=Electric Traction.=--There are reports _Highways and Highway Transportation

traction by the use of batteries, but not until the electric dynamo

and motor had become practical working machines was anything like a

successful working electrically propelled car developed. The ordinary

method is to generate the electricity at a central station, carry

it along the track by means of a wire, from which it is taken by a

trolley or some form of conductor to a motor on the car completing

the circuit through the track and ground. Such a car was practically

demonstrated at the Berlin Exposition of 1879, by Werner Siemens, with

a line 219 yards long.[117] This was the first practical electric

railway. But long before this time in America experiments had been

made with electric traction. Dever exhibited a model at Springfield,

Massachusetts, in 1835.[118] In 1879, the year of Siemens’ exhibition,

another model railway having a “third rail” to carry the current was

exhibited at Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Edison had a car in operation

at Menlo Park, New Jersey, in 1882, and the following year a small

road carried passengers at an exhibit in Chicago. Miniature roads were

exhibited at Philadelphia, Denver, Cleveland, New Orleans, and possibly

elsewhere. The first electric railway built and operated for profit

in American streets was at Richmond, Virginia, in 1885 on 2¹⁄₂ miles

of track. During the same year 2 miles between Baltimore and Hampton

were put in operation.[119] By 1890 the number of cities having trolley

cars had increased to forty-nine.[120] From that time on the change

from horse-drawn cars was very rapid. Trolley lines were even extended

throughout the country districts. At one time it looked as though they

might replace steam cars for passenger traffic, especially short-haul

traffic. There was a complete network of interurban trolley lines in

the Eastern and Central Western states by 1910.[121] The trolley is

also being used upon hard-surfaced roads without tracks by buses and

trucks. Steam railroads running into New York City through the tubes

use electric locomotives to draw the trains, thus avoiding the smoke

nuisance and the danger therewith connected. The Milwaukee Railroad

is using electric locomotives on its mountain division in Montana and

Idaho. Electricity is generated by water power; also the trains going

down grade are run against a dynamo and storage battery thus acting as

a brake as well as renewing the batteries.

SELECTED REFERENCES

BROWN, WILLIAM H., “History of the First Locomotive in America.” D.

Appleton & Co., New York, 1871.

BURCH, EDWARD P., “Electric Traction for Railway Trains,” Chap. I

(Historical). McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, 1911.

CALLENDER, GUY S., “The Economic History of the United States,”

Chapter VIII, “Transportation,” Ginn & Co., New York.

Census, U. S. Eleventh (1890) “Transportation on Land.”

Census Bureau, U. S. Special Report (1902) “Streets and Electric

Railways.”

DAVIS, JOHN P., “Union Pacific Railway.” S. C. Griggs & Co., Chicago.

DONALDSON, THOMAS, “History of the Public Domain,” Published by order

of an act of Congress, 1884.

DUNBAR, SEYMOUR, “A History of Travel in America,” 4 volumes.

Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis.

ERICSSON, JOHN, “Life of” by William C. Church, Chap. IV. Charles

Scribner’s Sons, New York.

HUSBAND, JOSEPH, “The Story of the Pullman Car.” A. C. McClurg &

Company, Chicago, 1917.

JOHNSON, EMORY R., “Elements of Transportation,” 1909. D. Appleton &

Company, New York.

LARRABEE, WM., “The Railroad Question,” Shulte Publishing Company,

Chicago, 1893.

LE ROSSIGNOL, J. E., “Monopolies Past and Present.” T. Y. Crowell

Company, New York.

LEWIS, GEORGE H., “National Consolidation of Railroads.” Dodd, Mead &

Co., New York.

Maps of Interurban Lines, Century Atlas. Century Company, New York.

MARTIN, E. W., “History of the Grange Movement, or The Farmer’s War

against Monopoly.” A subscription book published in 1874. National

Publishing Company, Chicago.

POORE, HENRY V., “History of Railroads and Canals of the United

States,” Vol. I, p. 377. New York, 1860.

SANBORN, JOHN B., “Congressional Grants of Land in Aid of Railways.”

University of Wisconsin Bulletin, Vol. II, No. 3, Econ. pol. Sci. and

Hist. Series.

SELFRIDGE, H. GORDON, “The Romance of Commerce.” John Lane, London.

SPARKS, E. E., “National Development,” Vol. XXIII, The American

Nation Series, Chapter III and IV. Harper & Brothers, New York.

U. S. Statutes, 1862-1864, Pacific Railway Acts, Investigation of the

Crédit Mobilier.

U. S. Statutes, 41st Congress, 1st Session, Chap. DCXLVII, Sherman

Anti-Trust Law.

U. S. Statutes, Railroad Bills, 1850-1880 House Report 42d Cong., 3d

Session, No. 77.

FOOTNOTES

[87] Quoted from “Niles’ Register” of 1812 by Dunbar.

[88] Stevens’ pamphlet published in 1812.

[89] Stephenson’s first locomotive was put out in 1814. His _Rocket_

and Ericsson’s _Novelty_ had their famous contest resulting in favor

of the _Rocket_ in 1829.

[90] Brown’s “History of the First Locomotive,” letter from Cooper,

1869.

[91] The coning of wheels is an invention of Jonathan Knight,

Engineer of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company.

[92] Dunbar, “A History of Travel in America,” 932.

[93] Dunbar, “A History of Travel in America,” 960.

[94] The _Albany Argus_, August 11, 1831.

[95] “History of the Railroads and Canals of the United States,”

1860, Vol. I, p. 377.

[96] Dunbar, “A History of Travel in America,” 998, 1383.

[97] Dunbar, “A History of Travel in America,” 1071.

[98] _Potter’s American Monthly_, July, 1879.

[99] T. C. Smith, _American Nation_, Vol. XVIII, p. 60.

[100] E. W. Martin, “History of the Grange Movement,” 1874, p. 35.

[101] Donaldson, “History of the Public Domain.” University of

Wisconsin Bulletin: “Congressional Grants of Land in Aid of

Railways,” by J. B. Sanborn, Pol. Sci. and History Series, Vol. II,

No. 3.

[102] The “History of the Grange Movement,” a subscription book by

Edward Winslow Martin, published in 1874, but which can hardly be

taken as wholly reliable, says: “The lands granted by the Government

to various railway corporations make up a total area of 198,165,794

acres, or about 300,000 square miles--an area larger than the State

of Texas, which contains 237,504 square miles ... and the railway

subsidies comprise nearly one-tenth of the entire Union.”

[103] Dunbar, “A History of Travel in America,” Chap. LVI, et seq.

Donaldson, “History of the Public Domain.”

[104] Senate Executive Document No. 78, 33d Congress, 2d Session.

[105] U. S. Statutes. Acts of 1862 and 1864.

[106] By subsequent provision the right of way was cut to two hundred

feet, although the company still holds four hundred feet through

parts of Nebraska.

[107] Thomas Donaldson’s “History of the Public Domain.”

[108] “House Reports,” 42 Cong., 3d Session, No. 77.

[109] U. S. Statutes, 51 Cong., 1 Sess., Chap. DCXLVII.

[110] Digest U. S. Supreme Court Reports, Vol. IV, “Monopoly,” pp.

4043-4052, The Lawyers Co-operative Publishing Company, Rochester, N.

Y., 1908.

[111] Funk and Wagnalls’ Encyclopedia.

[112] Jointly with Gould Interests.

[113] Jointly with Rockefeller, Kuhn, Loeb, & Co., Vanderbilt and

other interests.

[114] Jointly with Standard Oil interests.

[115] Jointly with Erie, Reading and Vanderbilt interests.

[116] “The Story of the Pullman Car,” by Joseph Husband. A. C.

McClurg & Company, Chicago, 1917. Cf. _Literary Digest_, February 10,

1923, p. 25.

[117] Funk and Wagnalls’ Encyclop.

[118] “Special Reports, Streets and Electric Railways,” U. S. Census

Bureau (1902). This, of course, was not a practical machine.

[119] “American Nation,” Vol. XXIII, 39.

[120] U. S. Eleventh Census (1890), “Transportation on Land.”

[121] See Maps in Century Dictionary.

CHAPTER V

THE MODERN WAGON ROAD

Gone are the long picturesque lines of emigrant and freight wagons,

with their conestogas, their stage coaches, their oxen, their mules

and horses; gone are the hospitable inns with their gay and social

crowds of happy travelers; gone are the nightly wagon-formed corrals

into which the freighter was wont to drive his animals to prevent their

stampeding by the wily red-skin; gone are the complacent but slow-going

canal barges so plentiful and popular that at the cry of “low bridge,”

everybody ducked by reflex action; gone are the floating palaces on

the vacillating and changeable waters of the interior river systems;

these yesteryear implements of transportation have been all but

superseded by more powerful or more speedy instruments. The canals are

very frequently but weed-grown scum-covered channels through the soil,

while many of the wagon roads are similarly weed-grown or dust-covered

lanes on top of the soil. Perhaps a rejuvenation will come. Already

the public road shows signs of a more vigorous growth than the world

has ever witnessed even in the heyday of road building under the Roman

Caesars.

[Illustration:

TRANSPORTATION ACROSS DEATH VALLEY

A Picturesque Method of Earlier Days.]

Public highways began their desuetude (partial at least) about 1830,

at the advent of the steam railway. To be sure, arrangements were

made for the laying out and care of roads. There were, also, usually

poll and property taxes levied for road and bridge purposes. But

generally the old English custom of allowing such taxes to be worked

out prevailed. In Iowa, for instance,[122] the county court was given

“general supervision over the highways” which must be 66 feet wide

unless otherwise specially directed. The manner of establishing roads

is set forth and the county judge may if he wishes call in a competent

surveyor and “cause the line of the road to be accurately surveyed and

plainly marked out.” “Where crops have been sowed or planted before the

road is finally established the opening thereof shall be delayed until

the crop is harvested.” The county supervisor must appoint a deputy

in each township, but the deputy “must regard himself as an actual

laboring hand” and his compensation “shall not exceed one dollar and

fifty cents for each day actually employed.” It is the duty of the

supervisor “to place and preserve the roads in as good a condition as

the funds at his disposal will permit, and to place guide boards at

such points as he may think expedient or as the court may direct.” In

the Eastern states and in the hilly districts the method of locating

each individual road to follow a trail or stream or ridge usually

prevailed, but in many of the prairie states roads were located by law

on each section line and in some states on each half-section line as

well. This made every man’s farm adjacent to a road, although it was

certainly a waste of land. In nearly all the prairie states the legal

right of way is now 66 feet,[123] in other states it is made 49¹⁄₂

and 33 feet. Massachusetts state-aid roads have a minimum of 50 feet.

Texas divided her roads into three classes with widths of 60, 30 and

20 feet. New Jersey has some state roads 33 feet wide. On the whole 66

feet seems to be favored. This, if roads are made on every half-section

mile, appropriates almost 5 per cent of the land, a quantity that

by proper selection and location might be materially reduced. The

section line method is liked by farmers because it leaves the fields

rectangular, a convenient form for efficiency in cultivation.

=The Influence of the Bicycle on Roads.=--Road construction remained in

a lackadaisical state with here and there a spurt, with now and then

an intelligent supervisor who appreciated the need of better wagon

roads, until the coming of the bicycle. That machine may be considered

a descendant of the old celeripede, which consisted of two wheels

connected by a horizontal bar on which the rider sat and propelled

himself by pushing with his feet alternately on the ground, through

the velocipede, which had the front wheel pivoted to the framework for

easy steering. The attachment of pedals is credited to a Scotchman,

Kirkpatrick Macmillan, about 1840, who applied them to the rear wheel.

In 1886 Lallement in the United States and Michaux in France, placed

the pedals on the front wheels. The front wheel was gradually increased

in diameter until in the ’eighties it sometimes measured as much as 60

inches. The rear wheel decreased as the front increased. The stability

of the wheel was not very great; headers were common, and mounting

was difficult. To overcome these defects of the “ordinary” there was

developed, 1885, the “safety,” approximately the present bicycle,

in which the pedals are carried on a separate shaft and the power

transmitted by chain and sprocket to the rear wheel. With the invention

of the Dunlop[124] pneumatic tire, and consequent overcoming of much of

the jolting so objectionable in more solid tires, the adoption of the

bicycle as a means of pleasure and business locomotion was extremely

rapid. The cycling boom reached its height about 1896 or 1897, by which

time a great many large manufactories of bicycles had been established

over the country. A frenzy seized upon the people and men and women of

all stations were riding wheels; ardent cyclists were found in every

city, village, and hamlet.

As a result of the cycling craze there were organized numerous “wheel

clubs” and finally a national one known as the League of American

Wheelmen, organized about 1887. Its object partly social and partly to

popularize the new sport of cycling, became a few years later almost

wholly a form of propaganda for “better roads.” Newspaper space was

freely utilized; many papers making special and regular features of

“good roads”; pamphlets were published and distributed broadly, and a

magazine was established.[125]

At first the wheelmen were met by the cry of selfishness, with the

argument that the city folk wanted the farmers to build good roads

for their pleasure; but men of foresight, men of affairs, saw the

benefits accruing to all kinds of business and added their influence.

Mr. Potter, a lawyer of New York City, who had graduated in civil

engineering at Cornell University before turning to the law, became

interested in the good roads movement, studied and made himself one of

the best posted men on roads in the United States. When the League of

American Wheelmen decided to start a magazine he was selected for its

editor and manager. Under his direction the subscription list of _Good

Roads_ soon reached more than 30,000.[126] “The articles strive to

show the value of roads in a commercial sense and by a comparison with

other countries demonstrate how far behind America is in this respect.”

Pictures of good and bad roads were used freely, thus holding the

attention where reading matter alone would have failed. European roads,

the French especially, were described and played up through newspapers

generally. Scarcely a journal that did not run leaders and other

articles on the benefits of good roads and methods of building and

maintaining the same. Our ordinary roads were decried on every hand. A

lady voices her opinion thus:[127]

I came to this country with the best prejudices, having enjoyed

the privilege of meeting with some of its noblest representatives

in my fatherland. I admired much the individual independence, the

high standing of women, the gentle sway of the church, the liberal

education of the children, and the unsurpassed charity that extends

even to distant countries. I must confess that I was struck with

the bad roads everywhere, in cities as well as in the country, and

at the same time, amused at the compensation one gets when one meets

with an accident. Why not spend the money in the improvements of the

roads--make these roads perfect, and then let everybody look out for

himself.

In summer the worst road is good; but in winter schools have to

be closed, the children are stopped in their regular pursuits,

learning becomes desultory, and the strong feeling of duty that

has to be developed from the very beginning of life by strict good

habits gets slackened and slighted; and so also the attendance of

the churches--for many people the only comfort in the struggle for

existence--becomes an impossibility. And especially the painstaking

farmer must find it hard to drive his team through the muddy, clayey

road, in bringing the fruits of his labor to the market. I hear him,

with many a suppressed oath on everything under the sun, dragging his

cartload through the mud and standing pools, and in snowstorms he is

sometimes totally lost. All communication stops.

And so on for a column or more. She inserts by way of anecdote which

shows that two of the greatest Germans who ever lived did not think the

lowly road too insignificant to discuss:

When Heinrich Heine for the first time met with the royal poet,

Goethe, he was so impressed with the majesty of his personality that

he could speak of nothing less than the plum trees on the chaussée,

between Jena and Weimar.

Also Bill Nye, the humorist, takes a rap at the roads in this

manner.[128]

Our wagon roads throughout the country are generally a disgrace to

civilization and before we undertake to supply Jaeger underwear and

sealskin covered bibles with flexible backs to the African it might

be well to put a few dollars into the relief of galled and broken

down horses that have lost their breath on our miserable highways.

The country system, as I recall it, was in my boyhood about as poor

and inefficient as it could well be. Each township was divided up

into road districts, and each road district was presided over by an

overseer of highways, whose duty it is to collect so many days’ work

or so many dollars from each taxpayer in the district. Of course no

taxpayer would pay a dollar when he could come and make mud pies on

the road all day and visit and gossip with the neighbors and save his

dollar too.

The result seemed to be that the work was misdirected and generally

an injury to the road. With all our respect to the farmer, I will

state right here that he does not know how to make roads. An all

wise Providence never intended that he should know. The professional

roadbuilder, with the money used by the ignorant sapheads and

self-made road architects, would in a few years make roads in the

United States over which two or three times the present sized load

could be easily drawn, and the dumb beasts of the Republic would rise

up and call us blessed for doing it.

This bit of doggerel appeared in _Good Roads_ about the same time:

_They May Be Sinking Yet_

Old farmer John drove off to town

All on a rainy day.

The glistening highway up and down,

With mire shone all the way.

The gentle weeping raindrops fell

And had fallen all the night;

The bottom of that highway--well;

’Twas literally out of sight.

But John had hitched his sturdy steeds.

His sturdy steeds and true

That often ’mid such urgent needs.

Had boldly struggled through.

And John had sworn a big round oath

With deep and bated breath,

He’d rather brave the deep, forsooth,

Thrice o’er than starve to death.

For visions of the flour bin,

’Twas empty he could see,

And for a week no sugar in

His coffee cup had he.

And so amid the sea of mire.

Those steeds right valiant reel,

While turbid waves creep higher, higher,

Upon the wagon wheel.

Oh! help ye powers that rule the wave,

Wherever ye may be;

Reach down and this poor mortal save

From out the turbid sea.

They sink, now just the horses’ ears

Still struggling through the flood;

Now nothing but John’s hat appears

Above that sea of mud.

The rich black loam of Illinois

Above that outfit met;

And since our roads are bottomless,

They may be sinking yet.

Thus was the propaganda for better roads spread during the last

decade of the nineteenth century. And this is not all the country

owes to the enthusiastic wheelman of that period. Their efforts had

resulted in a stirring of the whole populace. True, some were opposed

to spending money for highfalutin highways, but many of the best

thinkers of the country caught the true spirit of the wave and did all

they could to continue the good work. In many states organizations

were formed and good roads meetings called. In Des Moines, August

16, 1892,[129] more than 300 delegates representing boards of trade,

boards of supervisors, county road conventions, 88 counties and 130

cities met in an enthusiastic convention of two days’ duration with

Judge E. H. Thayer of Clinton as presiding officer. On the programme

were such men as Horace Boies, Governor of the state, Judge Peter A.

Day, Railway Commissioner, and Charles A. Schaeffer, President of the

State University. The resolutions adopted among other things recommend

that, until further legislation can be had, the following steps by

county associations be taken: “(1) To set on foot a movement in every

township in the respective counties looking to the consolidation of

road districts...; (2) to impress on boards of supervisors the duty

of levying the county fund tax...; (3) where it is apparent that the

public interests will be best subserved by a larger immediate

expenditure ... to urge ... the propriety of submitting to the people

the voting of a higher levy or the issuance of bonds ... to agitate

in cities and towns the question of the propriety of expending money

beyond their limits in improving highways leading thereto....”

[Illustration:

GOOD ROADS DAY IN JACKSON CO., MO.]

While this convention was in session a similar one was meeting in

Missouri; in fact practically all the states in the Union were getting

“in the band wagon.”

The League stopped not here, but were interesting the political men

of the country in the issue. They visited the president of the United

States, Benjamin Harrison, at Washington in July,[130] at which time he

turned to Colonel Charles L. Burdet, head of the League, and said: “One

thing; if wheelmen secure us good roads for which they are so zealously

working, your body deserves a medal in recognition of its philanthropy.”

The great World’s Fair was coming off at Chicago in 1893, and “good

roads boosters” were extremely anxious that a suitable exhibition

be made there. General Roy Stone framed a bill which was favorably

reported by the Senate Committee July 23, 1892. It was a bill to create

a National Highway Commission and prescribe its duties, “composed of

two Senators and five members of the House of Representatives, and

five citizens appointed by the president” for the purpose of a general

inquiry into the condition of highways in the United States and means

for their improvement, and especially the best method of securing

a proper exhibit at the World’s Columbian Exhibition of approved

appliances for road making, and of providing for public instruction in

the art during the exhibition.[131]

Colonel Albert A. Pope, of Boston, a zealous road worker, secured

the opinions of hundreds of prominent men, which he presented to the

members of congress. Only a few extracts can be made here.[132]

A want of understanding and system has resulted in a nearly useless

expenditure of enough labor and money to have furnished the settled

portions of our country with good substantial roads.

--_President Benjamin Harrison._

Looking at it from a postal standpoint enlarged free delivery or

anything like universal free delivery will have to be postponed until

there are better facilities of communication through the rural and

sparsely settled districts. The experiments that we have made in the

smaller towns and villages have proved the practicability of greater

extended free delivery, but without good roads it must necessarily be

limited to the small towns.

--_John Wanamaker, Postmaster General._

There is no doubt that the diffusion of knowledge in regard to the

good construction of roads will be of immense benefit to all the

people.

--_John A. Noble, Secretary of the Interior._

I think the people of the United States are taking more interest in

the improvement of good roads than in any other non-political matter.

--_O. H. Platt, Senator from Connecticut._

I have often thought that the people, speaking of them generally,

have never yet understood the value of good roads. They are not only

matters of convenience, but they are really matters of great economy

in every community. The farmer with one team of two horses is able

to move on a good road more than he could move with four horses and

a wagon of much greater strength on a poor road. This I have tested

personally many times. Farmers are constantly in need of the use of

highways to transport their property and to move themselves from

place to place. The average farmer is five miles distant from the

nearest railway station and his surplus produce must be moved that

distance year after year. If he were to compute the saving that he

and his neighbors would have by reason of first-class roadways, they

would discover that it would amount to more than the expense of

putting the roads in good condition and keeping them so. Our road

system is miserably deficient.

--_William A. Peffer, Senator from Kansas (Populist)._

Aside from the benefits that good roads bring to the people in

times of peace I do not know of a great city in this country that

is provided with such highways as would admit of the expeditions

marching of a great army in times of war. Washington City is a fair

example in this regard. The highways leading to this city through

Maryland and Virginia are both narrow and crooked. There is not a

single public outlet or inlet that can be called a great national

highway.

--_H. C. Hansbrough, Senator from North Dakota._

In the old Roman days all roads led to Rome, and they were good

roads. They built roads for military and commercial purposes, and

the wisdom of their enterprise was apparent even in that early day.

European nations to-day regard road-making as one of their economic

questions, and it does seem that our Government in its honest

endeavor to benefit the agricultural classes, should have thought of

good roads long ago. We want and must have splendid highways, owned

not by corporations but by the people. They will be an economical

investment, and an untold comfort to the traveler.

--_James H. Kyle, Senator from South Dakota._

The country could spend no money so economically and enlist no genius

so usefully as in making better roads for communications between one

neighborhood and another.

--_John W. Daniel, Senator from Virginia._

I esteem good roads throughout the country to be as necessary as

railroads.

--_Francis E. Warren, Senator from Wyoming._

The prosperity of our country depends so largely on the prosperity of

our farmers that everything possible should be done to render life in

the rural districts agreeable as well as profitable and nothing could

conduce more to the comfort and happiness of our people than the

improvement of the roads.

--_Joseph Wheeler, Representative from Alabama._

That good roads in good condition are always of great value in a

military point of view is plain enough; for any section of active

operations the prompt transportation of material and the moving of an

army would demand it.

--_Major General Oliver O. Howard, United States Army._

The importance of good roads has been brought to my attention most

forcibly on many occasions when my wagon trains have been forced to

move at a snail’s pace over almost impassable roads, and when every

hour’s delay might mean untold disaster. The expenditure of animal

force on such occasions was fearful. In times of peace good roads are

no less important; the general condition of country roads is a very

good index of the civilization and prosperity of the community. It is

not difficult to show by mathematical deduction that money expended

in constructing good roads is economy from a financial standpoint,

while from a social standpoint the benefits are incalculable.

We have splendid railroads traversing the whole country in every

direction and we have in most cities very creditable means of rapid

transit, but the country roads in most parts of the United States

are really deplorable. This condition of affairs is something like

putting a boy at work on Latin and Greek before he has mastered the

alphabet of his own language.

--_Brig. Gen. D. K. Stanley, United States Army._

The above are only a small portion of the letters from which they were

extracted, but they serve to show that the League of American Wheelmen

and such men as Colonel Pope were very active in spreading the gospel

of good roads. The arguments in these and hundreds of other letters,

from men of all classes and professions, of all political parties from

all parts of the nation, cover a very wide range and the effect has

been lasting.

About this time, also, Senator Charles F. Manderson, of Nebraska,

introduced a concurrent resolution in the Senate to print a lot of

consular reports relating to streets and highways in foreign countries

and distribute them in bulletin form. The edition consisted of 30,000

and served to show how the United States was lagging behind other

countries in the matter of road building.[133]

=Office of Public Roads Inquiry.=--A very few lines of the

Congressional Record serves to introduce the beginning of a great

instrumentality for good roads in America. On January 26, 1893,

Representative Deborow introduced a resolution in the House of

Representatives, “instructing the committee on agriculture to

incorporate in the agricultural appropriation the sum of $15,000 to

be expended for the purpose of making investigations for a better

system of roads.”[134] On the same day Representative Lewis presented

a similar resolution “instructing the committee on agriculture to

incorporate in the bill making appropriations for the Agricultural

Department a clause authorizing the Secretary to make inquiry

regarding public roads.”[135] Both resolutions were referred to the

committee on agriculture. As a final result a statute carrying an

appropriation of $10,000 was approved March 3, 1893. Under this statute

the Office of Public Roads Inquiries was instituted, October 3, 1893,

with “General Roy Stone, of New York, recognized as a superior civil

engineer, and thoroughly identified with the popular movement toward

the improvement of the highways in the several states, in charge.”[136]

The Letter of Instructions of the Secretary of Agriculture to General

Stone upon his appointment summarizes the statute and defines the

object and scope of the inquiry to be made. The last paragraph of the

instructions shows that the old theory of “state sovereignty,” still

had a place in the mind of the Secretary, and it was not for several

years that this office did more than the mere collection of information

relative to roads. The letter follows:[137]

U. S. Department of Agriculture,

Office of the Secretary,

Washington, D. C., October 3, 1893.

Sir: You have been this day appointed to supervise and carry out the

investigations pursuant to the statute approved March 3, 1893, which

has four branches:

(1) To make inquiries in regard to the systems of road management

throughout the United States.

(2) To make investigations in regard to the best method of

road-making.

(3) To prepare didactic publications on this subject, suitable for

distribution.

(4) To assist the agricultural colleges and experiment stations in

disseminating information on this subject.

It will not be profitable to enter upon all of these points at first.

The work under the appropriation will need to be of gradual growth,

conducted at all times economically. Therefore, it is not expected

that there will be any considerable force of clerical help, and aside

from your salary, no considerable expenditure for the present. It is

understood that you have at your command the data for a compilation

of the laws of several of the states, upon which their road systems

are based. It should be your first duty, therefore, to make such

collection complete, and prepare a bulletin on that subject.

Incidentally, while preparing this bulletin, you should charge

yourself with collecting data relating to the different methods of

road making, which, in the first instance, should be generic in their

character; including--

(1) The best method of constructing a common highway, without gravel

or stone.

(2) Gravel highways.

(3) Macadam and other stone roads.

(4) Data upon which to base suggestions for the transportation of

material within reasonable access, for the proper surfacing of

the roadbed. These data should form the foundation for the second

bulletin, or second series of bulletins.

There are certain restrictions I wish specifically to bring to your

attention. It must be borne in mind that the actual expense in the

construction of these highways is to be borne by the localities and

states in which they lie. Moreover, it is not the province of this

Department to seek to control or influence said action, except in so

far as advice and wise suggestion shall contribute toward it. This

Department is to form no part of any plan, scheme, or organization,

or to be a party to it in any way, which has for its object the

concerted effort to secure and furnish labor to the unemployed

persons or to convicts. These are matters to be carried on by states,

localities, or charities. The Department is to furnish information,

not to direct and formulate any system of organization, however

efficient or desirable it may be. Any such effort on its part would

soon make it subject to hostile criticism. You will publish this

letter in the preface to your first bulletin.

Yours truly,

J. STERLING MORTON,

Secretary.

MR. ROY STONE,

_Special Agent and Civil Engineer in charge of

Good Roads Investigations_.

The Office followed these instructions pretty closely for several

years. General Stone and his successor General Dodge encouraged the

formation of good roads organizations. In fact General Stone prior to

the institution of the Office of Road Inquiries was instrumental in

organizing at Chicago in connection with the dedication of the World’s

Fair in 1893, the National League for Good Roads. General Stone

himself attributed to the influence of this League the organization

of the Office of Public Roads and the great work which it has since

accomplished.[138]

Other good roads organizations were springing up. The Office of Public

Road Inquiries encouraged these to the extent of publishing addresses

given at their conventions as bulletins upon the theory that the

information relative to road improvements throughout the United States

was in line with the object and scope of the Office.

The organization known as the National Good Roads Association, with W.

H. Moore of St. Louis, Missouri, as president, and R. W. Richardson, of

Omaha, Nebraska, as secretary, seems to have been especially active.

Colonel Moore was a man of impressive manner, suave and affable, and

was able to interest and associate with him many very influential

people. He was a born “good roads booster.” He always worked with the

men in power. Directors Stone and Dodge not only had prominent places

on his convention programmes, but recommended to the Secretary of

Agriculture that the proceedings be printed as Departmental Bulletins.

This was for a time helpful to the cause of good roads, for the

conventions were addressed by able and influential men. Director Dodge

in his letter of transmittal of the proceedings of the convention held

at St. Louis, Missouri, April 27 to 29, 1903, to Hon. James Wilson,

Secretary of Agriculture, says:[139]

Among the distinguished speakers who delivered addresses were Hon.

Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States; Hon. William

J. Bryan, of Nebraska; General Miles, of the United States Army;

Governor Dockery, of Missouri; Governor Cummins, of Iowa; Hon. A.

C. Latimer, United States Senator from South Carolina; Hon. W. D.

Vandiver, member of Congress from Missouri; Hon. D. R. Frances,

president of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Committee; Hon. J.

H. Brigham, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture; General Roy Stone,

of New York; and Mr. Samuel Hill, of Washington. Addresses were

also delivered by prominent men engaged in agriculture, railway

transportation, commercial pursuits, and newspaper work.

This organization, like many state good-roads organizations, had no

permanent membership list. Any city that would “finance” a convention

could get one. Invitations were sent to governors, mayors, county

officers, city officers, commercial clubs urging them to appoint

delegates to the conventions. As a result large conventions were

promoted and held at Chicago, St. Louis, Buffalo, Portland, and

elsewhere, usually in connection with some exposition or fair.

There being no permanent membership the only way to finance such

undertakings was by popular subscriptions and donations from social,

commercial and political bodies. Colonel Moore[140] went to New York

and talked to the president of the Illinois Central railroad, Mr.

Stuyvesant Fish, and asked for a special “train of fifteen cars to

carry modern road machinery.” “How much will this project cost?”

asked Mr. Fish. Moore replied, “As near as we can figure it out, to

furnish and operate this train for three months will cost you $40,000

to $50,000.” President Fish replied, “That is a large amount to throw

in the mud, but we will consider it.” The train was granted. In the

language of Colonel Moore, the “railroad company shouldered the

burden.” The government through the Office of Public Roads furnished

two expert engineers, other engineers and necessary employees

were hired. This train made the trip from Chicago to New Orleans.

Advance-agents were sent along the way to secure the coöperation of the

various communities. They were asked to raise a sufficient amount of

money to defray the local expenses. Moore states, “we did not visit a

single city in the South where we laid the matter before the mayor, the

city council, and the supervisors that they did not promptly respond

in the affirmative.” Road machinery carried on the train was explained

by men frequently sent along for this purpose by the manufacturers

who had donated its use or by engineers and others in charge. Short

sections of road were graded and stoned--“object lesson roads were

built.” Similar trains were run over the Lake Shore Road, and later

over the Southern Railway. The latter at a cost of about $80,000; the

road equipped the train, fed the men and furnished Pullman cars for

sleeping accommodations. The last such train was over the Northern

Pacific. This particular organization (there were others) and its work

has been thus fully mentioned to show how thoroughly the propaganda was

carried on which resulted later in the greatest road-building campaign

in the history of the world. The National Good Roads Association came

to grief at the Portland Exposition in 1905, where strenuous opposition

developed to the financing methods of Mr. Moore and an unsuccessful

effort was made to oust him from the presidency of the association.

James W. Abbott, Pacific Coast Agent for the Office of Public Roads in

a newspaper interview among other things said:[141]

“We feel that the wild, reckless and impossible things which Colonel

Moore promises to do for communities must later produce a reaction

positively disastrous. He has already promised that the construction

train of the National Good Roads Association will do an amount of

work gratuitously for communities, which, allowing for unavoidable

delays, climatic and otherwise, would take more than ten years. The

three good roads trains which have heretofore done object-lesson road

work have been under the direct operation and executive management of

Colonel Richardson. They were wonderfully well-equipped trains, but

they demonstrated that the building of suitable object-lesson roads

efficiently and economically was not and could not be made a circus

proposition.”

In addition to good roads associations, the agitation for better roads

was taken up by governors who devoted a not inconsiderable portion of

their messages to the legislatures to a discussion of the subject. Even

presidents of the United States paid it attention in their messages

to Congress. With the coming of the automobile the need of better

highways and hard pavements was greatly emphasized. With lots of money

for propaganda, with nearly everyone becoming a disciple of good roads,

is it any wonder that Congress finally voted for federal aid?

Participation in road conventions and coöperation with more or less

spurious organizations was greatly curtailed when Logan Walter Page

was promoted to the Directorship of the office. Still, speakers and

experts were freely sent to address meetings for the purpose of

educating the citizenry to the need of better roads, and how they

should go about to obtain them and what such roads will cost. Speakers

were, therefore, supposed to give definite and specific information

on which local committees might act intelligently. Propaganda for the

purpose of influencing legislation in any state or city was tabooed and

bulletins took on a more scientific nature relating more to quality,

availability, and cost of materials; methods and costs of construction;

and efficiency of types of roads.

Road associations have continued to increase and many have and are

doing praiseworthy work for the cause of better roads. The Good Roads

Year Book, 1914, published by the American Highway Association, of

which Director Page was president, listed, giving the names of the

principal officers, 1 international, 38 national and 617 state and

county associations.

=Object-Lesson Roads.=--The Office of Public Roads inquiry beginning,

as has been shown, very simply, has by devoted service and extreme

economy been able to do a remarkable amount of good for the public

highways of this country. The men at its head and employed by it

deserve much praise. Their salaries were small, yet they worked with

missionary zeal. They were able to coöperate with scientific and

professional organizations, such as the American Society for Testing

Materials, The American Society of Civil Engineers, The Bureau of

Standards, and a number of organizations employing reputable high-class

scientific men in research work pertaining to road construction and

road materials. The government’s appropriation beginning at $10,000

or excluding the Director’s salary $8000, was increased from time to

time until it was in 1896, $37,660 and in 1911, $135,000. Since the

adoption of the system of Federal Aid, there has naturally been greatly

increased operation. The total appropriations for the Bureau of Public

Roads are now approximately three quarters of a million dollars.

[Illustration: Chart of the Organization of the U. S. Bureau of

Public Roads and Rural Engineering, 1917

+--------+

|DIRECTOR|

+---+----+

+----------------------+------------------+

| | |

+------------+-----------+ +--------+---------+ +------+-------+

+-----------+------------+ +------------------+ +------+-------+

| |

+----+-----------+ +-------------+-------+

| | | |

+-----+-------------+ | +-----------+-----------+ |

+-------------------+ | |Standardization of | |

+------------+ | Methods of Testing | |

| |Investigations of | |

+----------+---------------+ | Non-Bituminous | |

| and Advice | +-----------------------+ |

|Lectures & Exhibits | +----------------------+

|Illustrations and | |

| Models | |

+--------------------------+ |

+----------------------+----+------------------+-----------+

| | | |

+-----------+----------+ +---------+-----------+ +---------+---------+ |

| AND | | | | | |

+---------+------------+ |Inspection & Advice | +-------------------+

| +---------------------+ |

+---------+ +---------------+------+

| +-------------+ | RURAL |

+-+ | | |

| +-------------+ | | |Construction of Farm |

+-----------------+Berkely, Cal.| | Buildings |

| +-------------+ | Mechanical Principles|

| | Traction Tests |

| |Instrument Making |

| | and Repairing |

| |Inspection & Advice |

| +----------------------+

| +-------------+

| |3rd. District|

| | |

+--------------------------------+Denver, Colo.|

| |Mont., Wyo. |

| +-------------+ |Utah, Colo. |

| |4th. District| +-------------+

+-+ |

| |N.D., S.D. |

| |Minn., Wis. | +-------------+

| +-------------+ |5th. District|

+-----------------+ |

| |Nebr., Iowa |

| |Kan., Mo. | +-------------+

| +-------------+ |6th. District|

+---------------------------------+Texas., Okla.|

| |Ark., La. |

| +-------------+

| +-----------------+

| |7th. District |

| | |

+-+So. Chicago, Ill.|

| |Mich., Ill. | +---------------+

| +-----------------+ | |

| |Tenn. |

+---------------------+Miss., Ala. | +--------------------+

| +---------------+ | |

+---------------------------------------+Me., N.H., Vt., N.Y.|

| |Mass., Conn., R.I. |

| +-----------------+ |N.J., Del. |

| |10th. District | +--------------------+

| | |

+-+Washington, D.C. |

|Ohio., Penn., Md.|

|W.Va., Va., N.C. |

+-----------------+]

The duties and scope of the Office of Public Roads Inquiry was

gradually widened and its name changed to the Office of Public Roads.

In 1915 by reorganization of the Department of Agriculture it became

the Office of Public Roads and Rural Engineering and took charge of

all the Department’s work which partook in any way of an engineering

nature. In 1916 the Secretary of Agriculture directed the Office

to act for him in the routine administration of the Federal Roads

Act. The work of the Office or Bureau of Public Roads, as it is now

designated, was in 1916, carried on along three general lines:[142] (1)

Educational; (2) Research, and (3) Administration of the Federal Road

Act. By its educational or extension work the Office was endeavoring

to reach the people by means of lectures, addresses, the publication

of bulletins and the exhibit of models. Emphasizing the economic value

of improved roads and the efficiency of various types. Special advice

and assistance to communities was given by furnishing engineers and

experts to confer with municipal officers on their particular problems.

Actual demonstration by the construction of object-lesson roads was

freely carried on. The community furnished the material and labor; the

Office sent its engineers and experts to design and superintend the

construction. These “seed miles” resulted in the construction of many

other miles by the community itself. The Office tried to impress also

the need of proper maintenance from the beginning.

Fully as important as its educational work was the research or

investigational work carried on. The Office was able to secure

the services of several young men of scientific attainment and the

bulletins put out by L. W. Page, Prévost Hubbard, A. S. Cushman and

their successors have commanded world-wide recognition. Laboratories

were erected to test road materials, and experimental roads were built

to demonstrate the actual use of the same according to various methods.

In this manner careful studies were made of a vast number of materials,

including oils, asphalts, tars, concrete, brick, crushed stone and

gravel. In connection with practical road men and research committees

of such organizations as the American Society of Civil Engineers, and

the American Society for Testing Materials many useful standards have

been adopted for road materials and road construction. The effect of

traffic on various types of roads has also been a profitable subject

for study. The organization of the Bureau may be best shown by the

chart.

=Rural Free Delivery.=--A brief mention of this agency for better

roads should not be omitted. Postmaster-General Wanamaker, in 1890,

recommended the extension of free delivery to villages of less

than 10,000 population and he inaugurated an experimental “village

delivery.” After an existence of about two years this was ordered

discontinued. However, free delivery on a broader basis was demanded

by State Granges of the Patrons of Husbandry and other farmers.

Congress made small appropriations for rural free delivery, but the

Postmaster-General, W. S. Bissell, declined to make any use of them.

When Hon. W. L. Wilson became Postmaster-General (1895) he agreed with

his predecessor in believing the project impractical, but if Congress

would make the money available he was willing to try it out. An

appropriation of $40,000 was placed at his disposal.[143]

The first Rural Free Delivery routes were established on October 1,

1896, at Halltown, Uvilla, and Charlestown, West Virginia. Others

immediately followed. President McKinley in a message to Congress

December 3, 1900, states that “by the close of the current fiscal year

about 4000 routes will have been established, providing for the daily

delivery of mails at the scattered homes of about three and a half

million of rural population.”[144] So successful did it prove that it

soon displaced nearly all the star routes and was well established in

practically all rural districts of the United States. In 1919 out of a

total expenditure by the Post Office Department of over $362,000,000,

a little less than $51,000,000 was distributed to the rural delivery

service.[145]

The Department having adopted a rule to the effect that the rural

delivery service would only be established along reasonably good

roads, and that a carrier need not go out unless the roads were in fit

condition spurred the inhabitants up to better attention of the roads

for after a man once got in the habit of receiving his mail daily he

wanted it regularly.

“When a heavy snow blocks the way of the rural carrier it is customary

for the farmers to turn out and break the roads, and this is done

several days earlier than would be the case ordinarily. In this way

communication throughout neighborhoods and with the outside world is

opened up promptly. In consequence the farmer is able to take advantage

of good markets and the townspeople are not cut off from the supply

of fresh country produce, as often has happened in severe storms.

Also cases of distress in isolated farm homes are sooner reached and

relieved.”[146]

The Department finding the rural delivery popular determined to make it

not only more so but to make it pay also. So they took precautions to

protect the mail in the farmer’s boxes by regulating the kind of boxes

to be used and promptly prosecuting cases of thievery and molestation

of mail; they established registration by rural carriers and allowed

carriers to receipt for applications for money orders; carriers

were also authorized to receive and deliver “drop” letters on their

routes without passing them through the terminal post office. A little

later when the parcel post was instituted the popularity of rural

delivery was greatly enhanced. Like many other conveniences the rural

inhabitants cannot now realize how they could get along without free

delivery of the mails. Postmaster-General Charles Emory Smith in his

report of 1900[147] says of the then quite new system:

Rural delivery has now been sufficiently tried to measure its

effects.... It stimulates social and business correspondence, and so

swells the postal receipts. Its introduction is invariably followed

by a large increase in the circulation of the press and of periodic

literature. The farm is thus brought into direct daily contact with

the currents and movements of the business world. A more accurate

knowledge of ruling markets and varying prices is diffused, and the

producer, with his quicker communication and larger information, is

placed on a surer footing. The value of farms, as has been shown in

many cases, is enhanced. Good roads become indispensable, and their

improvement is the essential condition of the service. The material

and measurable benefits are signal and unmistakable.

But the movement exercises a wider and deeper influence. It becomes

a factor in the social and economic tendencies of American life.

The disposition to leave the farm for the town is a familiar effect

of our past conditions. But this tendency is checked, and may be

materially changed by an advance which conveys many of the advantages

of the town to the farm. Rural free delivery brings the farm within

the daily range of the intellectual and commercial activities of the

world, and the isolation and monotony which have been the bane of

agricultural life are sensibly mitigated. It proves to be one of the

most effective and powerful of educational agencies. Wherever it is

extended the schools improve and the civil spirit of the community

feels a new pulsation; the standard of intelligence is raised,

enlightened interest in public affairs is quickened, and better

citizenship follows.

With all these results clearly indicated by the experiment as thus

far tried, rural free delivery is plainly here to stay. It cannot be

abandoned where it has been established, and cannot be maintained

without being extended.

[Illustration:

HARD SURFACE HIGHWAY IN OREGON]

[Illustration:

A FARMER’S WIFE MEETING THE POSTAL TRUCK]

The law for federal aid is based upon the clause in the Constitution

giving Congress power “to establish post offices and post roads.”[148]

and the money made available may only be expended on post roads outside

of towns “having a population of two thousand five hundred or more,

except that portion of any such street or road along which the houses

average more than two hundred feet apart.”[149] Thus may be seen the

very great importance to better public highways of the “rural free

delivery.”

=State Aid.=--While the bicyclist and voluntary road organizations were

creating sentiment favorable to improved highways, the states were not

idle. It will not be possible to follow the progress in each of the

states, but since some form of state aid has been adopted by all of

them the development of that idea will be sketched. By state aid is

meant a plan whereby a part of the expense of constructing roads is

borne by the state and a part by the locality in which the road lies.

New Jersey,[150] like many of the other Eastern states, had a few

turnpike roads constructed and maintained by private corporations.

These roads were much better than the public roads on which there

were no toll gates. The public roads were administered under ordinary

laws of overseers of highway districts. Charges of partiality had led

to amendments, then other amendments until the laws were a maze of

intricacies. To eliminate these, the state board of agriculture in

1887 called a mass meeting of farmers and others interested in good

roads. The result of the conference, which was well attended, was

the appointment of a committee, consisting of one member for each of

the Congressional districts in the State, to examine the laws of New

Jersey, of other states and of foreign countries and report methods

for bettering the New Jersey system. After careful consideration they

drafted a law abolishing the overseers and conferring the powers and

duties of caring for the public highways on the township committee.

This was presented to the State Board of Agriculture and received

unanimous approval. But when it came before the State Legislature, of

1888, for adoption the opposition of the road overseers succeeded in

defeating it. In 1889 it was again presented and defeated; and met a

similar fate in 1890. But in 1891 with the coöperation of the governor

its passage was secured.

Mr. Clayton Conrow of New Jersey[151] claims the honor of proposing

the first state aid road law in the United States. He asserts that

he learned from actual observation of the travelers on a section of

highway that it was used not only by “teams of the local township

but also from the adjoining township and the township beyond, and so

on and on they came until a score of townships were represented on

this section of the road.” He therefore concluded that the county

and the state by rights should assist in building the main traveled

roads, and that “every citizen of the state is entitled to the free

use thereof.” This, he says, was in 1890, just the time the state

board of agriculture was pushing its law to discontinue the overseers.

Conrow says he consulted with Hon. Edward Burrough, president of the

state board of agriculture, and outlined his plan for a State Aid Road

Law. Burrough was highly pleased, but there was an obstacle in the

way, namely the turnpike corporations. They were creatures of the law

and had rights that should be respected. Mr. Burrough advocated the

adoption of the law having faith that the people would buy the turnpike

roads so that no citizen would be the loser. Judge William M. Lanning

put the draft of the bill in legal form. It was then submitted to

Governor Abbett for his approval as they did not care to encounter a

veto if a slight change of form would reconcile him to its provisions.

Mr. Conrow claims his original draft was changed only slightly by the

board and again by the governor, then submitted to the legislature by a

Mr. Davidson of Gloucester county. This is the act that was passed in

1891.

=Salient Features of the State Aid Law.=--The essential points of the

law are set forth in the following extract being the preamble and parts

of the seventh and fourth sections:

_An Act to provide for the more permanent improvement of the public

roads of this State._

Whereas public roads in this State have heretofore been built and

maintained solely at the expense of the respective townships in which

they are located; and

Whereas such roads are for the convenience of the citizens of the

counties in which they are located, and of the entire State as well

as of said townships; and

Whereas the expense of constructing permanently improved roads may be

reasonably imposed in due proportions, upon the State and upon the

counties in which they are located: Therefore, ...

_And be it enacted_, That whenever there shall be presented to

the board of chosen freeholders of any county a petition signed

by the owners of at least two-thirds of the lands and real estate

fronting or bordering on any public road ... praying the board to

cause such road ... to be improved under this act, and setting

forth that they are willing that the peculiar benefits conferred on

the lands fronting or bordering on said road ... shall be assessed

thereon, in amount not exceeding ten per centum of the entire cost

of the improvement, it shall be the duty of the board to cause such

improvements to be made: Provided, that the estimated cost of all

improvements ... in any county in any one year shall not exceed

one-half of one per centum of the ratables of such county for the

last preceding year....

And be it enacted, That one-third of the cost of all roads

constructed ... shall be paid for out of the State treasury:

Provided, That the amount so paid shall not in any one year exceed

the sum of seventy-five thousand dollars....

It will be seen that under this law the property owners pay one-tenth,

the State one-third and the county the remaining 56²⁄₃ per cent. Except

for the 10 per cent paid by the abutting property holders the burden

borne by all citizens of the county is the same.

The friends of the movement demanded its enforcement; the opponents

were equally determined which resulted in an appeal to the courts and

the mandatory features were sustained. As it was first enacted the

total expenditure was $20,000 and a Commissioner of Agriculture was

to supervise its disbursement. But as there was no such officer the

next legislature, at the suggestion of the governor, authorized the

president of the State Board of Agriculture to perform these duties;

this he did until the office of the Commissioner of Public Roads was

created. The first money paid out under the act was December 27, 1892,

$20,661.85, and this was the first money paid in the United States for

state aid for the construction of roads. With slight amendments the law

remains to the present and has been emulated by nearly all the states

in the Union.

In Massachusetts advocates of better roads attempted legislation

looking toward a system of state highways in 1887 and annually

thereafter until 1892.[152] In 1892 the demand became so great that

the legislature enacted a law providing for a commission of three to

inquire into the entire subject and report to the legislature of 1893,

with suitable appropriation for the purpose. The commission made a

thorough investigation, held public hearings, and made inquiries among

all classes. Their findings were brought before the legislature and

a general road law was enacted providing for a commission of three

competent persons who should give advice to those having charge of the

public highways; it further contemplated the building and care for by

this commission of a system of state highways connecting the several

municipalities. At first the counties were supposed to grade the roads

and the Commonwealth to surface them but the law was changed (1894) so

that the Commonwealth through the highway commission does the entire

work of construction and maintenance then charges back to the counties

25 per cent of the cost, so that finally the State pays 75 per cent and

the county 25 per cent. In 1913 an amendment was made to relieve small

communities from the payment of the entire amount thus the State, in

reality, pays more than 75 per cent of the expense.

The state aid principle has been adopted by all states in the union;

many before federal aid came, the remainder since. Connecticut was

third in 1895 and New York fourth in 1898.

In order to raise money to meet the demands for state aid roads many

of the states bonded themselves for large amounts. New York voted a

bond issue of $50,000,000 in 1906 and another of the same amount in

1912. California voted bonds of $18,000,000 in 1910 and $15,000,000 in

1916. Illinois voted $60,000,000 in 1920 eventually to be paid from

automobile licenses. Maryland authorized a bond issue of $5,000,000

for trunkline roads; additional issues were made in 1910, $1,000,000;

in 1912, $3,170,000; in 1914, $6,600,000; and in 1916, $2,700,000.

Missouri authorized a $60,000,000 bond issue in 1921 and so on for

other states. On January 1, 1914[153] there were outstanding highway

and bridge bonds in the United States to the amount of $445,147,073;

of which $158,590,000 had been voted by the States and $286,557,073

by counties and townships. After the war increased interest in road

building became manifest. Between November 1, 1918, and December 31,

1919,[154] state highway bonds amounting to $234,000,000 were voted:

Illinois, $60,000,000; Pennsylvania $50,000,000; Michigan, $50,000,000;

Missouri, $60,000,000 and many other states smaller amounts. There is

pending legislation for nearly $300,000,000 additional bonds, among

which are Minnesota, $75,000,000; Texas, $75,000,000; West Virginia,

$40,000,000; Washington, $30,000,000; Alabama, $25,000,000. Funds

are otherwise raised by direct taxation, property and special, by

appropriations from the general fund, by automobile licenses, and from

court fines. The grand total for road construction expended in the

United States from 1910 to 1920 is over $2,500,000,000.

=Federal Aid.=--The real road building age in the United States was

ushered in by the enactment of the law providing that “the Secretary of

Agriculture shall on behalf of the United States in certain cases aid

the States in the construction and maintenance of rural post roads.”

From the time Representative Brownlow startled the country in 1904

by introducing a bill to appropriate $24,000,000 for road building,

not a session of Congress passed without several such bills being

introduced. Most of these took the form of creating a commission to

administer any fund for national aid that might be appropriated, and

many feared such large appropriations would result in “pork barrels”

all over the country. In 1915 one such bill passed the House but did

not become a law. However, the leaven continued to work. The influence

of the automobile was making thousands of new road enthusiasts every

day. Many petitions were being rained upon Congress and scores of bills

introduced for national aid both for specific roads and of a general

nature. During the 63d Congress, forty-nine bills were introduced, 10

in the Senate and 39 in the House. A report had been submitted by a

joint congressional committee on January 21, 1915[155] embodying data

from foreign countries showing systems in effect, the mileage and cost

of roads constructed; similar data from the several states; extracts

from state constitutions showing limitations of state debts; statistics

on tonnage transported over rural roads; statistics on length,

character and condition of rural routes; transportation rates on road

materials by rail; comparative statistics embodying possible factors in

apportionment of Federal aid; statistics of wealth, debt, and highway

expenditures; comparative statistics on the cost of road construction,

historical sketches of national roads, work of the Office of Public

Roads; and a synopsis on congressional action on Federal aid to road

improvement.

The report speaks of the economic importance of good roads, the

constitutionality of Federal aid and gives data to show the public

sentiment in favor of Federal aid. Of 10,000 replies to inquiries

received from every state in the Union, 97 per cent favored Federal aid

and 3 per cent opposed.

On January 6, 1916, Representative Shackleford of Missouri, chairman

of the committee on roads, introduced the bill which later became a

law. The bill ran the usual course and created a great deal of interest

and was freely debated in both House and Senate. The discussion on it

comprises more than 300 pages of the Congressional Record[156] and

cover practically every reason for and objection to the betterment of

highways and the use thereon of national money. The bill finally passed

the house January 25, 1916, by a vote of 283 Yeas, 81 Nays and 70 not

voting; and the Senate as amended, May 8, 1916, by a unanimous vote.

The bill went to conference, the Senate agreed to the conference report

June 27, and the House June 28, 1916. President Wilson approved the

bill July 11, 1916, and it became Public Law, No. 156, 64th Congress.

The title of the bill as amended is “An Act to provide that the

United States shall aid the States in the Construction of rural post

roads, and for other purposes.” In brief it authorizes the Secretary

of Agriculture to coöperate with the states through their respective

highway departments in the construction of rural post roads. In order

to keep state sovereignty intact no money apportioned under the act

could be expended in any state until the legislature of that state

shall have assented to the provisions of the Act. The Secretary of

Agriculture and the State Highway department agree upon the roads to be

constructed therein and the character and method of construction. By

providing that all roads constructed under the provisions of the act

shall be free from tolls of all kinds Congress avoided the objection

raised by President Monroe in his veto of the National Road bill in

1822. A most liberal definition of Post Roads is also given in the

bill, namely, “the term ‘rural post road’ shall be construed to mean

any public road over which the United States mails now are or may

hereafter be transported, excluding every street and road in a place

having a population, as shown by the latest available federal census,

of two thousand five hundred or more, except that portion of any such

street or road along which the houses average more than two hundred

feet apart.”

For the purpose of carrying out the provisions of the act there was

appropriated for the fiscal years ending June 30, 1917, the sum of

$5,000,000; 1918, $10,000,000; 1919, $15,000,000; 1920, $20,000,000;

1921, $25,000,000. After deducting the amount necessary for

administration not exceeding 3 per cent, the remaining amount available

was to be distributed as follows: “One-third in the ratio which the

area of each State bears to the total area of all the States; one-third

in the ratio which the population of each State bears to the total

population of all the States as shown by the latest available Federal

census; one-third in the ratio which the mileage of rural delivery

routes and star routes in each State bears to the total mileage of

rural delivery routes and star routes in all the states.” The Secretary

of Agriculture is to approve only projects which are substantial

in character. Items of engineering, inspection and unforeseen

contingencies may not exceed 10 per cent of the estimated cost. The

share paid by the Government shall not exceed 50 per cent of the total

cost.

The same act appropriated $10,000,000 for the survey, construction

and maintenance of roads and trails within the national forests when

necessary to develop the resources upon which communities within and

adjacent to the national forests are dependent.

The Secretary of Agriculture issued September 1, 1916, a set of rules

and regulations for carrying out the Federal-Aid Road Act.[157] These

are quite detailed and require a close supervision by the Office of

Public Roads and Rural Engineering, the Director of which or other

officers and employees designated by him, was officially appointed

to represent the Secretary of Agriculture in its administration.

These rules explain and relate specifically to definitions of terms;

information to be furnished the Secretary; project statements; surveys,

plans, specifications and estimates; project agreements; contracts;

construction work and labor; records and cost keeping; payments;

submission of documents to the Office of Public Roads.

A State, County or District making application for aid must present a

Project Statement “to enable the Secretary to ascertain (_a_) whether

the project conforms to the requirements of the act; (_b_) whether

adequate funds, or their equivalent, are or will be available by

or on behalf of the State for construction; (_c_) what purpose the

project will serve and how it correlates with other highway work of

the State; (_d_) the administrative control of, and responsibility

for, the project; (_e_) the practicability and economy of the project

from an engineering and construction standpoint; (_f_) the adequacy of

the plans and provisions for proper maintenance of roads; and (_g_)

the approximate amount of Federal aid desired.” Also there must be

submitted for approval forms of contract, with documents referred to

in them, and the contractor’s bond. Likewise maps of surveys, plans,

specifications and estimates, showing quantity and cost shall have

the approval of the Secretary. The state shall provide the rights of

way and railroad grade crossings shall be avoided where practicable.

A project agreement between the State Highway Department and the

Secretary is executed. It must also be shown that adequate means either

by advertising or other devices were employed, prior to the beginning

of construction, to insure economical and practical expenditures, and

rules for submitting and tabulating bids are given. Samples of the

materials to be used must be submitted for approval whenever requested,

and all materials, unless otherwise stipulated, must be tested prior to

use by the standard methods of the Office of Public Roads. Supervision

shall include adequate inspection. Reports of progress, records and

cost accounts must be kept in approved manner.

Many states in order to take advantage of the Federal aid within the

time stipulated by the Act have, as has been shown, issued long-time

bonds. Others have relied on increased taxation, and many require

abutting property to pay a special tax for improvements.

The success of the Act was extremely marked. So much so that the

Post Office Appropriation act of February 28, 1919,[158] carried an

amendment to the original Federal Aid Act providing an additional

appropriation of $200,000,000 for post roads and $9,000,000 for forest

roads. Fifty million dollars of the post road fund was made immediately

available and $75,000,000 was made available for each of the fiscal

years of 1920 and 1921. Of the forest road fund $3,000,000 was made

available for each of the fiscal years 1919, 1920 and 1921. This

bill transferred to the Secretary of Agriculture all available war

material and equipment suitable for use in the improvement of highways

for distribution to the several states on a value basis the same as

provided in the Federal Aid Act of 1916. Under this provision trucks,

road equipment, and road materials having when new a value of over

$100,000,000 had been distributed by November 1, 1919.

SELECTED REFERENCES

ANDERSON, ANDREW P., “Highways,” _American Year Book_, 1918, pp.

317-321; 1919, pp. 308-311. D. Appleton & Company, New York.

“Bonds for Highway Improvement,” Office of Public Roads Bulletin No.

136, U. S. Dept of Agr.

_Boston Transcript_, Letter by a foreign visitor giving her opinion

of American Roads. Aug. 10, 1892.

BURROUGH, EDWARD, “State Aid to Road Building in New Jersey,” Office

of Public Road Inquiry Bulletin No. 9, 1894. Dept. of Agriculture,

Washington.

CHATBURN, GEORGE R., “Highway Engineering,” pp. 125-126, John Wiley &

Sons, New York.

_Congressional Record._--Good Roads Resolution introduced in the

Senate by Senator Manderson, Vol. XXIV, pp. 157, 261, 300. Introduced

in the House by Representative Lewis, Vol. XXIV, p. 883.

CONROW, CLAYTON, “Inside History of the State Aid Law,” Report of the

New Jersey Commissioner of Public Roads, 1900, p. 81.

Department of Agriculture Year Book, 1900, p. 522.

Federal Aid Road Law, History of, _Congressional Record_, Vol.

LIII, 1916. The Federal Aid road bill, the one that was finally

passed and became the most effective road law the world has ever

known, had a history in Congress that would make a large volume in

itself. The pages of the _Congressional Record_ where it may be

found follow: House Roll 7617--To provide that the United States

shall aid the States in the construction of rural post roads, and

for other purposes--was introduced by Mr. Dorsey W. Shackleford, of

Missouri, January 6, 1916 and referred to the Committee on Roads,

637.--Reported back (H. Rept. 26), 746.--Debated, 1131, 1165, 1234,

1269, 1285, 1353-1368, 1373-1408, 1451-1480, 1516-1537 (Appendix,

21, 36, 141, 157, 160, 162, 172, 177, 178, 188, 203, 207, 208, 209,

211, 213, 214, 216, 218, 593, 1273, 2247).--Amended and passed

house January 25, 1916, Ayes 283, Noes 81, Present 3, not voting

67, 1536, 1547.--Referred to Senate Committee on Agriculture and

Forestry, 1551.--Motion for change of reference debated, 2049-2057,

2329-2335.--Reference changed to Committee on Post Offices and Post

Roads, 2334, 2335.--Reported with amendments (S. Rept. 250), 3460,

3881.--Debated, 6425-6433, 6494-6504, 6532-6549, 6565-6585, 6731,

6782-6785, 6840-6849, 6897-6899, 7119-7127, 7225-7228, 7291-7300,

7414, 7451, 7456-7465, 7499-7518, 7560-7571.--Amended and passed

Senate unanimously, May 8, 1916, 7571.--Referred to House Committee

on Roads--Reported back (H. Rept. 732), 8357.--House disagrees to

Senate amendments and asks for a conference, 8749.--Senate insists

on its amendments and agrees to a conference, 8783.--Conference

appointed, 8749, 8783.--Conference report (S. Doc. No. 474) made in

Senate, 9964.--Conference report unanimously agreed to in Senate

June 27, 1916, 10086.--Conference report (No. 856) made in House.

10171.--Conference report debated in House, 10162-10173 (Appendix,

1316, 1318, 1334, 1340, 1360, 1361, 1647, 1719, 1724, 1793, 1860,

2082).--Conference report agreed to in House, June 28, 1916, by a

vote of 181 ayes to 53 noes, 10173.--Examined and signed, 10348,

10371.--Presented to the President, 10446.--Approved (Public Statutes

No. 156, July 11, 1916), 10836.

“Federal Aid Road Act, Regulations for carrying out,” Office of

Public Roads Circular No. 65. U. S. Dept. of Agriculture.

Free Delivery of Mail. Agricultural Year Book, 1917; Postmaster

General’s Reports, 1892-1899; Ex. Doc. 1, Pt. 4, 52d Cong., 2d Sess.,

p. 11; Ex. Doc. 1, Pt. 4, 53d Cong., 2d Sess., pp. ix, 55; Ex. Doc.

1, Pt. 1, 54th Cong., 3d Sess., pp. 11, 120; H. Doc. 4, 54th Cong.,

1st Sess., pp. 8, 116; H. Doc. 4, 54th Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 25, 129;

H. Doc. 4, 55th Cong., 3d Sess., pp. 12, 104; _American Year Book_,

1919, p. 556. D. Appleton & Company.

Funk and Wagnalls’ Encyclopaedia, Article “Cycling.”

Good Roads Year Book, 1917, “State Highway Department Legislation,”

pp. 37-218.

Good Roads Meetings.--“Iowa Highway Meeting,” _Engineering Record_,

August 27, 1892; National Highway Association at Portland, Oregon,

_The Morning Oregonian_, June 22, 1905; Office of the Public Roads

Bulletins, Nos. 15, 17, 19, 21-26.

GREATHOUSE, CHARLES H., “The Delivery of Rural Mails,” Year Book,

1917. U. S. Dept. of Agriculture.

“Highway Bonds,” _The American Year Book_, 1919, 1920. D. Appleton &

Co., New York.

House Document No. 1510, “Federal Aid to Good Roads,” being Vol. 99

of the House Documents.

Iowa Code of 1851, “Road Laws.”

Office of Public Roads Established, Bulletin No. 1, 1894, Report of

Secretary of Agriculture, 1893, p. 36. U. S. Dept. of Agriculture.

_New York Times_, Good Roads Department, Sept. 11, 1892.

NYE, BILL, “On Good Roads,” _Good Roads_, September, 1892.

PERKINS, GEORGE A., “State Highways of Massachusetts,” U. S. Dept. of

Agri. Year Book, 1894, p. 505.

Post Roads.--The Constitution of the United States on, Section 8.

POTTER, I. B., “The Gospel of Good Roads,” League of American

Wheelmen.

SMITH, CHARLES EMORY, “Rural Mail Delivery,” Agricultural Year Book,

1900, p. 522. U. S. Dept of Agriculture.

FOOTNOTES

[122] Code of 1851.

[123] “Highway Engineering,” by G. R. Chatburn, pp. 125-126.

[124] J. B. Dunlop, a surgeon of Dublin, invented the pneumatic tire

in 1888.

[125] One of the early books was entitled “The Gospel of Good Roads,”

by I. B. Potter, and appealed directly to the farming interests.

[126] _New York Times_, September 11, 1892.

[127] Adolphine Hingst, under the heading “Surprised at America.

A European’s Shock on Seeing its Roads and Highways,” _Boston

Transcript_, August 10, 1892.

[128] _Good Roads_, September, 1892.

[129] _Engineering Record_, August 27, 1892.

[130] _New York Times_, Sept. 11, 1892.

[131] Ibid.

[132] Printed as a Senate Document.

[133] Cong. Record, Vol. 24: Dec. 15, 1892, p. 157; Dec. 21, p. 261;

Dec. 22, p. 300. Senate Documents.

[134] Congressional Record, Vol. 24, Jan. 26, 1893, p. 883.

[135] Ibid.

[136] Report of the Secretary of Agriculture, 1893, p. 36.

[137] Bulletin No. 1, Office of Road Inquiry, p. 5.

[138] Bulletin No. 26, Office of Public Road Inquiries, p. 46.

[139] Bulletin No. 26, Office of Public Road Inquiries.

[140] Address on the “History and Purposes of the Good Roads

Movement,” by William H. Moore, president National Good Roads

Association, Bulletin No. 26, Office of Public Road Inquiries, p. 10.

[141] _The Morning Oregonian_ (Portland), June 22, 1905.

[142] “Goods Roads Year Book,” 1917, p. 29.

[143] “The Delivery of Rural Mails,” by Charles H. Greathouse.

Department of Agriculture Year Book, 1890.

[144] Cong. Record, Dec. 3, 1900, p. 12.

[145] “The American Year Book,” 1919, p. 556.

[146] Dept. of Agri. Year Book, 1900, p. 522.

[147] Year Book, 1900. Department of Agriculture, Washington.

[148] “The Constitution of the United States,” Section 8.

[149] Public Law No. 156, 64th Congress.

[150] “State Aid to Road Building in New Jersey,” by Edward Burrough,

Chairman of the New Jersey State Board of Agriculture, Office of Road

Inquiry Bulletin No. 9, 1894.

[151] “Inside History of the State Aid Road Law,” by Clayton Conrow,

President of the New Jersey State Road Improvement Association,

Report of the New Jersey Commissioner of Public Roads, 1900, p. 81.

[152] “State Highways in Massachusetts,” by George A. Perkins,

Chairman Massachusetts State Highway Commission, U. S. Department of

Agriculture Year Book, 1894, p. 505.

[153] Office of Public Roads Bulletin No. 136.

[154] “The American Year Book,” D. Appleton Co., New York, 1919, 1920.

[155] House Document No. 1510, “Federal Aid to Good Roads,” being

Vol. 99, of the House Documents.

[156] Vol. LIII, 1916. See page references at end of chapter.

[157] Circular No. 65, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Office of

Public Roads.

[158] “American Year Book,” 1920, p. 308. D. Appleton & Company, New

York.

CHAPTER VI

INTERRELATION BETWEEN HIGHWAY AND OTHER KINDS OF TRANSPORTATION

Transportation has been classified as primary and secondary.

Transportation on the public highway, whether of raw products to

the market or finished products to the consumer, is denominated

primary; transportation by railroads, canals, and ships as secondary.

Practically all secondary transportation is of products which were

first or last or both subjects of primary transportation.[159] There

should, therefore, be a natural harmonious relation between them.

Suppose the foot should say to the hand, “You are useless, it is I who

support the body”; and the hand should retort, “Think you’re smart,

don’t you? I’ll let you know it is I who collect and prepare the food

which nourishes it; a log of wood could easily replace you”: would that

make either one of them independent of the other?

Too true that the great railroad corporations have not always acted in

a manner suitable to the man in the street, that they have often taken

too much toll, that they have become rich and arrogant, that they have

frequently manipulated the political machinery of government in their

own favor, that they have exploited where they should not, that they

have shown favoritism to prominent shippers, and that they have often

borne down heavily on the laboring man; but, this country would never

have been developed to its present state of civilization and prosperity

without some powerful and efficacious method of transportation. The

railroads, proving themselves to be more efficient than either the

public highways or the waterways, without perhaps intending any

maliciousness, put them practically out of business. Now that improved

roads and automobiles and motor trucks are giving the railroads a race

for their life some unthinking persons are gloating over the fact and

shouting “to the victor belongs the spoils.” The evolutionary law

that the “fittest will survive” does not necessarily mean that what

is best for the world, for government, for society, for business will

always survive. Weeds will often choke out the corn unless prevented by

outside influence. A beautiful elm stands on the corner. Every spring

it sheds an abundance of seeds; soon these germinate and there springs

up throughout the lawn, flower and vegetable gardens, myriads of young

elm trees. Now elm trees in their proper place are desirable, are

useful, are ornamental and furnish pleasure, but when they become weeds

they should be rooted up that the lawn, the vegetables, and the flowers

may persist. Here the fittest for society survives only because of

artificial regulation. The railroads, steam and electric, the waterways

and the highways all have spheres of usefulness; let each perform its

function and there need be no incongruity or discord.

Experience has proved time and again that any machine has a particular

capacity at which it can be most efficiently operated. A simple stone

crusher kept half full is running at a loss; if crowded and speeded up

it will wear and break unduly. It would be foolish to run continually a

50 horse-power engine to serve a 2 horse-power motor. An electric light

plant is most economical when operated at its “capacity.” Horse and

wagons, motor trucks, railways, canals, and ships, are but machines,

and the law holds with all of them that they are most efficient when

operated at their proper capacity.

Another economic truth is that the unit cost of production is usually

lowest when the output is great. Quantity production is the goal of

practically all successful manufacturing enterprises. Automatic and

near-automatic machines replace the human hand. One person by the

aid of mechanical and electrical devices produces as much in the same

time as could a score or even a hundred without such help formerly.

The chief reason why quantity production is cheaper than individual

production is that it allows for a division of labor, a separation

of the preparing processes into several operations or occupations.

Growing the grain, transporting it to market, grinding it into flour,

baking it into bread, and selling the bread, indicate some of the

several occupations, that arise in the simple preparation of “our daily

bread.” The meat-packing industry affords an excellent example of the

principle: The animal is surveyed and “laid off like a map”; and each

workman as the carcass passes him has one operation to perform. One

man sticks the pig, another scalds it, another pulls the hair from a

particular portion of the body, one cuts the slits for the gambols,

another inserts the sticks, still others hoist the body to the hanger,

and so on as it proceeds along its course scores of persons are each

doing a very limited portion of the work until the entire animal is

prepared and packed for shipment. The workmen are classified and the

highest paid are put to the most delicate or important parts while for

the less delicate and less important duties the pay is very much lower.

But each workman having only a small variety of work to perform soon

becomes adept and can do a much greater amount than if he attempted the

entire round of labor. The building of automobiles wherein materials

start from different places and eventually coalesce as they proceed on

their journey through the shops by each workman as they pass adding one

thing or performing one operation until the whole emerges a complete

machine ready to run away under its own power, is another case in point.

Mr. James J. Hill, when president of the Great Northern, Northern

Pacific and Chicago Burlington & Quincy railroad companies, applied the

principle of quantity production to railroad transportation. Under his

supervision locomotives and cars increased in size; this necessitated

heavier rails and more substantial track; trains were not allowed to

leave the terminals until a full load had been accumulated; regular

schedules were of course done away with except for passenger and a few

local freight trains. Other trains were to be run only at the full

capacity of the locomotive. This was not conducive to speed, but the

unit cost of hauling a ton of freight one mile was very materially

reduced. The same crew with comparatively small increase in costs may

operate a train of many cars about as easily as one of few cars.

The same principle underlies the efforts of motor transport companies.

They are increasing the size of trucks and loads to decrease cost.

They have not used discretion, however, in this and their heavy trucks

have ground to powder high-cost roadways with the result that public

sentiment is reacting against them and regulatory laws are being passed

by many legislatures.

Increasing the size of the plant, train, or truck will not bring

economies unless it can be run at its capacity load, consequently when

the trade or traffic will not utilize full loading a smaller plant

should be adopted. To run a 12 horse-power gasoline engine to turn

a 1¹⁄₄ horse-power washing machine motor is no more foolish than to

run 100-car locomotives to pull 2-car trains, or 7-ton trucks where

the load never exceeds 2 tons, or 7-passenger automobiles with 1 or

2 passengers. The contention is well founded that western railroad

methods are futile on New England railroads[160] and that if prosperity

is ever to come to New England roads they must reduce their rates

and rates can only be reduced by making the size and number of cars

commensurate with the character and amount of traffic. In England where

shipping distances are comparatively short the small van or car and

quick deliveries have been evolved. In well-settled portions of this

country, as in New England, similar practices might well be adopted

that the railways may not be entirely eliminated and the public forced

eventually to resort to more expensive transportation methods when both

direct and indirect costs are considered over the public highways.

The railroads are also complaining that the automobile is cutting

into their passenger earnings. This is no doubt true. What else can

be expected with approximately 11,000,000 machines now in operation?

Thousands of tourists are daily traversing the country. They find the

outing pleasant and when several occupy one car it is cheaper than

railroad travel. Free camping along the way avoids hotel bills which

have grown inordinately during the past few years. If these rates

continue, simple inns as in the olden days may grow up and cut into the

business of the high-priced hotels. Lower charges for both railroads

and hotels will mitigate but not entirely eliminate the automobile

competition. The motor car is here to stay and automobile travel will

continue to increase. It is no longer a theory but a condition which

exists, and the railroads and hotels should adopt the policy of the

wily politician,--who said, “If you can’t lick ’em, jine ’em,”--meet

the automobile half way and make the most of it.

If predictions of those in close touch with the automobile business be

any criterion the railroads will feel the influence of the motor car

more and more. H. F. Blanchard, writing in _Popular Science Monthly_,

January, 1923, p. 26, claims that the $150 passenger car is in sight,

and that the “saturation point” which has been a worry for years has

not yet arrived and will not if the lowering of prices keeps pace

with increased production. It is pointed out that the production of

automobiles and trucks is still increasing. The 1922 output (2,577,220

machines) is more than the 1920 output (2,276,000) and these are bought

by the public as fast as made. Mr. Durant, a prominent manufacturer, is

quoted as saying that: “The development of a cheaper car than we now

believe possible is only a question of the development of the highways.

Millions more of automobiles would be in use in America to-day if

the conditions of our highways permitted. When our automobiles can

be built to run on highways that are on the average as good as our

city streets--and this is bound to come sooner or later--we shall have

lighter, better and far cheaper cars. And the time is not far distant.”

In Roger W. Babson’s weekly comment dated September 30, 1922, we read:

Railroads have already felt the effects of pleasure automobiles, but

they have not really begun yet to feel the effects of auto trucking.

The trucking of goods within a radii of 50 or 100 miles has only

begun and this radius may readily be extended to cover 200 or 250

miles. Transcontinental systems ... have nothing to fear from trucks.

In fact the trucks may help them. Other roads [those intermediate in

length] can survive and perhaps profit under this competition. With

roads such as [short-line roads] this is not true. These roads are

bound to suffer far more from the truck than they now think possible.

We shall live to see great highways built by the state exclusively

for truck use. Railroads are destined ultimately to lose all of their

short haul business and hence the roads which are in comparatively

small and compact territories are sure to suffer. The only hope for

some roads ... is to sell certain of their rights of way to the state

in order that the tracks may be removed and concrete highways laid

in their place. Many roads have parallel lines to-day under their

control. The wise railroad company will develop one of these for

itself and will sell the other at a good price to the state for a

concrete truck highway.

If the steam railroads are feeling the competition of the motor, the

interurban trolley lines and the street-car companies are harder hit.

The interurban lines are most of them short and depend upon local

traffic. Their cars stopped at any cross-road along the way to pick

up passengers and freight. But the motor transport is going them one

better; it picks up its load at the front gate, saving the trouble of

even a short walk, or in the case of freight, of loading and unloading

and a short haul to the track.

The case of street-car lines is slightly different. So many persons are

purchasing and daily using automobiles to go to and from business that

the street-car people have complained bitterly. Many lines are running

behind and one at least, Des Moines, Iowa, entirely stopped operation

(August, 1917). The moment they found their revenues decreasing they

ran to the railway commissions and city councils with requests for

permits to increase rates of fare. The increase when allowed not only

failed to alleviate but aggravated the trouble. Even old-fashioned

persons who formerly traveled home for luncheon and back afterward

began patronizing cafeterias and clubs. The habit of eating noon

luncheon down town was soon formed. Others emulated their example,

resulting in the loss of hundreds and even thousands of fares per

week. Riding to and from work in an automobile has a fascination for

most men, and every one in a street car who sees his neighbor whizzing

along by the side vows that he, too, will drive a car as soon as he can

save enough money to make the first payment. Useless for the street

car managers to try to prove to him that the expenses of a car--gas,

oil, tires, repairs and depreciation--are vastly greater than street

car fares; everybody knows that, but he must be in the style. Farmers,

as the implement dealers have found to their sorrow, will do without

or tinker up old harvesters and plows in order to enjoy the pleasure

of owning an automobile. The mechanic may change his seven-passenger

for a light-four as wages go down but he still insists on riding his

own car. The merchant while complaining that others should give up

their machines and pay their bills, hangs on to his own with the grip

of death. Women, even, are willing to give up pretty dresses and wear

khaki overalls at least half the time. It looks as though many will

hereafter live a nomadic life using their cars and garages more than

their one- and two-room apartments. Stop the people from using motors

and force them back to the street cars? Never, until the hardships of

living reach the state of starvation and nakedness.

In addition to the owners of automobiles there are the taxicabs,

“jitneys,” and buses. If the street car system is the logical plant

it is desired to maintain for the good of the community then these

others are weeds if allowed free rein. If, when the street-car

companies go bankrupt and quit business, the motor cars could give a

better service, outside of the fact that property had been destroyed

without compensation, no particular damage would be noticeable to the

community as a whole. But the experience of Des Moines shows that

while special efforts were made to transport every one; buses were

brought in from distant cities and owners of cars most freely picked

up the pedestrians, nevertheless, there was much inconvenience and

discontent. Private cars cannot long be depended on to carry free the

throng; taxicabs are too expensive, insufficient in number and have no

regular schedule; jitneys are unreliable sporadic cars, and half of

them go out of business on days of bad weather. There is left then the

buses. These may be made of such size and be run with such regularity

as to be really valuable for local transportation service. No doubt

they will survive and always be a strong competitor of the electric

surface street car. Not being confined to a track they load and unload

at the curb thus eliminating an element of danger from passing vehicles

much feared by timid people. Not having to keep up a track, trolley

lines, or a plant for generating electricity the expenses are not

particularly great per bus, from $25 to $35 per day will cover them, it

is estimated,[161] which puts the bus on a par in this respect with the

small street car.

[Illustration:

TRACKLESS TROLLEY OPERATED ON STATEN ISLAND, N. Y.]

[Illustration:

GASOLINE LOCOMOTIVE AND TRAILER

Operated by the Chicago & Great Western R. R.]

There is a legitimate field for these buses in the smaller cities and

on streets in large cities not easily reached by, or upon which it is

desirable not to have street-car tracks. But they should not be free

lances--they should be under regulations as street cars are under

regulations, they should make scheduled trips, they should be backed

by capital or insurance sufficient to pay indemnities in cases of

accident and upon payment of license fees are entitled to protection

and possibly monopoly in their prescribed territory.

A cheap form of transportation, either electric trolley, with or

without track, or buses, is absolutely necessary. Buses and individual

jitneys cannot, where the business is heavy, carry passengers as

cheaply as the electric street car, but for a more limited traffic the

buses may take their place, and for still less traffic jitneys can find

a useful occupation. If buses and jitneys are allowed absolute freedom

without restrictions as to schedule or route they will skim the cream

from the street transportation business and so reduce the revenues

of the street cars that they will have to discontinue operation. A

thing so undesirable that the public will have to subsidize the street

cars and guarantee a certain percentage of earnings or take over

their ownership, run them at a nominal fare and let the taxpayer take

care of the deficit. By these means those persons who ride their own

automobiles, the heavier taxpayers, who are, or should be, most vitally

interested in maintaining cheap transportation for the unfortunate

residue who cannot possibly afford automobiles, yet whose labor is

absolutely essential to the industrial and commercial prosperity of the

city, will be required to pay a portion of the upkeep of street-car

transportation. If a subsidy be adopted it would be better that it

should not be a direct guaranty of a fixed percentage of earnings for

in that manner there is no premium on efficiency as our Government

found to its cost in dealing with the railroads during the recent war.

It would be better if some sort of a sliding scale could be worked out

whereby the lines should be relieved of occupational taxes or license

fees in proportion as they lowered fares, and such that the lower the

fares the greater the percentage of profit they might earn.

The contract or charter might provide that all earnings above a

specified percentage, due allowance having been made for operation,

repairs, and upkeep, on bona fide capital invested should be turned

over to the city as a license for the use of the streets. For example

with a fare of three cents the city might guarantee a 5 per cent

income, but allow, by reduction of taxes and all payments to the city

an earning of 10 per cent; on a five cent fare guarantee 3 per cent and

allow earnings of 8 per cent; and so on as shown by the accompanying

table the figures of which are merely illustrative:

+--------------+----------+-------------+

|With a fare of| The City |And allows an|

| |Guarantees| earning of |

+--------------+----------+-------------+

| 3 cents |4 per cent| 10 per cent |

| 4 |3¹⁄₂ | 9 |

| 5 |3 | 8 |

| 6 |2 | 7 |

| 7 |1 | 6 |

| 8 |0 | 5 |

+--------------+----------+-------------+

To make a workable contract of this sort there would first have to

be an agreement as to the corporation capital upon which earning

percentages are to be based. If this could be made equal to the real

investment it would be absolutely just to both the public and the

corporation. However, the so-called unearned increment would in some

cases have to be considered. Publicity in accounting, capitalization,

bonded indebtedness and earnings, and the feeling engendered that the

public is in a sense a co-partner with the corporation would add to

more harmonious relations between the two.

Similar contracts might be arranged between bus lines and the city,

or between bus lines and the state where rural roads are used, and

between railroad and other transportation corporations and the Federal

Government for interstate lines.

Objection may be raised to this plan on the ground that it violates

usury laws. Nearly every state in the Union provides by law for a

maximum rate of interest. Laws of this kind have existed almost since

the beginning of history and are so imbedded in the minds of the people

that they believe 6 or 7 per cent is all a public service corporation

should be allowed to make on its investment, when as a matter of fact

all sorts of private businesses are making profits many times that

amount without hindrance by law or public sentiment. People who risk

money in adventures which are in general for the good of the public

should be allowed returns fully as high as those suggested, even though

they do go beyond the customary 7 percent. Whatever the right figures

are careful accounting and publicity will have a tendency to establish,

and once established they ought to be as stable and permanent as life

insurance rates and thus encourage the investment of funds in such

enterprises.

=Legitimate Fields of Transportation Agencies.=--Agreeing, then,

that the present systems of transportation should not be put out of

business by less efficient ones, what seems to be the most feasible

interrelations that will allow all of them to live and let live?

There seems to be no doubt but what the railroads can and do transport

large quantities long distances quicker, better, and more efficiently

than can be done on the highways. Highways may be considered as feeders

of the railways. With good roads the zone from which the railway can

profitably draw products for long distance or quantity transportation

is widened, and again widened very materially when better roads allow

the use of motors in place of horses. This, if no other railway

interferes, means a larger grand total of traffic hauled. Again the

character of the farming along the zone served by a railroad will

depend upon the facilities for marketing as well as soil and climate.

Those products ordinarily called perishable may be raised if the roads

are good so that they may be marketed quickly and cheap enough to

compete with other localities. Such produce yield a larger net return

per acre than the staple grain products. Intensive farming is usually

necessary in such cases so that a smaller farm will support a family

allowing an increase in rural population, a thing most highly desirable

in this country. The railroad benefits again, then, because of the

increased produce raised by intensive farming brought about by quick

marketing facilities, and by increased freight and passenger traffic

necessary to supply the greater population.

Furthermore, if roads were good throughout the year marketing would be

spread over the entire period and there would not at times be a glut

with corresponding scarcity of cars, and other facilities for handling.

If cars, warehouses and elevators were sufficient to care for these

periods there would be an over supply of facilities at other times

and capital would be unnecessarily tied up producing larger overhead

charges. With good roads there would likewise be less need for large

quantities of money at particular periods of the year as uniform

marketing would allow a smaller capital to be turned oftener. Moreover,

unproductive branch lines would by the increased traffic brought to

them by the improved highways be either made productive or they could

be dispensed with altogether. The unproductive short-haul traffic would

then be cared for by electric railways, motor trucks or even by horse

wagons.

=Intra City Traffic.=--Mr. J. C. Thirlwall, of the railway and tractive

engineering department of the General Electric Company (_General

Electric Review_, Vol. XXIV, pp. 974-985), discussing the fields of the

rail car, trolley bus and gasoline bus, tabulates the respective costs

of these types on a comparative basis for a variety of conditions. In

general the calculations indicate that:

(_a_) Where rush hour headways of 3 min. or less are required with

safety cars, rail cars are the most economical and up to 6 min.

headways offer successful competition to the other types where the

road is a going concern.

(_b_) On longer headways the trolley bus appears to have the

advantage due to the lower fixed charges.

(_c_) The gasoline bus on account of higher operating expense does

not offer competition to the rail car until minimum headways of 10

min. are reached on new routes and 20 min. on existing lines.

(_d_) The trolley bus is more economical than the gasoline bus up to

headways of 60 min. or longer.

A tabulation of the respective fields is as follows:

Minimum headways, 3 min. or less; rail cars.

Minimum headways, 3 to 6 min.; rail cars or trolley bus.

Minimum headways, 6 to 60 min.; trolley bus.

Minimum headways, 60 min. or more; gasoline bus.

This does not mean that existing lines with headways of 7¹⁄₂ to 10

minutes should be scrapped and replaced with the newer forms of

transportation. It would not pay to do this until a headway greater

than 15 or 20 minutes has been reached.

=Length of Haul for Economical Trucking.=--The railroads would not

be alone in the benefits due to better roads. Truck lines could be

established to care for freight and passenger traffic between farm and

station. Here the truck and railroads would coöperate, there would be

no competition, for each would be performing a function incapable (or

unprofitable) of performance by the other; the net result would be a

benefit to the entire community. But most transport lines that are

being established come into actual competition with existing railroad

lines. Just how far a motor truck may profitably compete with the

railway depends, of course, on the relative costs of transportation.

Mr. Cabot[162] calculates that twelve miles is the dividing line

between motor truck transport and rail transport. He figures the cost

of delivery and removal from the railway station at 15 cents per

hundred weight, or $3 per ton at each end for terminal charges and that

the cost of motor truck haul is at least 50 cents per ton mile. A ton

may be hauled, therefore, on truck, 12 miles to balance the railway

terminal expense or charge.

A formula might be worked out this way.

Let _x_ = the number of miles where rail and truck charges just

balance;

_m_ = motor truck charge per ton-mile;

_r_ = rail charge per ton-mile;

_t_ = terminal railroad charge-cost of collecting and delivery to

the railroad plus the cost of removal from the railroad.

Thus motor charge for _x_ miles is _mx_ and railroad charge for same

distance is _rx_ + _t_, equating these,

_mx_ = _rx_ + _t_.

Solving for the distance traveled,

_t_

_x_ = ---------.

_m_ - _r_

With Mr. Cabot’s figures this formula gives

6.00 600

_x_ = ---------- = ---- = 13.5.

.50 - .055 44.5

Using the cost 25 cents per ton mile made up by actual averages

compiled by the Motor Truck Association of America and 5.5 cents used

by Mr. Cabot as the railroad cost charge, there results

6.00 600

_x_ = --------- = --- = 30 miles.

.25 - .05 20

It will be noticed that this formula contemplates no terminal charge

for the motor truck as it is expected to pick up and deliver the

freight at the doors of the consignor and consignee and that the

cost of doing this is absorbed in the cost per mile. The dividing

distance between profitable rail and freight transportation, _x_,

is seen by the formula to vary directly with the terminal charge

and indirectly with the difference between motor and rail cost per

mile. To lessen this distance is in the interest of the railroads

and can be accomplished by decreasing the terminal charges and the

cost of transportation per ton-mile. Express companies have for years

accomplished this by employing the system of free collection and

delivery, and railways in England do likewise. The motor transport

companies will have to decrease their cost per ton-mile in order to

increase the distance that it is profitable for the shipper to utilize

motor trucks. If the difference in cost per ton-mile could be reduced

to twelve cents with terminal costs at $6 per ton, and doubtless

this may be done under favorable circumstances, the distance would

be lengthened to 50 miles. This is probably the maximum motor truck

haul which can in general profitably compete with rail transportation.

With better roads, larger trucks, trailers, or, in special cases,

with certain classes of goods and commodities, longer hauls will be

profitable.

The distances which it seems profitable to do trucking are continually

being lengthened. Forrest Crissey, writing in the _Saturday Evening

Post_ of December 16, 1922, relates a case in which household goods

were hauled from Boston to Cleveland at a saving over rail rates and

expenses incurred by delays of $417.50 on the shipment.

His figures summarized are as follows:

Rail--

Crating and Hauling to Station $ 300.00

Freight 150.00

Hauling and Uncrating at destination 75.00

Hotel Bill of Family of five, two rooms and board,

while waiting 525.00

House rental while waiting 67.50

--------

Total $1117.50

Van company’s charge from home to home $ 700.00

--------

Calculated saving $ 417.50

It should be remembered that certain kinds of goods, such as

household, lend themselves readily to truck shipments. With this class

of goods expensive packing and several handlings are eliminated. Such

is true of much merchandise which can be delivered directly from the

store of the seller to the door of the buyer; to many varieties of

manufactured goods which are sold within comparatively short distances

of the factory. Each case should be worked out for itself and all the

various kinds of transportation used that prove to be practical and

economical. Where large concerns like packing houses are supplied with

railway tracks right to their doors, shipping in car load and train

load lots is not only more economical but absolutely necessary where

such large quantities are transported in refrigerator cars. But for

distribution to towns near-by the truck is much more convenient and

economical. It is impossible to say for so-many-miles it is cheaper to

ship by truck, because each commodity must be considered individually

in connection with the character of the roads, the conditions of

weather and climate, and the time of delivery. While the case of

shipping household goods alluded to above proved very successful the

next one might meet inclement weather, the truck might have to remain

out in the rain and some of the goods become damaged, as was the

case of one such shipment that came under the writer’s observation.

A single swallow does not make a summer, but the trend is no doubt

toward much longer truck trips. And as the roads and vehicles become

stabilized and standardized this will be even more evident. For

example, milk collected at stations 50 and 60 miles from the large

cities can be hauled in to market in large tank cars which are built

somewhat on the thermos or vacuum bottle principle, the milk arriving

at its destination cooler and in every way better than if hauled in

small containers. The truck has a large field open for its especial

qualities. Let it confine its operations to these and rail competition

will not injure it.

=Short-Haul Roads Reduce Express Rates.=--The Boston & Maine Railroad

is reducing express rates between Boston and towns within a radius of

50 miles in an effort to win back short-haul traffic lost to motor

trucks.[163] The average reduction is given as about 40 per cent on

less than carload lots. The old rail service rate between Lynn and

Boston was $1.50 per ton, 7¹⁄₂ cents per hundred, with a minimum

loading of 20,000 pounds per car, while the truck service charge is

about $3 per ton, yet it is estimated that 80 to 90 per cent of the

business was by truck. The reduced rail rate is 5 cents per hundred,

$1 per ton with the minimum loading eliminated. It remains to be seen

whether people are willing to pay a higher rate to ship by truck, or

whether the trucks will meet the express rates. The railroads may

still lower costs by one or two other devices: They may use lighter

weight cars and locomotives; they may use gasoline motor cars such

as the McKeen used on several branch line runs by the Union Pacific,

or a motor car now being tried out capable of running on rails or

on the pavements at will. Such a car would take advantage of the

light traction on the rails between stations but could go through

the main streets to pick up its load. A rail-motor bus following the

main features of the street bus and embodying “the same elements of

simplicity in construction, reliability in performance, flexibility

in operation, light weight, and low first cost,”[164] has been built

and operated at an average of 14 miles to the gallon of gasoline, a

sufficient indication that it can save in operating expenses. The car

weighs 11,000 pounds and has a maximum speed of 30 miles per hour, and

when required trailers may be used without materially decreasing the

speed.

=Avoiding Waste.=--Such methods of cheapening and bettering railroad

transportation together with a lowering of rates generally to a point

that the traffic can bear, and the adoption of managerial methods that

will lessen avoidable wastes, which the railroad unions estimate at

one billion dollars per year,[165] may eventuate in a rehabilitation

and stabilization of the railway industry. The taking over by motor

trucks of short-haul freight and passenger traffic, even though it

cause the discontinuation of unprofitable branch lines may prove

to roads but a pruning which will be beneficial and inure to the

growth of the main trunk and remaining healthy branches. William H.

Manse, a member of the Congressional Joint Commission of Agricultural

Inquiry,[166] has called attention to another economic waste. He states

that “city freight houses were established when team hauling was the

only hauling.” These now are the cause of much congestion because of

the delivery there of tremendous amounts of less-than-carload freight.

The loading and unloading tracks being limited much of the freight must

pass through the depot necessitating double handling. Again, in the

large cities a considerable percentage of land in the business section,

stated to be from 25 to 30 in Chicago, is occupied by the railroads for

tracks, road and station purposes. This land is worth from $10 to $50 a

square foot, and if freight cars stand upon it intermittently for the

receipt and discharge of l.c.l. freight, it is not earning continuously

but, on the other hand, it is spending every minute in interest, taxes

and maintenance. With demountable containers, which are described in

Chapter VII, and the motor truck, and with concerted action of the

railroads, much of this high-value land could be given over to other

business and cheaper land farther out purchased for trackage.

Enough has been said to intimate a firm belief that the railways as

purveyors of secondary transportation will persist. On economic grounds

if for no other reason, for no cheaper method of transportation, except

by water, has been devised; and secondary transportation over canals

and rivers ought, for the good of the country, to be revived. There is

a large class of freight that could with proper management travel at a

slow rate of speed without any detriment or inconvenience whatsoever to

the public.

=Carve Out New Fields of Usefulness.=--It is quite likely that the

newer systems of transportation, by inter-urban electric railways, by

automobile and motor-truck, and by air-plane and dirigible, will all

carve out for themselves new grooves of usefulness, thus opening up

for labor and capital new fields of endeavor. The telephone did not,

as many believed it would, replace the telegraph; neither, yet, has

“wireless” put “wires” out of use. The telephone, rural free delivery

of mail, and the automobile have already put new life into agriculture.

Farming has rapidly reached the enchanted plane of professionalism

and men are as proud now of being farmers as they were formerly of

being lawyers or ministers. And of the three instrumentalities named,

the motor car, including the improved roads it makes necessary, has

probably been most influential. In return the farmers have supplied

themselves with motor vehicles most generously. These will result

in the marketing of increased quantities of food and products that

prior to improved roads and the introduction of the motor car it

was unprofitable to raise because of the cost of transportation, or

the time consumed in transportation, or the condition in which they

reached the consumer. This, then, is one of the ways in which the

motor car may be beneficial to both producer and consumer, that is

to the entire public. In the more thickly populated districts the

dairy interests practically depend upon the motor truck; milk reaches

its destination in better condition than when hauled by horses and

wagons or when delivered to the railway station, shipped by train,

and hauled again to the distributing agency. Also in regions near the

large cities vegetable gardeners and orchardists are becoming more and

more dependent upon the motor truck for the rapid transit of their

perishable products to the jobber, retailer, or even consumer. During

the railway congestion in the period of the war, not only the dairymen,

gardeners, and orchardists that supplied the large eastern cities were

saved from ruin but the consumers themselves were saved from food

shortage and hunger by the motor car.

This condition is not peculiar to the Eastern states, but applies to

the grower of perishable products near every large market; it also

applies to the raiser of live stock. During the congested period

mentioned there was difficulty to get stock cars in which to ship

hogs, sheep, and cattle. Motor trucks were seized upon and last year

there came to the Omaha stock yards in them more than 200,000 head of

live stock, St. Joseph, Missouri, yards are said to be receiving 2500

head of live stock per day by motor truck. Sioux City, St. Paul and

other markets report similar receipts. The record day at Indianapolis

is given as 6800 head of live stock delivered to the stock yards in

500 motor trucks from a radius of 50 miles. Hogs delivered by truck to

the early market at Omaha are said to be in much better condition than

those received by train.

In some sorts of transportation light automobile delivery wagons will

give best service; this is especially true where the distance between

stops is such that considerable time may be saved by rapid transit.

In still other lines a horse and wagon may be most efficient; this is

especially true where the stops are continuous or nearly continuous

along a street like a milk or ice route, and where a trained team can

be started and stopped by the attendant from the street by word of

mouth.

It seems then that there is room in this country for various kinds of

transportation. The horse and wagon; the light motor and the heavy

motor; the waterways; the electric railroad and the steam railroad.

All should work together in harmony for the good of the Nation. The

little handwheel that opens and closes the throttle valve is of as much

importance to the big Corliss engine as the large and more spectacular

flywheel; the black iron foundation, grimy with grease, as the bright

highly polished brass band around the cylinder lagging darting and

reflecting beams of light into the eyes of the beholder. Each has its

own work to perform and if done well is deserving of equal honor.

SELECTED REFERENCES

Agricultural Inquiry, Report of Joint Commission on, Published by

order of Congress, 1922, Washington, D. C.

BABSON, ROGER W., “Weekly Comment” of September 30, 1922, Syndicated.

=Electric Traction.=--There are reports of attempts to obtain magnetic