MOTOR CLUB STARTED IN NEW WAY

Washington Times
December 30, 1922

Cleveland Organization Will Start With Membership of 2,000.

An entirely new system of automobile club organization has been introduced in Cleveland, Ohio, by Cleveland Motor Club Company which is sponsoring the Cleveland Motor Club, a new A. A. A. organization just formed.  The plan of operation differs from any ever attempted in the Unites States.  The Cleveland Motor Club Company is composed of 100 founders among whom are the wealthiest and most prominent business men of that city.  Each one of these men has pledged himself to bring twenty members into the new organization, giving the club a membership of 2,000 at its inauguration.  Recent repors indicate that about 1,000 of these members have already been obtained.

William J. Raddatz, president of the Stratford Press Company, is president of the new club; Charles E. Cole, of M. A. Hanna & Company, is first vice president; Charles F. Siegrist, vice president of the Fitzgerald Company, is second vice president; Lucius W. Davis, assistant manager of the Standard Sanitary Manufacturing Company, is third vice president; E. T. Shannon, vice president of the Guardian Savings & Trust Company, is Treasurer; and A. H. Fiebach, a leading attorney, is secretary.  The directors of the club are all men of equal prominence.

"So far as I know this is the first time in the history of automobile club organization that a number of wealthy men have gotten together and virtually underwritten the first 2,000 members," said M. O. Eldridge, executive chairman of the American Automobile Association, speaking in regard to this club.  "We are, of course, highly pleased to welcome this new organization into the ranks of the A. A. A. and we are confident that within another year we will have one of the strongest clubs in Ohio at Cleveland.  The organization of the Cleveland Motor Club gives us a fourth club in Ohio, the other three being the Cincinnati Automobile Club, the Youngstown Automobile Club and the Toldeo Automobile Club.

"Our activities at Cleveland have prevented us from organizing a new club in Maryland up to the present time, but we hope to go into the latter State in force immediately after the first of the year."