[12] "Something more than a nation-wide railroad strike would have been required to interfere seriously with the business of the Norton Grinding Company, of Worcester, Mass., of the Halle Brothers Company, of Cleveland, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, and some other far-sighted concerns," says a circular issued by the White Automobile Company at the time of the strike crisis in August, 1916. In meeting the threatened emergency of having all freight shipments blockaded, these companies outlined a new example in industrial preparedness. "The Worcester machinery makers and the great Bell institution increased their fleets of trucks by having the machines delivered overland to avoid all chance of strike congestion, while the Cleveland department store planned its own transportation system between the Atlantic seaboard and the Sixth City. "The situation confronting the Norton company was one which demanded immediate action, and in which normal methods were of no avail. When a general suspension of all the ordinary facilities for moving goods seemed imminent, the Norton company placed its order for three five-ton trucks with the Seymour Automobile Company, The White Company's Worcester dealer, and it was stipulated in the contract that the trucks should be delivered in Worcester within three days, independent of railroad service. "The trucks were shipped by boat from Cleveland to Buffalo, and then driven overland to Worcester. The 500-mile journey was completed in the remarkably short time of forty-eight hours, with a gasoline consumption of better than eleven miles to a gallon. Stops were made only for the purpose of replenishing the gasoline and oil supply, and for meals for the drivers." [13] "The effect of the improvements wrought as the result of the self-propelled vehicle's influence is already strikingly apparent. When Franklin County, New York, voted $500,000 in bonds to improve its system of roads, twenty-five cans of milk, weighing one hundred and twenty pounds each, constituted the average two-horse load. After the money raised by the bond issue had been spent, motor-trucks hauled fifty cans to the load. With the sum of $28,000 the twelve-mile stretch of road leading from Spottsylvania Court House to Fredericksburg was improved. In a single year $14,000 was saved in draying.