Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 198, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 August 1918 — LESS GASOLINE [ARTICLE]

LESS GASOLINE

Gasolineless Sundays may not fill the hearts of motor car owners with unalloyed joy, but it may do them some good. The fuel administration \has not yet issued an order against the use of pleasure cars on Sunday, but it has made a request, and in these times a request from such authority comes with almost the same force as an order; Owners of motor cars are asked not to use them on Sunday unless engaged in such work as hauling freight, going to fires, answering calls for physicians and the like. This will restrict the use of automobiles to a comparative few. Having a few of the old-fashioned •brand of Sundays is not going to hurt anybody. Men and women who are in the habit of riding many dusty miles every Sunday will find that they have feet and legs and that these useful members are admirably suited for the purpose of locomotion. Taking a walk is not so popular as it used to be, but those who have found and written about the beauties of nature, are not the people who went through life at the rate .of sixty miles an hour, or even thirty-five. Those who found nature to be beau-' tiful and kindly were the people who gazed about them as they walked — walked, and not as they hurried from place to place. . t The old habit of visiting the neighbors may be revived and, happy thought, the old custom of staying at home on Sunday afternopn. Barring the use of the pleasure automobile on Sunday will give the riding public a chance to get its breath and its, bearings. The gasoline is needed ed somewhere else and we ought to be willing to give it up without pretest. And, bear this in mind, there is nothing in the request to prevent the head of the family from putting on his unionails and spending the afternoon on his back, under the ear, learning all about its internal economy and diagnosing its ills. But, to treat the announcement more seriously, many people who own cars have no other time to use them than on Sunday. If Sunday riding is prohibited for them they will ride little. The main thing involved is the saving of gasoline. better -way to have accomplished this would have been an order limiting pleasure cars to a certain number of gallons per week. Under - the fuel administrator’s new request a car owner may use as much fuel as he likes and ride throughout the week, but he must keep his car m the garage when Sunday comes.