Free Trader Journal

AUTOLESS SUNDAYS ORDER WILL STRIKE CITY SERIOUS BLOW
UNEXPECTED ORDER FROM FUEL ADMINISTRATION WILL PROVE SERIOUS HANDICAP TO OTTAWA AND SURROUNDING CITIES.
Save 8,000,000 Gallons of Gas.

Washington, Aug. 28—Eight million gallons of gasoline can be saved each Sunday by the enforcement of the fuel administration's request to prevent the use of pleasure cars and taxis on the Sabbath in the territory east of the Mississippi, it was estimated Fuel Administrator Garfield's office this afternoon.

The order issued without warning yesterday that hereafter people residing east of the Mississippi would be forbidden by virtue of a fuel administration "request" the use of their automobiles on Sundays, will strike Ottawa and nearby cities a hard financial blow, coming as it does on the very eve of a great national celebration of Labor Day.

As a result of the ruling hundreds upon hundreds of tourists will be prevented from making trips to Starved Rock and other scenic spots of the Illinois Valley. This means that Ottawa hotel and restaurant men will be shorn of one of their biggest days of the year. It means great financial losses which, since the war, have practically gained their livelihood from tourist trade. It means that the edict will strike Ottawa harder than perhaps any other city in the state.

On the other hand scores of Ottawans who had planned expeditions from here to distant cities will have to give up their plans and remain quietly at home. Many business men look upon the two days afforded by a Monday holiday as an excellent chance to get in their vacations. If they want to vacate now it will be necessary for them to start their trip on Saturday and return Monday which could not be scored as anything but an invasion of the order.

The ruling it was later discovered by Fuel Administration explanations was not made mandatory. It is made more in the form of an appeal to automobilists to induce them to conserve on the supply of gasoline and oils. That the course by a little closer examination means that unless the request is observed it necessarily will follow the order will be made mandatory.

In La Salle County, where more automobiles are owned than in any other subdivision of the state—except Cook—the gasolineless Sunday order will be a severe one on professional men, farmers, mechanics and others who have no other day but the Sabbath to take their families for a pleasure jaunt.

A few exceptions to the request are made by the fuel administration. Machines to which the restrictions do not apply are

Tractors and motor trucks employed in actual transportation or freight.
Vehicles of physicians, used in performance of professional duties.
Ambulances, fire apparatus, police patrol wagons, undertakers' wagons and conveyances used for funerals.
Railway equipment using gasoline.
Repair outfits employed by telephone and public service companies.
Motor vehicles on errands of necessity in rural communities, where transportation by steam or electricity is not available.