nd dollars which he borrowed from some bankers, he built
up a business that in twenty months sold for six millions. This was the
feat of Walter E. Flanders. I might cite others. The "shoe-strings"
became golden bands that bound men to fortune.

All the while the years were speeding on, but not quite so fast as the
development of the automobile. The production of ten thousand cars in
1903 had leaped to nearly twenty thousand in 1905. The thirty-thousand
mark was passed in 1906. Bankers began to sit up, take notice, and feed
finance to this swelling industry, which had emerged from fadhood into
the definite, serious proportions of a great national business.

The reign of the inventor-producer became menaced, because men of
trained and organized efficiency in other activities joined the ranks
of the motor-makers. With them there came a vivifying and broadening
influence that had much to do with giving assured permanency to the
industry.

But other things had happened which contributed to the stability of the
automobile. One was the fact that automobile-selling, from the start,
had been on a strictly cash basis. Yet how many people save those in
the business, or who have bought cars, know this interesting fact?

No automobile-buyer has credit for a minute, and John D. Rockefeller
and the humblest clerk with savings look alike to the seller. It was
one constructive result of those early haphazard days. Every car that
is shipped has a sight draft attached to the bill of lading, and the
consignee can not get his car until he has paid the draft.

Why was the cash idea inaugurated? Simply because there was so much
risk in a credit transaction. If a man bought a car on thirty days'
time, and had a smash-up the day after he received it, there would be
little equity left behind the debt. The owner might well reason that it
was the car's fault, and refuse to pay. Besides, the early makers
needed money badly. In addition to the cash stipulation, they compelled
all the agents to make a good-sized deposit, and these deposits on
sales gave more than one struggling manufacturer his first working
capital.

Another reason why the business developed so tremendously was that good
machines were produced. They had to be good--first, because of the
intense rivalry, and then because the motor-buyer became the best
informed buyer in the world.

This reveals a striking fact that few people stop to consider. If a man
owns a cash-register or