American Agriculturist, November 1, 1924 
203 
What YOU Are Thinking About!! 
Our Readers Emphatic About Boy Drivers and Farmer Licenses 
I AM accepting the invitation to express my 
opinion on the subject of “Should Boys 
Drive Cars?” I live in your old stamping- 
ground and you may even remember my 
name, as you have visited at my farm. 
My son will be seventeen years old in a few 
days, is well-grown and strong and just as capable 
of driving a car as he will ever be. If he cannot 
drive a car for another year it is going to be a 
serious matter for us. We would be willing to 
have him take any reasonable test that might be 
applied. _ 
On the other hand, there is a young man in this 
section who is far below normal mentally, who, 
Now this was not so bad, but now I have an 
operator’s license myself, as I learned to drive a 
Ford, but now we have a three speed car and I 
do not seem to be able to manage it and, as I 
before stated, my daughter has driven under any 
and all kinds of circumstances, when roads were 
literally torn to pieces after the recent flood. 
Her father is “Road Superintendent,” and away 
in another part of the town it was necessary for 
her to take a truck to him. I am doubtful if many 
men could have driven where she did, and in all 
her driving, of perhaps twenty or thirty thousand 
miles, she has never had an accident of any kind; 
and besides at the" present time, she could help 
though he went to school for some time, was ' in many ways, such as taking milk to station, etc., 
absolutely unable to learn to read or write. He but dares not on account of the foolish law en- 
owns a car and had no difficulty in 
getting a driver’s license without a 
test. Also the drunks are being 
licensed, just as readily as any one else. 
All they have to do is to say they don’t 
drink, and that lets them out. 
Capable young men are not allowed 
to drive, but idiots and drunks are just 
as good as ever. What will the answer 
be?—G. W. S., New York. 
* * * 
Says It Is a Good Law 
U NDER the new automobile law, 
said to have gone into effect in 
New York State, October 1st, we must 
first remember that an automobile 
is no “play thing,” but a very danger¬ 
ous machine when not handled by a 
competent person, and one capable or 
experienced in the business should at 
all times be compelled to operate or 
run it. 
I for one, think it is an excellent 
law and should be properly enforced, 
and only wish such a law would go 
into effect in every State in the Union, 
as there would be far less deaths and 
serious accidents. Most farmers could 
so arrange as to make their necessary 
trips to the city and also get their 
children to the High School without 
having a boy or girl under eighteen 
years of age to run the car. Boys and 
girls from ten to twelve years of age 
are often seen driving an automobile, 
and nine out of ten would not know 
how to make repairs in case the car 
got out of order. Again, the average 
boy or girl under eighteen years of age 
is too reckless, as just so they are going along is 
about all they are thinking or caring about, 
regardless of the speed or danger they are en¬ 
countering. 
Yes! by all means, let’s have such a law go into 
effect in every State in the Union. It would be 
one of the best automobile laws ever passed for 
the country at large.— Wm. H. H., Virginia. 
* * * 
How About High School Now? 
S EEING in your last issue a request for people 
to write their opinion of the new “motor 
vehicle law, ” I am afraid if I wrote just what I feel 
about this law it would not look good on paper, for 
I consider it an outrage, and I am going to do my 
best to find out who framed such a bill and will 
endeavor to do all in my power to have them 
voted out of office. 
In my especial case I have a daughter, now in 
her seventeenth year, and to-day she could be in 
High School if it were not for the fact that she is 
prohibited from driving. She has driven a car 
since fourteen years of age, always accompanied by 
myself, the owner of same; in fact, she attended 
High School one year a distance of seven miles 
and I always went with her, spending the day in 
t own, so as to comply with the law, which at that 
time would allow her to drive so long as owner of 
car accompanied her. 
acted by some crank or fanatic. I do not believe 
statistics will show that accidents are due to 
young people’s driving, for of the many thousand 
accidents of which I have read and heard, I can 
only recall one of under eighteen years. 
I am and always have been a law-abiding citizen 
and a member of Church since childhood; am also 
a member of W. C- T. U. and I never have felt 
before that the laws of our country were foolish, 
but when I think of all the years I have worked 
on a farm at all kinds of farm labor, having had 
two nervous breakdowns, and now could take a 
little comfort with the car but am deprived of it 
by some who perhaps never did a stroke of 
honest febor in their lives, I feel like rebelling. 
By the time my daughter is eighteen she will have 
to be away from home and cannot drive for us; 
it sure makes one feel sore to think of such fool 
laws.— Mrs. G. E. S. 
* * * 
What the Boys Think 
I READ your article on the new motor vehicle 
law in October 18th issue of your paper. I am 
one of the boys who hauled milk to the factory 
and now cannot on account of the new law. I am 
an expert driver and have driven a car for the 
past seven years. Below are the names of other 
boys in my locality who are not only handicapped 
. in drawing milk for their fathers, but also in 
obtaining an education. They own motor wheels 
and have from four and one-half to eight miles to 
go to school. As they cannot drive the wheels or 
cars, they have to walk this distance, which 
makes them late for school nearly every morning. 
I think this new law is a very inconvenient 
thing in many ways. 
Edwin Rogers, 
Gerald Gregg, 
Gerald Woodruff, 
Ray Heilbert, 
Charles J. Cramer, 
All of Lewis County, N. Y. 
* % * 
Too Many Licenses Now 
I SEE on Page 148 of the September 
6th issue an article about licensing 
farmers. We don’t have enough 
licenses to pay, so we ought to have 
some more! I have paid $37.75 al¬ 
ready for licenses this year and now 
I have got to get another before I can 
operate my car and truck.—E. C. H., 
Chautauqua County, N. Y. 
I AM writing what I think about a 
farmer’s license. We have too 
many licenses now. The hunter’s 
license, the fishing license, the auto¬ 
mobile license, two cents a gallon on 
gasoline, twenty-five cents or more for 
getting your automobile lenses ad¬ 
justed—anything at all, you might say, 
to get money from the public. For 
instance, what would the farmer’s 
license be used for? How many 
salaried jobs would it create? Where 
would it benefit the farmer? The 
newspapers give accounts where the 
money from hunter’s licenses is 
deposited; so much in this bank and so 
much in that bank, and so forth. It 
looks to me like a good thing for the 
banks, as they loan the money to the 
public at a good rate of interest and at 
the same time it is the public’s money. 
And so it is in various ways. This is 
my way of looking at it.—P. E. H., 
Chester County, Pa. 
* * * 
A Farmer’s License 
T HE idea of licensing farmers to 
operate their farms certainly pre¬ 
sents new food for thought. Not so long ago a 
certain man, who provokes much mirth because 
of his super-scientific tendencies, originated the 
opinion that the operator of any kind of machinery 
should be required to obtain a license to do so, 
and one of his hearers said jokingly, “\ r es, and a 
farmer should have a license to farm.” 
('Continued on page 309) 
Kill a Kow 
I will be glad to cooperate, providing 
at least one thousand other dairymen 
will do the same, in selling or killing 
FOR BEEF PURPOSES at least one 
of the poorest producers in my herd 
between now and March 1, 1925. 
Name. 
Address. 
Cut this out, sign it and send it to American 
Agriculturist, 461 Fourth Ave., New York, N. Y. 
