MOTOR FOUNDER DIES IN POVERTY

Evening Star, Issue 20149, 13 April 1929, Page 5

MOTOR FOUNDER DIES IN POVERTY

OAVIB BU!GK PASSES [From Ouk Cohrespon'Jjest.] SAN FRANCISCO, March 14. A lamentable blot which can never bo effaced has gone down into American history in the death in distressing circumstances of .David 1). Buick, the lounder of the .Buick Automobile Company, now a unit of the General Motors Corporation, the aged Scotsman passing away in a hospital in Detroit where hundreds of millions of dollars had been marie out of his motor car inventions of years ago. The old Scotsman died of cancer at the age of seventy-four years. Guick, who was known as one of the pioneers of the automobile industry, died in comparative poverty, and lor the last two years had held a minor position of instructor in the .Detroit School of Trades, by which he was able to save himself from starvation in a city rolling in millions of dollars through the upbuilding of the motor car industry. In B)UT Buick was a wealthy man. a. mannlacturer of plumbing fixtures, who had just sold his plant for 100,GUO dollars to indulge in his dream of a “ horseless carriage.” During the next two years ho used his entire fortune in a series of ‘‘horseless carriages,” none of which was a success. He was in debt when ho finally developed a car he was convinced was practicable. By driving it from Detroit to .Flint, a distance of sixty-eight miles, he convinced J,. H. Whiting, president of the Flint Wagon Works, of the motor car’s possibilities, and Whiting became his financial backer and partner. They made twenty-eight cars the first year, but none was extraordinarily successful. After making changes in design they produced a car that would sell, but by that time the Buick Company, the Flint Wagon Works, and several banks were so deeply involved that they asked W. C. Durant, of the Durant-Dort Carriage Company, of Flint, to take over the tottering Buick Company, which he did. fn later years Buick sought a fortune in California, where the oil fever was at its height, but liquidation wiped out the capital he had raised by the hardest of manual labour. Then to Florida, where a land colony which looked promising collapsed with the boom, and he was once more “cleaned out” of money. He then laced the worst kind of hardship, and was on the point of starving, ekeing out an existence bv doing odd jobs in Eastern United‘States. He succeeded in getting a job as an instructor in a trades school in Detroit two years ago, and lived in a shabby flat, but could, not alford the very cheapest kind of a motor car. although he saw thousands

of expensive ears bearing Ins name flit past him as he walked the streets o Detroit. He died in poverty, but still maintained a tight upper Jip, determined not to crave the indulgence ol those who might have befriended him, considering the tremendous profits which had been amassed as a consequence of his pioneering-inventions in America’s greatest industry. The story ot David muck aptly illustrates the obstacles to ho overcome to put anv new idea on the market, and rarely do tlie original promoters or marketers reap the loitun.es afterward wrested irom a. voild-stu-ring invention. As one observer said: “The reward seems to Jail to those who take up the invention later, those able successfully to market the product.” ’ ... Buiek faced the adversity which dogged his steps, but never was .heard to offer a word of complaint, saying he hoped luck would shine down on him in the early future.