If the passenger automobile has not reached the length of its use and consumption, and it unquestionably has not, what shall be said of the freight automobile, the industry in which is yet in embryo? The greatest future field for the automobile is without doubt in this direction, as is evidenced by numberless indications. The increase in motor trucks made in 1916 over 1915 was within less than 8,000 of being double the number of the previous year. The number produced in 1916 was 92,130, against 50,369 in 1915, with an increase in retail value of $40,000,000. A business that nearly doubles in product while showing an increase in total sales of only 33-1/3 per cent, as the automobile truck business does, is seen by analysis to be getting the price of its units down, and that is the surest means in commercial production to insure increased consumption. Perfected devices are operating in the motor truck field as they did in the passenger car field to lower cost, and the lower the cost of motor trucks is gotten down, the more people will buy them. The field of the motor truck’s usefulness is ever widening. The European war has demonstrated many directions in which it can be utilized, while its adaptation to the country is as feasible and economical as its adoption by the city. Its use by national, state and city governmental departments is growing rapidly, and the best evidence exists of its superior economy to the horse for many purposes. And when the high wave of motor truck use rolls in, the electric type will be found riding on its crest. Already there are upwards of 50,000 electric trucks alone in use. The electric passenger car, while far behind the gasoline car in the race of automobiles, is distinctly in the lead of the steam type. Never was the biblical saying, “and the first shall be last,” truer than of the steam automobile. First to arrive at the starting line, it was distanced early in the quarter stretch. The first steam car in the United States was sold in 1889, the first electric in 1892 and the first gasoline in 1898. And though it had a start over the gasoline car of nine years, it was never able seriously to compete with it, and 1905 saw only one large manufacturer left in the steam car industry. At one time, about 1900, it looked as though steam and gasoline cars were running neck and neck in popular favor, and the names of Riker, White, C. E. Whitney and Stanley were as well known almost as those of Ford, Chalmers and a score of gasoline car makers are known today, but the contest was a short one. The gasoline car forged ahead. Its success discouraged the steam car makers, most of whom changed from steam car to gasoline car manufacturing, and the business of steam car making narrowed down to two manufacturers—Stanley and White. Finally, in 1911, White gave up making steam cars and devoted his facilities to gasoline cars only, leaving Stanley to share only with Doble in the steam field.