The daily ex
penses Of both classes will run very close to $2O5,
or 9llI FOR the party of average SIZE
These II million wanderers include a surprising
y large proportion of solid and representative citi
iens: Frank +. Brimmer, to whose studies we are
fhn~n e
SO0O letters from motor campers He was inn
pressed by the fact that 70 per cent of them were
typewriter. of the thousands he has talked
With, some 80 per cent We're professional men, exc
cutlves or owners of their own business A LARGE
proportion of them drive ears that cost more than
a thousand dollars
incredible as 1t may seem, if our motorists had
increased their expenditures by less than so per
cent their outlay would have equalled the entire
amount that 1T cost to run the United States gov
eininent ana all It's various activities during the
fiscal year just closed
The slogan of other years, See America First
has lost It's point, for today more of our people
are getting close-ups of large territorial areas
than the boldest prophet would have cared to pre-
dlct few years ago. For the first time in our
annals we are getting together and getting ac-
quainted on an epic scale. These voluntary pleas
ure Wanderngs have attained proportions which
make the great forced migrations of history seem
t11fllng and insignificant. The union is thorough
~ SnuIIled Wnen California eats the fried clans /
of Massachusetts and New Hampshire looks out
ON the Pacific. .
NO comparable outlay for health and recreation
has ever before been made. The fact that six
million OF us can get away from home and work.
under our own power, and spend a month or more
enjoying ourselves in the open, laying up fresh /
reserves OF health and strength against another
winters toll, has more economic significance than I
all the statistics of savings accounts. bank clear
ngs, car loadings and foreign trade put together.
1t is an amazing index Of the wealth, prosperity
and vgor of the nation
The movement is so new that its extent is not I
universally known, and it is so vast that even
when known it is impossible to grasp and visualize
Evening Post