The Bicycling World, Vol 53, No 18
Articles in this issue
- The Cycle Manufacturers' Association, meeting at Atlantic City, voted a five-point formal definition of a jobber - a merchant who buys bicycles, pays his bills as agreed, issues an annual catalog, keeps regular travellers and sells to dealers - with F. C. Gilbert (Pope), W. F. McGuire (Consolidated) and W. G. Shaack (Emblem) vetting the recognised list. Publicity chairman Harry Walburg reported the joint C. M. A./C. P. & A. A. bureau would start work on 1st September.
- The Hudson Mfg. Co. of Hudson, Mich., has withdrawn its well-known D. & J. crank hanger from sale to other makers and jobbers, reserving it for its own $40 and $50 Hudson bicycles.
- Sears, Roebuck & Co. is reported to have acquired 51 per cent of the stock of the Davis Sewing Machine Co. of Dayton, Ohio, reversing Davis's plan to quit bicycle making; orders have been placed for materials for 20,000 bicycles.
- The Maine Elastic Tire Filling Company of Portland has incorporated with $10,000 capital to manufacture filling for pneumatic tires, with J. J. Borge president and E. G. Hagge secretary.
- Japan will add another five per cent to its bicycle duty in October, bringing it to 40 per cent, against just five per cent five years ago.
- The Cycle Parts and Accessories Association re-elected its entire slate at Atlantic City - William H. Crosby (The Crosby Co., Buffalo) president, Charles A. Persons vice-president, W. J. Surre (Corbin Screw) treasurer and H. S. White (Shelby Steel Tube) secretary.
- An unplanned outgrowth of the Atlantic City convention was the formation on 25th July of a national bicycle jobbers' association, with George W. Nock of Philadelphia president, Charles W. Leng vice-president and F. I. Willis of the H. T. Hearsey Vehicle Co., Indianapolis, secretary-treasurer; dues were set at $5 a year.
- The William Wooster Bicycle Co., run from a cellar at 10 Barclay Street, New York, failed with debts said to exceed $10,000; the Continental Rubber Works is the largest creditor, and the Manhattan Storage Co., Henry Lee Stanley and Simon Goldberg filed the bankruptcy petition.
- A technical article on derangement of the carburetter float - shellacked cork, soldered sheet copper and copper-electroplated cork types - explaining how loss of buoyancy causes flooding and how to drain, solder and re-balance a leaking float.
- The Diamond Rubber Company is building a miniature but fully equipped experimental plant at Akron, Ohio, complete with small mills, rolls and vulcanizers, alongside a substantial one-storey brick addition on a 700x300 foot plot cleared of seven dwellings.
- Philadelphia bought 27 motor bicycles for its police this month, and the Philadelphia Electric Co. has ordered machines from the Reading Standard Cycle Mfg. Co. to mount its inspectors and linemen.
- The Rex Motor Mfg. Co. of Coventry, probably Britain's largest motorcycle maker, has declared an interim dividend of 50 per cent on its common shares after demand more than doubled this season.
- Following the free alcohol measure passed by Congress, Prof. Charles E. Lucke of Columbia University will investigate for the government the possibilities of alcohol as a fuel for small internal combustion engines.
- Trade changes: L. C. Havener of 507 Main Street, Worcester, Mass., sold out to his brother Mahlon C. Havener; new stores for A. Mayerson in Pueblo, Colo., and L. M. Cressman in Williamsport, Pa.; W. J. Devall of Pittsfield, Mass., filed a bankruptcy petition.
- Leader arguing that the Atlantic City cycle trade convention was the first real gathering of the industry, that the papers read there were of trade-wide concern, and that it should become an annual function with dealers included.
- Leader on a Hartford, Conn., newspaper correspondent's attack on the open-muffler nuisance, warning that unless makers, dealers and the F. A. M. suppress the cut-out evil the public mind will be inflamed against motorcycling.
- Leader on how bright nickel plating on spokes, hubs and handle bar carries a machine's look of respectability, and why high-grade makers lavish costly plating where the bargain-counter mount gets a cheap simulation.
- Report of the joint convention of the Cycle Manufacturers' Association, the Cycle Parts and Accessories Association and the new National Bicycle Jobbers' Association at the Hotel Islesworth, Atlantic City, on 26th July - the largest trade gathering in the industry's history, presided over by George N. Pierce with H. S. White as secretary, and attended by Albert L. Pope, C. E. Walker, Harry Walburg and Iver Johnson among others.
- Convention paper by W. H. Crosby, president of the Cycle Parts and Accessories Association, drawing on Russia's ignorance of Japan to argue that personal acquaintance between competitors is the chief fruit of trade organisation, and that such a body eight years earlier might have averted the collapse of the bicycle business.
- Convention paper by Ralph D. Webster of the Eclipse Machine Co. defining a jobber as one with a fixed place of business, adequate stock, a published catalogue and travelling salesmen, and attacking the practice of selling retail dealers at wholesale prices.
- Convention paper by Harry Walburg of the Miami Cycle & Mfg. Co., using bicycle parts as a running metaphor for the ideal dealer - well finished, properly aligned, clean and confident - and rebuking untidy dealers who blame the mail order houses for their trade.
- Convention paper by Frank C. Storck arguing that makers have lost touch with dealers by building only models of their own choosing, and that spending a few hundred dollars on dies and special tools for new features pays both maker and agent.
- Convention paper by R. G. Betts of The Bicycling World contrasting the cycle trade's false modesty with the motorcycle makers' enthusiasm for placards, circulars and press notices, and urging bicycle men to seek free publicity in the same way.
- Convention paper by W. F. Remppis of the Reading Standard Cycle Mfg. Co. on the modest lift motor bicycles give bicycle sales, and on the difficulty of persuading bicycle agents accustomed to credit to buy motor bicycles for cash on delivery.
- National champion Frank L. Kramer marked his home-coming and the re-opening of C. B. Bloemecke's Vailsburg board track at Newark, N. J., on Sunday 22nd by winning the half-mile open before fewer than a thousand spectators; Vanden Dries, Krebs, Ashurst, Rupprecht and Schlee figured in the other events.
- Iver Lawson swept the professional events at the Salt Lake City saucer track on 17th July, taking the one-mile handicap final from McFarland, Samuelson, Pye, Fogler and Bardgett, and answering those who had blamed his recent loss to W. E. Samuelson on a reversal of form.
- At Ogden, Utah, on 22nd July, Floyd McFarland took the three-mile lap professional at the Glenwood Park track and Ernest Pye won the Australian pursuit from Fogler, while Wilcox, Holliday and Diefenbacher figured in the handicaps.
- Two bicycle races were run at the Southern Athletic Association's second annual carnival at the Point Breeze driving park, Philadelphia, on 21st July: Dan Trotter and "Dick" Stroud took the two-mile handicap from scratch in 5:00 3/5, and J. Forber won the mile handicap in 2:24.
- Frank H. Hany of the Park Cycle Club, Brooklyn, won the Century Road Club of America's annual fifty-mile road race on 22nd July over the Merrick road course from Valley Stream to Seaford, L. I., and back, beating a field of fifty starters off a forty-minute allowance.
- At the Detroit Cycle and Motor Scouts' meet on the West End Driving Club track on 22nd July, Walker took the five-mile handicap in 10:27 from Patfield, with McCarthy of Canada - winner of the mile open - third from scratch.
- A. H. Patterson of St. Paul, Minn., won the 65-mile motorcycle road race from Lake City to St. Paul on 22nd July in 2:35 on a Wagner, finishing far ahead of R. A. Woley, George Wagner and Wm. Edwards.
- G. W. Sheff telegraphed the Reading Standard Cycle Mfg. Co. from the Pike's Peak station that he had scaled the mountain on an R-S motor bicycle, reporting only "I'm 'all in'; the machine's all right."
- The Moran-Stinson-Bedell twenty-five-mile motorpaced handicap match at Revere Beach, first set for the 21st, was rained off again and put back to Saturday the 28th, with Moran on the mark and the others two laps.
- Orlay Burton, off a four-minute handicap, won the ten-mile handicap road race from Findlay, Ohio, to Mortimer and back on Thursday 19th July from a field of twelve starters.