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irr A ' ■? - n'i■ ■ mM w . UNIFDRMLAWS Regulation of Speed Limit Is Especialy Advocated by the Owners of Cars. With the convening of the legislatures in many states this fall, there is wide spread interest among motorists as to what new laws affecting the operation of motor vehicles upon the public highways will be enacted. U is the opinion of motorists, as well <s state and municipal officials, that ev ery effort should be made to secure uni lormity in automobile regulations, espe cially as concerns the speed limit, so that I tourists in passing from one state to an other will not be met by the town fathers on the village streets, holding up with a red flag in order to derive a source of revenue. | As a general rule the rank and file of automobilists, upon entering a small com munity. drive cautiously, respecting the rights of pedestrians and other users of the road, carefully observing th local traffic rules. Touring Club in Van. The Touring Club of America for several i years has advocated uniformity in the ■ regulations governing the O|-ration of I motor vehicles, and the success of its efforts has been reflected in the enact ment of many new state laws and muni- , cipal ordinances which the club has rec- j om mended. Lord Montagu, a British authority on motoring affairs, while a guest of the Touring club officials on his recent visit to the United States, referred o the c haotic conditions under which motoring is carried on in this country, ami. in a review of Ids observations, has the fol lowing to say in a recent issue of The ■ Car: “In the United States there is at least ; one serious inconvenience to motorists which should be removed before long. 1 Every state makes its own laws under which motor cars may run, issues its own orders as to speed limits, and has a * different system of regulations. “It is as if every county in England or • every department in France differed in the regulation and administration of motoring matters. In every state there is a speed limit, sometimes the same and sometimes differing from its neighboring state. Speed Limits Disregarded. ‘ Needless to add. everywhere in Amer- . ica. as elsewhere all over the world, these sueed limits are habitually disregarded be- ■ cause they can not be enforced. Tn New York, for instance, eight miles an hour ; •s the maximum speed limit in the pub lic parks, though motor cars seldom pro ceed at le«s than twelve. Other cities have different limits. "Everywhere one sees accounts of oc <us’onal captures made by the police of curs for exceeding the limit—"speeding." :.s it is called—and the offenders are fined •retty heavily, mure heavily than they would be fined in most European coun tries. “In Washington there are individual and special speed limits of twelve miles an hour in the streets, eight miles an hour at crossings, and four miles an hour at corners. These well-intentioned regu lations are, of course, not obeyed, and can no* be universally enforced, but the pub lic know in a general way they e:.i t and human-like, they are comforted.’’ AUTO BUILDERS TO PROTEST AGAINST LOW TARIFF BILL A group of leading companies in the motor vehicle industry have protested to the finance committee of the United States senate against the reduction of duties on imported automobiles, which the Under wood tariff bill proposes, until after an exhaustive investigation of the labor cost in this country and Europe and other matters bearing directly upon the justice and propriety of tariff protection for a groat American industry which has made astonishing progress in the last few years. In this remonstrance the point is well taken that under the existing tariff the automobile business has been marked by free competition, intense rivalry and rapid improvements in the machines put on the market. It is staled, with entire accu racy, that the manufacture of motor ve hicles has gone ahead faster in the United States than in any other country and it is shown that the wages paid in America are much higher than those which Euro pean workingmen receive in the automo bile works of that continent. A great market has been created for American labor and American machinery which would not have existed, to any such extent, if the motor vehicle industry of the United States had not been afford ed an opportunity to develop under the protection of a fairly high duty on foreign vehicles. No American industry can make a bet ter showing in strong, alert competition, swift progress and marked benefits to wage-earners than the automobile busi ness. it is a remarkable demonstration of the results of unlimited rivalry and American enterprise in a rich field which steadily widens with the wealth and prog ress of the country. DE PALMA WILL RACE AGAIN. HE DECLARES, AS HE QUITS HIS BED Ralph DeFalma, winner of the Vander bilt cup, was dismissed from Trinity hos pital, Milwaukee, last week. The indomi table courage*.of the great driver, his fine physical condition and iron constitution enabled him to escape an almost certain death. On the day his physician pro nounced him out of danger, visitors were admitted to his ward, and in answer to the question. “How do you feel?” he said: “Fine! 1 ought to be out shoveling coal or doing some real work.” Tie Pal in a refuses to tali at length on the cause of the accident near tin* finish of the last lap of the leaflets in the Grand Prix race. lie is inclined to blame Caleb Braggs mechanician for not watching the rear an<| signaling to his mate. DePalma fl ! * played not th* least of unklnfll\ feeling I toward Bragg the winnrt simple blaming the mechanician. who ilifl not observe the t tiles. Im claims “This accident will not keep me out <»i the racing game, De I‘alma said. Nearing End of Their Labors Committee in Charge Work Fast and Hard IN TWO WEEKS ATLANTA'S BIG AUTO SHOW OPENS • i I——/-. 1 —"~~L~ dwTO E@r ■ IwSnHfcA. U Z IMHHnr IK - mjtt | w lIdML L ™ f ' ■ / <» 1 r "7 ’''it? r sl H>w?. - • wlh." wK " VMu rrzr • ' 1 ...... —g - - jmT ’ 1 li. S. Abboil. Aiaiuiger of tin* i-ord Company. I By PERCY H WHiTINV ’ I A HERE'S a lot of work to giving an automobile s'.iow —not as much as to digging a Panama canal, of course, but plenty. | And, knowing this, the Atlanta Au -11 . mobile and Accessory association put : some workers on the show committee. I After going over the whole field for nun who would really accomplish something they hit cn the following: Wjlie West. L. S. Crane. C. L. Elyea, R. X. Reed, R. S. Abbott. John E. Smith, <’. H. Johnson. In selecting these men the associa tion acted on the belief that “if you want anything done give it to a busy man to do.” For the busy men are those who accomplish so much thej' al ways have time to accomplish more. The public will get a pretty good idea of what has been accomplished when thefdoois of 'lie show are thrown open, with appropriate ceremony, on November 16 —thrown open on a mil- i 'ion dollars worth of automobiles, $lO,- , 000 worth of decorations and Illumina- I tion and the greatest automobile shov.i j of Southern history Right now a huge force of plumbers I and laborers is connecting up the Audi- j toriurn with enormous gas mains, to! carry the illuminant that will turn I night into day throughout the week of I the show. Another big force of decora- | tors lias taken hold of the building and I is working in such nooks and corners I as are not used by the poultry show to I got as much out of the way as possible i before the final dash begins. The exhibitors are gathering in their 1913 models. Some of the show cars have already arrived. Others are being turned out of the factories at high pressure. Not a prominent make of car. but will be presented at the At lanta show if it is represented in At lanta. There are exceptions, but they are so few that they are almost negli gible. The Fifth regiment band, greatest of regimental musical organizations in all Dixie, has been secured for the week of the show. And this great feature has been strengthened further by the spe cial engagement of Deo McConville, the eleven-year-old co.net soloist from Bal timore. The excursion rates to Atlanta have been announced. They are good for alt tin- Southeastern territory except Ala bama. They will be placed on sale No vember IS and 19 and must be used be fore noon of November 20. Their limit is November 23. So much for the show. .Much of the credit for the making of all arrangements belongs to Messrs, West, Crane and Abbott, on whom a major portion of the work has fallen. West Knows the South. Wylie West, chairman of the com mittee. lays claim to the title of the best known automobile man in the South and ean prove it. Ho has a hand-shaking acquaintance with ever;. - body eonnei ted, remotely o otherwise, with the automobile business south of th< Ju“t i ii 'eloated Ma on at, Dixon line and located on dry land between till \t anti' and llie Pacific That'S going some, bu; Mr. West las gone some. too. .Mr. West was born In Mobile, was educated the e and then went Into tin | banana business, nm letaE, of course. The Atlanta Georgian Automodili Departmint but as “messenger'' for the banana I trust. One of Mr. West’s jobs in those days I was to grab a carload of bananas, hitch it on a freight train and to sell them by the bunch at every stop. It took fast talking, at which Mr. West is adept, but he managed to beat the game a bit He accomplished this by slipping the engi neer a bunch of bananas at the end of the trip. With this habit established, the "banana messenger" managed rhe train. If, after a short stop, the con ductor should signal "go ahead" before Mr. West had completed his transac tion the engineer would grab out a lit tle hammer, dash down and begin pecking away at a cylinder or a driving 1 rod until the banana man slipped the, signa! that business was over. Then the engine repairing would cease, the train would move on again and all would be well. Fruit and Conversation. Blarney and bananas did it. This same quality of blarney, which is technically known as "a good line of talk,” combined with brains has put Mr. West right at the top in the tire busi ness. He got into this business some six years ago. At first Mr. West t aveled out of Mo bile. So successful was he and so well ( did he know the Southern Held that he was called hj a big tire company to | take over its Southern branch. Tliis hi I did in September of three years ago "I got a lot of cheap credit out of the branch,” s-ays Mr. West. "It came easy, i i There wasn't any competition. We had i I the field all to ourselves. I was willing to mix around and to travel around. j And 1 couldn't help but sell stuff." So great was the success of the Mo bile tire man ttyit he was soon called i IO St. Louis to take charge of the Fire- ' I stone branch in that eit. Here the sue- i <-ess continued, but Mr. West was a Southerner and was not satisfied with ' Missouri. He wanted to go back to the ] South, and he knew the possibilities | there. So he talked "the South” steadily to the Firestone company, and asked them to send him down as man ager of a Southern branch. Enthusiasm Did It. It happened at that time that Presi dent Firestone, of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, couldn't see the South very clearly. He liked the cli mate—but not the business prospects. "Wylie,” he said one day, "do you mean to say that you would leave this big St. Louis branch and open one in the South?” "Sure," said Mr. West. "I can leave on ten minutes notice.” The next day he got orders to go. His enthusiastic belief in the section convinced the Firestone Tire and Rub ber Company. .And they have lived to see the Atlanta branch outstrip that at San Francisco, at St. Louis, at almost every one of the innumerable points where Firestone brandies are located, "I determined the day I had a talk with Mr. Firestone that If lie sent me] back to tlm South I was never going to leave a stom- unturned." -yj s Mr. West, “when it stood in the way of getting recognition for this section. And that's why 1 work so hard with the show." The Atlanta branch was opened on May S, 1911. In thf short time that has elapsed since then it has become one of the few really big tire branches in Dixie. When M ■ West first came to Atlanta theri were three brim lies nere Now there an fifteen dis et factory branches and seven agiqteies. That glvs a bit of tin idea flow the business has grown. Mr. Abbott a Real Veteran. I Another of tin livi wire m' inbei s | of th- snow coimniltee is Robert Sluart . z z \ / MBSMBN '. va , ' 1 / raHm "A I 1 -'-W W 'l* / ■ ■’ V®: Mr - Wylie West. Mfiniigi'f Firestone lire Company, anti show I I committee chairman. Abbott, manager of the local Ford branch. Mr. Abbott lays claim, and with good i reason, to being the oldest automobile I man, in point of service, in the South. : He was born in New Orleans, but came |to Atlanta when he was a small boy and spent most of his early life here. I After finishing school, he went to the I Southwestern Presbyterian college at Clarksville, Tenn., where he studied for the ministry—incidentally working his way through college. Fourteen years ago Mr. Abbott went into the automobile business. He then worked for his father and his uncles in the Abbott Automobile Company, of New Orleans. They handled the old original Locomobile steam cars on a brokerage basis and became the first agents for the Oldsmobile and the first for the Packard in the South. The automobile business was a queer institution in those days. New Orleans owners had the choice of New Orleans quaintly paved roads and Louisiana "buckshot" mud and either alternative was horribly bad. in spite of that the .Abbott company prospered and it still ettims hi New Orleans and does an enormous business. From "Roustabout" to Manager. Something like eight yens ago, Mr. Abbott went ti> Chicago. He deliberate ly picked out tile Ford as the car lie wanted to sell, and took the first Ford job offered him. at a salary of abso lutely nothing. At tiie start he was "roustabout” at the Chicago branch. In six and ■( half ye irs he had risen to the position of assistant manager. On April I. 1911, lie was sent to Atlanta to take i barge of tin local branch of the Fold ‘ ompuny. It is Mr Abbott's claim that l ist year ht“ luaiu ii sold 25 ', pet eent of the cars sold In Georgia ■ mil i ' in ' in of those sold in Florida. | And in tile meantime he has found titnc to take a 10l of interest In the At- lanta Automobile and Accessory asso ciation, and to do a lot of work for the coining show. Another of the extremely active men in the local show committee is L. S. Crane. The Aftermath of a Skill. Mr. Crane Is a man born and edu cated in the North. It took an automo bile accident to send hitn to Dixie. It happened one night that Mr. Crane wa« beating along a bit of sharply crowned road leading into Hartford. It was cold and beginning to grow dark. The car was going 50 or 55 miles an hour when, without warning, it dove head-on into the rear of a stiff hail storm that had been crossing the road for a half hour or so and piling the slippery hail on the road a half-inch deep. The second the car hit the hail, there was a tremendous skid, the machine side-swiped a telegraph pole, jumped a fence, cavorted about a field, and turn ed Over. There were four people in the car when the accident happened. And not a soul was hurt. The car, however, was slightly shaken. This is Mr. Crane's account of it: "I telephoned to Hartford for the Pope-Hartford wrecking crew. And then, while 1 was waiting for them. I had an hour on my hands. I spent this hour looking over my machine, critically, it was the first time I had done It. And I learned more of auto mobiles in that hour of study of that overturned Pope-Hartford titan 1 had ever learned in tpy whole life before. “That hour out on the road, in that I hailstorm, convinced me that there I wasn't in automobile in the world but' Just one. Tlte next morning I went out to the office and asked them if they had any open territory They said they had, in Atlanta So I beat It down hen " Mr. crane comes from a fantilj of means and Influence. HD father was • mmei ted with the old Wagnei Sleep ing Car Company, which was inter ab sorbed by the Pullman. Mr. Crane moved from city to clti with his ta U/r-zSi ——-zzzzz: — L. S. Crtine, F’ope-llardford agent. ther, living in Chicago. Kansas City. St. Louis, and finally New York. After his schooling was ended. lo went into tiie rubber manufacturing business, and for several years worked for the Rubber trust at various plants, i He continued In this business until lie came to Atlanta to take over tiie local Pope-Ha rtf ord agency. Mr. Crane is one of tiie best of auto mobile drivers. To many ids methods seetn unusually foolhardy, but his ex perience makes it possible to take chances that would be fatal with a less expert driver. For instance. Mr. Crane plans to go from Atlanta to Greenville a couple of weeks lienee, take part in tbe hill climb: ami return to Atlanta, all in the same day. In Mr. Crane's earlier days he was a famous swimmer, and in dash races and water polo he was one of tile stars of the New York Athletic club team. He has won a couple of races since he has been in Atlanta, and is probably with out equal in this section fol a dusk race. I (Note. —Ollier n>eml» r of tiie show i committee will be written up from time to time.) REMEDIES FOR MOTOR ILLS Should persistent tire trouble develop j on ~ne wheel, as not infrequently hap i pens, the motorist should first make i search whet het it is merely a coinci j denee, or due to some invariable cause, hi the latter case, th< immediate cause of delay will he either punctures or bursts—heldom both. A rather obscure cause of tire bursts, which It is well to recall in tills connection, is disalign ment of the affected wheel, causing the tire to slip unduly A wheel that is out of truth may also cause undue wear, while a bent rim, by failing to grasp the bead of tiie cover uniformly, may strain the sides of the latter suf ficiently to cause it to blow out repeat edly. If a nut resists all efforts to unscrew it, take an ordinary shingle spanner which fits the nut, heat the spanner slightly in tin- fire or by a blow lamp, and let It rest on the nut for a few minutes. The heat transmitted from the spanner to the nut will expand the latter and It can then be easily un screwed. Do not heat the nut with a blow lamp, as this expands the bolt as well as the nut, whereas it is the nut which needs loosening. The varnish on a new car is apt to become speckled after its first baptism of rain. These spots are not wholly eradlcable, but It is possible to render thern less noticeable by applying a mix ture of raw linseed oil and malt vine gar, supplemented by a considerable amount of that homely but efficacious compound known as "eblow grease." A simple but often forgotten precau tion in the matter of tilling the gaso line tank is to wipe tile mouth of the gasoline ean so as to remove all (lust 'and dirt. Otherwise, in tiie absence of i a strainer the gasoline will carry the accumulated trouble into th. tank and later you will have trouble with clog ged pipes or carbureter Moto' lamps that hav is ( -u exposed to the weather and have gatlxreil a coating of verdigris which resists ordi- I nary attempts to t emove It, may b" t leaned in a simple inannet Take equal portions of good metal polish and wood al< diol, ipplj with a brush and allow «SffS MOTORSDIFFER. Smith Tells Why Specifica tions of Same Figures Are Not Alike. "Specifications are misleading in auto mobile advertising, ' says L. F. Smith, manager of the Oakland Motor Company. “It is just about as fair to compare two cars having the same motor dimensions, i wheel lease and other identical details, as it is to compare two men wearing the same size hats you can not judge their efficiency by similarity of Looks or sire Two motors ean be alike in bore and stroke and still differ materially in the power and efficiency. The question nat- i urally arises, 'What makes the differ- J cnee'." And the answer is 'The method : of manufacturing and the materials used.' ' As an example, the quality of the motor a depends on the way the pistons are ground, the style of bearings used, the type of gears, the carburetion and the method of lubrication. What is true of ' the motor is true of every other com- a ponent part. The Oakland does not rely : on its specifications. “Some motor cars 'eat' up power be- I fore it reaches the place where ft is fi ne ded through rear wheels. Rated horse-i ,| power and actual horsepower or pulling fS I power are two separate things. A motor ,3 might develop and deliver 3 I "3 to the driving wheels because of poor | .-'instruction and plan <.f design employed land the resulting excessive friction. “In Oakland construction we deliver, we | believe, the maximum horsepower to the . rear wheels because w e have eliminated : i rlction and die use of extra universal i joints by the adoption of the unit power s?' j plant. When you transmit power from i I one unit to another you waste a little of ■ ,it through every reduction. In the Oak land, tiie motor, clutch and transmission ! ' shaft hearings are perfectly aligned on ore | shaft and the same principle of coneerva- i , tion of energy is carried out until it I reaches the rear wheels, and. therefore, j the power waste is ven slight, if there z is any at all." STEARNS KNIGHT CAR WINS PRIZE IN HARD ENDURANCECONTEST The Stearns Knight car again came into tiie limelight a short time ago in the endurance contest given by the Pine Tree Motor Contest association, of Portland, i Maine. - This contest, run under the rules and with the sanction of the contest board ; of the American Automobile association, was an especially hard one. as is shown by the fact that during the entire 441 miles of the trip an average of 26.38 miles per hour was obtained. To those experient ed in automobile driving, a grand average of 26 miles per hour for three days consecutive running is something to a be held in great respect, especially- in view J of the fact that this car carried ladies J during the entire trip, and the contest ® was turned into a pleasure trip as much ’ as anything else. in commenting upon the performance | of this car W. E. Hackett, the Stearns ? dealer who drove the car, says: “The face is. we came home with a dean, score, for w hich 1 received the sil ver c«p In division 6-A. Our competi- j tors were cars listed from $3,000 to s 4, | 000 " d to dry. When dry rub with a clean cloth and tiie verdigris will mb off. leaving a clean, smooth surface. The ■, lamp may tliefi be polished in the usual J way. Sometimes alien out on the til-’- 111 ilk I"-, ■m i- deflated, our, imoing tn.' tube no leak v'hatevM| will be perceptible on examination. Hie road is i dusty one, tiie small lea i ' intiy be detected successfully by holding ' portions of the partially-inflated tube J near I lie ground until that portion is S reached which disturbs the dust, due 1 to the escape of air. Another way Ls to hold the tube up to the face, an es cape of air being located by Its gently blowing against the cheek. Sometimes, among other unheard of things, a wire breaks inside of Its Insu lation and gives no exterior sign of the break. This may cause all sorts of | trouble, and very often the biatne is laid at the door of the Ignition department. | Spark plugs are changed and pulled down, so that it is a good thing before taking everything else to pieces to make sure that there are no interior breaks in tiie insulation cable. i Timely Auto Notes \\ hat rust is tu fine tools, mud is to a smooth polish.* The mud itself dues not ■ harm thn car, hut it is the removal of the mud that causes the trouble. Unless mud j is remuvefl immediately the finish will'fl come off with it. f An automobile road from Montreal to fl Vancouver is the project which nas now | been mooted. The idea comes from the ,f West, and has grown out of the project for the building, from Ualgary into the ■ 3 Windermere district, of the most wondet-W ful automobile highway in the world. allotments «f space for the Automo- a idle show which will be held at Mgdison Square Garden and Grand Central PalaceO under the auspice!* of the Au) hoard of trade in the week Ihiiihi ’ 11 have been made. The Tiers "f the kutomobile board of will l»e housed at the ’."arden and rhe a| other inanufa* Hirers will be represented isl at the Palace There will be 87 different fl make* »f pleasure < ars shown. inchaiin« fl 4'> ai Do Garden and 41 at the l'ala<e fl