Evening Star Newspaper, May 20, 1929, Page 10

THE EVENING STAR. WASHINGTON, D. €. MOVDAY. SfAY 25, i0on. The pastime of originating and circulating falsehoods about motor industry mustgo A Plain Statement by Richard H. Scott Automotive Daily News in a story appearing under a Lansing date-line stated that the Reo Motor Car Company would shortly produce a straight-eight auto- mobile; that the car was already in pro- duction in the Reo plant; and that public announcement was expected within a few weeks. €€ IN its issue of Wednesday, May 15, the “The story is utterly false and without foun- dation. “But since no ordinary denial would be able to prevent the widespread repetition of the fab- rication; since the publication of such a story is bound to affect adversely the sale of our six- cylinder automobiles-which we have been build- ing for years and which we have not the slight- est intention of discontinuing; and since it seems to us to be about time that the pastime of orig- inating and circulating falsehoods about re- spected members of the automobile industry should be effectually jolted; it has seemed to us that the only adequate means by which we can protect our rights and the rights of other mem- bers of the industry who are constantly being sniped at by unverified, untrue and destructive rumors is by resort to the courts. “The stockholders of the Reo Motor Car Com- pany have a property worth more than $30,000,- 000 in net assets. The distributors and dealers of the Reo Motor Car Company have at least $30,- 000,000 more invested in the business of mer- chandising Reo Cars and Speed Wagons. We feel that we owe not only to those stockholders but to those distributors and dealers an obligation to protect them to the fullest extent possible against such an inexcusably reckless and unwarranted at- tack upon their property rights. “We are utterly at a loss to understand how or where such a story as the one in question could President Reo Motor Car Company have originated; and still more are we utterly un- able to comprehend how a responsible publica- tion could permit so potentially dangerous a story to find its way into its columns without having made an exhaustive effort to check its accuracy. “And yet, so far was this from the fact that even the Detroit representative of the publication knew nothing whatever of the story in advance of its publication; on the contrary he was unwill- ing to believe that such a story had been printed until he had called the New York office of the paper and assured himself that it had indeed been published. “To be sure, the Reo Motor Car Company-in common, we suppose, with all other automobile manufacturers-is experimenting with eight-cyl- inder motors. We have been for more than ten years. We have been experimenting with V-type eights, with straight-eights-and even with a nine- cylinder motor. “But right now, we don’t know that we shall ever build an eight-cylinder automobile. If we do, it will be only after we are convinced that the most serious of the engineering difficulties that now seem to attend the designing and building of ‘an entirely satisfactory eight-cylinder motor have been surmounted. “If we ever do decide to build an eight-cylin- der automobile, not only is such an automobile not ‘in production’, as stated in the Automotive Daily News, but it has not even been designed! Whether such a car ever will be designed is for the future to determine. Certainly we do not know. Which means that if we were to decide today to build an ‘eight’, it would be a matter of many months—per- haps even years—before the work of designing and experimenting and testing could be com- pleted; the plant could be re-tooled; and produc- tion be gotten under way. “It is obvious, in view of the facts, how ridicu- lously false the story is. And we propose to prove the falsity of the story, once and for all, in the trial of the libel suit. “And finally not only I but our entire engineer- ing staff have yet to see the eight-cylinder motor for which we would trade the six-cylinder motor with which our Master Flying Cloud is powered. That motor is smoother, better balanced, more satisfactory in performance than any of the eight- cylinder motors that have yet come under our ob- servation—either those of competitive cars or those experimental motors that have been de- signed and built in our own engineering depart- ment. We have been experimenting with and testing eight-cylinder cars of various makes—in- cluding at least one that sells for hundreds of dol- lars more than the highest-priced Reo we build; but for my own use I have not seen one of them that I would willingly accept as a substitute for our own six-cylinder motor. “And you may be sure that if and when we do decide to build an eight-cylinder car, it will be when we are convinced that we are thereby go- ing to be able to give the public a better automo- -* bile than we are now building. “In twenty-five years of building automobiles, the Reo Motor Car Company has never permitted itself to be stampeded into yielding its deliberate conviction to considerations of expediency; and it will not do so now. Reo’s reputation is the re- sult of Reo’s conscientious effort always to build good automobiles—always better automobiles; and that aim will continue to actuate the manage- ment of this Company.” R. H. SCOTT, President Reo Motor Car Company Lansing, Michigain