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. ' 12 THR OSHAWA TIMES, Tussdey, Februcry 27, 1962 4 FOR BIRDS ONLY Visitors to GM's South Plant Gon't want to make the same mistake that Maintenance man Joe Bonnanfant made when he picked the wrong drinking fountain. Some of GM's birds stay inside the plant all their lives, building their nests in the rafters and relying on the drinking foun- tains and kindty GM people for their water and food. --GM Photo The year 1907 was a iby in the history of Oshawa. That was the year of the great de- cision by R. S. McLaughlin and his brother George W. Mc- Laughlin, that the future of the McLaughlin industry in Oshawa lay in branching out into the new field of automobile produc- tion. And because of that Osh- awa is today the home of Can- ada's greatest segment of the automotive industry. After the decision was made, a great deal had to be done before the first motor car was produced in Oshawa. The Mc- Laughlins yet had to decide lwhat.type of car they wished to manufacture. To assist in making that decision, it was agreed that R. S. McLaughlin, who was enthusiastic over the possibilities of the new "horse- less carriage", should go to the exploration and discovery. In reminiscing over the past, he has often told the story of that fateful trip. In his address at a dinner held on September 19, 1944, in honor of the 75th anni- versary of the company founded by his father, he gave the facts of it in some detail. No better account can be given of it than by quoting from his words on that occasion. Here is his story, as he gave it then: TRIP TO BUFFALO "In the year 1907, I took a trip over to Buffalo. I had a let- ter of introduction to Mr. Pierce, president of the Pierce- Arrow Motor Car Company. That was a magnificent car and very high-priced. I had a lovely visit with Mr. Pierce. He took me up to the club and gave me a _ of fatherly advice. He said: " Don't attempt to build this Inauguration City Recalled The day on which Oshawa be- came a city, on March 8, 1924, was marked by celebrations ed until midnight. At 12 noon exactly on that @ay, Col. J. F. Grierson, city solicitor, handed a piece of rchment over to Mayor W. J. ick, and Oshawa dropped its swaddling clothes and became @ full-fledged city. The scene was enacted to the accompaniment of the din of factory whistles, the ringing of church bells an¢d the sharp erack of the rifles of a firing squad of the Ontario Regiment. "I would like to mention few of these gentlemen -- Mr. i A. 8. Whiting Mr. 1. N. Gibbs|\"or One which started at noon, and last--Mr. W. H Gibbs, Mr. R. S.) spa Mr, Coeur, ar token 'McLaugh-|Fl¥er. He could not talk to us lin, who are all deceased--gone|4t all because of his arrange- but not forgotten." At this juncture the firing) i i party's gun crashed on the i ee sing the Cleveland bicycle. bee gp Re ngpanacr ong sirens rieked their gieeting of the i "baby", while cheer after cheer|- nary Mae daddy sn arose from those thronging the hall and outside on the street. Mayor Trick arose and said "IT now beg to declare Oshawa J. Cowan, Then the people of the 'Babyja city." City' gave themselves over to a 12-hour celebration which ended with a monster dance in the Armories. With the handing over of the charter, Oshawa became 25th city of Ontario. Newspapers) of that day printed ecstatic "a counts of the celebration. These made it appear that everyone enjoyed the occasion. " with : mem-| ber of the Oshawa Ministerial) Association. Then came ad dresses by Maycr W. J. Trick and some members of the newly-born city council. The lat- ter diplomatically confined their speeches to five minutes each. The actual ceremony ended with another prayer of benediction by Rev. A. M. Irwin, then min- ister of King Street Methodist Church, | Mayor W. J. Trick, in his| @peech, reviewed some of the early history of the city of Osh- awa. He said: "We are gathered together to- Gay to celebrate the erection of| Oshawa into a city. This is a) very important event in the his-| tory of Oshawa, and I wish to| thank the citizens for placing) me in the pusition of Chief Mag- istrate of this town at the pres- ent time. "Benjamin Wilson is supposed | to have been the first settler of the Oshawa district. This was in the year i791 when he settled/ along the lake shore. At that) time there were no means of) transportation exccpt by water.| For this reason, the early sett: lers took up their homes along | the lake. No doubt the early| pioneers of Oshawa put up with) many hardships that we do not) have to contend with at the present time. | "Considerable difficulty was) experienced by thc early sett-/ lers in clearing the land and) making homes so that they) could provide for themselves and their families. | EARLY TRANSPORT | "Shortly after, an Indian trail) was opened between Toronto and Port Hope, now the King- ston road. In August of the year) 1856, the Grant Trunk Railway van its first line through Osh- awa. There was a great cele- bration as far a; Whitby. "In the year 1895, the Oshawa| Railway laid its tracks through) the streets of Oshawa, and) proved of great value in hand-| ling freight for all lines of busi-| ness. "Ever since Oshawa was a) village it has becn noted for its/ manufacturing industries, which) have grown to such large pro-| portions that we are credited | with being the 'Manchester of Canada'. | DEBT TO PIONEERS "We owe a great deal to the early settlers of Oshawa and the men who foliowed. If it had not been for their generosity of heart, and shrewd business abil- ity, we would not today be cele- . brating the birth of the 25th city of the province. _ Mr. |Zhomas Company of Detroit. kind of car. You are used to production; you are used to popular-priced carriages. The future of the motor car business is the popular priced car. If I were you I would make some- thing of that kind.' "He had it sized up correctly. I thanked him very much. He took me through the plant him- 4'self, and showed me what they. "I went over to the E. R. |They were making the Thomas 'ment with the Canada Cycle and |Motor Company, which was |We saw the Reo Company, and }we went to Cleveland Company. Company. We figured out things very closely, but we could not get together. And then I came home. I was bewildered a bit. "Mr. Matthews of Gananoque, LIVELY TRIO Frank Sinatra and Dean Mar-|igan, was making a motor car. tin co-star with Judy Garland on|He had been in the spring and her television special Feb. 25. who was a very great chum of my father, came up and said a friend of his in Jackson, Mich- Hezzlewood and I got on the train and went over to Jackson. We saw Mr. Lewis, the presi- dent of the company. He was a very fine old gentleman. He would do anything in the world for you. He thought that it was quite possible for us to manu- facture engines and most of the parts in Oshawa, and he would help us and give us an engineer and that sort of thing. He made us a -- so m cash -- but I thought as a mat- ter of discretion we ought to try out the product. "So I ordered a chain-driven car and a shaft driven car from him. They shipped them over. Oliver Hezzlewood chain-driven car and I took the shaft-driven one and we gave them a small test. We found out to our regret and disgust that, United States on a journey ofjas an automobile they were a good job of plumbing. CONTACT WITH DURANT "They say there is no senti- ment in business. That is all tommyrot. It is full of it. "When in Jackson having his family. When he saw me he said, 'Sam, what are you doing here?' I told him. He said: " 'My friend, Charlie Lewis is a very dear friend of mine. Get his story and if you are not satisfied, come and see me.' "I thought that was fair enough. When we found we did not wnat to make the other car, I went up to Toronto to the Dominion Automobile and Sup- ply Company and bought a two- cylinder Model F Buick, and paid them $1,650 for it and brought it home. Well, I wasn't home long before I began to take notice, and the result was we decided that this was what we wanted, DEAL COMPLETED "We did not, however, go off the deep end. We were con- vinced that this was a fine, stout car. So I wired my friend Mr. Durant and went over. He was very glad to see me, and we had a nice visit. We had been interested in the carriage busi- ness together. I had known him since 1896. He said: "* 'Well, this is the car; this is the car for you; you should have this car.' "He finally turned me loose with his cost department and factory manager. I spent two days and a half and we went over everything. I thought we had a scheme figured out, but when Mr. Durant and I got to- gether and sharpened our pen- cils, it just would not work. So I said: "' 'Mr. Durant, I guess we will have to separate. I wish we could get together." "He said, 'So do I Sam; this is the car.' TO MAKE OWN CAR axle business and he suggested "I went home and talked it we go and see him. So Oliver; uch) there took the breakfast I saw Mr. Durant and Coming Of Car Industry To Oshawa Town Recalledi# s".55: ordered 100 next morning. come in our figuring. 'That will work.' over with George and the Gov-|long. It was a model agreement ernor (his father, Robert Mc-|for lawyers and it worked. It Laughlin) and we decided wejheld 15 years; it was a 15-year -- make our Bre Hw Among|contract. @ various engineers I saw was A. 0. Smith of Milwaukee. I had/USED BUICK ENGINE a talk with him and hired him. I brought him home and we set|we were going to use the Buick aside the plant on the west side|engine. We had to clear out our of Mary street and made it into a machine' shop with old lathes, planers and shapers and started|here. I have often thought that to make 100 cars. We had men the dozens. We had tojdid not, because the motor busi- go to Cleveland for them. We sets of pistons, crank-shafts and other parts,|you are sunk. You also have to and we got started. Right in the|consider the motor bodies and middle of it all -- and we had a!fenders. The Chevrolet Com- beauty laid out, with a radiator; I spent a lot of time on the radiator -- Arthur Smith took/$8,000,000 or $9,000,000 per year. sick. I wired Mr. Durant and|Now, divide one million cars asked him if he could lend meljinto that, and it is not much an engineer as my man was sick. He wired back, 'Will you be home tomorrow; I am com- ing over.' And he came andicars. brought a man and came in the "We had a fire in the town that day, and he found his way up to the office. He had thought it over, and he had the solution|pany." to the thing we could not over- "Inside of five minutes I said "and he eaid, 'I thought it would.' "So he and I went in to the Governor's office, and George was only a page and a "That meant, of course, that machine shop. We were that near to manufacturing motors it was God's blessing that we ness is a volume business. If you do not have the big volume pany expends for dies for the bodies and fenders, I think, per car, but divide 20,000 cars into that and how much to it? So we started to make Buick "In 1907, we produced in the various models 198 cars. That was some quick, if small, work. In 1913 we allotted eight of our employees stock in the com- That, in R. S. McLaughlin's own words, is the story of how the automobile industry came to Oshawa. of Oshawa, its campaign for strong, government. Improvement League bringing serious times. One of the results of the city's As the influence of the Civic had) group tags on the candidates in waned, so had the influence of the Oshawa Property Owners Association become a powerful force in municipal affairs. It had dominated tie city council of 1935; had changed the whole structure of the city's relief sys- tem which was a highly impor- tant item of city business, since the depression days were still the operations of the city council ofjmuch who were 1935 was that it soured the lead- ing citizens who kad given three years of hard work to putting finances _ straight. Mayor W. E. N. Sinclair, who When Municipal Interest Slumped The year 1936 saw the begin- ning of a great-siump in in- terest in the municipal affairs a slump, indeed, which has lasted until the pres- ent day. The city had worked its way out of the desperate financial situation in which it had found itself three years be- fore. The dread of bankruptcy and default on dcbentures had: disappeared. The need for the Civic Improvement League and' out- standing citizens forming the majority in the city council, had one. And so there came a change in the attitude of the people towards their municipal had given three years of great service and leadership had had enough. At the end of 1935, he announced his retirement. Along with him into retire- ment went four members of the 1935 city council. George W. Mo- Laughlin, A. J. Parkhill, Alex C. Hall and H. P. Schell, all men of great ability. Fourteen candidates entered the field. In addition to the four former aldermen, the nominees were Ed. Cheetham Samuel B. Collis, Finlay M. Dafoe, Clifford Harman, F. O. Kirby, W. J. Lock, the only survivor of the original Civil Improvement League group; A. S. McLeese, M. F. Swartz, Alex S. Ross andi Ben J. Ward. There were no! this election, except that Mr. ies of is rae Q a : 2 Eesha z ip ae} Vl sé abe 2 af ie a STEPHENSON'S GARAGE ...Serving The Motorists Of Oshawa and District For Over 30 Years! -- We Specialize in -- e WHEEL ALIGNMENT We have two alignment machines to give you faster, more efficient service. e WHEEL BALANCING e FRAME STRAIGHTENING e GENERAL REPAIRS We Use The Famous "BEAN" VISUALIZER EQUIPMENT Stephenson's Garage 15 CHURCH STREET PHONES 725-0522 -- 725-0560 Cheetham and Mr. Dafoe were nominees of the CCF party. Interest in the election was far from being as keen as it was in the previous three years. There were 'wo main meetings, but the attendance at thom was so much smaller than usual that Allin F. Aanis, candidate for mayor, said at one of them that it looked as if it did not matter, dates if the attendance indicated the ex- tent of the interest of the citi- zens. The mayoralty contest, how- ever, developed into one of the BOTTLING AND JJ DISTRIBUTING For Over FORTY-THREE Years /} AND NOW... somermnc new FANTA THE SOFT DRINK THAT reshivates! HAMBLY'S BEVERAGES (osuawa) LTD. e GINGER - ALE e LEMON- LIME e GOLDEN ORANGE 385 BLOOR STREET WEST Authorized Bottler of Fanta Under Contract with Coca-Cola Ltd. COKE" S SK | PICKWICK CLEANERS & DYERS WHAT IS DRY CLEANING? Dry cleaning at Pickwick Cleaners means service quality and efficiency. The cleoning process, In order to obtain the fastest and best possible results, has become a smooth working procedure, starting with oll clothes being pre-spotted to remove the stains before cleaning. After weighing ond coreful sorting, the clothes are cleaned, ined and potted on the 'spotting board'; only when the spotter is completely satisfied with the result he will send the clothes to the pressing department for the final processing. 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