an adding-machine, it never occurs to him to
wonder how, or of what, it is made. But let him buy an automobile, and
ten minutes after it is in his possession he wants to know "what is
inside." He is like a boy with his first watch. Hence the
automobile-purchaser knows all about his car, and when he buys a second
one it is impossible to fool him.

Perhaps the first real test of the stability of the automobile business
came with the panic of 1907. It resisted the inroads of depression more
than any other industry. Most of the big factories kept full working
hours, and the only reason why some others stopped was because of their
inability to secure currency for the pay-rolls.

Still another significant thing has happened--more important, perhaps,
than all the rest of the changes that have crowded thick and fast upon
this leaping industry. It began to be plain that certain features must
be present in every first-class car. Hence came the standardization of
the mechanism, which is a big step forward.

What is the result to-day? The automobile has become less of a
designing proposition and more of a manufacturing proposition; less of
an engineering problem and more of a factory problem. The whole, wide
throbbing range of the business is bending to one great end--to meet a
demand which, up to the present time, has exceeded the supply.

You have only to go to Detroit to see this pulsating drama of
production in action. Here beats the heart of the motor world; here a
mighty army is evolving a vast industrial epic.

Its banners are the smoke that trails from a hundred soaring stacks;
its music is the clang of a thousand forges and the rattle of a maze of
machinery.

You feel this quickening life the moment you enter the city, for the
tang of its uplift is in the air. There is an automobile for every
fifty people in Detroit. The children on the streets know the name,
make, and model of nearly all the cars produced. You can stand in front
of the Hotel Pontchartrain, in the public square, and see the whole
automobile world chug by.

Formerly our cities were motor-mad; now, as in the case of Detroit,
they are motor-made. Ten years ago the proudest boast of the Michigan
metropolis was that she produced more pills, paint, stoves, and
freight-cars than any other American city. The volume of the largest of
these industries did not exceed eighteen million dollars a year. To-day
she leads the world in automobile production. Her tw