Mister Automobile
Coleman Roberts was midwife (o
North Carolina's auto era; lie also
pioneered our advertising program.
By BILL SHARPE
The trouble with most of us is that
wc have wonderful ideas — lots of
them — but lack the ability or energy
to do anything with them. And the
trouble with the rest of us is we have
lots of energy, but arc poor on ideas.
Then there arc the handful who have
the ideas and the know-how. Like
Coleman Roberts, of Charlotte, who
came to North Carolina 40 years ago
from Anniston, Alabama, and has been
having ideas ever since and making
them work. One of them was that
North Carolina could and should bene¬
fit from its natural attractiveness. More
than any other person, living or dead.
Coleman W. Roberts is responsible for
start of the State’s travel industry,
worth over S300, 000,000 annually.
Others helped; they came and went,
waxed and waned, helped little, some
or much. But Coleman Roberts stayed
with the Big Idea and fought for it
tenaciously, unremittingly, even ob¬
noxiously. He still docs.
This substantial contribution was
merely the by-product of another idea.
Organization of one of the South’s first
motor clubs.
And. this idea came about because
of a fishing trip in 1922. At that time.
Mr. Roberts was secretary of the
Greensboro Chamber of Commerce,
and it took his party two days to get
from the Gate City to Murrell’s Inlet,
South Carolina, stopping at Rowland
for the night.
The trip planned for pleasure,
turned into a nightmare of irritating
inconvenience. Roads were bad and
unmarked; maps unavailable, direc¬
tions from natives misleading. The in¬
convenience outraged Roberts concep¬
tion of orderliness and organization,
and when he got back home he man¬
aged to get 35 people to organize the
Carolina Motor Club. They named the
enthusiastic young man as Executive
with a salary, if he could make it, and
went back home feeling sorry for him.
Their sympathy might better have
been deposited elsewhere. Within two
years, their pathetic leader had re¬
signed as Chamber of Commerce secre¬
tary and thrown his lot with the waver¬
ing young organization. In time, it
became one of the strongest in the na¬
tion, covering two states, and a vigor¬
ous advocate of the pioneer motorist.
For. even in 1922, motorists were
in the minority, and regarded with hos¬
tility. Cars were not permitted in city
parks. They had to dump gasoline
before boarding a ferry. Some states
required a registration fee in each
county through which a vehicle passed.
In Missouri, for example, it cost S30.00
to cross the state from cast to west;
S50.00 to cross north-south.
Vindictive or designing people sprin¬
kled glass and tacks on the roads;
some farmers even buried old rakes —
or cross-cut saws — in the highways.
Auto service was poor or non-existent;
roads still were tailored for the horse.
If such conditions seemed problems
to most people, to Mr. Roberts they
offered opportunities. He quickly dem¬
onstrated to motorists that his organi¬
zation was for them; no matter how
unpopular the position, he presented
the case of the auto-owner, confident
it eventually would prevail. It took a
long time, but one after another, his
contentions triumphed.
The Carolina Motor Club grew and
grew. In 1933 it moved its headquar¬
ters to Charlotte, and offices to serve
members were established in 84 towns
and cities.
The list of the Club's programs and
accomplishments is tiresome and al¬
most incredible. But most of the ad¬
vantages drivers of today take for
granted had to be initiated and prose¬
cuted by someone, and in the Caro-
linas it usually was Roberts.
He fought relentlessly against speed
traps, for a certificate of title law,
against a $5.00 city vehicle tax. for
better highway markings, for school
safety patrols (long before cities took
the idea up); driver education in
schools; for a state highway patrol; for
highway beautification; he was an anti¬
litter-bug pioneer; for drivers’ license;
against gasoline tax diversion; for a
motor vehicles office; for a state re¬
sponsibility law; for the point system;
for a travel council.
But they comprise a fraction of his
crusades. He suggested and sponsored
the first tours of North Carolina by
travel writers and counselors, and long
before there was a state advertising
(Continued on pace 23)
THE STATE. December 21. 1963
1 1
