Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 251, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 October 1915 — Facts About Automobile Industry in United States. [ARTICLE]

Facts About Automobile Industry in United States.

A few years ago there were many stories of the extravagance of the American people, those in moderate means and those well to do, in the matter of automobiles. Farmers were said to be mortgaging their farms to buy automobiles, it was declared. But here are some statistics that have been gathered, showing that the above impressions were wrong. More automobiles were sold last year than ever before. There are now registered in the United States 1,754,570 automobiles. This means that 2 per cent of the people own cars. lowa leads all states in the matter of the use of automobiles per capita, with one person (in every 21, approximately 5 per cent owning cars; California is second, one in every 23, or 4% per cent; and Nebraska is third, one in 25, or four per cent owning cars; Indiana ranks (tenth in this respect, leadig all competitors east of the Mississippi; Illinois ranks thirteenth and New York twenty-sixth. The average price of the cars sold in America is S7OO. (More cars are being sold in the middle west at the present time than in any other part of the United States. In Kansas 100,000 cars were sold in less than six months. Three-fourths of the new cars sold this year have been disposed of in agricultural States. Tens of thousands of miles of good roads have been built that would never have oeen built if it were not for the automobile. Bankers declare that the automobile has added Stimulus to agriculture that has never been known before. They say that it has robbed the farm of its isolation or loneliness. It has not only broaded ideas of mechanics but has awakened enterprise. The drift from the farm to the city has been checked. Who will now say that the farmer is a rube, when, per capita, there are three times as many automobiles in lowa as there are in New York.