AUTOMOBILE RACKS. 





I. — THE AUTOMOBILE. a 



By Henri Fournier. 



Undoubtedly the automobile has conic to stay and to do, as the 

 years go on, more and more of the world's work. 



The fact that 1 went a mile in 51f seconds on the Coney Island 

 boulevard the other day shows the swiftness we have already attained 

 with these machines, and it must be remembered that they are as yet 

 only in their infancy. Six years ago we were making very bad auto- 

 mobiles in France and Germany — almost as bad as those the American 

 makers are now turning out. Now France and Germany make fine 

 autos, and I have come to this country to make tine autos here. 



We French are manufacturing better automobiles than the Ameri- 

 cans because we began first and because our conditions are more 

 favorable for development. .Coney Island boulevard is as good as any 

 road in France, but in France they have thousands of miles like it, 

 while here there are very few. 



Of course, our good roads helped the automobile, as also did our 

 comparatively bad railroads. Here, on the other hand, there are good 

 railroads stretching everywhere through a brand new country, where 

 the wagon ways are still rough. 



The conditions for automobile development are therefore not so 

 favorable here as in France. But they are improving very rapidly. 



Not so with American-made automobiles. I do not see any 

 improvement in them since I was here three years ago. The machine 

 in which I made the mile record of 51| seconds was of French make, 

 as also was that in which Mr. Foxhall Keene did a mile in 54f seconds. 



The makers here started wrong. Instead of taking the best French 

 and German models and trying to improve on them, they set out to 

 produce something original, and thus went over all the ground previ- 

 ously traversed by European manufacturers, and fell into the errors 

 out of which the latter had laboriously struggled. It is a shame, for 

 their trouble and expense were quite unnecessary. They should have 



11 Reprinted, by permission, from The Independent, New York, Vol. LIII, Dec. 

 1L>, 1901. 



sm 1901 38 593 



