Promoting the Road During a War

On the Road to Chicago

Around this time, BPR Director Page was in Denver, Colorado, for several days before heading to Chicago for the AASHO/Highway Industries Association meeting.

Page was in Denver for conferences with BPR’s western district engineers, each of whom oversaw work in several States, and the U.S. Forest Service.  He also met with State road officials to get a sense of road conditions in the west, “in which he was keenly interested,” according to an article in Colorado Highways Bulletin.  He also inspected the new State road from Denver to Littleton built under the Federal-aid highway program.

Like Secretary Houston, Page anticipated increased Federal-aid funding.  He said:

Everywhere in the United States the demand for good roads is crystallizing, people who had not thought of the subject a few years ago, today recognize the economic value of better highways, and it is my belief that this sentiment will soon find its reflection in Congress.

At the present time the Post Office and Post Roads Committee of the Senate has under consideration amendments to the Federal Aid act which will, if passed, add some $500,000,000 to the road fund to be expended over a term of years, which with the state and local funds will aggregate probably $1,000,000,000.

Thus it is proposed to make immediately available the sum of $50,000,000, the sum of $75,000,000 which will become available July 1, 1920, and in the four years following the sums of $100,000,000 annually are to be provided for road work.

These expenditures, the bill provides, will be made under the Federal Aid act provisions with two new amendments.

The first of these would make possible the expenditure of these funds on other than roads designated as rural post routes, thus eliminating the limitation which has worked much hardship on state departments in the past since there are many important highways which do not come within the post route definition.

The second and more important of the two refers to the clause which now provides that the states shall meet each government appropriation on a dollar for dollar basis.  There are seven mountain states which cannot meet the provisions of the new appropriation, since a limited valuation does not give them enough funds.  There are other states not quite so badly situated but still unable to cope with the proposed increase.

Accordingly the senate committee has under consideration a classification of states according to their valuations and mileage, under which it is probable that there will be roughly speaking, four classes as follows:

First, states where the government will spend not more than 80 per cent. to the state’s 20; second, states where the government will spend not more than 70 per cent. to the state’s 30; third, states where the government will spend not more than 60 per cent. to the state’s 40, and fourth, where the government will spend not more than 50 per cent.

With these amendments and with the greatly increased funds, so made available, it is my belief that the government will be in a position to aid the states very materially in one of the most important constructive works now facing Union.

Asked about the “enormous increase in heavy motor truck traffic,” Page said he was “unalterably opposed” to heavy trucks using roads not designed for them:

The solution to this question rests in remedial legislation.  Motor trucks should possibly be limited to about 450 to 500 pounds dead weight to every running inch width of tire, which would provide a reasonable factor of safety on roads with a 6-inch base.  It is unfair, unjust, to expect the taxpayer to pay for roads, then stand by and see them torn to pieces by commercial vehicles operated for the profit of the individual.  Sooner or later this legislation will have to come or we may expect to see road work stopped.  And that, of course, is impossible if the future prosperity of the nation is considered.

He also commented on proposals for a national highway system that would be the central issue of the Chicago joint congress.  He thought the Federal-aid highway program contained ample authority for construction of such a system by agreement between State highway officials and BPR:

The road problem is a state and local one.  We are not building our highways for transcontinental transportation, because the cost of such operations is too great to ever permit them to become competitors to the railroads.

What this country needs is better county highways, better state highways.  Each one reflects material benefit upon its community, and accordingly, upon the nation.  Give us good county and state highways and immediately you have not one but a series of transcontinental highways if you care to designate them as such, since you will have complete communication across the country.  But road building is not carried on for pleasure travel.  We want that of course, but the fundamental economic reason for the road, is its commercial value, which is and will always be local.

While in Denver, Page also addressed the Civic and Commercial Association, where he praised Colorado’s system of roads in contrast with his visit to the State 12 years earlier when roads existed more in name than reality.  [“May Increase Federal Aid Appropriations,” Colorado Highways Bulletin, January 1919, pages 9, 27]

President Wilson’s Annual Message

On December 2, President Wilson appeared before a joint session of Congress to deliver his sixth annual message before leaving for peace talks in Paris.  (Wilson was the first President since John Adams to routinely deliver the annual message as a speech that is today known as the State of the Union Address.)  According to news accounts, he received strong applause from Democratic Members of Congress, and silence from the Republicans who would take control of Congress in 1919.  The Baltimore Sun commented on the Republicans’ response:

Their much-discussed purpose to take him off the high horse which they say he has been riding, and to bring him to his knees, found expression in silence.

They wanted to challenge him, but thought better of it.  “So, the best they could do seemed to be an occasional faint grunt of derision . . . .”

Berg summarized the reaction:

By the time Wilson tried to rally the Congress behind him in his sixth Annual Message on the State of the Union, the lawmakers felt marginalized.  He entered the overflowing chamber on December 2, 1918, to what one onlooker called an “ominous silence.”  Even delivering a patriotic speech did little to thaw his audience.  Starting with an evaluation of the nation’s war effort, Wilson attributed most of its success to “the mettle and quality of the officers and men we sent over and of the sailors who kept the seas, and the spirit of the nation that stood behind them.”  He singled out various bureaus and constituencies that had contributed to the nation’s success – especially America’s women.  He spoke of the specific challenges ahead as the country returned to a peacetime economy.  Still, little received applause, even when his supporters tried to incite an ovation.  [Navy] Secretary Daniels found the Congressional reserve nothing short of “churlish.”  But one diplomat’s wife, who viewed the proceedings through her opera glasses, wrote in her diary that “the President’s complete disregard of the Senate following on top of his very tactless appeal to the country to return a Democratic Congress, has made him about as thoroughly and completely unpopular in his own country as any president has been or could be.”

Speaking of the returning soldiers, President Wilson said that private initiative could not employ all of them.  Those with technical training, others who could return to their peacetime work, and those willing to return to farm work “will find no difficulty, it is safe to say, in finding place and employment”:

But there will be others who will be at a loss where to gain a livelihood unless pains are taken to guide them and put them in the way of work.  There will be a large floating residium of labor which should not be left wholly to shift for itself.  It seems to me important, therefore, that the development of public works of every sort should be promptly resumed in order that opportunities should be created for unskilled labor in particular and that plans should be made for such developments of our unused lands and our natural resources as we have hitherto lacked stimulation to undertake.
In the course of the remarks, President Wilson discussed the future of the railroads after the Federal Government relinquished them to the private sector.  “It was necessary that the administration of the railways should be taken over by the government so long as the war lasted.”  Otherwise, the country would not have been able “to establish and carry through under a single direction the necessary priorities of shipment.”

Now, he called on Congress for their counsel on the subject of what to do about the peacetime railroads:

The one conclusion that I am ready to state with confidence is that it would be a disservice alike to the country and to the owners of the railroads to return to the old conditions unmodified.  Those are conditions of restraint without development.  There is nothing affirmative or helpful about them.  What the country chiefly needs is that all its means of transportation should be developed, its railways, its waterways, its highways, and its countryside roads.  Some new element of policy, therefore, is absolutely necessary – necessary for the service of the public, necessary for the release of credit to those who are administering the railways, necessary for the protection of their security holders.  The old policy may be changed much or little, but surely it cannot wisely be left as it was. I hope that the Congress will have a complete and impartial study of the whole problem instituted at once and prosecuted as rapidly as possible.  I stand ready and anxious to release the roads from the present control and I must do so at a very early date if by waiting until the statutory limit of time is reached I shall be merely prolonging the period of doubt and uncertainty which is hurtful to every interest concerned.

This section drew considerable comment about the future of the railroads.  The New York Times gave the issue front page coverage with an article under the headline “Approve Wilson’s Railroad Ideas” that began:

The President’s statement, in his address to Congress today, that he had no policy with regard to the future disposition of the railroads, and that unless, before the expiration of the statutory period, there was a clear prospect of a legislative solution of the problem he would turn the roads back to their owners, caused some surprise here.

The expectation, as recently as 2 weeks earlier, was that until the peace was signed, the Railroad Administration would retain “the unification of the system with the improvements of the various [rail]roads in so far as funds could be obtained, in order to show to the full the advantages of some form of centralized control.”

The article’s subheads were:

Avowal That He Has No Policy Regarding the Roads Surprises Congressmen

Quick Action Looked For

Advocates of Public Ownership Find Themselves With a Champion.

At the same time, the highway community, about to meet in Chicago, took heart in the reference to public works and to highways and country roads as evidence of the sentiment he had expressed in his letter to Secretary Houston about the need for increased appropriations for road building.  [Berg, pages 518-519; Owens, John W., “President Says It’s His Paramount Duty to Attend Peace Conference; Republicans Hear Him In Silence,” The Baltimore Sun, December 3, 1918, page 1; “Approve Wilson’s Railroad Ideas,” The New York Times, December 3, 1918, page 1]

On December 4, President Wilson set sail on the George Washington, arriving in France on December 13.

A Southern California Perspective

An article in the March issue of Touring Topics reported that California had 2,225 miles of highways that were portions of transcontinental routes, including “the National Old Trails Road, the Midland Trail, the Ocean-to-Ocean Highway, the Borderland Route, the Old Spanish Trail, Lincoln Highway and Pacific Highway.”  Collectively, these routes brought an estimated 10,000 automobiles into southern California in 1917.  The National Old Trails Road brought the most, approximately 4,000 automobiles:

Twelve hundred cars were driven into Southern California over the Midland Trail, 800 arrived over the Lincoln Highway, 1000 over the northern routes, and three thousand reached California over the various southern routes.  [“Total of 4,467 Miles of Paved Road in California,” Touring Topics, March 1918, pages 20, 24]

The club’s signposting crews remained active during 1918.  The October issue reported that the sign posting truck had covered a “record of 6,228 miles of eastern highways since July 1st” before returning to Los Angeles on September 21.  The crew completed location and replacement signs on the Lincoln Highway and the National Old Trails Road, as well as on the Midland Trail, which ended in Los Angeles.

The Lincoln Highway, with its terminus in San Francisco, was “carrying an increasing proportion of transcontinental automobile traffic,” with 75 percent of the traffic on the highway reaching Los Angeles by the Midland Trail.  The National Old Trails Road “has likewise carried an increasing amount of travel in the past six months and with the return of pre-war conditions there is no doubt that the amount of motor travel California-bound over the National Old Trails route will be several-fold larger than it has been in any past year.”

The sign crew followed the Lincoln Highway before turning toward southern California at Trinidad, Colorado.  “The roadway, like all Colorado roads, is very good.”  From Trinidad to La Junta, “the route is being changed to parallel the Santa Fe railroad, and by late Fall this work will be completed and will furnish a first class highway that will be good the year round.”

Between Trinidad and Albuquerque, “the construction crew found fair dirt roads with short stretches rutted from recent rains.”  Of the alternative routes between Albuquerque and Holbrook, the crew placed signs on both.  “The route by way of Gallup is sixty miles shorter than the Springerville alternative, but is not in quite as good condition as the latter roadway”:

Between Holbrook and Flagstaff, Arizona, there is considerable mileage between the first named town and Winslow that is very rough with the exception of the last ten miles into Winslow.  A new alternative road has been built on the northside of the Santa Fe railroad between these points which has just been opened and which will be in very good condition within a few weeks, or as soon as there is rain which will permit the roadbuilders to sand and roll the highway.  The stretch from Winslow to Flagstaff is now rough but is being repaired.

From Flagstaff the car was sent into the Grand Canyon and much rough roadway was encountered near Christmas Flats, due to a recent cloudburst that had washed out the dirt from the road and left the boulders protruding.  The more westerly roadway into Grand Canyon from Williams is in excellent condition.  It has been recently worked and is in better shape than at any time within the past few years.

The road between Flagstaff and Williams “has been recently worked by the State Highway Commission and is a veritable boulevard.”  The new road was “constructed from disintegrated gravel which has been well graded and rolled and which will make this particular piece of highway travelable the year round except during heavy snows.”

The road was in good condition between Williams and Kingman, “except in Nelson Canyon, where it has been badly washed out for a distance of about 10 miles and is in urgent need of improvement”:

From Kingman to Topock the road is good and between Topock and Needles it is very bad in places, due to recent heavy rains.  From Needles to Barstow the highway is good except for a distance of about eighteen miles between Amboy and Ludlow which is badly washed out and very rough.  From Barstow on into Los Angeles the roadway is in excellent shape.  [“Club Posts 6228 Miles of Eastern Highways,” Touring Topics, October 1918, pages 9-11]

In December 1918, with the war at an end, the magazine reported that eastern car owners were “flocking to the Land of Motor Roads and Sunshine by the thousands”:

The reasons for this unprecedented influx of eastern motorists are not difficult to understand.  Surcease from war worry, long postponed vacations, generally prosperous business conditions – all have had their effect in turning the eastern motoring public Californiaward [sic] this winter.  And, the final impulse that was needed in really getting these tourists started on the journey out here, has been the nationwide advertising that has accrued to California through the fame of its motor boulevards and the publicity that has been given to the activities of the Automobile Club of Southern California in signposting the Lincoln Highway and the National Old Trails Road.

Where a few years ago a scant hundred or two automobiles were driven over the National Old Trails highway, now there is literally a procession of cars westward bound.  The numbers of automobiles that have entered California over this transcontinental road in the past six months run into the thousands and each day new arrivals are reporting at the Touring Information Desk at Club Headquarters.

The same was true for the Lincoln Highway but to a lesser degree, despite the signposting.  “Travelers over this route have to contend with more severe winter weather conditions than do those over the southern route and for this reason comparatively few machines will arrive over the Lincoln Highway during the remaining winter months.” 

The article concluded:

And these trips, taken together, will serve to inform the visitor why it is that Southern Californians are so proud of their land and also why the residents of each portion of it are such keen partisans of their particular locality.  There is no sameness to Southern California.  It is varied as the colors of the prism, and the man is indeed hard to please who does not become keenly enthusiastic over some one of its manifold aspects.  [“Eastern Motorist Flocking Into California,” Touring Topics, December 1918, page 12, 14]

A census by the Automobile Club of western cars over the previous 7 years documented the value of the signposting along the National Old Trails Road:

This count shows that in 1912 there were only 113 automobiles driven through Springerville into California over the N.O.T.  In 1913 the number was 194.  During the next year the number of cars increased to 419.  This increase was directly due to the signposting work of the Club and the attendant publicity given to this all-year transcontinental highway to Southern California.  In 1915 the work of locating signposts as far east as Kansas City was completed and that year the number of California-bound cars that passed through Springerville jumped to 1367.

In 1916 the number of machines increased to 1774 and in 1917 cars to the total of 2607 had passed through the Arizona gateway enroute to California.  During the year of 1918 the full fruits of the Club’s signposting work on the N.O.T. and the resulting publicity to this highway is shown in the tremendous use of the highway by eastern motorists.  Up to December 24th of last year 4240 motor parties were checked at Springerville and that number is probably 100 less than the total number of transcontinental west-bound machines, since a number must have passed through at night unnoticed.

The value of this travel “runs into the millions” for southern California “and this is a benefit that has accrued to this territory through the work and efforts of the Club . . . .”  [“Nearly 40 Times Increase in Travel Over National Old Trails Road,” Touring Topics, January 1919, page 15]

A Plea for the Joint Congress

With peace at hand and the stated attitude of President Wilson and other government leaders in support of increased highway construction, highway officials and supporters were looking forward to the Joint Highway Congress in Chicago where the long running battle among advocates of Federal-aid could debate those who favored national roads.

The congress, however, had been delayed so some participants could attend a previously scheduled War Emergency and Reconstruction Congress under the auspices of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on December 2 at the Traymore Hotel in Atlantic City.  Participants included members of AASHO, AAA, the Highway Industries Association, the Highways Transport Committee, Logan Page, and others.  In a speech to the group, S. M. Williams began, “It was extremely unfortunate that it became advisable for a change in the date of the Highway Congress in Chicago and unfortunately I am afraid that some of the highway officials did not realize the importance of the change, but I hope by the end of the meeting here this week they will fully appreciate that it was proper.”

He commented on Secretary Houston’s statement about increased Federal funding for roads.  He called it “the most significant statement ever made in this country regarding highway work in detail.  But he urged his listened to “not be carried away in enthusiasm over this statement from Mr. Houston.”  He recalled the enthusiasm that greeted creation of the United States Highways Council “because we believed it was the solution of our problems” after being assured that those in charge of highway work “need have no fear” that the country’s essential work would be halted.  “The work of the council proved otherwise and we were well satisfied when the time came for their retirement.” 

Secretary Houston had said that the “necessary machinery already exists” in the form of the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916.  He did not believe that highway construction should be under the control of an agency “where they will always be of secondary consideration and where they may again be ignored.”  Instead, delegates should favor “a separate commission whose sole duty shall be the administration of the highway problem of our country and be directly responsible to the President of the United States.”

He urged his listeners to remember that choice when the indications in the Secretary’s statement “fail to become realizations”:

The safest plan is, for those who have the highway interests of this country at heart, to make it their business to see that there will be no doubt in the matter, and make this statement without any intention of reflection upon the words of Secretary Houston.

I would sincerely congratulate him upon his final awakening to the country’s needs in highway development, but I feel I am in position to say to you, without fear of contradiction, that I do not believe the Department of Agriculture believes the country will be satisfied to allow the highways to remain under their present control, nor from public expression in Washington, I do not believe Congress will agree to any considerable increase in our highway program involving a national highway system, or any extension of federal aid to states, so long as the highways are a second or third consideration of any one department of the government.

I thoroughly believe it is our duty to demand and work for a definite and intelligent solution of the entire highway problem regardless of individuals or departments.

We are fortunate to be here and to take part in this great meeting.  Let us send a highway message from here that will meet the approval of the entire country.  [Williams, S. M., “A Plea for the Chicago Road Congress,” The Road-Maker, December 1918, pages 32-33]

The road congress considered numerous general resolutions, but one, introduced by Major Group 10, Industrial Professionals, was specific in recommending “suitable action on the part of the Federal Government to secure the construction and maintenance of a modern system of well built trunk line highways connecting the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and the northern and southern sections of the country as well, utilizing existing highways where available and suitable.”  Further, the resolution recommended “that this action be taken as quickly as possible, so that if there be a surplus of available labor from the demobilization of our troops and war industries’ employees they may be utilized upon this work.”  [“National Road System Recommended,” Engineering News-Record, December 19, 1918, page 1150]

AASHO’s Resolution

The shape of the postwar program was the primary theme when the Chicago meetings of AASHO and the Highway Industries Association began a week later than planned. 

AASHO held its fourth annual meeting in the La Salle Hotel on December 9 and 10.  The executive committee considered two resolutions that embodied the point of the Joint Congress, as described in Good Roads, relating to Federal participation in road work:

Two quite different proposals for such participation were placed before the officials.  The first recommended increased appropriations by Congress and the administration of the work by the Bureau of Public Roads of the Department of Agriculture, under the existing federal aid law.  The other plan called for a system of national roads, built and maintained by the Government through a federal commission of seven members appointed by the President.  It also called for a federal appropriation of $500,000,000.

A long debate on these two measures followed their introduction and after a close vote had been taken, the matter was referred to committee with instructions to bring in a modified measure.

The result was a compromise favoring Federal-aid, with some elements added to satisfy supporters of national roads.  AASHO endorsed Page's legislative proposals, introduced by Senator Claude A. Swanson of Virginia, for consideration during the third and final session of the 65th Congress (December 2, 1918 to March 3, 1919) calling for a revamping of BPR:

BE IT MOVED, by the American Association of State Highway Officials, assembled in convention, at Chicago, on December 10, 1918:

That the so-called Page Bill, introduced by Senator Swanson, amending the present provisions of the Federal Aid Road Act, be indorsed by the Association, and its immediate passage urged without further referendum to the various states.

That the executive committee is requested not to submit any further legislation to the present short session of Congress.

That the executive committee formulate and submit to the various state departments, as soon as may be, a separate bill providing for a federal body or officer with adequate power and funds to administer all federal aid highway laws, which are now, or may hereafter be, in effect.  It is the sense of this meeting that the law should be so drawn as to take the fullest possible advantage of the experience and personnel of the present federal administrative body, the effectiveness of the work of which is hampered by the present limitations on salaries and the present too great centralization of the administrative functions, especially as concerns construction matters.

We favor an adequate federal highway system upon which the federal aid funds may be concentrated.  The federal system should be selected by the various states and connected at the state lines by the federal department in cases where connections are not made by adjoining states.  Nothing in any federal enactment should prevent any state from gaining all the federal aid accruing to it nor deprive any state of the full administrative and legal control of all highways within its borders, and of the location of the improvements on the federal highway system.  [“The Road Meetings in Chicago,” Good Roads, December 21, 1918, pages 243-244]

According to a recollection of these events, written in 1943 by Iowa State Highway Engineer Fred R. White, AASHO "began to waver on the principle of Federal-State cooperation conceived by its founders and written into the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916."  He described what occurred during the 1918 annual meeting in Chicago:

It was inevitable that the battle of Federal-aid versus National Highways would come to a show-down at that convention.  And it did.  On the show-down resolution to endorse the National Highway plan, the convention voted 50-50.  It was a tie.  With the delegation present and voting from every State represented at the convention, we were split exactly even.  By that slender margin and with not a single vote to spare, did this Association cling to its ideal of Federal-State cooperation laid down by its founders.

You will find no account of this incident in the official records of the Association.  With rare judgment and foresight the presiding officer suggested that in a matter of this importance and with the Association so evenly divided, it would be well to expunge the record from the Minutes of the convention.  Both sides readily agreed.  The record was expunged.  [White, Fred R., "Federal-State Road Building Plan vs. Complete National Control," American Highways, January 1943, pages 11-12.]

The Joint Congress Convenes

AASHO joined the Highway Industries Association for joint sessions at the Congress Hotel on December 11 and 12.    

During the first joint session, the first speaker after welcoming speeches was to be BPR Director Logan W. Page on "Highway Control by the Federal Government Under War Conditions."  On December 8, 1918, while at the La Salle Hotel for a meeting of AASHO's executive committee, he became ill during dinner.  Page retired to his room, where he died a few hours later on December 9.

Illinois Governor Frank O. Lowden greeted AASHO and the Highway Industries Association to the Congress Hotel in Chicago.  Engineering News-Record reported that economics and ultimate service were the burden of his address in Illinois, “where a $60,000,000 bond issue has recently been voted”:

“Keep the good-roads idea sold like good salesmen,” was his advice to those who would stop the good-roads propaganda.  That appointing officials must keep out incompetents, that engineers must recognize their heavy responsibility to build the roads as economically as private companies would, that material men must be satisfied with a fair profit (for upon this factor largely depends the beginning of the building in Illinois) – these were sentiments upon which the Governor elaborated.

One of the speakers on the first day was Roy Chapin, whose topic was “The Present and Future of Highway Transport in America.”  He said:

A year ago highways transport had arrived nationally, though few of us knew it.  Today it is known, discussed, praised, criticized, encouraged, and every month sees it grow in volume by leaps and bounds.  The war pointed out that our highways could greatly supplement all other forms of transportation, and who can tell just how much our share in the war was speeded by highway transport, not only here but in France?

Today it is our duty to develop broadly this mighty, new form of transportation, properly coordinate it with others, safely guide it through these early stages of growth and make it responsible for opening up every nook and corner of our land.

There must be regulation of highways transport.  Its full development is dependent, partly, on the elimination of irresponsible operators, the stabilizing of rates, the working out of uniform bills of lading, and methods of insuring loads.  Analysis must be made of the desirability of exclusive franchises to operate over certain highways.  It is the present thought of our committee that such franchises are not conducive to the best interests of the people.  Provided rates for traffic are properly stabilized, competition over the highways would seem far better for the shippers, and only in this way will rates finally come down.

During the post-war period of readjustment, Chapin thought that Washington should have a comprehensive organization to administer Federal road funds, but also for an exhaustive study of the possible growth of highways traffic during the next decade.  The outcome should be recommendations to highway officials on which types of roads should be built to handle evolving traffic patterns.

Editor Mehren of Engineering News-Record delivered a speech on national highway policy that began:

Ten years ago the highways of this country were subjected to a traffic scarcely different from that which they had borne in Revolutionary days.  In fact, the traffic was not much different from that which the Romans had imposed on their roads nineteen centuries ago. Indeed, highway transportation has changed to a greater extent in the past 10 years than it did in all the nineteen hundred years preceding.  The motor vehicle is responsible for this revolution in conveyance, and to it is due the stress to which our roads are subjected.

The new reality was reflected in total annual expenditures for highway work.  BPR indicated that total cash expenditures for roads in 1915 totaled $267 million.  “This already large sum is sure to be rapidly increased because of the attitude on highway improvement in every part of the country.”  The change is reflected in New York State’s $50 million bond issue and comparable issues by Pennsylvania for $50 million and Illinois for $60 million.

To understand the Federal attitude, he cited BPR, “which cannot be charged with anything but the utmost conservatism.”  In the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916, Congress authorized $85 million to be spread over 5 years.  “This law, making a great stride forward in our highway policy and constituting the first step toward a national highway system, is in itself merely the culmination of a movement that has been going on for a quarter of a century” (dating to the Bicycle Craze of the late 19th century).

The question now was whether the next step should be taken.  He recalled Secretary’s Houston’s statement on November 27 that “it would be in the public interest to make available larger appropriations from the Federal treasury, to be used separately or in conjunction with state and local support.”  As Mehren had done at the time, he suggested that the word “separately” could refer to a national system to be built by the Federal Government.  “Note that the Secretary does not commit himself to that system.  He does, however, place it on a par with the Federal-aid plan.”

Based on wartime experience, especially the growth of motor truck traffic, Mehren did not believe that an extension of the Federal-aid plan would suffice.  By his canvass of State highway engineers, he said, “I can assure you the opinion is overwhelming that the Federal-aid system is inadequate to secure the building and proper maintenance of through trunk routes of a single high standard, conformable to the traffic that must be borne.”

He proposed a plan for a 50,000-mile system, consisting of 5 east-west routes and 10 north-south routes.  The system would include 2 percent of all roads, would pass through every State, and could, Mehren estimated, be built for $1.25 billion, or $25,000 per mile.  At $100 million a year, the Federal Government could build the system in about 12 years.  “Surely, this is not a heavy strain upon the resources of a country which has raised over $15,000,000,000 in Liberty Loans in 18 months’ time.”  (More than $17 billion had been raised to support the war effort.)  He also discussed how to administer the plan:

There is but one plan, in my judgment, adequate to the national importance of the highway problem, and that is through a national highway commission.  In the past our Federal road bureau has been buried as a subordinate office in a great Governmental department, whose chief interest lies in another direction.  It would be as logical for me to advocate the abolition of all state highway commissions and the putting of their work under the respective state departments of agriculture, as to advocate the continuance of the Bureau of Public Roads under the Department of Agriculture . . . . 

Some will say that Congress will not appoint a highway commission.  I submit that Congress will be glad to do that which the people of this country really want.

He described the agencies created by Congress during war time, in each case “because the problems had grown to be of such a magnitude that their broad-gaged consideration and administration could no longer be trusted for efficient handling to administration departments”:

I submit that the highway problem has now come into the same class, and that it is of such national importance that broad-gaged consideration can be secured only by putting the problem in the hands of a separate board.

He concluded:

To sum up, then, I come to you with a plea that the United States Government shall take the final step to rounding out the highway system of the country, by superimposing upon our excellent county and state systems a national highway system, to be built, maintained and controlled by the national Government itself.  In its effect upon the farm, in its effect upon the cost of living, in its influence on national morale, no single transportation agency is as important as the highways, and I urge that the Federal Government, as the only agency capable of building and administering an adequate system, embark on this great project.  It will return in increased property values, and in lower transportation costs, all that is invested in it, and it will contribute very materially to the further welding together of all the people of the country.

During the joint session with the Highway Industries Association, AASHO's Federal-aid supporters were far outnumbered by representatives of AAA, the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce (NACC), the trucking industry, and other interests favoring a national highway system constructed by the Federal Government.  The delegates, according to an account in Good Roads magazine, "were overwhelmingly in favor of the more far-reaching plan of federal participation." Engineering News-Record stated that the discussion "waxed strongest on the question of proposed Federal legislation" and noted AASHO's resistance to "any bill which might curtail or restrict the powers of state officials."

Despite AASHO's concerns, the Joint Highway Congress approved a resolution based on Mehren’s proposal that began by quoting President Wilson's recent statements.

WHEREAS, the President of the United States in his recent message to the Congress recognized the value of improved highways in the general transportation system of the nation and definitely recommended and urged their rapid development; and
WHEREAS, this work is necessary to give employment to our returning soldiers and also to furnish worthy projects on which unemployed labor can be engaged during the period of readjustment; and WHEREAS, we recognize the necessity for a well-defined and connected system of improved highways in order to expedite the distribution of large volumes of foodstuffs now wasted on account of the lack of prompt and adequate highway transportation and to better serve the economic and military needs of the nation;
Therefore, Be it resolved:  That a Federal Highways Commission be created to promote and guide this powerful economic development of both highways and highway traffic and establish a national highway system.
Be it further resolved:  That the present appropriations for Federal Aid to the States be continued and increased, and the States urged to undertake extensive highway construction so as to keep pace with the development of this country and its transportation needs and that in carrying out the provisions of the present Federal Aid Act, or any amendment thereto that the State Highway Departments shall co-operate with the Federal Highway Commission.
Be it further resolved:  That all governmental activities with respect to highways be administered by the Federal Highway Commission.

The Resolutions Committee of the Highway Industries Association consisted of many representatives of member groups, including Judge Lowe.

The Highway Industries Association held its annual meeting the day after the Joint Congress.  Engineering News-Record reported that in addition to routine matters, the meeting endorsed the resolution of the Highway Congress in favor of increased Federal-aid funds, a national highway commission, and a national highway system, and authorized the president of the association to appoint a finance committee and a membership and organization committee.”  The association retained S. M. Williams as its president, with Mehren as the third vice-president.

S. M. Williams, in a closing address to the Joint Congress, said:

You have, during the last two days, witnessed a gathering unique in its formation and exception in the history of our country.  For the first time you have witnessed cooperation on the part of the state highway officials as an association with an organization promoting highway development.  For the first time in the history of our country you have witnessed a willingness to drop their own individual projects and to join hands in a united effort for the general cause of highway development.

Every national highway association in the United States was represented in the meeting this week.  Forty-eight such associations are registered.  Again, for the first time you have witnessed a very large representation of chambers of commerce and other civic organizations throughout the United States gathered together in the interest of highway development.  I am sure you will agree that in bringing together the various representatives to which I have referred, the Highway Industries Association has gone a long way toward the active and far-reaching campaign in favor of a radical change in the policy of our country toward highway development and control both national and state.

["The Road Meetings at Chicago," Good Roads, December 21, 1918, pages 243-244; "State Highway Officials and Highway Industries Association to Meet at Chicago, Illinois," Good Roads, December 7, 1918, page 218; Loomis, Fred M., “Wanted:  A Federal Highway Commissioner,” Motor Age, December 19, 1918, pages 22-22; "National Highway System Gets Strong Backing" (page 1108); and from Engineering News-Record, December 19, 1918:  Mehren, E. J., "A Suggested National Highway Policy and Plan," pages 1112-1117; "Representative Highway Congress in Chicago Unit for National System," pages 1145-1146, 1149; “Highway Industries Association Holds Annual Meeting,” page 1146].

Judge Lowe at the Joint Congress

On December 12, Judge Lowe addressed the Joint Congress about the past, the present, and the future:

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention:

We meet under most favorable conditions.  The nightmare of war is over, and the Dove of Peace is hovering over all the land.

Wisely, or otherwise, the Federal Government ignored the economic value of highway construction in its plans for winning the war, but with the coming of peace, all restrictions were removed, and we were urged to go forward with our work.  We are losing millions because of the inability to market the products of the country.  There is high authority for the statement that fifty per cent of our perishable products are wasted through inability to get them to market.  One of the great causes for this condition of affairs has been brought about because official Washington has had both eyes and ears closed to it’s [sic] importance, and all our energies have been buried in one of the branches of our government, from which I have always believed it must be rescued, if our country is to retain its place among the civilized nations.  Indicating that this is in no sense a late or a capricious conclusion, you will pardon me if I quote from a letter written to the Kansas City Star in August, 1911.  I was then making an automobile tour across the country, studying the road situation, and wrote a letter from Decatur, Illinois, in part as follows:  “The Department of Roads under the direction of Logan Waller Page, has done much valuable work, but there should be a Department of Highways, just as there is a Department of Agriculture, of the Interior, etc.”

We have all looked toward this Department to lead the way, but the work is so vast, and the duties of the Department so comprehensive, it is evident that if we are to have a vast system of National Highways, we should have a commission, divorced from all other departments, whose supreme business it will be to have charge of the construction and maintenance of such system.

Those only who have been engaged in this work the longest can realize the slow, but at the same time the vast, progress we have made.

Congress has found no difficulty in appropriating billions of dollars to the railroads.  A like appropriation will build, if the average cost be ten thousand dollars per mile, one hundred thousand miles of National Highways.  Moreover, the billion dollars appropriated to the railroads, however necessary it may have been, did not add one dollar to the National wealth, while every dollar invested in roads increases the wealth of the Nation.  Or if the system, as outlined by my good friend, Charles Henry Davis, President of the National Highways Association, of one hundred and fifty thousand miles, as mapped and contended for by him and others, shall be adopted, then at an average cost of twenty thousand dollars per mile, three billion dollars will be required; and this, if strung out for twenty years, would require an appropriation of one hundred and fifty million dollars per annum.

Any way you may think of it, we shall never accomplish the great work that we should, until we have a large, instead of a small, system of National Highways, built and maintained out of the National revenues; supplemented by systems of State roads, built and maintained by the State Governments, and supplemented again by systems of county and township roads.  These systems to be under the supervision and control of these different departments; but if, in addition, a more inefficient idea shall prevail, and the General Government shall furnish a part of the cost of a State system as well, leaving the balance of such cost to be raised by the States, then by all means, if the money is to be mixed, the construction and supervision of such State roads ought also to be mixed.  This, in my judgment, is unwise, and will lead to conflicts and delays among the various Departments; as it has already.  Nothing is quite so helpful in material affairs as fixed responsibility.  Of course, there are patriots anxious for “Federal Aid,” provided Uncle Sam will let them have full supervision in spending it, and this fits the “pork barrel  politician,” who wants it applied where it will do the most good – to him.

I desire to congratulate you most heartily upon the organization of the Highway Industries Association, under the direction of my good friend, Mr. S. M. Williams; I have known him long and well.  This is no afterthought or scheme of his, to make himself a place in this great work.  I will state, that as far back as 1914, he and I had repeated conversations on this subject.  The thought was then incubating in his mind as to the value of such an organization.  He has thrown his whole heart into this great work, and you will pardon me for saying, that it is high time the various industries, who shall reap great profits from this enterprise, were taking a more pronounced and effectual stand on this question.  Let me emphasize the fact that the farmers and the people of the small towns have gone far ahead of you in this work.

Illustrating again, by mentioning the National Old Trails Road Association, let me say that at the time of its organization in 1912, not one mile of it was in good, usable condition.  We organized the people all along this line, never received one dollar from any manufacturing or material industry, but derived all of our support from the people along it’s [sic] line, and we have built and rebuilt the road, or have it’s [sic] building fully financed, from Washington and Baltimore, to the Mississippi river.  And within the next sixty days we shall have it completely financed from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains.  If we could do that, under most adverse circumstances, what may we not expect when two such great organizations as those assembled here to-day, shall put their shoulders to the wheel and concentrate their mighty energies to this great purpose?

I congratulate you further, that so many of the National Associations have united behind your Association for a National plan, each forgetting for the moment our individual projects, because we now realize, as perhaps never before, that the success of a National plan will necessarily include, sooner or later, any road to which our hearts are devoted, provided it has merit; if it has not, it ought not be included.  If this war has taught us anything, it is the value of co-operation.

In conclusion, I congratulate you above all things that this cruel and unnatural war is over; and that the American Army, under the gallant John J. Pershing, so gloriously turned the tide of battle at Chateau Thierry, and won a victory to rank in history far above Waterloo or Gettysburg.  Discredit our country all you can – call it but “two per cent. of achievement,” if you will, and it still remains the greatest in the annals of war.

The three most marvelous months in the history of the human race were from July 15 to October 15, 1918.  Of the earlier date, even the stout-hearted British warrior, General [Douglas] Haig, cried out, “Our backs are to the wall,” and shells were falling daily in Paris.  More than a million inhabitants had fled from Paris; men sat down and looked at each other in sullen gloom and despair.  Teutonic dreams of World Empire were well nigh realized.  Thus it was in July; but in October came the American Army, and three million of the picked veterans of Germany were in full retreat, and suing for Peace.

I congratulate you further that the American President has today arrived in Paris, and will take his place as the presiding genius over the greatest convention that has ever assembled in the history of all the ages – a convention, assembled, in part, for the purpose of translating into practical reality, the inspired vision of Tennyson, when he exclaimed:

For I dipped into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw a vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;
Till the war drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furled
In the parliament of man, the federation of the world.

We are living in a brand new world – the most gloriously inspiring epoch of all time.  Let’s stop talking of military roads, built by military despots, for military conquests.  Any road good enough for Peace is good enough for War.  No road is good enough for either War or Peace which does not meet the demands of modern traffic.

Judge Lowe concluded with familiar language from earlier correspondence:

Let’s stop pessimistic lamentation.  Pessimism never won a fight on any of life’s battlefields.  It never gave birth to a great purpose, nor added anything to the general good.  It never offered cool water to parched lips, nor planted hope in the heart of the dying.  It never cuts the brambles and thorns, nor smooths the rough places in life’s pathway.  It has neither inventive genius nor imagination.  It never inspired a line worth remembering, nor added anything of value to the world’s literature.  If this had been the only principle to escape from Pandora’s box – if optimism, hope, imagination had not opposed it from the beginning, the world would have indeed, and in fact, been nothing but a mad-house.  All the joys of life, all the hopes of the future, would have been destroyed.  Man, now, “but little lower than the angels,” would then have been but little higher than the brute.  Let him go “with his head in the clouds,” if you will; it is infinitely better than burrowing in the earth.  I would, had I the power, drive it out of all hearts and back to it’s [sic] Native Hell, it’s [sic] congenial habitat.  Keep your eyes toward the sunrise, and your “wagon hitched to a star” is the only safe and sane rule of life.

Victor Hugo’s hero of the French Revolution, in his dungeon cell, the night before his execution, exclaimed:  “My motto is:  Always Forward!  If God had wished man to go backward, he would have put an eye in the back of his head.  Let us always look toward the sunrise, development, birth.”  It is the sunrise of Hope which has no night, and will lead us on to Victory, Prosperity and Happiness.  [“Our Motto is:  Always Forward,” Better Roads and Streets, January 1919, pages 7, 33-34.  The poetic excerpt is from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Locksley Hall, written in 1835 and included in Poems, a collection published in 1842.  As noted earlier, the Victor Hugo quote is from his final novel, Ninety-Three, published in 1874.]

In several editions of The Great Historic Highway, Judge Lowe’s reprint of the speech is slightly different and includes a lengthy history of the Cumberland Road and creation of the National Old Trails Road Association.  In his published version, the speech ended:

We cannot dwell further upon the historic features surrounding it but hasten to a conclusion by saying that today it is completely hard surfaced from the Atlantic Seaboard to the Mississippi at St. Louis.  It has now been taken over practically throughout its entire length across this state as the first interstate highway to be built under the late Act of the Missouri legislature.  This insures its completion in the near future to Kansas City. Very much of the road between Kansas City and Los Angeles has already been built, and is in good travelable condition.

It is hoped that the road West of the Mississippi will be 24 feet wide, and this road from Kansas City west will be uniformly 24 feet wide.  It is already practically all graded and bridged.  It is the only road you can take at the Mississippi River and reach the Atlantic Seaboard over a hard surfaced road.  It is the only National road ever established in the history of this country, and will be the first to be completed.  [“The Amended Federal Aid Act,” 1924, pages 160-167]

This version did not include the “My motto” conclusion.

Chapin Resigns

While the Joint Congress was underway, Roy Chapin announced that he was resigning as chairman of the Highways Transport Committee and would return to his duties as president of the Hudson Motor Company.  His biographer, J. C. Long, explained Chapin’s attitude after Germany surrendered:

Germany gave in on November 11, 1918, and the car manufacturers immediately began to plan for reconversion to peace time; but Roy’s work in Washington was not yet completed.  He wrote to [his wife] Inez on November 19:

“Am working hard now on the bill for Congress and expect to put in most of my time on this from now on.  If we can get it through this winter and I think we can – it will more than repay all the hard work we have put in and will start the country off on a sane, logical policy for highways and highways transport.

“After that is accomplished my work is done and I hope we can go somewhere this spring with our kiddies and get into balmy weather – or stay in Detroit together or do whatever you would like to just so it doesn’t separate us.”

Every day, however, Roy found it more difficult to persuade himself to stay in Washington.  “So many are leaving here now,” he wrote home on November 23, “it’s mighty hard to stick out and finish the job – or try to.”  Things were winding up rapidly.  Roy had various conferences with Secretary Baker on maintaining the highway work in peace time.  The Council of National Defense decided to continue its various state groups until the next Spring which provided some degree of organization for promoting the highway transport work.  With this much assured and with an able paid staff keeping on at Washington, Roy felt that at last he might go home.  On December 14, 1918 he returned to Detroit, as he wrote to Inez in advance, “happy in the thought that the war is won and we can again plan our future along more definite lines.”  [Long, page 172]

The work of the committee would continue with John S. Cravens, chief of the field division, Council of National Defense, serving as chairman.  The announcement of Chapin’s departure indicated, “It is thought that the development of roads is as important if not even more so in time of peace as in the days of war, and in consequence the complete nation-wide organization built up by Mr. Chapin will be maintained.”

A brief article about the resignation in Automobile Topics noted of Chapin:

Being a good roads enthusiast, he eagerly applied himself to the difficult task of demonstrating the practical urgency of the good roads proposition as a factor in winning the war.  The rural express movement, relating both highway and automobile movements, was a popular outgrowth of this effort.  Of far more direct importance was the work of his committee in planning routes and otherwise facilitating the movement of Army trucks.  [“Chapin Back to Hudson,” Motor Age, December 19, 1918, pages 16-17; “Roy D. Chapin Returns to Detroit,” Automobile Topics, December 14, 1918, page 520]

Returning to Detroit, Chapin unveiled a new moderately priced car, the Essex, in January 1919, and it would remain in production until the early 1930s.  Chapin, however, could not turn fully away from his good roads advocacy.  The Highway Committee of the NACC became his means of continuing the work he had begun on the Highways Transport Committee.  Pyke Johnson, the executive secretary of the Highways Transport Committee, joined Chapin in his new forum for advancing the good roads cause.  Chapin was chairman, with S. M. Williams a member of the committee.  [Long, pages 174, 176-177]

Judge Lowe on Paying For the National Highway System

On January 3, 1919, the chairmen of the War Service Committee of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States met in New York City.  Among issues addressed, the chairmen adopted a good roads amendment drafted by S. M. Williams:

Whereas, the President of the United States in his recent message to Congress recognized the value of improved highways in the general transportation system of the nation and definitely recommended and urged their rapid development; and
Whereas, this work is necessary to give employment to our returning soldiers, and also to furnish worthy projects on which unemployed labor can be engaged during the period of re-adjustment; and
Whereas, we recognize the necessity for a well defined and connected system of improved highways in order to expedite the distribution of large volumes of foodstuffs now wasted on account of the lack of prompt and adequate highway transportation, and to better serve the economic and military needs of the nation; therefore, be it
Resolved, that a Federal Highways Commission be created to promote the guide this powerful economic development of both highways and highway traffic and establish a National Highway System; therefore, be it further
Resolved, that the present appropriations for Federal aid to the states be continued and increased and the states urged to undertake extensive highway construction so as to keep pace with the development of this country and its transportation needs, and in carrying out the provisions of the present Federal Aid act or any amendment thereto that the State Highway Departments shall co-operate with the Federal Highway Commission; be it further
Resolved, that all Government activities with respect to highways be administered by the Federal Highway Commission.  [“For Better Highways,” The Baltimore Sun, January 19, 1919, page CA12]

Better Roads and Streets, in its February 1919 issue, published what was basically one of Judge Lowe’s bulletins.  It recalled the resolution of the Joint Highway Congress in support of a National Highway System, adding:

At a meeting of Chairmen of the two hundred and sixty-five War Service Committees of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States in New York on January 3, they unanimously endorsed the resolution of the Highway Congress calling for a Federal Highway Commission, a National Highway System, and an extension of the present Federal Aid System.

The Pioneer Good Roads Statesman, Senator John H. Bankhead, has introduced a Bill to appropriate $600,000,000 in Federal Aid to the States, in addition to the $75,000,000 appropriated two years ago, $50,000,000 of which shall immediately become available, and $75,000,000 available July 1, 1919.  This Bill is quite likely to pass.  It has received the approval of President Wilson, and Secretaries Houston and Baker.

The article asked:

Are you ready for it?  You have had two years in which to draw down your part of the $75,000,000 heretofore appropriated.  How much has Missouri and Kansas and the other States through which the National Old Trails Road runs, west of the Mississippi, drawn down of that appropriation?  Why continue “Federal Aid” appropriations if the States, counties, and road districts do not take the necessary steps to reciprocate.

Judge Lowe was referring to how the States would provide their 50-percent match of the Federal-aid funds.  Some States used State resources to pay the matching share, but in other States, the funds had to come in whole or part from counties or road districts:

There is but one way by which we can receive any Federal Aid under these bills, and that is by Bond issues.  We urged State Road Bond issues, based upon capitalizing the automobile license tax seven years ago, and Illinois voted a $60,000,000 road bond issue at the last election, based on this idea, and will build five to six thousand miles of State Highways without levying one dollar of additional taxes upon the people.  The Kansas City Journal, May 1, 1912, contained a news item from which is taken the following excerpt:

A plan by which motor car owners, without increasing their present license taxes, can build great trunk highways in every State in the Union, has been devised by Judge J. M. Lowe of Kansas City, president of the National Old Trails Road Association.  In behalf of the plan, it is urged that the farmer would get much of his road building done for nothing, and the motorist would have the satisfaction of seeing his license fees applied to a purpose that would benefit him.

“I propose that the amounts collected in license fees on motor cars in each State shall form the basis of bond issues,” said Judge Lowe yesterday.  “The long and short of the plan, which, so far as I have been able to learn, is an entirely new one, is the capitalization of the motor car tax for good roads purposes.”

On May 3, 1912, the Journal published an editorial, in part as follows:  “As an advocate of good roads J. M. Lowe of this city, president of the National Old Trails Road Association, makes a suggestion that is at least extremely practical, and is worthy of serious consideration.  Of course, there may not be much left of it by the time the lawyers get through with it, but for the purpose of showing how it can be aided, Mr. Lowe’s suggestion that the state motor car license be used to pay the interest on good roads bonds is at least worth considering.  When people begin to hunt for ways of doing things, a way is usually found sooner or later.”

The Missouri Old Trails Association, in 1912, had called for a $50 million State road bond issue, “which was favorably received.  And now we are at last ready to take action in both Missouri and Kansas”:

The Bills will undoubtedly provide for those progressive communities where bonds have already carried, and will provide for refunding to any county or road district any funds already voted to any state highway, whenever the automobile tax shall be sufficient, which it will be, long before the bonds mature.

It has been said that conditions are different in Illinois from those in some other States.  There may be some difference, as for instance:  roads can be built in Missouri or Kansas at less than one-half the cost of those in Illinois.  But it is said Illinois has more licensed automobiles.  Who will say this will be true when the bonds mature?

But, if instead of this plan, a different one shall be adopted, no matter, the automobile and truck taxes will take care of it, in any event.  Moreover, the enhanced values of real estate alone will take care of the bond issue, before the roads are completed.  Let me repeat, if the “Federal Aid” plan is to prevail, then there is no other way to obtain it except by issuing bonds.  The Government has signified its willingness to co-operate.  $60,000,000 of the last appropriation remains in the treasury, subject to call.  [Untitled, Better Roads and Streets, February 1919, pages 51-52]

Hopes Delayed

Despite the hopes raised by the Joint Highway Congress, little time remained to consider a major policy shift in the highway program in the short post-war Congress, meeting from December 2, 1918, to March 4, 1919, after which Republicans would take over control of Congress from the Democrats.  Congress and the Administration were eager to resume highway construction on a large scale, but facing many other post-war questions, time to debate major changes in highway policy was not available.

Several measures had been proposed in addition to Page's ideas, embodied in the Administration bill introduced by Senator Swanson.  Senator Bankhead, chairman of the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, and several members of the Senate and House introduced nearly identical bills to modify the definition of "rural post road," increase approved funding levels, and extend funding through FY 1925.  Senator Smoot, a member of the same Committee, had introduced a bill that would establish a United States Highway Fund by issuing 50-year bonds to generate up to $1 billion that would be loaned to the States for road construction.  Another bill, also sponsored by Senator Swanson, embodied a proposal by the Postmaster General to use revenue from motor parcel post to improve a Federal network of motor express routes.

In the end, an amendment introduced by Senator Bankhead was incorporated into the Post Office Appropriation Bill for 1920, which President Wilson approved on February 28, 1919.  The Bankhead amendment authorized additional funds to supplement current authorizations ($50 million more for FY 1919, and $75 million each for FYs 1920 and 1921).  It also carried appropriations of $3 million for FYs 1919-1921 as a continuation of the forest roads provision in the 1916 Act.  Bankhead explained the increase funds for the 1916 Act programs:

By reason of the fact that highway improvement has been held back during the past two years, large amounts of money have accumulated in State and county treasuries, many bond issues have been held back, and many improvements which ordinarily would have been made during the past two years will be undertaken in the near future.  This will insure a much larger outlay in 1919, and it would seem that if the Federal Government is to become an influential factor in highway work, its contribution should be very materially increased.  [“Senator Bankhead on Federal Road Legislation,” Southern Good Roads, March 1919, page 102]

In addition to increased authorizations, the legislation amended the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916 to address concerns about the program.  It increased the limitation of payments to $20,000 per mile to aid States with higher traffic volumes.  Another key change involved the definition of "rural post road," which the Bankhead amendment changed to read:

... any public road a major portion of which is now used, or can be used, or forms a connecting link not to exceed ten miles in length of any road or roads now or hereafter used for the transportation of the United States mails.

This definition retained the "post road" concept from the Constitution, but essentially made every road, including the long-distance roads, eligible for Federal-aid highway funds regardless of whether it carried the mail.  Senator Charles S. Thomas of Colorado objected to the revision, saying it "commits the United States to the improvement of every cattle trail, every cow path, and every right of way in the United States."  America's Highways 1776-1976 observed:

This, of course, was exactly the effect desired by the Administration when it proposed the amendment.  The new post road definition ended the pretense that Federal aid for highways rested even in part on Congress' constitutional power to establish a postal system.  [America’s Highways 1776-1976, page 102]

The amendment also authorized the Secretary of War to transfer war materials no longer needed by the War Department to the Secretary of Agriculture.  The Secretary of Agriculture was to retain 10 percent of the material for BPR’s work in National Forests, while distributing the balance to the State highway departments for use on Federal-aid highway projects.  Each State was entitled to material valued in amounts on the same basis as apportionment of funds under the 1916 Act.  BPR established a special division to receive the War Department’s lists of surplus war materials.  The division forwarded the lists to the State highway departments, which then requested the items they could use.  The States received only the equipment they requested, but because total value for each State was limited to its Federal-aid percentage, not all requests could be satisfied.  [Holt, W. Stull, The Bureau of Public Roads:  Its History, Activities, and Organization, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1923, pages 22-24]

Although the outcome was disappointing to advocates for a Federal Highway Commission, Senator Charles E. Townsend, a Republican from Michigan, introduced S. 5626 on February 18, 1919:

To create a Federal Highway Commission, to establish a National Highway System, to promote efficient and economic highway transportation, and to amend an act to provide that the United States shall aid the states in the construction of rural post roads and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled, that there is hereby created a Federal Highway Commission, and to provide a connected system of main highways adequate to sustain the demands of interstate commerce to provide adequate post roads for the transportation of the United States mails and parcel post, and to provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare of the people of the United States, there is hereby authorized to be established, constructed, and maintained a system of highways, hereinafter referred to as the National Highway System, to comprise not less than two main trunk-line roads in each state, and joining the National Highway System in the adjacent states and counties.

The commission “shall determine the types of construction and reconstruction and the character of improvement, repair and maintenance of all highways included in the National Highway System.”  However, only “durable types and adequate widths of surface shall be adopted for any highway as will effectively meet the traffic conditions thereon and the probable future traffic needs.”  A “highway,” within the meaning of the bill, “shall be deemed to include the necessary bridges, drainage structures, signs, guard rails, protective structures and housing”:

In consideration of the benefits to be derived by the state from the construction, reconstruction, improvements, repair and maintenance of the highways comprised in the National Highways [sic] System, and as a condition precedent to the construction of any such highways in any state a right of way therefor, not less than 60 ft. in width, except at such points where existing buildings or structures are of such value that the cost of their removal would, in the opinion of the commission, be excessive, shall be furnished to the United States without expense to it by, for, or on behalf of such state or any civil subdivision thereof.

In introducing the bill, he said:

I desire to introduce a bill for printing in the Record and reference to the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads.  The object is Federal highway aid and construction.  It is not because I expect to bring it up or that it will receive any consideration at this session of Congress, but it illustrates in general the principles upon which I believe Federal highway activities should be based, and I introduce it at this time in order that it may receive that criticism and attention on the part of those people and organizations throughout the country who are interested in highway construction that will enable us at the next session of Congress to act intelligently upon the matter.  Our Government has entered the good-roads field, and it will not retire therefrom.  It is my desire to assist in directing the Federal activities along lines at once scientific and practical.  I believe that the National Government should construct a national system of roads through the States connecting all the Commonwealths, and then should maintain these roads, and the States should construct and maintain all the other roads within their boundaries.  The powers of the two governments should be as separate and distinct as possible.  I present this bill for general consideration.

S. 5626 was read twice, referred to the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, and ordered to be printed in the Record.

Highway Engineer and Contractor reprinted the bill in full and suggested that, “Everyone interested in the betterment of our highways and the development of our country should give this bill their most active support when it comes up in the next Congress.  [“Federal Highway Aid,” Congressional Record – Senate, February 18, 1919, pages 3635-3636; “National System of Highways – The Townsend Bill,” Highway Engineer and Contractor, May 1919, pages 39-40]

Chapin on Roads

Roy Chapin outlined his views in a Highways Committee bulletin on March 6, 1919.  After recalling the $100 million added to the Federal-aid highway program the month before, he wrote:

When you consider the fact that it took years of educational work to get Congress up to the passage of the first Federal Aid Law, and this year the President, his Cabinet, and practically a unanimous Congress were behind a very great increase in that sum, you can realize that a great change has come to pass in highway sentiment.  And this vast amount is available for road building only during the coming three years; it calls for the expenditure with that amount, of an equal sum on the part of all the different states.  That is, the two hundred and seventy-odd millions for highways that is now available to the states of this country out of the Federal Treasury must be matched dollar for dollar by the various states.

He described the work of Pyke Johnson in Washington as well as Chapin’s own effort “to spend as much time as possible in Washington, and is down there practically once a month, and as much oftener as it is necessary.”  He expected to increase his time in the capital “because we are going into a highways campaign of another type”:

The time has come when we must have a more comprehensive plan.  The Government should help direct the states as to the type of highways they should build.  Lack of proper guidance has so far been one of the greatest faults in the construction of American highways.  As a matter of fact, the Highways Committee is informed that of the projects approved by the Department of Agriculture, which comprise at the moment, I think, some five thousand miles of highway, much of which will be built this year, 80 per cent of these roads to be built from Government funds are to be of sand clay, gravel or dirt.  And surely, I think that all of us will agree that the time has come when from our main highways at least, we must have a better type of service.

He illustrated the point by examples from the Army truck convoys organized by the Highways Transport Committee to East Coast ports for shipment to Europe:

We found, for instance, that the State of Ohio had no connections running into Pennsylvania, leading to Pittsburgh.  There was no road on the eastern end of Ohio that was any good, and that there was no road from Beaver Falls [Pennsylvania] running over to the Ohio line that was worth while.  And neither state seemed to be particularly interested in connecting up the two states by good routes.  Pennsylvania was very much absorbed in building roads to connect up her own cities, and Ohio the same.

But we have come now, gentlemen, to a time when we know that interstate highway commerce is taking place and motor vehicles are running between the cities and passing through a number of states.  We have known for years, of course, that the passenger car was an inter-state vehicle, and we have now come to a time when there is vast inter-state commerce by motor truck over the highways, and when the Federal Government, we believe, should step in and control a Federal system of highways.

He was “glad to say” that these thoughts had been “crystalized into” Senator Townsend’s bill, “calling for a Federal Highway System, Federal Highway Commission and a thorough study of the new problems of highway traffic and highways transport.”  He continued:

We had in the last month, a letter from the Department of Labor asking the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce to cooperate with it by using all our influence to urge the building of highways, that the slack in labor may be taken up . . . .

I can say to you frankly that this is the Golden Age of highway construction.  The automobile industry has helped it arrive by putting six million vehicles upon the road, and naturally the users of every one of those vehicles want better highways.  The war has given tremendous impetus to good roads, and the returning solder is going to add to that impetus for he has seen what fine highways mean to Europe.  It is the time that we have all been waiting for, and it is here at least . . . .

I think we can congratulate ourselves that we have reached the point that we have so long hoped for and wished for, for roads are going to be built in this country, built on an enormous scale, and must be built to last.

It is our duty to see that these vast sums are wisely spent and full value is received in the right type of road mileage.  [Long, pages 177-179

George R. Stewart on the National Old Trails Road, 1919

Author and historian George R. Stewart wrote many books, including his classic highway book, U.S. 40:  A Cross Section of the United States, published in 1953.  As mentioned in the book, he had traveled part of the National Old Trails Road in 1919.

In 1917, shortly before graduating from Princeton University, he enlisted in the U.S. Army following the country’s entry into the European War.  As biographer Donald M. Scott explained, Stewart was assigned to the U.S. Army Ambulance Corps, but the unit never received orders to go to Europe.  Instead, he spent much of the war in Pennsylvania.  In 1918, as the Spanish Flu pandemic hit the world with devastating impact, he contracted pneumonia, which he never completely recovered from.  However, as he headed back to home in Pasadena, California, Stewart decided to hitchhike west on the National Old Trails Road created in 1912 by the initiative of Miss Gentry.  Scott wrote that Stewart was “coughing from lingering effects of his pneumonia”:

Never one to let adversity or ill health hold him down, Stewart headed out, hitchhiking west, as soon as the spring of 1919 opened Miss Gentry’s new transcontinental road.

The National Old Trails Road, with its terminus in Los Angeles, was “the logical route for George R. Stewart to use on his hitchhiking trip” to Pasadena.  During the “month of pilgrimages . . . he put on his army uniform, gathered up his kit, and stuck out his thumb.”

Stewart, in his book about U.S. 40, described the trip along the eastern portion of the National Old Trails Road:

In 1919, freshly discharged from the army, I hitchhiked westward from New York, and traveled along the National Old Trail [sic], as it then was known, from Washington, Pennsylvania, to St. Louis.  The old S-bridges were still in use.  As far as Terre Haute the road was, according to standards of the time, well paved and heavily traveled.  But at the Illinois line the bottom dropped out of it.  Only an occasional Model-T braved the morass, and the ruts, between towns.  The redbud was in bloom and beautiful along the streams, but the road itself was unspeakable . . . . merely bogged down in the prairie gumbo . . . .

At its best, in time and in place, [the Cumberland Road to Vandalia] attained greatness.  Moreover, it is safe for the future.  From Columbus to Indianapolis and from Indianapolis to Vandalia the original route, whether called U.S. 40 or something else, will furnish the main­ traveled road until someone disproves the geometrical proposition that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points.  [Stewart, George R., U.S. 40: A Cross Section of the United States, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1953, pages 120-121]

Along the way, he took photographs, including one of the Automobile Club of Southern California’s National Old Trails Road sign near Indianapolis:

Years later, when his friend Charles Camp asked him if it had been hard to get a ride, he answered that it wasn’t hard to get a lift, but “in those days there weren’t very many cars.  If you made a hundred miles in one car that was a Big Ride.  You rarely did that.”

He didn’t make it all the way home to Pasadena.  The after-effects of the pneumonia finally caught up with him in Kansas and he abandoned his hitchhiking at Garden City.  He took the train the rest of the way, a prudent choice . . . .

Even though the trip was cut short, it had been a fine adventure.  Stewart hitchhiked more than halfway across the United States, through towns with names like Old Peculiar, Greenup, and Kingdom City, and across the Hundredth Meridian, gateway to the West . . . .  He traveled the old trails, the National Road and the Santa Fe Trail, and the new automobile road that followed them.  It was good preparation for books he would later write about place names, trails and highways. [Scott, Donald M., The Life and Times of George R. Stewart:  A Literary Biography of the Author of Earth Abides, McFarland & Company, Inc., 2012, pages 35-41]

A National Approach

Judge Lowe, from the start, had sought every opportunity to encourage officials of the Federal Government and States, counties, cities, and road districts to complete their segments of the National Old Trails Road.  In this effort, he had embraced a national approach to road construction.  He eagerly supported Charles Henry Davis’ National Highways Association’s Good Roads Everywhere campaign and his proposed 50,000-mile National Highways network.  Now, Judge Lowe also strongly supported the Highway Industries Association’s proposed national highway system that inevitably would include the National Old Trails Road.

On January 21, 1919, Judge Lowe was prominent in creation of a new organization, the Associated Highways of America.  Representatives of dozens of named trails met in Kansas City, Missouri, to establish the organization.  Motor Age reported:

Its purpose is to promote the establishment and construction of a national highway system, to encourage highway associations in constructive work, to bring about establishment of a highway commission at Washington and to stimulate the utilization of the present Federal Aid act in highway improvement.

American Motorist stated that the new association made Kansas City “the working headquarters of a group of inter-State road associations which promise to be a forceful factor in the now country-wide effort to obtain a Federal system and a Federal commission from the Congress at Washington”:

There was a whole day of earnest discussion as to the place which the new organization might fill, its methods of conduct, and who should be its officers.

Of course, resolutions were passed endorsing the plan of a Federal system and a Federal commission, and it is the hope of the various road associations represented that their lines of travel will be included in the great national plan when it is finally accomplished.  No road association that did not pass through at least three States was given voice and vote.

Overall, 37 of the 47 associations participating in the meeting were admitted to membership, representing over 40,000 miles of named trails traversing 45 States:

Judge J. M. Lowe, of the National Old Trails Road, living in Kansas City, was naturally prominent in the day’s proceedings.  “Coin” Harvey, of the Ozark Trails Association, was another who figured.  H. O. Cooley, of the Yellowstone Trail Association, entitled to the real credit for the calling of the meeting, insisted that having done this work, his part was more or less played, and he held that a place on the board of directors was all that should be given to him.

For president, the new group selected C. F. Adams, president of the Pike’s Peak Ocean to Ocean Highway Association, “and there is no question as to his fitness for the position.”  The article added, “His administration is certain to be active and resultful, and, luckily, he has the time and the money so that he can afford to ride his favorite hobby.”  Frank A. Davis of the National Old Trails Association was picked as secretary.  American Motorist pointed out that Davis “has been active in the promotion work of the National Old Trails Road, and also a moving factor in the King of Trails, reaching from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico and possessing the hope to find an ultimate terminus in the City of Mexico.”  [“Associated Highways Now,” Motor Age, February 6, 1919, page 12; “Associated Highways of America Organized,” American Motorist, March 1919, page 36]

On April 12, 1919, the organization announced a touring bureau for all named trails associated with the organization:

H. O. Cooley, secretary of the Yellowstone trail, is developing the bureau plan, with the basis of the seven bureaus now operating along the Yellowstone trail.  It is expected that this year one or more bureaus will be opened on each of the thirty or more routes in the A.H.A., the information on each route to be cleared through a central office for the benefit of all.  It is the plan that each highway association employ a man on full time to collect and handle routing information.  When the program is in operation, any bureau will be able to give touring information on any route in the A.H.A system.

Weather bureaus already are assisting materially in collection of road information in some districts, and this source of help will be cultivated.  In Kansas City Patrick Connor, weather observer, gets information daily from his weather reports on condition of roads in eastern Kansas, western Missouri, northern Oklahoma.  This information is given to inquirers, and is available for the local offices of the A.H.A.  Frank A. Davis, secretary of the A.H.A., is securing from local members of road associations names of members who will report daily on road conditions to the local weather reporters, so that road data can be telegraphed with the weather report . . . .

The association also established a department to “assist highway associations affiliated with the A.H.A. in perfecting and financing their organizations”:

There are now thirty associations in the A.H.A., many of which are thoroughly organized; others, however, need help to get members and funds, and to put the work on a strong basis throughout the length of their routes.  The A.H.A. itself operates on a small budget, paying no salaries, but stimulating the member highway associations to activity and acting as a clearing house for co-operative work.  [“Touring Bureaus for All Highways,” Motor Age, April 17, 1919, page 14]

National Roads and National Aid

On March 15, 1919, Judge Lowe issued a revised bulletin in support of a national highway system, that compared “National Roads and National Aid,” beginning with a discussion of national aid:

No school is quite so instructive as the School of Experience.  We have tried the National Aid plan for three years with the result that less than forty-five miles of roads, in widely detached sections, from 3 to 9 miles in length, have been built under its provisions, in the whole of these United States.  But, it is fair to say that Federal money has gone into some 700 miles of roads not yet completed.  At this rate it will take six thousand, six hundred and sixty-six years to build 100,000 miles of roads.  (There are 2,500,000 miles of roads in the United States.)  Results thus far are that we have built 8 to 9 miles in length, scattered all over the United States – “radial roads,” beginning nowhere and ending nowhere!  We have tried it out in absolute good faith for three years with the result as stated.  Now we have another three-year period provided for, with $260,000,000 of Federal money appropriated, and if we accept it, by putting up dollar for dollar as we must, we shall have $520,000,000 with which to build National Aid Roads.  Let’s give it the sincerest possible support, as a final test of this experiment.  The Government is urging us to co-operation.  Will we do it?  Not by scattering and wasting the funds but by building real roads.

Next, Judge Lowe discussed national roads:

A system of National Highways, to be built and maintained by the General Government, is the additional plan we shall undoubtedly adopt under the Townsend Bill now pending, or some other.  Under the “National Aid” plan above mentioned we shall have to raise $260,000,000 before we can get the $260,000,000 of “Aid” apportioned to the States.  Assuming that we shall do so, as we should, then we shall have $520,000,000.  If the average cost per mile be $25,000 this sum of money will build 20,000 miles of roads.

Suppose the 65th Congress had taken prompt action after the war, and we were ready to build an equal mileage (20,000) of continuous, through roads – 4 East and West and 4 North and South – the Labor question would have been solved, values would be greatly enhanced, and universal prosperity would be reigning.  These National roads would have served as State and local highways in the States through which they would run, and thus relieve them of the cost of their construction and maintenance.  National Aid, State and local road funds, could all be applied on State and local systems.

An objection to National wagon roads has been that, like railroads, they would be of special benefit to adjoining land, and to the towns through which they might pass, while not of immediate value to those not so fortunately located.  There is some truth in this contention.  This is always true.  Abraham Lincoln met this objection in a speech made in Congress June 20, 1848, as follows:

Now, for the second portion of this message – namely that the burdens of improvements would be general, while their benefits would be local and partial, involving an obnoxious inequality.  That there is some degree of truth in this position, I shall not deny.  No commercial object of government patronage can be so exclusively general as to not be of some peculiar local advantage.  The navy, as I understand it, was established and is maintained at a great annual expense, partly to be ready for war when war shall come, and partly also, and perhaps chiefly for the protection of our commerce on the high seas.  This latter object is, for all I can see, in principle, the same as internal improvements.  The driving a pirate from the track of commerce on the broad ocean, and the removing a snag from its more narrow path in the Mississippi River, can not, I think, be distinguished in principle.  Each is done to save life and property, and for nothing else . . . .

The just conclusion from all this is that if the nation refuse to make improvements of the more general kind their benefits may be somewhat local, a State may, for the same reason, refuse to make an improvement of a local kind because its benefits may be somewhat general.  A State may well say to the nation, “If you will do nothing for me, I will do nothing for you.”  Thus it is seen that if this argument of “inequality” is sufficient anywhere, it is sufficient everywhere, and puts an end to improvements altogether.  I hope and believe that if both the nation and the States would, in good faith, in their respective spheres, do what they could in the way of improvements, what of inequality might be produced in one place might be compensated in another, and the sum of the whole work might not be very unequal.

But suppose after all, there should be some degree of inequality?  Inequality is certainly never to be embraced for its own sake; but is every good thing to be discarded which may be inseparably connected with some degree of it?  If so we must discard all government.  This capital is built at the public expense, for the public benefit; but does anyone doubt that it is of some peculiar advantage to the property holders and business people of Washington?  Shall we remove it for this reason?  And if so, where shall we set down, and be free from the difficulty?  To make sure of our object, shall we locate it nowhere and have our Congress hereafter to hold its sessions, as the loafer lodged, “in spots about”?

When we have a system of National highways, supplemented by State and National Aid roads, and by Benefit District roads, the inequality of benefits will largely disappear.

We delight in saying, “We are the richest Nation in the world.”  And that is true, and it might be added, with the poorest roads.

Look at the situation today, at the close of this world war.  Europe is prostrate, and the universal cry is for raw material, raw material, raw material.  We are ready to furnish it.  We, the United States, have but six per cent of the world’s population, and own but seven per cent of the land, yet we produce seventy per cent of the world’s copper, sixty-six per cent of the oil, seventy-five per cent of the corn, sixty-seven per cent of the meat, sixty per cent of the cotton, fifty-two per cent of the coal, thirty-three per cent of the silver, 40 per cent of the iron and steel, twenty-five per cent of the wheat, twenty per cent of the gold, and forty per cent of the railroads, totaling one-third or more of the total wealth of the world.  At the beginning of the war we owed four billion dollars to foreign nations, and now foreign nations owe us ten billion dollars!  We had no ships.  In 1920 we will have twice as many ships as England with which to carry this immense commerce, unless the backward looking, political obstructionists, prevent it.  Fifty per cent, however, of our perishable products never reach the markets on account of bad roads.  We need but one additional factor to complete our felicity, and one, too, that will not impoverish, but greatly enhance both private and National wealth, to-wit:  National highways, supplemented by State, County and local roads, all connected, forming a complete system of good roads everywhere.

Our total railroad mileage is 231,177, distributed as follows:

The Eastern District has 59,080 miles.  The Southern District has 42,752 miles.
The Western District has 129,345 miles, capitalized at $22,000,000,000.

Less than one-third of this sum will build an equal mileage of dependable, hard-surfaced, wagon roads.

More than two-thirds of our railroad mileage is in the South and West, and more than four-fifths of the raw material, while the 9 Eastern States of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, having only 5 per cent of the area of the United States, have one-half the national wealth, and will, therefore, pay one-half the cost of building and forever after maintaining National Highways in the other thirty-nine States of the Union – therefore:

The people of Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming would each pay, each year, for their National Highways, only one dollar and fifty cents for 20 years, and you would never know how or when you paid it.

These thirty-nine States of the West, Middle West and South have 390 Senators and Representatives in Congress – a majority of 124 votes.  Therefore, the West, Middle West and South have the power to gain National Highways at one-half their cost, and maintenance forever, by simply waking up.

And this is absolutely fair, equitable and just.  It taxes all property equally, no matter where produced or owned.  This purpose is not sectionally advocated by the West or South, but because it is fair, just and equitable, is warmly advocated by the far-seeing, enlightened, progressive and constructive statesmanship of many of the Eastern States.  No National improvement is so general as not to be of some local advantage, and never so local as not to be of some general benefit.  [National Archives at College Park, Maryland]