RoyCroftCampusCorporation

Fra Elbertus Astride a Motorcycle!

From one who personally knew Elbert Hubbard, Felix Shay wrote, "Hubbard dared to make advertising interesting...Whether you bought or not, ultimately, you enjoyed reading his advertisement, and when you enjoy reading advertsiements, ultimately you buy." (from the book Elbert Hubbard of East Aurora, by Felix Shay, a Roycrofter). Given that, would you buy this motorcycle as described by Elbert Hubbard?

"I have been inoculated with the microbe of Locomotorcycleataxia, and the end is not yet - nor soon.     The men Higher Up tell us flying is of all sensations the most thrilling. I do not dispute the statement, never having been higher than the Aerator on the top of the Washington Monument. But it just occurs to me that motorcycling is akin to flying. Besides, it's safer. The Bird-Man never realizes what a hard world this is until he lands on it from a height of, say, nine hundred feet.       The falling doesn't hurt - it is when you light!       Ride a Yale Motorcycle, and the pleasure you'll derive from it is out of all proportion to the cost of the machine. The bloomin' convenience of the thing appeals to me. It waits patiently until you come out. Best of all, it's cheaper than shoe-leather.      I don my toppy lugs, Mi-Lud, vault into the saddle, and like Sheridan, am "more as twenty miles away", while Ali Baba is still firing the Chautauqua Salute.      A brisk jaunt on the YALE Motorcycle gives you that early-morning push  which insures a successful day. If you are a Tired Businessman, strapped to a desk eight hours a day, with practically no chance for healthful, invigorating exercise, put some of your hard-earned into a YALE. Get out every day, and fill your lungs with ozone that is one hundred per cent Simon pure.      It doesn't make much difference where you go, so long as you go. It is better to be on the way than to arrive. At least, Robert Louis, the Well-Beloved, said so. And if you want to get back quick - or quickly as they say it in Boston - the fact that you can is a great satisfaction.      The YALE makes for Health and Happiness; and without Health there is no Happiness. Only healthy people are happy. I am healthy. Also, I am happy. I do not overeat. Neither do I underbreathe. I mix my work and play in right proportions, and flavor all with Gas-O-Lee. There you have the key to the solution.      Also (and this is important!), I ride a YALE.     Get there Eli!"

This, written by Elbert Hubbard, is reprinted from the March 1913 Fra advertisement for The Consolidated Manufacturing Co. of Toledo, State of Ohio. Click on the photo to see an enlargement of the ad.

- Sue

Going to Asheville's Arts & Crafts Conference? Read Hubbards's promo of the Inn from 1913

The Inn Superbus Maximus

Down at Asheville, North Carolina, where Liberty was born, there is being built a hotel. It will be known as the Grove Park Inn, and will open for business July First, Nineteen Hundred Thirteen.  Asheville will double its renown as a resort because of the Inn. This will be the finest resort-hotel in the world - no exceptions. It is minus the bizarre, the tawdry, the flashily foolish. Built on the side of Sunset Mountain, it overlooks a wonderful stretch of valley, with the city in the background. The front lawn is the hundred-acre eighteen-hole golf-links of the Asheville Country Club, and adjoining it is sixty acres of golf ground that is for guests of the Inn. The Inn is being built by hand by Fred L. Seely, Roycrofter-at-Large, with the help of Oscar Mills (another one) and some four hundred helpers. Great big boulders are being brought down from the mountain by auto-trains and slid into place just as they are, in all their rugged beauty, without breaking or facing and with the moss still on them. No wood is being used in the construction - reinforced concrete floors, partitions and pillars, tile roof and everything that goes to make the place fireproof. Much can be said about the many modes of construction that will be of interest to the public. The management has prepared a booklet showing several interesting views, and will be glad to send it on request. This hotel is the manifestation of an idea - a pet one, nursed and loved into being by one man: to build a big home, where every modern convenience is had, but with all the old-fashioned qualities of genuine-ness and no sham. Things made by Nature, assisted by Artists, carry sentiment. The product of the Head, Heart and Hand is a thing to be loved. The Grove Park Inn could never be complete in its fulfillment of purpose without the assistance of The Roycrofters. No one knew this better than Minehost Seely. And so it is that the diningroom will be entirely furnished with Roycroft furniture - plain, simple, straight-line pieces, genuinely handmade and with the quality the first and last endeavor. Too, from The Roycrofters’ Copper Shop will come the lighting fixtures. These are also being made after special designs, with the loving marks of the hammer still on them. Nothing crude or impractical, but along the line of the most modern methods of illuminating, indirect lighting. Not an electric bulb will be seen. Both our furniture and copper shops are putting forth the very best in them to help make this the most artistic and best equipped hostelry in America. It is only better in construction than the Roycroft Inn, simply because it was built last. We score on Shakespeare and Solomon for a similar reason. All this means that what we can do for the Grove Park Inn we can do for any one else- hotel, office or home. We would be glad to send you our furniture-catalog and illustrations of lighting fixtures on receipt of twenty-five cents in stamps. If you are interested in our work, write The Roycrofters East Aurora, New York.

The above promotional article was written by Elbert Hubbard and the picture and article were reprinted from the Fra issue dated March 1913. Everyone attending the A&C Conference at the Grove Park Inn is in for a treat much as they were in 1913 when the Inn opened and they can see the Roycroft Campus Corporation's booth to catch up on what the Roycroft is up to today.

- Sue