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HIGHWAYS
AND
HIGHWAY TRANSPORTATION

© Major Hamilton Maxwell
© Underwood and Underwood

STORM KING HIGHWAY

A Great Engineering Project Along the Hudson between Cornwall and West Point, N. Y.

Copyright 1923, by
THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY

Printed in the United States of America

The following pages on Highways and Highway Transportation do not pretend to be an exhaustive treatise on the subject, but rather a glimpse of the vast development of the humble road and its office as an agency for transportation. Possibly the grandeur of the mountains is best appreciated by one who lives among them, who climbs their acclivitous heights, who daily experiences their power and majesty, and measures their magnitude by grim muscular exertion. But, even so, it would be foolish to contend that he who gets his information from the seat of a Pullman car receives no benefit from the hasty glimpse, or, that his imagination is not quickened and cultured by the experience. In writing this book, then, I have had constantly in mind the myriads of people who have not the time, and possibly not the facilities, to search the pages of the literature of the past for the origin and development, or to work out their present importance, of our amplification of roads and of road uses. It is felt that many of these people laudably desire a conversational knowledge of the origin, evolution and present status of highway transportation, even though it be glimpsed by a very rapid passage through a very large subject.

The primary objects have therefore been, to sketch briefly and simply the development of the transportation systems of the United States, to indicate their importance and mutual relations, to present some practical methods used in the operation of highway transport and to make occasional suggestions for the betterment of the road as a usable machine for the benefit and pleasure of mankind.

Any observations made or conclusions drawn are purely personal. I entered into and have carried on the work entirely unbiased. I am not financially or otherwise, except academically, interested in any firm or company whose[vi] business has to do with transportation either directly as a carrier, or indirectly as a manufacturer of the instruments or accessories to transportation, nor does any of my living come from societies or foundations organized as propagandists for any particular forms of transportation, or transportation materials or equipment. I have no admiration for the man who hopes to see the steam and electric railways put out of business or even caused to run at a loss by the automobile, motor express or motor bus. Neither have I any plaudits for the man who would arrest the growth of the new forms of transportation by drastic legal enactments and excessive taxation in order to preserve the old. I believe there is room and need in the United States for all forms of transportation, and that each can thrive in its respective field just as do wheat and corn but none will thrive if they attempt to occupy the same field at the same time.

The text is naturally divided into two parts—the development of highways and their use. The first part treats of the relation of transportation to civilization generally, explaining briefly how the two have grown together like children at school, how each has helped the other, and how the meter of one is the measure of the other.

Leaving the old world there is sketched all too briefly the development in the United States of transportation facilities from the coastal and natural waterways, from the pack and trail, used by the aborigine and early settlers, through the treks of the pioneers, the periods of canal digging, the toll road competition, and the railway frenzy, to the advent of the modern road with the coming of the bicycle and automobile and their wonderful accelerative impulse.

The effects of State and Federal aid upon the road conditions of the country are fully treated as is also the planning of highway systems.

Automotive transportation for business and pleasure including rural motor express and bus lines, and their effect on production and marketing are described and discussed.

[vii]

In the chapters on highway accidents and highway aids to traffic, attention is called to many types of accidents, including railway crossing accidents, with suggestions for their mitigation. Here also are given the most recent practical rules for the regulation of traffic in both city and country.

A chapter is devoted to the esthetics of the highway, a subject just coming to the attention of road men who have heretofore been mostly concerned with distances, grades, widths and surfaces, which, by the way, are frequently mentioned in the text. As in all building construction the first appeal was made to material things and their relation to the pocket-book, while the last and most enduring appeal is spiritualistic and is made to the pleasures of the imagination.

The same idea of making the road a means of catering to the preservative and pleasure instincts of man is considered in the final chapter on aids and attractions to traffic and travel. Safety and warning devices are discussed as such, while comforts and conveniences are means for luring the average citizen to the highway, to the camps and parks, for the broadening effect upon his character, the health of his body, and the enlightenment of his soul.

Thus we close a most hurried journey from the very beginning of roads to their modern far superior yet very imperfect attainments. The main thought throughout has been the road as a usable agency in the economic and entertaining phases of life. Each equally important to the wealth, health, and happiness of our people. The mind easily travels ahead to a time when separate roads will be devoted to the two great ends of business and pleasure. Then the flight of fancy passes on to still another period of time and sees the highways made inoperative and superfluous, overgrown by weeds and grass, for the argosies of business and pleasure have taken to the air.

George Richard Chatburn.

Lincoln, Nebraska
March 9, 1923.

As the several peoples inhabiting the earth have progressed from barbarism through the different stages of civilization, the transportation occasioned by their wants and desires has kept a close pace. By a study of the transportation—travel, movement of goods and commodities—and the means and facilities for its accomplishment, the relative civilization of any people, their rank and position may be accurately surveyed, graduated, and estimated. The highways of a nation, whether they be of the land or sea, or both, are most vital elements in its progress and could almost as well as transportation be considered the measuring rod of civilization.

Stages in Civilization.

—Sociologists differ as to what constitute the several stages of civilization. One might trace the development of man through literature, another through art, another through government; others consider his economic activities the more fundamental factors. The most widely used economic classification, according to Ely,[1] is based upon the increasing power of man over nature and consists of (1) Direct Appropriation,[2] (2) The Pastoral Stage, (3) The Agricultural Stage, (4) The Handicraft Stage, and (5) The Industrial Stage. These stages are well illustrated in English history. The stage of direct appropriation corresponding to the prehistoric period and up to 54 B.C., when the Romans overran the island of Britain; the Pastoral stage from this time to the invasion by William the Conqueror, 1066; the Agricultural up to about the discovery of America, when a great impetus was given to travel and discovery; the stage of Handicraft, from 1500 to the invention of the steam engine and its application to manufacture at the beginning of the eighteenth century; the Industrial stage, to the present time. While these stages necessarily overlap each other considerably, it will be seen that as one declines the next is ushered in with some radical change in government or in economic or industrial condition. The present day—immediately following as it does the Great World War, out of which have issued many scientific discoveries and inventions, notably those advancing the theory and practice of air navigation, with many potential possibilities in new lines of transportation; and the setting forth of an idea which is capable of leading to a better understanding or even a confederation of nations and altering all forms of national government—may be the beginning of a new stage of civilization.

Stage of Direct Appropriation.

—This stage covers the whole course of prehistoric man from the time the first ape stood erect some 500,000 years ago[2] through the stone, bronze, and iron ages to the age of literature and art. During these long years civilization traveled far, for the least cultured savages observed have advanced not only away beyond the highest of the lower animals but also beyond the lowest intellectual estate of which human beings may be supposed capable of subsisting. And from the lowest to the highest of these tribes are shown traits varying as greatly in degree as from one stage in the above classification to another. The Indians at the time of the[3] discovery of America and the three centuries following, and many of the tribes of Africa during the explorations of Livingstone and Stanley, were and still are in this stage and hence have been subjected to scientific study and investigation. Their governments while variable are of the primitive types. Ordinarily a chief autocratically rules because of hereditary influence. Little is manufactured, planting is scarcely known; by hunting, fishing, and collecting nature’s products of wild seeds and roots is a subsistence obtained often with long, arduous, and dangerous labor. Efficiency, as we understand that term to-day, is very low, and the number of persons that a given area can support is few. No one can predict but what to-morrow he may have to go hungry or suffer cold from the inclemency of the weather, for his store of food is nil or small, his shelter rudimentary and clothing scanty. Note the hardships of the party of Henry M. Stanley during his expedition across the African wilderness in quest of Emin Pasha.[3] Notwithstanding Stanley’s men were possessed of firearms and edged tools and carried some provisions with them, and were traversing a country teeming with vegetable and animal life, many times they were on the verge of starvation. The number of the natives in these wildernesses are no doubt kept low because of the extreme difficulties of procuring the necessities of life.

The barbarian requires less, of course, than the civilized man; he is satisfied with mere subsistence. He is improvident and relies upon picking up his needs from day to day as a robin picks worms from the grass. Cannibalism often exists, for the sacredness of human life has not yet been established, although magic and crude religious rites are seldom missing. While private personal property is recognized and retained by personal prowess, the ownership of land is absent. Coöperation of the crudest sort only is found; division of labor consists largely in having the females perform the work of planting, cultivating, carrying[4] burdens—when these are attempted at all—cooking and caring for the children in the crudest fashion, leaving to the men the work of hunting, fishing, and fighting. Each tribe is self-sufficient and consists of a chief with a few followers bound together loosely for the purposes of protection from other tribes. Exchange, barter, and trade is at its lowest ebb; consequently transportation is practically unnecessary, and roadways except mere trails do not exist.

The Pastoral Stage.

—In the process of evolution certain animals undoubtedly were domesticated and used for food. Whether or not this domestication preceded or followed primitive agriculture or “hoe culture,” is not important, as the pastoral stage of culture evidently lies between the hunting and the farming stages. The written history of mankind indicates that this stage largely prevailed among the earlier Hebrew, Greek, and Teutonic races. A private ownership in cattle and herds was recognized, but the necessity of moving about with the flocks precluded fixed habitations, although large areas were claimed and held or endeavored to be held from trespass thereon by neighboring tribes. A given area would thus support a much larger number of people than in the preceding stage. A small amount of trading or bartering was carried on and consequently some transportation was required, but road building as such was little known. Rivers and coast waters for canoes and dugouts were no doubt early taken advantage of by the aborigines of bordering territories. But since there is so little division of labor, so little of barter and exchange, commerce was not developed much during this stage.

The Agricultural Stage.

—The growing and storage of crops, increased by the use of animal power, greatly changed the economic and social conditions of man. It made possible and profitable the living in fixed habitations, even in communities, and this brought out the needs of rules of government. But even yet each family provided without the assistance of others for practically all its own needs. In planting, reaping, threshing, grinding the meal and[5] cooking, the family became the unit. No great division of labor was yet evident, consequently exchange, barter, and transportation still remained low. Ownership of land was necessary if a family was to cultivate the same land year after year. This meant definite rules and laws and consequently the development of governments. Ownership of herds and land brought wealth and a certain distinction in the community. Slavery, which had no doubt existed to some extent in the pastoral stage, here, because it greatly increased wealth, grew immensely. Large families likewise meant more workmen and greater wealth, distinction, and leisure, hence polygamy and polyandry often existed. As the evolution continued there was a trend toward handicraft and the division of labor; the products of one place began to be exchanged for the products of other places. This necessitated some forms of transportation, meager though they might be, and trails between communities.

The Manorial and Feudal Systems.

—In England and on the continent during the later years of this stage there were developed the manorial or feudal forms of government. The people lived largely in villages each controlled by a lord or earl (eorl) and to whom in return for his protection, the use of land, and other favors, they were bound to return to him service in the cultivation of his land and in waging war when called upon to do so. The lords in turn held their allegiance to the king. Some handicraftsmen were among the retainers but they were so few that they did not form an important part of the village, neither was there a great deal of travel or transportation. The manor instead of the family was the unit, and it was almost self-sufficient. The land was allotted in small tracts and tilled in the manner designated by the lord. Each person raised barley, oats, peas, and lentils sufficient for his own needs. Variation in crops was little practiced. Much land at distances from the manor was still devoted to herds and flocks.

However, toward the later part of this stage, the feudal system began to break down. There were more free-holders[6] and free-tenants, living upon the land they cultivated according to their own ideas. Wheat, rye, flax, and root crops were assuming greater importance. This variety in farming and the larger fields cultivated by the individual naturally increased the products to be sold or exchanged and hence increased transportation. People who had devoted only so much of their time to spinning and weaving as was necessary to supply their own family needs, were beginning to do more, selling the excess and purchasing from others things not grown or manufactured by themselves. Thus were developed towns as centers of trade; money as a medium of exchange assumed greater importance; and a division of labor brought into being and increased the social standing of trades and professions. Thus was ushered in the Handicraft Stage of civilization.

The Handicraft Stage.

—In England this stage lasted through approximately five centuries, from 1200 to 1700. The merging of one period into another came about so gradually that a definite date can hardly be designated, and the time is so long that undoubtedly many changes occurred in the economic activities as well as in the government and literature of the people.

While it is probable that merchants, middlemen who bought from one person and sold to another, had thrived throughout the earlier civilizations of Asia, Africa, and Europe, and even extended their trade to Britain, merchandising held a comparatively minor position in England until the twelfth century, when merchants became very prominent, so much so that combinations or guilds were formed by them in all the large towns for the purpose of protecting and controlling the conduct of business and, to some extent, of maintaining a monopolistic control of the trade in their particular businesses. A guild was an association or fraternity of persons engaged in the same line of business. It differed from a trade-union in that the guild was an association of masters and employees, whereas the trade-union is an association of employees only.

Many of the merchant guilds grew wealthy and strong;[7] they obtained Royal Charters from the Crown either by direct payment or by an arrangement to pay a special tax, or secured recognition in the borough charters. By authority of these they were endowed with certain privileges such as: (a) limiting the number of their own members and the number who could participate in any line of merchandising; (b) entering into secret price agreements and trade arrangements; (c) controlling the import and export of wares; (d) the establishing of a court which had absolute jurisdiction over its members and others not members engaged in the same line of business. This court “could settle trade disputes, discipline its apprentices with the whip if necessary, could imprison its journeymen who struck work, and could fine its master members who acted against its rules. And, finally, the members of the company were forbidden to appeal to any other court unless their own court failed to obtain justice for them.”[4] Moreover, the meeting together for social enjoyment, feasting, and worship; the helping one another in sickness and poverty; and uniting together for the pursuit of some common cause, naturally brought about very close and fraternal relations.

Craft-guilds.

—Craftsmen of like occupations joined together in guilds also and they, too, became not only numerous but very influential. They regulated their own internal affairs and specified how many apprentices might be entered, and under what circumstances a man might become a journeyman or master craftsman. Numerous other guilds, social and religious, were extant throughout Europe.

Effect upon Trade.

—The merchant guilds and the craft-guilds materially affected the production and trade of the community and country. The merchants of Phoenicia and later of Greece and Rome are said to have visited the British Isles to secure tin and copper. The great merchant guilds outfitted adventures to the ends of the then known[8] world to secure the goods—whether they were silks, spices, furs or grain—in which they dealt. They were instrumental in the passage of laws encouraging and securing commerce. They themselves regulated the quality of goods dealt in. For example the Goldsmiths’ Guild of London required that all silver and gold-plate and jewelry manufactured within three miles of London should be brought to the guild hall for inspection. If it did not come up to the specified standard it was ordered remelted; if it did it received the “Hall Mark” that anyone purchasing it might be assured of its quality. It is said the guilds were so punctilious in the matter of quality that “Made in England” goods received in the markets of the world a standing of the highest rank; a reputation that never entirely disappeared, and as a consequence English uprightness of character became proverbial.

The Domestic System.

—All this made necessary the building of ships and harbors, and the improvement of internal highways of trade, and these in turn stimulated manufacture which as yet was carried on by hand. The family instead of the town or guild became the unit; apprentices were entered and kept, usually, as members of the family and worked along side the sons and daughters of the master. As these grew to manhood their pay, beginning with mere keep, was gradually increased with their work and responsibility until at the end of seven years they were fitted to go forth as journeymen and later themselves became masters. The work was done at or near the master’s home. The raw material was usually received from a middleman, to whom was returned the finished product; the middleman disposed of it to the merchant who in turn sold it to the consumer.

This corresponds rather closely to what is called the “sweat shop” method of the present time. Goods in a raw or a semi-raw state are received by the workman from the “manufacturer” and carried home; the workman performs, with the help of his family, certain specified operations and upon the return of the goods is paid for his work.[9] Or in agriculture, to the contract method, whereby specified products such as sugar beets, sweet-corn, peas, beans, tomatoes, fruits, and other products for manufacture, canning, preserving, or pickling in a factory, are raised by the farmer and sold to the manufacturer at a previously agreed-upon contract price. Under the guild plan the manufacturer or importer sold usually to the ultimate consumer. So the economic system was gradually growing more complex, and the interdependence of man upon man more pronounced.

The older agricultural procedure had not entirely disappeared. Most families cultivated land, and raised more or less stock and poultry, but performed the work of manufacturing as a side line, as at present in the Middle West farmers make grain and stock raising their main industry with dairying, vegetable gardening, poultry, and eggs as mere adjuncts, although these latter often bring in about as much money as the former. Defoe[5] describes these methods (1724-1726) as follows:

Governmental Control.

—The numerous guilds reached their zenith during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and then gradually diminished in importance. Some of them, however, still remain active in London. During the[10] recent World War several were engaged in welfare work. Guilds in France were destroyed or lapsed into desuetude during the revolution, 1791-1815. Those of Spain and Portugal likewise during the revolutionary years of 1833-40; of Austria and Germany in 1859-60 and of Italy in 1864. Guilds, as known in Europe, never found a substantial lodging in the United States.

The functions of the guilds were gradually taken over by the government, which seemed later to be a better and more satisfactory medium to control labor, trade, and commerce. Laws were enacted in England to regulate the entering of apprentices, to force able bodied men to serve as agricultural laborers in case of need, and to work the roads annually. Justices of the Peace were given authority to settle disputes and regulate wages. Foreign trade was by laws and Royal Grants encouraged; likewise immigration of artisans to introduce new industries, the establishment of foreign colonies and the development of banking and insurance. Almshouses were built and poor laws enacted to care for the old and indigent. The public roads were still very poor but a beginning was made for their betterment. Macaulay, in writing of the State of England in 1685,[6] has considerable to say regarding the condition of the highways. Speaking of the lack of homogeneity among the people he says:

The degree of civilization attained was no doubt due to other things than the public roads. Sea transportation brought to England the products of the world. Coast transportation was well developed and river and canal transportation had well begun. Macaulay states that

This sounds like modern arguments against paving rural roads and charging the cost to the abutting property, and is evidently one good reason for state and national aid.

However, transportation and travel continued to improve. On the main roads “waggons” were employed to transport goods and stage coaches for people, while pack animals and riding horses were used on less frequented trails and roads. Four and six horses were necessary to pull a carriage or a coach “because with a smaller number there was great danger of sticking fast in the mire.” A diligence ran between London and Oxford in two days, but in 1669 it was announced that the “Flying Coach would perform the whole journey between sunrise and sunset.” The heads of the university after solemn deliberation gave consent and the experiment proved successful. The rival university at Cambridge, not to be outdone, set up a diligence to run from Cambridge to London in one day. Soon flying coaches were carrying passengers to other points. Posts were established for the change of horses and longer[12] distances essayed. This mode of traveling was extolled by contemporaneous writers “as far superior to any similar vehicles ever known in the world.” It is not to be thought that these advances in rapid transportation were without objectors. According to Macaulay,

Objections of this character have been made against every innovation and advancement in travel and transportation to the present day when the air-plane is beginning to attract notice as an economic vehicle. Laws were then demanded and passed, as they are now, to regulate power and speed, accommodations and rates, and multifarious other things which might affect the privileges or profits of those interested in older methods, as well as laws for the protection and safety of the general public.

Agriculture.

—It might be thought that the agriculture of the preceding stage of development might wane. But not so; with the division of labor and improved transportation and marketing facilities agriculture received a great impetus. Larger tracts were farmed by the individual. Growing crops and stock became more of a business and from the lords of the manor was evolved the landed aristocracy of the country. To be sure, there were holders who cultivated their own soil, but much was held upon leaseholds for short or long periods. Many still lived in the villages where “commons” were laid out for the pasturage of the few cows each family needed for its own milk.[13] Farms were divided by hedges into fields or closes, the amount of land depending upon the rent. The “Book of Surveying,” by Fitzherbert, 1539, gives reasons for such closes and explains the manner of laying them out so that they shall be most convenient and together. The following is a specimen of his style:

Later the system of crop rotation came into vogue resulting in great improvement in the fertility of the soil.

In the same author’s “Book of Husbandry,” 1534, are described farm tools and their uses. There are explanations to show where a “horse plow” is better and where an “oxen plow.” It indicates that beans, peas, wheat, barley, and oats are common crops, and that some vegetables and root-crops were coming into use. Wheat was[14] probably sowed after plowing up a pasture or “fallowe” field, for he observes,

The industries and arts of transportation continued to develop: ocean craft, especially, became more numerous and more efficient. Learning and art grew in harmony as the intercourse of the peoples of the country and of the world increased.

The Industrial Stage.

—This stage of economical civilization, while brought about gradually through many years as factories and special work shops came into existence, was nevertheless greatly accelerated by the inventions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The invention of the canal lock (it is a disputed question whether in Holland or in Italy) in the fourteenth century had made practicable the building of many canals throughout Europe, one of the largest across France connecting the Bay of Biscay with the Mediterranean Sea. However, the building of important commercial canals began in England with the Bridgewater Canal from Worsley to Manchester, completed in 1767. Green[7] tells us that the main roads which lasted fairly well through the middle ages had broken down under the increased production of the eighteenth century. That the new lines of trades lay along “mere country lanes”; that much of the woolen trade had to be carried on long trains of pack animals at a large cost; that transportation “in the case of heavier goods such as coal distribution was almost impracticable save along the greater rivers.” In fact coal was ordinarily referred to as “sea coal” because it was brought to most ports by water routes. The Duke of Bridgewater and a young engineer[15] of the name of Brindley solved the problem of transportation for the time being by beginning the great network of canals which later covered England to the extent of more than 3000 miles. Too great praise cannot be given to the engineers and constructors of these canals. Brindley considered canals not as adjuncts of rivers and bays, on the contrary “rivers were only meant,” he said, “to feed canals.” He carried this canal by means of an aqueduct over the river to Manchester, thus bringing the coal to a new thriving manufacturing city. Green further says (Paragraph 1528)

Not the least were the new methods of smelting iron with coal instead of wood, which changed the whole aspect of the iron trade and which made Great Britain for many years the workshop of the world. Lead, copper, and tin were also mined and smelted by the use of coal. The great advance of the “industrial revolution” did not come until Watt’s improvements upon the steam engines of Newcomen, Cawley, and Savery, which were themselves improvements over earlier inventions of Papin, della Porta, and Worcester, made practicable the transfer of energy stored up in coal to the movement of machinery. He changed the steam engine from a clumsy, wasteful, inefficient machine into a workable apparatus little differing from the reciprocating steam engines of the present. Up until the successful operation of the turbine engine, the principal advances upon Watt’s engine were mere details, though often of great importance. For instance the boilers for the generation of steam were improved;[16] the enlarged application of the principle of expansion, developing better cut-off mechanisms and governors, to more economical construction due to better facilities and better knowledge of materials and their properties; and to the application of the steam engine in locomotives to propel transportation cars.

Watt’s claims and specifications for patents from 1769 to 1784 cover such inventions as:

1. Methods of keeping the cylinder or steam vessel hot by covering it with wood or other slow heat-conducting materials, by surrounding it with steam or other heated bodies, and by suffering no water or other substance colder than steam to touch it.

2. By condensing the steam in vessels entirely distinct from the cylinder, called condensers, which are to be kept cool.

3. By drawing out of the condenser all uncondensed vapors or gases by means of an air pump.

4. The use of the expansion force of steam directly against the cylinder.

5. The double-acting engine and the conversion of the reciprocating motion into a circular motion.[8]

6. Throttle valve with governor and gear for operating the same, parallel motion for opening and closing the valves, and indicator.

These inventions not only made it possible to replace hand-labor often with machines, but made it possible to construct machines much more rapidly and to make them in every way more convenient.

Improvement in the arts of spinning and weaving caused the textile establishments and population of north England to go forward by leaps and bounds.

Previous to the invention of the “fly shuttle” in 1733 by John Kay of Bury, the weaver had to throw the shuttle through the warp by hand. Weaving became much more[17] rapid; also by having several shuttles with different-colored yarn stripes and checks could be woven into the cloth. Since weaving had been made quicker and easier there came a demand for more yarn. Three separate inventions satisfied this, viz., James Hargreaves of Blackburn invented his “jenny” about 1767, by which eight threads could be spun at once. At the same time Richard Arkwright, a barber of Preston, invented and developed the throstle spinning frame (1769-1775). Samuel Crompton, about 1775, invented his spinning “mule,” which seemed to combine the good principles of the others. Power was applied to spinning about 1785 and then it was weaving that needed accelerating. To Cartwright in 1784 is ascribed the honor of inventing the power loom. Other inventions for both spinning and weaving have made almost automatic the running of thousands of spindles and hundreds of looms in a single factory.

Railways Developed.

—With power manufacturing and increased production due to the adoption of improved factory systems came still greater demand for transportation. Tramways had already been laid in 1676 for transporting coal from the mines to the sea. The rails were first made of scantling laid in the wheel ruts, then of straight rails of oak on which “one horse would draw from four or five chaldrons of coal.” Later (1765) cast-iron trammels 5 feet long by 4 inches wide were nailed to the wooden rails. These trammels collected dust, therefore in 1789 Jessop laid down at Loughborough cast-iron edge-rails and put a flanged wheel on the waggon. The rails were also placed on chairs and sleepers (ties), the first instance of this method. The distance apart of the rails was 4 feet 8¹⁄₂ inches, what is now known as “standard gauge.” The success of these coal roads suggested tramways for freight and for passenger transportation between the larger towns. The canals had become congested with much traffic; it is said that notwithstanding there were three between Liverpool and Manchester the merchandise passing “did not average more than[18] 1200 tons daily.” The average rate of carriage was 18s. ($4.37) per ton, and the average time of transit on the 50 miles of canal was thirty-six hours. The conveyance of passengers by the improved coach roads, was, for then, quite rapid but rather expensive.

Some experimental locomotives had been made and used in the mining regions. Their success led to the building of others. The Stockton and Darlington Railway opened in September, 1825, by a train of thirty-four vehicles, making a gross load of 90 tons, drawn by one engine driven by George Stephenson, with a signal man on horseback in advance. The train made at times as high as 15 miles per hour. The rail used weighed 28 pounds per yard. This road was intended entirely for freight but the demand of the people to ride was so pressing that a passenger coach to carry six inside and fifteen to twenty outside was put on to make the round trip in two hours at a fare of one shilling.

When the bill passed for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1826 Stephenson was appointed engineer in charge at a salary of $5000 per year. This road made a great impression on the national mind, no little enhanced by the competition of locomotives at its completion in 1829, resulting in the victory of Stephenson’s engine the “Rocket.” It made the then astonishing speed of 35 miles per hour and proved conclusively the practicability of railway locomotion.

To follow the progress of industry during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries would require volumes. More has probably been accomplished, not without evils at times, than in the whole preceding history of the world. And as no small part of these accomplishments are the means and amount of travel and traffic and associated developments and organization made necessary by the vast industries which now supply the world’s wants, once more it may be asserted that the civilization of the world can be measured by its transportation.

Some Historic Roads and Their Influence.

—In the[19] brief survey of the stages through which ordinarily a civilization passes note has frequently been made that as the world progresses so does the necessary transportation increase and improve in character. It is not contended that civilization follows the improvement of transportation, although that is no doubt sometimes the case, but that the state of transportation follows up and down with the state of civilization. Very likely the same could be truthfully said of other elements of civilization such as literature, art, religion, and government. Or even if there be applied Guizot’s three tests of a civilized people: “First, they review their pledges and honor; second, they reverence and pursue the beautiful in painting, architecture, and literature; third, they exhibit sympathy in reform toward the poor, the weak and the unfortunate,” it will be found that those nations most progressed in traffic and travel will rank highest in these tests.

Early Highways.

—To return to some of the important earlier highways. All evidence seems to indicate that civilization had its origin in western Asia. Early history speaks of the civilization and culture of Arabia and Egypt, of Assyria and Persia. Coeval with these civilizations were trade and commerce. Great caravans of camels traversed the sandy highway with their accompanying merchants carrying many products of many lands—frankincense and myrrh from Arabia; cloths and carpets from Babylon and Sardis; shawls from Cashmere; leather from Cordavan and Morocco; tin, copper, gold, and silver utensils from Phœnicia; pearls from the Far East; and grain and other agricultural products nourished and grown by the beneficence of the great mother Nile. The extensive civilizations of these countries are handed down stingily by cuneiform inscriptions on clay tablets scattered here and there among the ruins of their ancient towns and villages, or inscribed upon granite mountain sides as historical memoranda for future generations. Even Holy Writ says little about roads and highways, but that they were known is evident from the few references made. Those things which are commonplace[20] often receive least attention by writers. In Isaiah, 35:8, may be read: “And a highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way of holyness ... the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.” And again, Isa. 40:3-4, “The voice of him that cryeth in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain.” These would certainly indicate that in Isaiah’s time there were both travelers and roads marked and graded. Isaiah in other places shows that he, if not himself a road builder, is familiar with that process: Isa. 57:14, “And shall say, cast ye up, cast ye up, prepare the way take up the stumbling block out of the way of my people.” Isa. 62:10, “Prepare ye the way of the people; cast up, cast up the highway; gather out the stones; lift up a standard for the people.” Also Jeremiah likens the path of the wicked to an ungraded road. Jeremiah 18:15, “Because my people have forgotten me, they have burned incense to vanity, they have caused them to stumble in their ways from the ancient paths, to walk in paths, in a way not cast up.”

The trade along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean and across Palestine and the great Arabian deserts to Persia, to Babylonia, and possibly to India was evidently of importance to the fluctuating destinies of Egypt and Assyria, and later of Greece, Rome, and Turkey; so much so, that many wars were waged for the control of the great highway over which it passed. Palestine became a territory of importance. It is said Jerusalem has suffered some three score sieges, most of them because she dominated this highway, being at or near the confluence of its forks reaching east into the deserts, north toward the straits over which a crossing could be made into Europe, and southward to Egypt. Egypt and Assyria fought for its control; Greece and Rome in turn came into possession of it; Turkey and the Mohammedans for centuries monopolized it; and the[21] recent great World War was no doubt accentuated by the cupidity of Germany to control a long line of transportation through Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey, Mesopotamia to Persia, Baluchistan and India.[9]

Alexander the Great overran the East, besieged Tyre, and converted an island into an isthmus in order to secure and hold control of the highway and the rich bounty imagined to be at its farther end. “Babylon is a ruin, a stately and solitary group of palms marks where Memphis stood, jackals slake their thirst in the waters of the sacred lake by the hall of a thousand columns at Thebes, but the road that formed the nexus between these vanished civilizations remains after the winds of four millenniums have sighed themselves to silence over the graves of its forgotten architects and engineers.”[10]

But the Greater Greece, built up by the personality and sword of Alexander the Great, fell, largely, because of the lack of roads. The very name of Alexander was sufficient to subdue city after city, but as soon as his personal influence was at an end the cities fell apart. Here was a wonderful opportunity. With magnificent natural-made waterways, with innumerable safe harbors what a chance for commerce, for trade with the entire world. The islands of the Aegean Sea were stepping stones to Asia Minor; Macedonia furnished an open route for the Bosphorus and Dardanelles; Thrace led to those fertile lands surrounding the Black Sea and extending away to the Caspian and joining once more with empire already conquered. On the west there was close at hand the islands of, and land bordering, the Adriatic, the great Italian boot, and Sicily where new civilizations were ready to rise and take on Greek culture for the mere offering. It would seem as[22] though Greece ought to have become the fostering mother of world colonization, but the different parts of Greece proper, where the real mental ability lay, were separated by lack of roads from each other. Athens was potentially nearer to the Black Sea than to Sparta; Corinth was nearer Sicily than to Macedonia. The many Grecian tribes were distinct, having different laws, customs and manners. Intercourse, which could have been brought about had there been interconnecting roads, was necessary to weld the people into a homogeneous mass. Sparta and Athens, less than an hour apart by modern air-plane, because of the mountains, roadless and almost pathless between them, barriers which they failed to surmount, developed different forms of civilization, different thought, habits, and tastes. To Athens the world owes an everlasting debt for masterpieces in poetry, oratory, architecture, and sculpture. “There was no Spartan sculpture, no Laconian painter, no Lacedaemonian poet.” The lack of intercommunication caused differences in language, in customs, in ideals, and in manners, making of Greece a heterogeneous conglomeration of tribes where internecine strife was ever present, and no strong centralized government could exist. Lucky for the best of the Greek civilization that it would be carried to the ends of the world by the roads of a young giant which was arising in the west.

Roman Roads.

—The roads in Rome bore such a prominent part in the civilization that they could not be entirely overlooked by contemporaneous writers. The roads are often described as military roads because they were primarily planned to transport soldiers quickly and easily to any desirable part of the empire. But no doubt the greatness of Rome was due more to the traffic in goods and people brought to and taken away from her precincts by these roads than to military prowess. Her roads were the arteries and veins through which the life blood of the nation pulsated; were the sensory and motive nerves which fetched and carried intelligence, which prompted action. She received and she disseminated. She was the hub of the universe, her roads the spokes radiating to and holding together the limits of her vast domain.

© Underwood and Underwood

THE APPIAN WAY

Showing the original Paving Stones laid 300 B.C.

[23]

How many roads Rome built it is difficult to state, for they were found in all parts of the empire. Some, as those in Italy, were very carefully and substantially built; others less so, grading down to mere trails in the hintermost districts. The Via Egnatia, which was one of the important provincial roads, is said by Strabo to have been regularly laid out and marked by milestones from Dyrrhacium, (Durazzo) on the coast of the Adriatic across from the heel of Italy’s boot through Thessalonica (Saloniki) and Philippi to Cypselus on the Hebnis and later to the Hellespont, for Cicero speaks of “that military way of ours which connects us with the Hellespont.” This road became historic as the scene of the conflict between the friends and enemies of the decaying Roman republic. Brutus and Cassius on the one hand here in 42 B.C., met the forces of Antony and Octavius. There tradition states the ghost of the dead Caesar met Brutus, and as a matter of fact, the “liberators” were cut to pieces in two engagements. Brutus and Cassius, believing the cause of the republic lost, both committed suicide, and the Roman world was soon thereafter in the hands of two masters—Antony in the East and Octavius in the West. Three centuries later this road became the leading highway to Byzantium (Constantinople), the great city founded by Constantine, impregnable in its rocky seclusion, dominating the waterway to the Black Sea and the rich agricultural land beyond.

Some twenty of these roads, more if their branches be counted, concentrated at the Eternal City and passed through her several gates. Rome could sit on her seven hills and by means of these roads rule the world. Among the most important of these were the Via Appia, Via Flaminia and Via Aemilia, Via Aurelia, Via Ostiensis, and Via Latina. One peculiarity of these Roman roads was their straightness, passing almost in a direct line between determining points. Another, to which is due their[24] durability, was their massiveness. Their general construction may be described as follows: The line of direction having been laid out trenches were made along each side defining the width, which was from 13 to 17 feet. The loose earth between was excavated to secure a firm foundation and the road was then filled or graded up to the required height with good material, sometimes as high as 20 feet. The pavement usually consisted of a layer of small stones; then a layer of broken stones cemented with lime mortar; then a layer of broken fragments of brick and pottery incorporated with clay and lime; and finally a mixture of gravel and lime or a floor of hard flat stones cut into rectangular slabs or irregular polygons fitted nicely together. The whole was frequently 4 feet thick. Along the road milestones were erected, some of them quite elaborate with carved names and dates. Near the arch of Septimus Severus in the Roman Forum still remains a portion of the “Golden Milestone,” a gilded pillar erected by Augustus, on which were carved the names of roads and lengths similar to a modern guide post. Some of these roads were used hundreds of years until they fell into neglect after Rome had been invaded by the northern barbarians. From a statement of Procopinus, the Appian Way, construction begun 312 B.C., was in good condition 800 years later, and he describes it as broad enough for two carriages to pass each other. It was made of stones brought from some distant quarry and so fitted to each other (over some 2 feet of gravel) that they seemed to be thus formed by nature, rather than cemented by art. He adds that notwithstanding the traffic of so many ages the stones were not displaced, nor had they lost their original smoothness. The papal government excavated, repaired, and reopened that road as far as Albano and it is still being used as a highway.

MAP OF ITALY
Showing some of the twenty or more roads that radiated from Rome

[25]

The Flaminian Way extended from Rome to Ariminum and thence was carried under the name Via Aemilia through Parma, and Placentia across to Spain. While not so much traffic passed over it, because the West was sparsely settled, as over the Appian Way, it nevertheless was a worthy rival. The Aurelian Way followed up the coast through Etruria and furnished another highway to Spain and Gaul. The Ostien highway connected Rome with a splendid harbor at the mouth of the Tiber. But the Appian Way was rightly the most famous of all; it was the earliest made, it was perhaps the longest paved road, and it carried the greatest amount of traffic. The road was built by Appius Claudius Caecus—then a Roman Censor, afterwards a Consul, from whom it takes its name—to Capua, a distance of 142 miles. Later it was extended across the Apennine Mountains through Beneventum, Venusia, and Tarentum, to Brundisium, a port on the Adriatic Sea, in the heel of the boot, a total distance of 350 miles. The improvements of Appius were begun in the year 312 B.C., and carried out at least as far as Capua. Livy speaks of a road over part of this way some thirty-five years earlier. A portion outside the walls was paved with lava (silex) in 189 B.C., and during the reign of Trajan (A.D. 98-117) the Via Appia was paved from Capua to Brundisium (Niebuhr). From Brundisium (Brindis) traffic could be carried by ship to Dyrrhacium and thence over the Via Egnatio to Macedonia and the Bosphorus; or along the coast to the Grecian towns, to the cities of the Far East and to Egypt. Many are the references to the noted highway in literature; Milton, in “Paradise Regained,” book four, bids us to watch flocking to the city, enriched with spoils, proconsuls, embassies, legions, in “various habits on the Appian road.”

“What a cosmopolitan throng must have graced that highway in the first century,” says Dr. Carroll.[11] “Thick-lipped Ethiopians with rings in noses and ears, swarthy-browed turbaned Mesopotamians, haughty Parthians, burnoosed Arabs still worshiping their polygods, hook-nosed Hebrews, carven with the humility of the despised[26] rich, Greek Pedagogues and Rhetors and Tutors, togaed senators, white-clad vestals with modest faces, and painted harlots with amber hair. Lictors clearing the way with rods for some purple clad dignitary of Nero’s court and carrying the fasces and the ax; street merchants and hawkers of small wares, slaves scantily clad, stark bemuscled gladiators, Cives and Peregrini, citizens and strangers, displaying, in varying degree, arrogance and curiosity; long yellow-haired Germans, their faces smeared with ocher and their yellow hair with oil; kilted soldiers with long spears and short broad swords; beggars (the lazzaroni of that bygone age), pathetically sullen or volubly mendicant in the sunshine lecticae; couches carried by bearers containing pampered nobles or high-born ladies; the cisium and the rhoda meritoria; the carriage and the hack of that time crossing each other’s path in the narrow road; children naked and joyous; merchants on caparisoned asses; the swinging columns of the legionaries; brown, straight-featured Egyptians. For part of the distance a canal runs parallel and travelers have their choice to take the pavement or to ride in state on painted barges dragged by mules; on the pavement a Pontifex in his robes of office and Augurs exchanging cynical smiles; the rattle of chariot wheels and some haggard-eyed noble, redolent from the warm and scented bath, with flower-crowned brow, drives in furious guise along the Appian Way, while barbarian and Scythian, bond and free, yield the way before him.”

MAP OF ROMAN ROADS IN ENGLAND

(After Jackman: “Development of Transportation in Modern England.”)

[27]

Davis[12] tells us that the Roman road system after it had become a network over Italy began to spread over the whole Empire. That admirable highways were built by peaceful legionaries for commercial purposes—and that even to-day in North Africa and in the wilds of Asia Minor where travelers seldom penetrate may be found the Roman road with its hard stones laid on a solid foundation. He further states that as a consequence of these roads commerce expanded by leaps and bounds. A great trade passing down the Red Sea sprang up with India, reaching to the coast of Ceylon, returning with pearls, rare tapestries, and spices. Another set penetrated Arabia for much-desired incense, or unto the heart of Africa for ivory. Also with such merchandising there came a money system with banks, checks and bonds rivaling those of the present day. The bridges are an important part of any road. Those across the Tiber in Rome were regarded as sacred. They were cared for by a special body of Priests called pontifaces (bridge-makers). The name Pontifex Maximus was borne by the High Priest and became a designation for the emperor; it is now applied to the Pope as the highest authority in the papal or pontifical state.

Pre-historic American Roads.

—When America was discovered it was sparsely settled with tribes of semi-civilized peoples. The ordinary aborigine was in the hunting and fishing stage, just beginning to cultivate crops. True, tribes claimed regions and attempted by force to keep other tribes from trespassing thereon. They had no literature save perhaps a few rough diagrams or drawings. There was no trade or commerce and consequently no roads except mere trails. Their methods of transportation consisted in walking or in paddling canoes. In the making and operating of canoes and of weapons of warfare and of the chase they were most advanced.

In many parts of the country there had been a civilization, but so long ago no very authentic knowledge of its character can be predicated upon the mounds, utensils, and other evidence now remaining. The Mound Builders and the Cliff Dwellers are as yet to us unknown peoples.

In Mexico, Central America,[13] and Peru a much higher civilization prevailed. Especially in Peru where a very high state of agriculture was in vogue. There is even evidence[28] of a considerable degree of Art and Literature.[14] Many of the remains remind one of early Egyptian and Persian temples and roads, but perhaps no more lucid description of the ancient Peruvian roads and transportation exists than that given in Prescott’s justly celebrated classic, “The Conquest of Peru.” Slightly abridged it reads thus:

Hiram Bingham, Director of the Geographic Society-Yale Peruvian Expedition[15] gives an interesting description of the tracing out of two of these old roads. Evidently the trail was mostly used by foot passengers, or possibly llamas, for there were frequently steep grades and flights of steps and open ravines which had more than likely been crossed by the osier suspension bridges. No doubt much commerce beside fertilizer from the great nitrate beds was carried on over these roads.

Conclusion.

—If the story, very briefly given, of these old roads does not verify the thesis that transportation is a measure of civilization, a view might be taken of the tribes and peoples now living in the various parts of the earth. If the character of the transportation of the tribes of Africa and of Asia, of the Arctic and Antarctic regions,[32] the least civilized now known, be compared with that of those nations considered most civilized, the same general conclusion would be drawn. Compare the railways, canals, highways, cars, automobiles, ships, and aircraft of the present-day United States with the pack animals and ox-carts of many less favored nations and the further evidence of amount of traffic and travel per person, will be unnecessary to establish the relative states of civilization. It is not necessary even to go beyond the confines of the great American Republic. Writers who traveled through it in the ’forties, ’fifties and ’sixties are wont to call attention to the uncouthness of the inhabitants, to the lack of the refinements of speech and manners characterizing those who dwelt in the more populous communities. But the honesty, integrity, generosity, willingness, and ability of the American pioneers to dare and to do, were unquestioned. It is a pity that many of the best traits of humanity disappear when people are crowded into cities, when their wants and desires are increased, when the refinements of civilization have replaced the ruggedness of pioneer life. Then, as now, upon the action of a bare majority, which in a republic is called “the will of the people,” often hung the political, social and financial destiny of the nation. A slight change would have changed the course of civilizing evolution; who knows whether for good or ill. As the trivium and quadrivium were the roads, believed by the ancients to lead to a liberal education, so the government and the civilization of this now great nation has rested consecutively in its upward progress, upon the slender path of the aborigine, swelled to the well defined trail of the pack-train, broadened into the cart and wagon road, cast up into a turnpike; and upon the rippling trace of the light canoe, the dugout, the keel-boat, the pole-boat, the flat-boat, the canal-boat and the steam-boat; all to be supplanted by the thunder of the locomotive. What in the process of evolution will follow it? The automobile, the truck, the flying machine? Time alone can tell.

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SELECTED REFERENCES

FOOTNOTES

The early settlements of this country were made upon the shores, naturally, because the settlers were brought by ships from Europe and supplies of various sorts were from time to time renewed by ships. The settlers were not skilled in the art of living on the country as were the natives and when supply vessels failed to put in their appearance there was real hardship in and sometimes entire extermination of the colonists. The penetration of settlement to the interior was slow and even to times within the memory of men now living much of the interior was an unknown wilderness.

The Birch Bark Canoe.

—Travel from place to place was at first insignificant and what little there was was carried on by walking, horseback riding, or by boat. Settlement, which had begun on the ocean or at the head of ocean navigation on inlets or rivers, was eventually pushed farther inland. The rivers and other waterways being at hand were utilized; the birch-bark canoe, the dugout, and the plank boat, furnished the principal vehicles of transportation. The Indians were very expert in the manufacture and operation of light birch-bark canoes. Longfellow in “Hiawatha” gives a poetical description of this:

[35]

Then he explains how the framework is made of cedar:

After which they were tied together and the bark fastened to the frame by fibrous roots of the larch, then Hiawatha

The aborigine paddled this frail bark so skillfully that the noise of rowing was scarcely audible or the waves visible. And when he came to the headwaters of the stream he was able to raise the light craft above his head and follow the dim trail across the lower lying hills to the stream beyond the water-shed leading in the opposite direction.

The white man, profiting by the Red Man’s experience learned to build these boats, as well as heavier ones of logs and timber for transporting goods, and utilized the same trails to push his civilization farther into the unknown.

Meagerness of Early Roads.

—In the “History of Travel”[16] Mr. Dunbar quotes from a document in the New York Historical Society’s collection, written by Benjamin Fletcher, Governor of His Majesty’s Province of New York, and dated 1694, which shows the lack of roadways or even passable trails in northern New York: “It is impossible to march with any party of men to Canada by Land, either in winter or summer, but they must passe a Considerable Part of ye way over ye Lake, ye land on each side being extream steep and Rocky mountains or els a meer cumbered with underwood, where men can not goe upright, but must creep throu Bushes for whole days’ marches, and impossible for horses to goe at any time of ye year.”

The same author quotes from a letter by Deputy Governor Hinkley of Plymouth Colony, about 1680, asking the English Government for favors because this Colony was “the first that broke the ice, and underwent ye brunt, at[36] our own charge, for the enlargement of his Majestie’s dominions in this heretofore most howling wilderness, amidst wild Indians and wild beasts.”

In Massachusetts,[17] on the other hand, it is stated that while communication was usually by water one writer boasts that “the wild and uncouth woods were filled with frequented ways and the large rivers were overlaid with bridges, passable both for horse and foot.” But notwithstanding this it was probably not before the beginning of the sixteenth century that any very serious attempts were made even to widen the trails so that wagon traffic was possible. In 1754[18] four days were needed to go from Boston to New York by stage, and three days more to go to Philadelphia. Twelve years later it required the “Flying Machine” two days to make the trip between New York and Philadelphia.

Settlement Follows Waterways; Portages.

—The opening up for settlement of new territory necessitated means of communication. That near waterways was most easily reached and most easily kept within reach of older settlements and was, therefore, naturally first taken up and occupied. To penetrate farther the interior made it necessary to cross from one water system to another. As necessity arose the trails were widened into roads and often at these portages were established forts and villages for protection against the natives and to facilitate trade. Villages grew into towns and towns into cities. Portages became known and were talked about just as railroad lines were later.[19] To go from the region near New York the Hudson River was available to the watershed near Lake George, where there was a 15-mile portage guarded by Forts Edward on the Hudson and William Henry on Lake George. After traversing Lake George there was another portage to Lake Champlain guarded by Fort Ticonderoga. These names are often mentioned in the histories of the French and Indian and of the Revolutionary wars.

MAP OF THE NORTH-EASTERN PORTION OF THE UNITED STATES SHOWING PORTAGES

Showing the Location of Well-known Portages. There Were Other Portages Wherever Two Water Courses Came Near to Each Other. (See Farrand: “American Nation,” Vol. I, and Thwaites, Ib. Vol. VII.)

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The Oneida portage, leading from the Mohawk, a tributary of the Hudson, to Wood Creek thence by the Oswego River furnished a way to Ontario and the other Great Lakes. A portage around Niagara Falls is now supplanted by the Welland Canal.

Lines of Travel.

—To reach the Ohio Valley travelers might go by way of the north along the routes just mentioned to the Great Lakes, thence to the interior of Ohio, or they could leave the Mohawk and portage across to the upper waters of the Allegheny. The Indians gave trouble along these lines, so a more southerly route was often taken. Some of these, commencing on the north, were: Up the Susquehanna to its headwaters, portage to one or the other of tributaries which flow into the Allegheny near Kittanning; leave the Susquehanna and go up the Juniata and portage over to the Conemaugh, thence to the Allegheny—a course partly occupied now by the Pennsylvania railroad; or, by way of the Potomac, and Wills Creek, then across the Youghiogheny, and Monongahela. Several other trails crossed the Alleghanies. A trail through southern Pennsylvania called occasionally Nemacolin’s Path afterward formed the line of Braddock’s Road, hastily constructed for military purposes during the French and Indian War, and over which Braddock’s unfortunate expedition traveled. Still farther south there was a well-known trail often followed by the Cherokee Indians, by trappers, hunters, traders, and missionaries desirous of reaching the lands beyond the mountains. Skirting the north end of the Blue Ridge range the traveler followed up the Shenandoah to near the present town of Staunton, thence across the ridges to the headwaters of the James, thence to upper tributaries of the New River, then by crossing a few more ridges to the Holston River, thence into the bountiful hunting grounds of Tennessee. The Cherokee Indians were jealous of this territory and as far as possible kept it[38] closed to the settler. Therefore the country beyond the Alleghanies was not well known to the Virginia colonists, even up to 1800. True, records of Dougherty, a trader, who had visited the Indian tribes in this region as early as 1690 were known, and another (Adair) in 1730, and still others after 1740. Glowing reports were brought back by the few traders, hunters, trappers, and occasional talkative Indians, who had visited those regions of magnificent rivers, vast woods, and extended prairies. The wild beasts with which this fertile country abounded were likened to the leaves on the trees, they were so abundant. Even the great Ohio River was but a tributary of a larger river of which they had no definite information. The trip, in the language of the Indian, from the headwaters of the Holston (Hogo higee) to the Wabash (Ohio) required for its performance “two paddles, two warriors, three moons.”[20] These glowing descriptions only whetted the adventurous appetite and soon such hardy pioneers as Daniel Boone and his comrades sought this territory where they could live near to nature and be freed from high taxes. There was also a well-worn trail from Philadelphia, east of the Cherokee (Shenandoah) through Virginia to the Yadkin, from which travelers could diverge at various points and reach the Cherokee trail or go on through Cumberland Gap farther to the west.

Trails from the North.

—Traders from Virginia who reached far out in Tennessee and Kentucky found competition from those who came down by one of the several routes from the Great Lakes or up from the lower Mississippi. A route left Lake Erie at what is now Cleveland, passed up the Cuyahoga, portaged across to a tributary of the Ohio, then into Kentucky; another left the Lake at Sandusky, followed the Miami, crossed to the Scioto, thence down to the Ohio, across Kentucky to Cumberland Gap, sometimes called the Scioto trail and farther south the Warrior’s Trail.

As western territory settled, trails and roads became[39] more numerous. Readers desiring further detailed information are referred to Hurlbert, Thwaites, Dunbar, and Farrand.[21] A few other routes, however, should be mentioned on account of the importance they assumed in the settlement of the nation.

Boone’s Trace, or The Wilderness Road.

—This road is said to be the first road built into the wilderness for the purpose of encouraging settlement and development. In the late years of the nineteenth century it was no uncommon thing for a railroad to precede settlement, but at the beginning of the eighteenth century roads were, in America, made largely for military purposes or where demanded by the traffic of earlier settlement.

Daniel Boone, the noted hunter and explorer, had several times left his home in North Carolina to hunt and travel in the wilds of Kentucky. He brought back to the eastern side of the mountains glowing descriptions. These excited the cupidity of a friend, a judge and prominent citizen of North Carolina, James[22] Henderson. Henderson employed Boone to confer with the Cherokee Indians who claimed this territory for the sale of their rights. Boone sought out the Indians and by means now unknown got them to agree to sell. The fact that they were persuaded to dispose of their great hunting grounds shows what influence Boone had among them. It has been intimated that the chiefs realized the futility of further fighting the white settler or that the Cherokees felt they had no real right to this land as it had been rather held as neutral territory[40] among several tribes. However, as soon as they had given their pledge Boone is said to have gone immediately to Henderson, who repaired at once to Fort Watauga on a branch of the Holston in North Carolina, where he met 1200 natives in council and completed the deal in the name of the Transylvania Company. The main opposition came from an eloquent and powerful chief named Dragging Canoe,[23] who was able to disrupt proceedings the first day. After his speech the council broke up in confusion. The next day, however, the Indians again went into council and the treaty was ratified. Estimates of the price paid range from “ten wagon loads of cheap goods and whiskey,” to “the equivalent of ten thousand pounds sterling.”[24]

As soon as the deal was consummated Boone, employed by Henderson, began the marking and cutting out of a road from Watauga, North Carolina, to Boonesborough, Kentucky. The party numbered about forty men, consisting of colored men to care for the camp duties and the necessary pack animals and a body of woodsmen with axes. Boone went ahead and blazed the way by chopping notches in the sides of trees along the way, the axmen following cleared away the underbrush and felled and removed such trees as stood in the way. However, as it was easier to detour than to chop, usually only small trees were cut. It was not intended that this should be a wagon road, as wagons had but just made their appearance in this region. However, it was to be an easily followed way for future settlers. In Boone’s Autobiography, dictated to John Filson, the matter of the road is referred to thus:

A letter from Captain Boone to Colonel Henderson is quoted by Peck in his life of Boone, relating to this same enterprise, which shows the dangerous nature of the work and that even Boone seemed somewhat worried over the matter:

The road began “at the settlements,” which were probably in what are now Sullivan and Hawkins counties. Tennessee, but mostly along the Watauga River, then thought to be a part of Virginia. The road was a continuation of the Cherokee trail through the mountains. This trail served the great migration following the Revolutionary War in Tennessee and Kentucky. From the settlements there is a westerly course to the Holston River at Long Island near the site of old Long Island Fort constructed by Colonel Bird to winter his army during the French and Indian War in 1758. At this place he received some reinforcements and then continued in a generally westward direction through country he was more or less familiar with to the Clinch River, then across the ridge to the Powell River, and finally to Cumberland Gap, through which he entered the land of “Kentucke.” Here he arrived at the Warrior’s Trail leading northward, so called because Kentucky had been a sort of neutral hunting grounds of the Indians from the North, the Miamis, Shawnees, Wyandots, and others and of the Cherokees, Creeks, Catawbas, and others, from the South. Nevertheless the Indians from the South habitually crossed over and fought those from the North and vice versa, hence a large and much frequented trail.

MAP SHOWING MAIN HIGHWAYS AND WATERWAYS IN UNITED STATES ABOUT 1830

When the Railroads Entered the Industrial Arena, the Country Was Being Covered With a Net Work of Highways. (Based on Tanner’s Map of 1825 and Turner in “American Nation,” Vol. XIV.)

Boone appropriated this native route for a distance of about 50 miles to near the present town of Manchester in Clay County. Here he found a “street” made by the buffalo, which were wont to travel through the cane-brakes about five or six abreast, thus with their thousands of hoofs breaking and hardening a way wide enough for a team and wagon. Turning west he followed the bisons’ street[43] to Rock Castle River, then turned northward again to the Kentucky River and the site of Boonesborough. A fort was here erected by placing stout log cabins with heavy stockades between about a rectangular space some 150 x 260 feet. A pair of strong wooden gates furnished ingress and egress. Several times was this fort attacked by Indians, the last time in 1778, by nearly 500 warriors, but always, because of the block houses at the corners with their loop-holes and the heavy barricades, also with loop holes, they were able to withstand the attacks and finally repulse the Indians.

The first legislature of the Transylvania Republic, as Henderson’s scheme came to be known, was held here. Boone was a member, as was Harrod from Harrodstown, and other early settlers of Kentucky.

There is no doubt but that this highway and blockhouse fort were of great assistance in settling and developing the country of Kentucke.

Calk’s Diary.

—One of the first parties to make use of Boone’s Trace was that of Henderson in response to Boone’s letter heretofore quoted. A naïve diary kept by one of its members, William Calk, is still in existence. It has been made available by the publications of the Filson Club. Speed[25] and Dunbar[26] quote it extensively. Theodore (afterward President) Roosevelt[27] says “the writer’s mind was evidently as vigorous as his language was terse and untrammeled.” While spelling, capitalization, and punctuation may not conform to the best modern style it must be remembered that in those early days there were no public schools. A few private schools were taught by more or less shiftless school teachers, but the man who could read and write at all was fortunate. Boone’s schooling, of a very meager nature, closed when he and some of his schoolmates exchanged the teacher’s whisky bottle for a similar one doped with tartar emetic. The sick teacher[44] made a “rough house” with Boone and his companions but was finally knocked down and the school dismissed.

To return to William Calk’s diary. It is a sort of log or running account of the trip and events from day to day as they impressed him, from its beginning March 13, 1775, in Prince William County, Virginia, till he arrives at Boonesborough. It is certainly a very good commentary on the early travel conditions. A few of the entries are:

So he continues with his daily items. It may be interesting to note that

On “fryday 24th” they turned out of the main wagon road in order to go to “Danil Smiths” on the Clinch River, where they arrived Saturday evening and very hard traveling they found it through the mountains. Those who have had experience with pack animals in the timber will relish this incident which occurred soon after the few days’ sojourn at Smith’s.

They “suplyed” themselves with bacon and meal at “Dunkan’s.” This was their last chance to get provisions[45] other than the game afforded by the country. They found this a “verey Bad hilley way.” Were mired in the mud, fell in the water and got their loads wet. Since they turned off to go to Smith’s they had been traveling unbroken or dim trails; on “mond 3rd” after traveling the woods without any track they “git into hendersons Road,” that is the trail which Boone had recently blazed for the Transylvania Company. On “Tuesday 4th” they overtook “Col. henderson and his company Bound for Caintuck,” at Capt. Martin’s where “they were Broiling and Eating Beef without Bread.” They now formed a company of about “40 men and some neagros.”

News of the depredations of the Indians frightened many and caused them to turn back. The Henderson party were able to pursuade some of these to remain. On the 9th they met “another Companey going Back they tell such News abram and Drake is afraid to go aney farther there we camp this night.”

However, after many hardships, swollen streams over which they must sometimes swim their horses, “obliged to toat” the packs over themselves, they arrived at their destination. Once “Abrams mair Ran into the River with her load and swam over” he followed her and “got on her and made her swim back again.” He mentions occasionally Killing game: one “Eavening two Deer,” another day a “beef,” and again “2 bofelos.” The writer was evidently disgusted with the uncleanly and unsanitary Drake, whose dog is mentioned in the first entry, for he notes that “Mr. Drake Bakes Bread without washing his hands,” which evidently was unusual in even these frontier times.

After arriving at “Boones foart” they drew “for chois of lots;” some as will always happen were dissatisfied. This small company, however, must have decided to accept the verdict of chance for Calk writes:

[46]

Thus ends this interesting journal kept under difficult conditions when ordinary men would have considered it useless labor to make such a record. There is no doubt but that Boone’s Wilderness Road and Boone’s Fort were both very instrumental in the settlement of Kentucky and Tennessee. The territory of Kentucky was separated from Virginia in 1786 and admitted to the union as a state in 1790, when it had a population, by U. S. Census, of 73,077.

Marquette’s Explorations.

—Religious devotion and zeal has done much for the settlement of North America: the Puritans in New England, the Quakers in Pennsylvania, the Catholics in Maryland and Canada, and very much later the Mormons in Utah are familiar examples. A French Jesuit missionary, Jacques Marquette, who with another, Claude Bablon, had founded (1668) a settlement at St. Mary’s on the falls between Lakes Superior and Huron, said to be the first French settlement within the present boundaries of the United States, had made friends with the Illinois Indians and learned their language. He also collected the remains of the Huron tribes at St. Ignace and established a mission there (1671). Marquette had heard from the Indians many tales of the Great river to the west, and decided to explore the region along its borders, despite their assertion of great dangers, that its warriors never spared the stranger, and that monsters would devour both men and canoes. Traveling with his company up the Fox River from Green Bay he crossed the portage, which still retains the name “Portage,” to the headwaters of the Wisconsin. With the explorer Joliet and five subordinates as companions, he boldly embarked upon the Wisconsin and floated down its course, knowing not where it would lead nor what dangers might be in store. After[47] seven days of solitary travel they floated with inexpressible joy on the broad bosom of the Mississippi, June 17, 1673. They continued their lonely voyage along its placid waters until they reached the mouth of the Moingona, where were seen evidences of habitation. Fourteen miles in the interior was a native village. They said they were received most friendly with a calumet, invited into their dwellings, and feasted. They explained their religious doctrines and were sent away with the gift of a calumet or peace pipe embellished with the heads and necks of various colored bright and beautiful birds.

They sailed along their solitary way and were soon rewarded by hearing the rush of the swifter, more turbulent, muddy waters of the Missouri, which seemed from thereon to enhance the speed of the current. They went on past the mouths of the Ohio and the Arkansas, where they found savages who spoke a new tongue and were armed with guns, proof that they had trafficked with the Spaniards from the Gulf of Mexico, or with the English from Virginia. These exhibiting hostility which was only allayed by the peace pipe, they retreated and sailed back up the river. When Marquette reached the Illinois he entered and ascended that river where he beheld the magnificent fertility and coloring inuring to the late summer and early autumn of the extensive plains and vast wooded tracts of Illinois. An easy portage brought him to the Chicago River, a short stream whose waters are now reversed and flow into the Illinois. Some authorities claim Marquette to have been the first white man to set foot upon the site of Chicago (1673). Others[28] state that the French Jesuit Nicholas Perrot and his party of fur traders pitched their tent on its prairies the latter part of 1669.

To Marquette, however, belongs the honor of discovering two very important routes to the Mississippi Valley; the one by way of the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers, and the other by way of the Illinois. Unfortunately the hardships of this journey undermined his health and the next year[48] (1674) a half hour after he had retired for devotion to a small altar of stones on the banks of a little stream now called by his name, he was found dead. Thus judged by the extent and value of the territory traversed, passed away, at the early age of thirty-one, one of our country’s greatest explorers.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition.

—Another exploring expedition sought a path to extend the commerce of the United States in the far Oregon country. The great Rocky Mountain ranges precluded direct approach. The idea had evidently fastened itself upon Thomas Jefferson, even before he became president, that the Missouri River might be made the highway across the continent, and that trade and commerce thus engendered would inure to the benefit of the country. Also being a highly educated man, he was deeply interested in extending the geographical and biological knowledge of this vast region even though no remuneration to the nation might come therefrom. Furthermore, it is possible, he desired to secure the territories beyond the Rockies as a part of the country, but he was too shrewd to make plain statements to that effect. His shrewdness and the business sagacity of Livingston, minister to France, coupled with the financial straits of Napoleon resulted in obtaining an extensive portion of the country without which the United States could not have developed into a strong well-bound nation reaching from coast to coast. Whether Mr. Jefferson would have attempted to take this country by force matters not now. The fact that the Lewis and Clark military expedition was ready to start almost as soon as the purchase was made, lends suspicion to that idea. The nomination of Monroe to be Minister to France, the man whom Jefferson expected to conduct the Louisiana negotiations, and who arrived in France just in time to see them completed by Livingston, was made January 11, 1803; while the message proposing the expedition was submitted January 18; the treaty of cession for the purchase was signed May 2; and during that same month the expedition which had previously organized[49] left its winter quarters about a day’s journey from St. Louis, and proceeded up the Missouri River. The expedition consisted of forty-five persons in three boats, one a flat boat decked over at the ends and two pirogues[29] together with a number of horses which were to be driven along the bank for the use of the hunters. The personnel consisted of the two officers, Captain Meriwether Lewis and Lieutenant (by courtesy Captain) William Clark, both of whom were from families already distinguished in border service; twenty-seven men who expected to make the entire journey; seven soldiers and nine voyageurs who were to go only to the Mandan villages of the Missouri, where the party would winter. Of the twenty-seven permanent members one was a half-breed hunter who would also act as interpreter, two were French voyageurs, and one a negro servant of Clark. All, except the black slave, were enlisted in the army that discipline might be secured. Their progress was necessarily slow and a full account of it reads like a romance. They of course had to live off the country as they proceeded. There was no roadway along the river, often the brush was thick and the grass high; the river with its turbulent waters, snags, and sand bars made navigation difficult; flies and mosquitoes, those pests of bottom and marshy land, were abundant. They had some trouble with the Sioux Indians, but Captains Lewis and Clark were evidently able to cope with them successfully. They reached a point near the present site of Bismarck, N.D., that summer. This region was occupied by the Mandan Indians, who lived in villages of rather permanent character. Among these they found some who had traveled far toward the headwaters of the Missouri. One woman, known as the Bird Woman, was especially helpful to them. She had been captured some time previously from a mountain tribe and according to Indian custom married to one of their own number, a half breed. During the stay at[50] winter quarters, in addition to writing up their journals and records very carefully, they cultivated the acquaintance of this woman. She, with her half breed husband and small child, accompanied the expedition when it began its onward journey in the spring of 1805. There was real need for them not only to act as guides and interpreters, but to replace those who had been sent back down the river with reports of the progress and observations of the expedition up to this time. Part of the duties of the expedition, as heretofore intimated, was to note the character and productivity of the land, as well as the nature and number of Indians found and general information concerning them and their mode of living.

When the falls of the Missouri were reached there seemed to be an impasse. But from logs and other timbers found there they constructed a crude wagon on which their supplies and equipment were transported to the river above. They had brought with them the iron framework of a smaller boat than those used heretofore with the idea of covering it with stretched skins. They found difficulty, however, in getting it watertight. They attempted to get pitch by heating pine tree trunks but were again unsuccessful. They resorted finally to a combination of powdered charcoal, beeswax, and buffalo tallow—practically natural products of the land. The boat floated nicely and they were greatly encouraged but when it was taken from the water the mixture dropped off and the seams opened up. Lewis finally gave up the attempt and buried the framework and built canoes according to the Indian fashion. In passing up they came to forks in the river and were often at a loss which to take. By conference with the Indian woman and reports of scouts sent ahead they were usually fortunate in choosing the right course. Being explorers of a new country they assigned names to the rivers as they discovered them. At three forks, they called the rivers, Gallatin, Madison, and Jefferson, names which they still retain. Three branches of the Jefferson were Philosophy, Philanthropy, and Wisdom; these names have not[51] remained—probably they were too fanciful—the Philanthropy is now the odoriferous Stinking Water.

They followed up the Jefferson until it became too shallow and precipitous to navigate longer. Lewis started out overland into the interior hoping to find an Indian habitation and someone who would guide him to waters flowing Pacificward. Game, which had been very abundant practically all the way, was here scarce and the company were often hungry, and very likely despondent. After arduous and weary wandering Lewis came across an old Indian woman and some girls. They were afraid of him and bowed their heads for execution. Instead he gave them trinkets and face paint. The men of the tribe having come up he with difficulty persuaded them to go with him to the river where the “Bird Woman” who had come with them from the Mandan village was recognized as the sister of the chief of the band with which Lewis had fortunately come in contact.

Their food up to this time, which was mostly meat, was easily supplied from the numerous herds of buffalo, elk, deer, and antelope; from flocks of wild fowl, and prairie chickens; and from several varieties of fish found in the waters. “On the return voyage, when Clark was descending the Yellowstone River, a vast herd of buffalo, swimming and wading, plowed its way across the stream where it was a mile wide, in a column so thick that explorers had to draw up on shore and wait for an hour, until it passed by, before continuing their journey.”[30] They frequently found hungry wolves, grizzly bears, and rattlesnakes which gave them more or less trouble, but they complained mostly of the mosquitoes.

But now having left the open country they found game very scarce. The Indians occasionally brought them a Rocky Mountain sheep but they themselves claim never to have seen one alive. After a short exploration in the region of the headwaters of the Jefferson they decided to continue toward the west. So purchasing ponies from the Indians[52] and cacheing most of their goods went on until the rivers were again passable for boats, where making new canoes they again took to the waters and voyaged to the mouth of the Columbia. Hunger harassed them, while rapids and whirlpools made their downward travel very disagreeable. The Indians on the lower reaches were generally friendly but their food consisted largely of dog meat, which at first was nauseating; however, after awhile they became reconciled to the Indians’ favorite dish.

The party wintered on the coast at a post they named Fort Clatsch. The damp winds here were cold and raw and to persons used to active outdoor life the winter’s enforced idleness cloyed, and they were glad when spring came and they could turn back. The streams toward the mountains are very swift so much of the return journey to the place where they had left their horses with the Nez Percé Indians had to be made on foot. Upon again securing their horses they separated at the top of the divide, Lewis returning by way of the Missouri and Clark going by way of the Yellowstone. Clark for a portion of the way subdivided his party in order that the maximum territory might be explored. They met again at the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone and concluded their expedition at St. Louis, September 23, 1806. Thus ended a marvelous journey of three and a third years through a wilderness beset with many dangers, inhabited by savage tribes, venomous reptiles, and ferocious beasts; but a wilderness on the whole extremely friendly, abounding in succulent vegetation and edible game, and endowed with a healthful and invigorating climate. During all this time, notwithstanding hardships and exposures, one man only had died, one had deserted and not more than two Indians had been killed.[31] To Lewis and Clark for their ability to handle men, for their courage, and fidelity should be given much praise.

Upon the report of this expedition being made public[53] very many hunters, trappers and fur traders came to the lands beyond the Missouri. These in turn were followed by bona-fide settlers. Soon this country was furnishing supplies for those farther east, the great rivers Missouri, Mississippi, and Ohio being busy routes of internal commerce. As a result of Lewis and Clark’s labors the United States was able to lay claim to the Oregon country some years later. The door was opened for the development of a vast empire with versatile resources far beyond the fabled riches of the far east.

Transcontinental Trails.

—Following the purchase of the Louisiana territory there was, of course, an extension of settlement to the prairies beyond the Missouri. The State of Missouri was early occupied and became a state in 1821, but it was many years later before other portions of the Louisiana Purchase were sufficiently settled to become territories.[32] The settlement of these lands, together with the opening up of Oregon and later California with its great gold rush, created a demand for transcontinental roads. The mountain ranges were searched for passes, possibly not so much for the purposes of settlement as means for going to and coming from fur trading posts which large companies established throughout the whole Rocky Mountain region. St. Louis became the greatest fur center in the world, a position which she probably holds[54] still.[33] Provost, leader of a detachment of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company (Wm. H. Ashley, of Virginia, founder), found the South Pass by way of the Sweetwater branch of the North Fork of the Platte River, 1823. This pass held preëminence as a crossing through the Rockies to the great interior basin and to the Pacific coast. Already has been mentioned the crossing of Lewis and Clark in the North. Bridger discovered the pass in Southern Wyoming bearing his name, about 1824. This defile though wide enough for an army to pass through seems narrow because of its lateral walls of red granite and metamorphic sandstone extending almost perpendicularly from 1000 to 25,000 feet. The overland mail route prior to the building of the Union Pacific Railroad was through this pass. Jedediah Smith, who succeeded Ashley as head of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, explored practically all the region from Great Salt Lake to the Pacific, and from San Diego to the upper Columbia River in Canada. To him is the world indebted for its first knowledge of much of the vast region west of Salt Lake as by other active members of this company was revealed the sources of the Platte, the Yellowstone, the Green and the Snake Rivers, and possible routes through the almost impassable mountains drained by them. New England was especially interested in the Oregon country and through men from there the Humboldt River route was discovered.

During this same period there were being opened up trade and trade routes with the Spanish possessions farther south. In 1822 a wagon train was taken from Missouri to Santa Fé by a man named Beckwith to trade for horses and mules, and trap along the way. For years St. Louis was headquarters for many overland traders to these regions, taking to them cloths and other manufactured goods and bringing back furs, silver, mules, and horses.

TRANSCONTINENTAL TRAILS IN THE UNITED STATES

[55]

The Oregon Trail, the Santa Fé Trail, the Spanish Trail and the Gila Route, had become quite well known by the early ’thirties and after the discovery of gold in California in ’forty-nine carried many people and much traffic across the continent.

Origin of the Oregon Trail.

—At Bellevue the Nebraska State Historical Society erected, June 23, 1910, a monument a part of the inscription on which reads:

John Jacob Astor’s purpose in organizing the Pacific Fur Company, a subsidiary of the American Fur Company, was to establish himself and American control in the already disputed Oregon country.[34] As a result two expeditions were fitted out to go to and establish trading posts in Oregon with a central control or main post at Astoria. One of these expeditions went by water around Cape Horn to “carry out the people, stores, ammunition and merchandise, requisite for establishing a fortified trading post at the mouth of the Columbia River.” The other “conducted by Mr. Hunt, was to proceed up the Missouri, and across the Rocky Mountains, to the same point: exploring a line of communication across the continent, and noting the place where interior trading posts might be established.”[35]

The overland expedition, consisting of about sixty men with four boats left their winter quarters in Missouri and proceeded up the river in the spring of 1811. They deviated somewhat from Lewis and Clark’s route by leaving the Missouri River at the mouth of the Grand River, near where the Pacific extension of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul railroad crosses. They seem to have gone across the country north of the Black Hills into Wyoming to the Wind River and Wind Mountains south of the Yellowstone Park, using present-day terms for locations; thence a short[56] distance to the head waters of the Snake River, a part of the Lewis and Clark route, which with some deviations they followed to the Columbia. At the mouth of the Columbia they met the sea party, and on July 28, 1812, a party of six men started back with dispatches. They wintered near Scott’s Bluff, Nebraska, having crossed the mountains substantially along the line afterwards known as the Oregon Trail. In the spring of 1813 they continued down the Platte to the Missouri. This trip proved the possibility of a direct route avoiding the long roundabout journey by way of the headwaters of the Missouri River. The evolution of the Oregon Trail has been summarized by Albert Watkins, Historian of the Nebraska State Historical Society, in Collections, Vol. XVI, p. 26, as follows:[36]

The Final Trail.

—The Trail as finally adopted and used by emigrants and freighters to Oregon in the “forties” started from Independence and Westport (outfitting stations near the present metropolis of Kansas City, Missouri) then followed in a general way the Kansas, Big Blue, and Little Blue Rivers to near the Platte, crossing over to the latter river a short distance west of the present city of Kearney. The trail here proceeded up the South bank to the forks, and from there up the North Fork to the Sweetwater which it followed through South Pass. Thence it bore southwestward, westward, and northwestward to the Snake River which was followed to a point about west of Boise where a cutoff was made through the Blue Mountains arriving at the Columbia River about the mouth of the Umatilla, thence down the Columbia to the Pacific Ocean.

Salt Lake Trail.

—Many variations of the above described trail were in use. Travelers up the Missouri River disembarked at St. Joseph, Nebraska City, Plattsmouth and especially at Council Bluffs. The great Mormon trek was made from the last-named place. They reached the Platte River west of Omaha and followed it on the north bank, paralleling the Oregon Trail from Fort Kearney to Fort Laramie, where they crossed over and joined with the Oregon Trail through South Pass then leaving that trail turned south and west to Great Salt Lake.

Later California Trail.

—A continuation of the Salt Lake route north of Great Salt Lake and along the Humboldt River, across the desert to near Lake Tahoe, where there was a crossing through the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the Truckee Pass, thence to the Gold Diggings or across California by way of the American and Sacramento Rivers, was a trail very popular to California gold miners and was afterwards used by the overland stage, and known as the Later California Trail.

[58]

Santa Fé Trail.

—This road passed westward and a little south to the Arkansas River, which it followed to Bent’s Fort (Colorado), thence up Timpas Creek and over the Raton Pass to Las Vegas (New Mexico). Then westward through Apache Cañon to Santa Fé. This trail was too rough for wagon traffic, so later a route which crossed over south from the Arkansas to the Cimarron and meeting the old trail at Las Vegas was used.

Gila and Spanish Trails.

—Two routes were possible from Santa Fé. One southwestward by way of the Rio Grande and Gila Rivers into southern California. The other took a northwesterly direction up the Chama River, down the Dolores Valley, and across to the Grand River near the present site of Moab, Utah. Then west to the Sevier, up which it followed until it crossed over to the Virgin River; up this for a short distance then turned directly south-west across the Mohave desert toward Los Angeles. This last route received the name of Spanish Trail.

Many of these trails were difficult on account of scarcity of water in the deserts. Descriptions of early travel over them are replete with hardships, sickness, and deaths. Some of the graves were marked with wooden, stone, or iron markers with names roughly chiseled, but more received no marking whatsoever. Many travelers and settlers were killed by the Indians; the tribes apparently becoming more hostile as the number of whites increased until their own numbers became so decimated they could no longer command sufficient warriors to warrant further attacks. It would seem as though no advance in civilization is unaccompanied by its toll of human lives.

Era of Turnpiking.

—The need of better transportation facilities was “borne in” on the people of the eastern part of the country long before the west had been developed. The Indian trail, a single path,—for they always traveled in single file—gave way to the “tote path” over which each year the settler’s surplus crops were transported to market on pack animals. Even if they owned wheeled vehicles the[59] roads were generally so bad they could not be used. However, wheeled vehicles were not many prior to 1800. When Braddock wished to transport his army to western Pennsylvania he called upon the colonies for wagons, but Maryland and Virginia furnished only twenty-five. He appealed to Franklin, who by his influence was able to secure 154 wheeled vehicles[37] from Pennsylvania, probably the best supplied with wagons of all the colonies.

It was the custom for communities to join together after crops were gathered to start a caravan of packers to market.[38] A master driver with one or two assistants could manage a pack-train of a dozen or so horses. “Hides and peltries, ginseng, and bear’s grease” are mentioned as articles to be bartered for salt, iron, nails, pewter plates and dishes, and cloth and articles of clothing, although the latter were usually made at home. The horses traveled in single file each fitted with a natural crotch of wood for a tree. Hobbles and bells were provided that the horses could be turned loose to graze at night. Sometimes packs had to be taken off to be carried over streams or through narrow defiles. Naturally, methods of transportation had much influence on the character of the crops raised. Stock—cows, sheep, and pigs—could be driven to market by the raiser or sold to a drover who acted as a middleman. Farm products were concentrated by being fed to stock or manufactured into something requiring less space. Settlers complained that it required two bushels of grain to get one to market. Whisky and brandy were easily made, served to concentrate the grain and surplus fruit and always had a ready sale. When the government placed an excise tax on it the opposition was so great as to produce an insurrection in Pennsylvania (1794). Had there been good transportation facilities probably there never would have been a “Whisky Rebellion.” Sixteen gallons (two kegs) of whisky worth $1.00 per gallon east of the Alleghanies was[60] a horse load; whereas the same animal would only pack about two bushels of grain worth, perhaps, 80 cents. That packing was a business of considerable importance is shown by a statement in “The History and Topography of Dauphin (and) Cumberland Counties (Pa.)” quoted by Dunbar: “Sixty or seventy years ago five hundred pack horses had been at one time in Carlisle, going thence to Shippenburg, Fort London and further westward.” This was written in 1848.

Naturally so much traffic induced men to make packing a means of livelihood. They became so numerous and strong that when wagons began to take over the business of freighting they considered it an infringement upon their vested rights. But as goods could be transported more easily and cheaply by wagon the old had to make way for the new. Wagon roads and at first two-wheeled then four-wheeled vehicles began to appear. This created a demand for better roads. At first that consisted in merely widening the packtrain trails. But about the beginning of the nineteenth century, Tresaguet in France, and Macadam and Telford, in Great Britain, were building broken-stone roads which greatly changed and augmented the internal commerce and the industry of those countries. The most populous and wealthy of the colonies likewise began to consider the road question. A few military roads, such as Braddock’s, had been constructed; there was a road along the coast of Massachusetts, and some roads and bridges in the interior, there were roads connecting the larger cities as from Boston to New York and from New York to Philadelphia. The cities in order to retain and extend their trade needed highways of commerce.

Turnpike Roads.

—The construction of turnpike roads many of which were stoned was encouraged by a number of the states, especially by Pennsylvania. The Lancaster turnpike from Philadelphia to Lancaster was “stoned” in 1792 by throwing on it stones of all sizes. These were afterwards removed and stones “passing a 2-inch ring” substituted. This is said to have been the first scientifically[61] built hard surfaced road in America. In 1800 Pennsylvania fostered the construction of a system of turnpikes (toll roads), by granting franchises and subscribing stock, which was eventually to cover the state and control the western market. By 1828 there had been 3110 miles of chartered turnpike in Pennsylvania costing over $8,000,000. These thousands of miles of fine turnpike roads including many good bridges placed Pennsylvania in the lead for internal improvements. But other states were similarly employed. New York and New England by 1811 had chartered 317 turnpikes.[39] Virginia appropriated funds “to be used exclusively for river improvements, canals and public highways,” in 1816. South Carolina voted a million dollars, in 1818, to be raised in four annual levies for similar purposes.

During these years the states were opening public roads but the only good roads were those built by the turnpike companies, which erected gates and collected tolls every few miles. This resulted in a higher cost of transportation than was liked by the public who clamored for free roads and canals. They were wanted by both the producer and the merchant. The turnpikes were opposed to anything which would tend to reduce their control of transportation.

Wagon Road Desuetude.

—The introduction of the steam railway with its quicker, better, and cheaper form of transportation put out of existence the freighting and coaching business of the turnpikes, in fact of all wagon roads. Roads which had had a thriving trade found their toll boxes scarcely held enough to maintain the gate keeper. As there was no adequate system of maintenance, although many of them had been macadamized, they gradually fell into a state of disrepair. Freighters and coachers gravitated westward or took shorter runs as feeders to the railroads. Turnpikes, built as private or semi-private enterprises, were gradually being taken over by the public and maintained by local road overseers. The old practice[62] of calling on the freeholders to work out their road tax annually was in vogue and is still in use in places. By it no road was ever kept at a high state of efficiency. Even the National highway, the Cumberland Road, which had been constructed to Vandalia, Illinois, and surfaced with stone to Columbus, Ohio, at an expense to the nation of nearly seven millions of dollars, had lost its ardent supporters. Jackson’s theory that national money should only be spent for roads in territories, and the states’ right idea that each state should be the unit of government and look after all its own internal affairs, seemed to prevail. As a result wagon road building further than to make a mere way for crop marketing at odd seasons of the year stood still until bicycle enthusiasts began an agitation for better roads about 1890. However, a real awakening to the advantages of good roads came only after the advent of the automobile about 1900.

National Participation.

—The Revolutionary War had shown the need of roadways for quick intercourse between the seaboard and the trans-Alleghany regions. The efforts of the different states, still retaining their colonial jealousies, to secure the control of the trade of these regions emphasized the need of a unifying influence which would bring harmony. The debate proceeded in a desultory fashion for a number of years. Strict constitutionalists did not believe the national government has the authority to construct roads at all. States’ rights men argued that road construction is the province of the states and the National Government has jurisdiction only in the territories. On March 29, 1806, President Thomas Jefferson approved a bill to survey and construct a road from a point on the Potomac near Cumberland to the Ohio River near Steubenville popularly known as the Cumberland or National road, and appropriated therefor $30,000. This was in the minds of friends of government control to be the beginning; there was increasing need of travel and traffic facilities from the Hudson to the Great Lakes, from the Delaware to the Ohio; from Virginia and the Carolinas to Kentucky and Tennessee,[63] to say nothing of north and south routes, which unfortunately did not mature in time to prevent the great Civil War a half-century later.

Alfred Gallatin and Henry Clay sponsored the Cumberland Road. The former in compliance with the wish of Congress (1808) drew up a scheme for a national system of internal improvements by roads and canals at an annual expense of $2,000,000 for ten years. But its opponents were able to stay it off and the war of 1812 coming on caused financial troubles and the entire scheme was indefinitely postponed.

The first appropriation for the Cumberland Road had been made, not from the general funds of the government, but from the proceeds of the sales of land, a fiction, of course, for the benefit of the strict constitutionalists. Gradually, however, Congress came to accept the doctrine of “implied powers.” Madison in his last message invited the attention of Congress “to the expediency of exercising their existing powers and, where necessary, of resorting to the prescribed mode of enlarging them, in order to effectuate a comprehensive system of roads and canals, such as will have the effect of drawing more closely together every part of the country, by promoting intercourse and improvements and by increasing the share of every part of the common stock of national prosperity.”[40]

Up to this time there had been completed only 23 miles of the road. In 1816, $300,000 was appropriated for its completion; two years later $260,000 was voted; but a proposal to appropriate $600,000 for internal improvements failed in 1817, as did also a bill providing for the extension of the Cumberland Road. But as a result of the labor of Henry Clay, Albert Gallatin, Thomas Jefferson, President James Madison, and other friends of cheap and rapid transit, by 1820 the total of Congressional appropriations for the Cumberland Road amounted to more than $1,500,000; in 1844 the thirty-fourth appropriation made a total of nearly $7,000,000.[41] The growth of the road was[64] slow: the first contract was let in 1811 for 10 miles; contracts for short sections were let from year to year and the road by 1817 had crawled, following approximately the Nemacolin Path, with the Potomac through the Cumberland gateway over the Alleghany range by way of Negro Mountain at an elevation of 2325 feet, down to the Youghiogheny, past the scene of Braddock’s defeat and the cairn which marks his resting place, through the Laurel Hill Range over to Brownsville within reach of Pittsburgh, thence westward slightly north through Washington (Pennsylvania), to Wheeling (West Virginia) on the Ohio River.

Thus had the old Indian trail developed into a route for Washington and his band to Fort Necessity; into Braddock’s road to Great Meadows; into a pack train trail trampled by thousands of caravan hoofs; and, finally, into a finished paved highway cleared to 66 feet in width, having no grade above 5 per cent which Washington and Jefferson and Madison had visions would be the means of binding together with the strong bands of commerce the cis- and trans-Alleghanian countries.

Extension of the Cumberland Highway.

—The road immediately proved its worth. The mail coaches were placed upon it; great freight lines were established having their own stage houses and depots in towns along its way; inns and hotels thrived; apparently the “pulse of the nation beat to the steady throb of trade along its highway.”[42] Like the Appian Way it became noted the world over. The National, Good Intent, June Bug, and Pioneer stage coach lines were common names as are the Pennsylvania, New York Central, Burlington, and Union Pacific railroad lines of to-day. The coming to town of these coaches, which had developed from the plain square box, through the oval type to the finished Concord painted in brilliant colors, perhaps bearing the name of some prominent personage, drawn by four and six horses, with the proud and arrogant driver often better known than the eminent patrons whose names[65] now grace the pages of history, was an important event in the work of the day. Hardly had the stage stopped before the hostlers were busy changing the horses, taking the tired animals to rub-down, rest, and feed, bringing on fresh high-stepping spirited ones, champing their bits, apparently very anxious for a galloping start toward the next post; the passengers were alighting to stretch their legs, rest and refresh themselves at nearby food “emporiums” or select an inn from among the claims of numerous barkers; agents were transferring and recording baggage, mail, and express; and the curiosity loungers constituted most of the remaining populace. The stage driver, Westover, made a record of forty-five minutes for the 20 miles between Uniontown and Brownsville, while “Red” Bunting’s drive of 131 miles, with the declaration of war against Mexico, in twelve hours remains, like Paul Revere’s ride, a part of the nation’s history.

The amount of traffic over the National road was tremendous. The annual traffic was probably not less than 3000 wagons.[43] One firm in Wheeling is said to have, during the first five years of its existence, done a business of over 5000 wagons carrying 2 tons each.[44] A view of the road must have been interesting, for the Conestoga wagons with their sway-backed canvas covers were said to have been “visible all day long,[45] at every point, making the highway look more like a leading avenue of a great city than a road through rural districts.... I have staid over night with William Cheets on Nigger (Negro) Mountain when there were about thirty six-horse teams in a wagon yard, a hundred Kentucky mules in an adjoining lot, a thousand hogs in their enclosures, and as many fat cattle in adjoining fields. The music made by this large number of hogs eating corn on a frosty night I shall never forget. After supper and attention to the teams, the waggoners would gather in the bar-room and listen to the music on the violin furnished[66] by one of their fellows, have a Virginia hoe-down, sing songs, tell anecdotes, and hear the experience of drivers and drovers from all points of the road, and, when it was over, unroll their beds, lay them down on the floor before the bar room fire side by side, and sleep with their feet near the blaze as soundly as under a parental roof.”

Ah! where is the poet whose facile pen will engrave upon the tablets of literature the tales of these men as has Longfellow the “Tales of a Wayside Inn” in Sudbury Town so alike, where:

The success of the Cumberland Road to the Ohio created demands for its extension. In conformity to this demand $10,000 was appropriated in 1820 to lay out a road from Wheeling to the Mississippi River near St. Louis. This continuation was for a road 80 feet wide and in spite of much congressional objection and occasional presidential vetoes, the road was pushed on; the last appropriation being made for a portion west of the Ohio, May 25, 1838. The exact total of all appropriations amounted to $6,824,919.33. The road proper reached southern Illinois.

Courtesy of Prof. P. K. Slaymaker

WAY BILL USED ON SLAYMAKER STAGE LINE FROM LANCASTER TO PHILADELPHIA, 1815

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States wanted appropriations for other roads, but these were pretty generally vetoed. One important case was the veto, 1830, by Jackson of the bill authorizing a subscription by the United States for stock in the Maysville, Washington, Paris, and Lexington Road Company. The company was incorporated in Kentucky to build a road from the Cumberland Road at Tanesville, Ohio, to Florence, Alabama, on the Tennessee River, which had been surveyed by U. S. engineers in 1827. Maysville, through which the road was to pass, was on the south side of the Ohio River, and did considerable trade in Kentucky and Tennessee. A census was taken of the existing road, admitted to be in bad condition, showing an average daily traffic of 351 persons, 33 carriages and 51 wagons. The $150,000 to be subscribed by the government was not to be paid until an equal amount had been subscribed in equal parts by the State of Kentucky and private individuals. Other bills of a similar character were before Congress, one for a road from Buffalo to New Orleans having been laid on the table, and opponents of the bill insisted any road anywhere could be as well regarded to be a national road as could be the Maysville road. The Washington Turnpike Company bill of a similar tenor was vetoed.[46] Jackson evidently doubted the constitutional right of the government to enter into internal projects of this character. In his message to Congress he had conceded that “every member of the Union, in peace and in war, will be benefited by the improvement of inland navigation and the construction of highways in the several states,” he noted the opposition to methods heretofore adopted as unconstitutional and inexpedient. He therefore proposed an amendment to the constitution, to be submitted if it could not otherwise be done, whereby the surplus revenue might be appropriated to the several states in proportion to their representation in Congress for the purpose of internal improvements. State sovereignty was always to be maintained.

In 1838 when the road had reached Southern Illinois a new element entered the industrial world. The railroads were proving their ability to compete most successfully with other forms of transportation. The building of national highways ceased; canal and river transportation were practically put out of business with the entrance of this new leviathan.

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SELECTED REFERENCES

FOOTNOTES

From the earliest exploration and settlement periods rivers and coast inlets have been used for transportation. As has been pointed out, the Indian, before the coming of the white man, made good use of his canoe. Boats and barges propelled by oars, poles, or snubbed along by ropes attached to trees on the banks were in early use. Along the coast and the larger rivers sails were made use of. Upon the ocean there was a large development in wooden sailing vessels. The great number of American ships and the inroads made by American merchants upon English trade had much to do with bringing on the war of 1812.

Canals.

—Canals had shown their usefulness in England and other European countries, for transporting the internal commerce cheaply and efficiently; it was but natural, therefore, that they should be considered in the United States. The first canal was in Orange County, New York, and was used for transporting stone as early as 1750. Numerous short canals were constructed in Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts prior to 1810, but the peak of canal building came after this date. The first lock used in the United States was part of a canal extending from the Schuylkill River to the Susquehanna in Pennsylvania.

New York, seeing the trade of the Northwest Territory going to Philadelphia on account of the turnpikes which had crossed the Alleghanies through state and private means, was anxious to do something to get control. An agitation for a canal joining the Hudson River with Lake Erie or Lake Ontario consummated in a commission, 1810,[71] headed by Gouverneur Morris, to investigate the question of building one or both of the canals which seemed feasible, namely (1) from Albany up the Mohawk and westward to Lake Erie near Buffalo; (2) from Albany to Lake Champlain, thence an opening to the St. Lawrence, which had already been surveyed. In 1812 a second commission was formed which included with Morris, such men as De Witt Clinton, Robert Fulton, and Robert R. Livingston. An endeavor was made to secure Congressional aid. The war coming on no action was taken, but the demands for the canal continued. To the energy and political ability of DeWitt Clinton is attributed the final success of the enterprise. When he was elected governor in 1816 he made this the paramount effort of his administration. He stirred public interest by addresses and presented a convincing memorial to the legislature. He argued that “As a bond of union between the Atlantic and western states it may prevent the dismemberment of the American empire. As an organ of communication between the Hudson, the Mississippi, the St. Lawrence, the Great Lakes of the north and west, and their tributary rivers, it will create the greatest inland trade ever witnessed. The most fertile and extensive regions of America will avail themselves of its facilities for a market. All their surplus productions,” he prophesied, “whether of the soil, the forest, the mines, or the water, their fabrics of art and their supplies of foreign commodities, will concentrate in the city of New York, for transportation abroad or consumption at home. Agriculture, manufactures, commerce, trade, navigation and the arts,” he continued, “will receive a corresponding encouragement. That city will in the course of time become the granary of the world, the emporium of commerce, the seat of manufactures, the focus of great moneyed operations, and the concentrating point of vast, disposable and accumulating capitals, which will stimulate, enliven, extend, and reward the exertions of human labor and ingenuity, in all their processes and exhibitions. And before the revolution of a century, the whole island of Manhattan,[72] covered with habitations and replenished with a dense population will constitute one vast city.”[47]

As bombastic as this may seem his predictions have been more than realized and the realization began with the completion of the canal to Buffalo in 1825. There grew up along its way the great cities of Buffalo, Rochester, Albany, and scores of smaller ones. The products of the entire west did seem to flow through it, for the tolls are said to have been a half million dollars per year immediately upon its completion and over a million by 1830.[48]

This the largest canal project in the United States is still in use. As first constructed, it was 40 feet wide at the top, 4 feet deep, and was navigable for 76-ton boats. It was later enlarged to a general width of 70 feet and depth of 7 feet, navigable for boats of 240 tons burden. Some of the locks had been replaced by power lifts; the transfers are more quickly made.

The increase of New York’s prestige of course diminished that of Philadelphia. Pittsburgh was, too, growing up at the head of Ohio River navigation and in the coal and iron regions of Pennsylvania.

While numerous canals had been constructed by private enterprises an extensive system of canals was begun under an act of 1825, to connect Philadelphia with Pittsburgh as well as other objective points. Jealousies sprang up over the state, as usually do with any improvement. Always one part thinks the other is getting more than its just share. But notwithstanding, nearly a thousand miles of canals have been constructed in Pennsylvania, some of which washed out and were never replaced, some were abandoned and some are still in operation. In Ohio two canals were built by the state from Lake Erie to the Ohio River, over 400 miles in all. One of these extended from Toledo through Defiance, St. Mary’s, and Dayton to Cincinnati; the other from Cleveland through Akron, New Philadelphia, Coshocton, Newark, Columbus, Chillicothe, to[73] Portsmouth. Branch lines were run down the Muskingum to Marietta, down the Hocking to Athens, and from Junction westward to Antwerp to connect with the Indiana canal system. Making a total for Ohio about 1000[49] miles. In Indiana the Wabash & Erie Canal, begun about 1834, was constructed through Fort Wayne, LaFayette, Terre Haute to Evansville, in 1853, on its way to the Ohio River. By this time the railroads had paralleled its course and its trade had practically ceased.

One of the earliest projects, said to have had the backing of President Washington, culminated, eventually, in the Chesapeake & Ohio canal extending from Georgetown, the upper limit of tidewater on the Potomac, to Cumberland. After numerous efforts and years of talking, representatives of Maryland, Virginia, District of Columbia, and Pennsylvania met in a convention in the city of Washington and passed resolutions stating that “Whereas the connection of Atlantic and Western waters by a canal leading from the city of National Government to the River Ohio ... is one of the highest importance to the states ... Resolved that it is expedient to substitute for the present defective navigation of the Potomac River, above tidewater, a navigable canal from Cumberland to the eastern base of the Alleghany and to extend such canal as soon thereafter as practicable to the highest constant steamboat navigation of the Monongahela or Ohio River.” Jealousies between the states delayed matters somewhat, but in 1825 the proponents obtained governmental participation. Delays occurred for various causes, but in 1828 Congress authorized the U. S. treasurer to subscribe for $1,300,000 worth of stock and went further and guaranteed[74] subscriptions made by the towns of Washington, Georgetown, and Alexandria to the amount of $1,500,000. The United States had then once more endorsed the policy of spending national money for internal improvements, and had become a partner in a canal proposition. Building proceeded slowly. Many difficulties were encountered. Opponents fought it in the legislatures of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, as well as in Congress. In two years the money was gone and the canal not completed. Maryland extended further aid, and then still more aid by the help of which the canal was completed to Cumberland in 1850. In 1870 efforts were made to have the Government carry the canal on to the Ohio River, but the plan was never consummated. This canal is still in use, the bulk of its traffic being coal brought down to Washington.

Canals were constructed in many other states, but they need not here be followed in detail. Illinois was connecting Chicago with the Mississippi River; Massachusetts built artificial ways about falls and rapids; New Jersey connected the Hudson with the Delaware; and numerous other schemes were carried out.

Canal Prosperity and Desuetude.

—Until the greater advantages of railway travel and traffic lessened the usefulness of the canals, they did a thriving business. As has already been noted with regard to the Erie canal so was it with the others.[50] In the whole United States there was a “grand total of 4,468 miles[51] of canals, costing approximately $214,141,802.” Not all these were remunerative. To the end of 1872 the New York Canals had only averaged[75] a profit of 3.2 per cent, while the Erie Canal proper paid but 4 per cent on its cost.[52] The speed at which the barges traveled was about 2 miles per hour; this was reduced on account of time lost by regular stops, passing through locks, and accidents, to 1.7 miles per hour on the average. Rates for freight were about 0.3 cent per ton per mile. The railroads later hauled through freight at 0.7 cent per ton per mile. Both these rates were, no doubt too small, for proper maintenance and remuneration.

Passenger traffic, notwithstanding the slow speed, amounted to a considerable volume. Packets were in use, that for workmanship, finish and convenience vied with the Pullman cars which later supplanted them. They were decorated in bright colors—green, yellow, brown, red, white, blue—with windows and panels done in contrasting and harmonizing shades and tints. On the interior in addition to compartments for the crew which were separated from those for the passengers, were usually a large general assembly room ordinarily occupied by the men for lounging, writing letters, playing games, and protection from stormy weather. There was a special cabin for the women, also lavatories and conveniences for men and women. In addition there were kitchen, lockers, and cupboards. Three times daily the assembly saloon was transformed into a dining room by re-arranging and setting the tables which constituted a regular part of the room’s furniture with others of a temporary nature, carried stored away on the boat, into one long table lengthwise of the room. The captain and his two assistants—the mule driver and steersman not on duty at the time—performed this service and waited upon tables. At night both the saloon and ladies’ cabin were converted into dormitories by attaching shelves about 6 feet long and 3¹⁄₂ feet wide to hooks in the wall, the outer edges being held up by wooden supports extending from the floor. In each berth was placed a “mattress,” that is a tick having some straw in it and a pillow of similar make.

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The passenger usually furnished his own sheets if they were wanted, although some of the later boats were supplied with sheets and coverlets. The berths were three high along the wall and had curtains suspended in front of them. The passengers selected their berths in the order in which they had secured passage, late comers being obliged to sleep on the tables or on the floor. Sometimes the whole floor was thus covered. Travelers complained bitterly of the mosquitoes. Crude as this may seem at the present time, these packets were no doubt the forerunners of the present Pullman palace car. The outside decks and the roof of the car were utilized for promenading, lounging and sight-seeing. They were often enlivened by music and dancing.

Greeley[53] speaks of the “‘cent and a half a mile, mile and a half an hour,’ line boats.” The expression he puts in quotations as though it were common or a slogan. Charges on the Wabash and Erie Canal in Indiana were for the 221 miles from Cincinnati to Fort Wayne, $6.75; 138 miles from LaFayette to Fort Wayne, $3.75; 104 miles from Fort Wayne to Toledo, $3.25.[54] An average of about three cents per mile.

The canals were unable to compete with the railroads when time became an element. Passengers would not be content to travel 36 miles per day along a tortuous canal when they could travel a much more direct route at nearly 36 miles per hour. The swifter speed of freight traffic accelerated business; the merchant’s capital could be turned over more frequently; his net profits were consequently greater. Is there any wonder, therefore, that the business of the canal continually decreased while that of the railroad as continually increased. Many canals were actually abandoned, others allowed to depreciate from want of proper maintenance, and now only occasional barges are run to transport heavy non-perishable freight such as grain, iron-ore, and coal. And of these commodities, because of better terminal facilities and the time element, the railroads soon were carrying much more than the canals.

© Underwood and Underwood

THE SAULT ST. MARIE CANAL

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Ship Canals.

—Reports show the tonnage of the Erie Canal to have continually decreased from 2,031,735 tons in 1911 to 667,374 tons in 1918. The total tonnage of all the New York state canals shows a like decrease from 3,097,068 tons in 1911 to 1,159,270 tons in 1918. Notwithstanding such records there are those who firmly believe canal transportation will again take an upward trend with better terminal facilities and possibly electric propulsion. There is one class of canals that seems to have held its own, that is ship canals. The great canal and locks at Sault Ste. Marie transfer a vast lake traffic annually from one level to another between Lakes Superior and Huron. Vast quantities of iron-ore are brought in mammoth vessels by this route from docks near the Mesaba mines for the great iron mills at Gary, at Cleveland, at Pittsburgh, and other points. Similar vessels loaded with wheat, oats, and flax from the Northwest grain fields are unloaded at Buffalo for transportation to the seaboard. Agitation has been going on for some time to enlarge the Welland Canal and its locks between Lakes Erie and Ontario, thus giving seagoing vessels the opportunity of coming up by way of the St. Lawrence River and traversing the entire Great Lake system. The ambition of cities is here again manifest; Chicago would like such transportation, but it would not be beneficial to New York.

A ship canal across Cape Cod saves 70 miles and considerable time and makes the trip much less dangerous from New York to Boston. Ship canals within the islands along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts have been proposed to make safe coast commerce. There is also talk of a ship canal from Chicago to the Gulf of Mexico by way of the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers; and still another from Lake Erie to Pittsburgh.

The Panama Canal.

—All present-day readers are familiar with the greatest of all ship canals, the Panama Canal, constructed by the Government at a cost of approximately[78] $400,000,000, and open to the ships of the world. It will be remembered that a canal across the isthmus had been dreamed of practically ever since Balboa passed over and for the first time a white man saw the Pacific from the west coast of America. With the opening of the Oregon territory there was increased interest in such a canal. With the discovery of gold in California much traffic went by way of Panama being freighted across and transshipped on the other side. Soon a railroad was established for that purpose. Other crossings, too, were much in mind. In 1846 a treaty of amity and commerce was entered into with New Granada, afterwards the United States of Colombia, which gave the United States a right of way across the Isthmus by any available method. In return the United States agreed to guarantee the neutrality of the Isthmus. Great Britain had likewise long been interested in a canal scheme and courted Nicaragua. Also because of English settlements at Belize or British Honduras they claimed rights which had been confirmed by the treaty of Versailles in 1773. Another route, across the isthmus of Tehauntepec, had also assumed importance. In 1848 a company of American citizens was formed for and began at once to construct a railway across the isthmus of Panama. Another contracted with the Nicaraguan government for a canal there. A treaty was made with Nicaragua whereby a concession was granted the company for the waterway, the United States guaranteeing the neutrality of the way as had been done with New Grenada. But the British government claimed control of the eastern terminus, therefore a treaty had to be negotiated with her. As a result the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty was signed and ratified in 1850, whereby the United States and Great Britain agreed to join in promoting a canal by the Nicaraguan route promising that neither “would obtain or maintain for itself any exclusive control over the ship-canal,” nor, and here was the joker, “assume or exercise any dominion ... over any part of Central America.” Neither was to acquire nor have any rights the other did not have and they both guarantee[79] the neutrality of the canal. This, apparently, was a violation of the Monroe Doctrine in so far as it did allow a European nation a foothold upon this continent, and it was contrary to the Washingtonian policy of avoiding “entangling alliances.” However, it was considered at the time to be a victory for American diplomacy. But Great Britain retained her hold on Belize and some islands along the coast, and finally it was made known that before the signing of the treaty Sir Henry Bulwer had left with Clayton a memorandum to the effect that British renunciation in Central America should not apply to “Belize” or any of its “dependencies.” Greytown, a British trading post, had been established as a “free” city at the eastern terminus of the Nicaraguan route through British influence and support.

In 1851 Greytown levied tribute upon the steamers of the transit company. One of these refused to pay and was fired upon by a British man-of-war, the fiction of Greytown being a “free city” apparently went glimmering. The situation was critical and for some time looked as though a war might result. Meanwhile the Accessory Transit Company continued in a state of trouble with the Greytown government. So bad was it that the United States vessel Cyane was called upon to protect the buildings of the Canal Company from destruction. Conditions remained strained, feelings ran high, until in 1854 one of the officers of a company steamer killed an individual and in a riot which followed the mob attacked the United States consul. Lieutenant Hollins, commanding officer of the Cyane, demanded reparation, and as this was not forthcoming he bombarded and destroyed the town. This accentuated the trouble between the United States and Great Britain but did not particularly enhance the building of the Nicaraguan canal.

About this time Great Britain became involved in the Crimean War while in the United States the slavery question divided the country. Some hot-headed southerners wished forcibly to annex Nicaragua and filibusters[80] actually joined in some of the “revolutions” which are almost always in progress in Central American States with the idea of extending slave territory.[55] Through one of these a man by the name of Walker had made himself head of Nicaragua and for two years remained a dictator. His rule was marked by severity and a series of acts that won him the enmity of the Central American States and also that of the Accessory Transit Company, whose charter and steamers he confiscated. He had secured the presidency and opened the state to slavery; he had also been able to get recognition at Washington. But another revolution broke out and he was driven out in 1857.

The action of Walker had destroyed American influence in Central America. In the United States opinion was divided. Slavery enthusiasts openly advocated control of any transit route across the isthmus and that “no power on earth should be suffered to impede.”[56] This and numerous other troubles which followed, off and on intermittently, delayed and prevented canal construction.

French Participation.

—After the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 by the French an organization of French scientists made a careful study of the various routes across the Isthmus and decided the one at Panama to be the most feasible. As a result, in 1875, De Lesseps, the engineer of the Suez Canal, began a careful survey of that route and in 1878, Lucien Bonaparte Wyse, of the French Navy, secured from the United States of Colombia (which had succeeded New Granada) a concession giving a company to be organized by him exclusive right to construct a canal and railroad across the Isthmus of Panama. Neutrality was to be maintained and troops transported only by permission of Colombia. In return for this privilege and certain grants of land Colombia was to receive 5 per cent of the gross tolls collected. The concession was for ninety-nine years and the canal was to be opened within eighteen[81] years. While it was claimed this concession did not conflict with the treaty of 1846 between New Granada and the United States, nevertheless it provided that the latter might share in its advantages. The concession was transferred to De Lesseps, who arranged for an International Congress of Geographical Sciences, which assembled in Paris, May 15, 1879. The United States was one of the twenty-five nations there represented. Fourteen projects involving seven different routes were discussed and included all that were considered feasible.

Without going into detailed description some of these routes may be mentioned. The Tehauntepec route was 148 miles long and required 120 locks, would take about twelve days to pass a vessel through, and was in the region of earthquakes. The Nicaraguan Route was favored by many—it was 180 miles long, needed 17 locks, but it required an actual construction of only 60 miles as existing rivers and lakes could be utilized. A route from the Chiriqui Gulf to the Gulf Dulce, another from the Gulf of Darien by way of the Atrato and Napipi Rivers, and another into the San Miguel Bay, were discarded for various reasons. The choice centered upon the route from Colon to Panama by way of the Culebra pass and the Chagres River. This route, the shortest of all, was only 45 miles in length, but there were several disadvantages. The Chagres River must be diverted by a large dam or carried for miles in an aqueduct.

A company (Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interoceanique) was organized and popular subscriptions invited. It was claimed that further than granting the charter the French Government had nothing to do with the canal. Stock could be owned by people of all nations, but the United States did not take kindly to the measure, although no formal action to prevent the construction of the canal was taken. Several promotion schemes were advanced by private individuals to head off the French and Congress was petitioned for aid. Captain Eads, who by jetties had deepened the mouth of the Mississippi River,[82] and an engineer of note, suggested a ship railway across the isthmus of Tehauntepec. A “Marine Canal Company of Nicaragua” wanted Congress to guarantee its capital stock; another Nicaraguan company had Ex-President Grant as a sponsor.[57] The surveys made by the United States of the Panama and of the Atrato-Napipi routes in 1875, were printed by order of Congress. In 1880 the House asked the president for the report of surveys made in 1872 and submitted in 1875 which had not yet become public; this report recommended the Nicaraguan route.

From time to time indignation was manifested in the United States against allowing a foreign country to gain a foothold even though by a neutral company on the American continent. The Monroe Doctrine was brought out; the Clayton-Bulwer treaty was presented; the reports of Congressional Commissions were referred to as arguments against the De Lesseps Canal. Various other complications entered, one of which was a possible conflict of authority if in case of a revolution on the Isthmus it were necessary to send troops by the United States to maintain the neutrality of the railroad and by France troops to maintain the neutrality of the canal.

Sweeping aside these questions De Lesseps made preparation to construct the canal, and landed a force of seventy engineers, superintendents and workmen on the Isthmus of Panama in 1881. De Lesseps planned a tide-water canal which would require a cut of 285 feet in the Culebra pass. Difficulties encountered from slides in this cut and other reasons made it advisable afterwards to change the plans. De Lesseps purchased much machinery in Europe and America at large expense; bought the Panama railroad for $17,000,000, because the line of the Canal crossed it frequently and it could be utilized for transporting materials, and began the operation of opening up the cut at various points along its course. The engineers estimated the cost at 843,000,000 francs; this, De Lesseps cut to[83] 600,000,000 francs, and set the opening ceremonies for 1888.

During the Garfield administration Secretary of State Blaine held out for a strong American policy and informed Colombia, which was charged with making arrangements whereby certain European powers might assume joint guarantee over the canal, that “any movement in the sense of supplementing the guarantee contained (in the treaty of 1846) would necessarily be regarded by this government as an uncalled for intrusion into a field where the local and general interest of the United States of America should be considered before those of any other power save those of Colombia alone.”[58] England claimed to be a new world power equally interested with the United States in maintaining the neutrality of the canal. Blaine proposed amending the Clayton-Bulwer treaty so that the United States could fortify the canal, also to annul that part extending it to any other practical routes so that the United States might be free to build a canal at Panama or elsewhere as it chose. Garfield’s death and Blaine’s retirement from the cabinet ended for the time being policies regarding South and Central Americas that would either have brought the United States in trouble with England or secured to her complete control of the canal and also, perhaps, much of South American trade. A treaty with Nicaragua allowing the construction of a canal wholly under American control, the United States guaranteeing the integrity of the territory of Nicaragua, which was undoubtedly a violation of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, and prepared by Frelinghuysen, Secretary of State under Arthur, for the purpose of testing that treaty, was withdrawn by President Cleveland who was inaugurated before its confirmation.

There was a growing feeling that the De Lesseps company would never finish the canal. The company had spent $10,000,000 more than the estimate of 600,000,000 francs ($120,000,000), and had not paid the $17,000,000[84] promised for the Panama railway. In fact it was bankrupt. While a large amount of excavation had been done, it was small compared with what was necessary. A magnificent plant with much costly machinery was going to decay.

The Spanish-American war brought forcibly to the attention of the public the need of an interoceanic canal.

In 1900 a treaty negotiated by John Hay and Sir Julian Pauncefote embodying some modifications of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty had been so amended in the Senate that Great Britain would not accept it. A new treaty made in view of the Senate amendments and the British objections was submitted a few months after Roosevelt became President. It abrogated parts of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty and gave to the United States full ownership and control of the proposed canal. Colonel Roosevelt had strongly advocated this while governor of New York before his accession to the presidency.[59]

Two commissions in the past had reported favorably on the Nicaraguan route. A third commission with Admiral John G. Walker as chairman was appointed and authorized in 1899 to expend a million dollars, if necessary, to make a thorough investigation of the several routes. In 1901 the committee reported that the “Commission is of the opinion that the most practicable and feasible route for an Isthmian Canal, to be under the control, management, and ownership of the United States is that known as the Nicaraguan route.”[60] The Commission placed the estimated cost of the Nicaraguan Canal at $189,864,062; of completing the Panama Canal at $144,233,358; and that to this latter sum should be added the cost of acquiring the rights of the French company. The company asked $109,141,500, but the Commission estimated its worth at $40,000,000. The company considered this unfair but finally offered to[85] negotiate with the United States and sell on the best terms possible. The Commission made a supplementary report recommending the Panama route and purchase of the French company’s work and rights at $40,000,000. An act was signed by the president, June 28, 1902, which had passed Congress, not without opposition, authorizing the president to acquire control of the rights and property of the Panama Canal Company, to acquire perpetual control of a strip of land not less than 6 miles in width, across the Isthmus, to proceed as soon as these rights were acquired to construct a canal through “The Isthmian Canal Commission” created by the act; but should he be unable to get satisfactory title to the property of the French company and the control of territory from Colombia, then the president was authorized to negotiate with Nicaragua and build a canal along the Nicaraguan route.

Attorney General Knox reported that the French company could give a clear title; a convention was entered into by which the United States upon the payment of $10,000,000 in cash and an annual rental of $250,000 per year was to receive the necessary control and strip of land. The Senate ratified this March 17, 1903. When it went to the Colombian congress, however, it was rejected by unanimous vote. President Roosevelt declared Colombia wanted to wait until they could forfeit the title of the French company then sell to the United States for $40,000,000.[61] This view may and possibly was erroneous. There was again a demand that the Nicaraguan route be chosen. But on November 3, 1903, the Panamanians, instigated by the French company, whose entire concession and undertaking would revert to Colombia in less than a year,[62] seeing their interests being sacrificed by the cupidity of Colombia, consummated a revolution. Many were of the opinion that the president of the United States was particeps criminis. In a letter to a friend[63] dated October[86] 10, 1903, he says, “I cast aside the proposition at this time to foment the secession of Panama. Whatever other governments can do, the United States can not go into the securing, by such underhand means, the cession. Privately, I freely say to you that I should be delighted if Panama were an independent state, or if it made itself so at this moment; but for me to say so publicly would amount to an instigation of a revolt, and therefore I cannot say it.”

Many years later when chaffingly accused of being a wicked conspirator, Mr. Roosevelt is quoted as having said: “What was the use? The other fellows in Paris and New York had taken all the risk and were doing all the work. Instead of trying to run a parallel conspiracy, I had only to sit still and profit by their plot—if it succeeded.”[64]

The revolution was bloodless except for the accidental killing of a Chinaman and a dog. Colombia, however, as soon as possible sent troops to Colon. The following day the U. S. Ship Nashville landed fifty marines. The next day the Colombian troops left, said by some to have been bribed. A Panamanian government was formed; on November 6th, the American consul was ordered from Washington to recognize it; a week later their minister was formally received by President Roosevelt. On January 4, 1904, the president presented for ratification a treaty. The Senate ratified it February 23, 1904. Thus rapidly did things move. By this agreement the United States secured from the Republic of Panama a zone of land 10 miles wide for the canal with full power over it. In return the United States guaranteed the independence of the Panama republic, and agreed to pay $10,000,000 upon exchange of ratifications and the sum, beginning nine years thereafter, of $250,000 per annum.

The Colombians protested and sent their former president General Reyes to Washington to persuade the Government to abrogate its compact with Panama. The counsel for Colombia is quoted as saying that “Reyes was authorized to accept $8,000,000 for all the desired concessions[87] and he would have taken $5,000,000, but Hay and Roosevelt were so foolish they wouldn’t accept.”[65] Be that as it may, the effort was several times made to get for Colombia a gratuity much greater than Reyes would have accepted, and in 1921 Congress appropriated for that purpose $25,000,000, thus, in a way, acknowledging that Colombia was wronged and that the United States had been profited thereby.

A commission was formed to undertake the construction of the canal. This was changed two or three times during the construction. The immensity of the work necessary to make a tidewater canal, and the fact that its completion would be materially delayed, caused the abandonment of that plan. Three sets of locks were provided—at Gatun, Pedro Miguel, and Miraflores. A great dam was built across the lower end of the Chagres, entirely blocking the flow of that river and creating a large artificial lake 165 square miles in area whose maximum height is 85 feet above sea water. This lake serves for storage water necessary to manipulate the canal and locks; any surplus flows through a spillway into the Pacific Ocean. Great breakwaters were constructed to make smooth harbors at Colon and Panama and prevent silting. The canal is at sea level to Gatun, 8 miles, then three steps lead it to Gatun Lake; it continues on that level for 32 miles; then down one step at Pedro Miguel to Miraflores Lake, 55 feet above sea level; thence through the Miraflores locks to sea level again and then out to deep water in the Pacific, 11 miles. The locks are 1000 feet long and large enough in every way to accommodate the largest ships afloat. These great locks with their mammoth gates, tunnels for filling, and mechanical means of operation are one of the seven wonders of the modern world. The cost was about $400,000,000 to date of opening. Since that time considerable sums have been spent in fortifications, improvements, and maintenance—several large slides having occurred in the Culebra Cut. The “total amount expended or advanced to disbursing[88] officers for purchase, construction, fortification, etc., to June 30, 1919, $452,075,376.”[66] The tolls amount to about $7,000,000 annually.

The principal arguments in favor of the United States building the inter-oceanic canal were its utility as a measure of preparedness for and strategy in case of war. By furnishing quick passage between the east and west coasts the navy necessary for the protection of these coasts could be reduced one half. With the canal entirely in the control of the Government no foreign nation could take advantage of it to our detriment. Notwithstanding the need of the canal for war purposes, the benefits to be derived by the commerce of peace will doubtless be manifold more valuable. It furnishes cheap transportation between the west and east coasts, and shortens materially the distance from the Atlantic seaboard to western South America as well as to the islands of the Pacific Ocean. During the year 1920, “2814 ships representing 11,236,119 tons of cargo, passed through the waterway” being a considerable increase over any preceding year.[67] Of these 45.5 per cent were registered United States vessels, more than any other one nation. Fuel-oil, nitrates, steel and iron hold leading places in the line of commodities carried.

River Transportation.

—As has already been stated streams and rivers were early adopted as a means for transportation. Birch-bark and dug-out canoes, flat-boats and keel-boats, with and without sails, and rafts were extensively used. For small boats paddles and oars furnished the means of navigation, while several pairs of oars were utilized on the larger boats. In shallow water poling was much in vogue. Two men by pushing poles against the bottom of the stream from opposite sides of a small boat could easily propel it. On still larger boats and rafts the men as they pushed walked toward the stern as far as possible while the craft moved through the water under them. A third man held it with his pole until the first[89] two regained a position near the front for another push. By this arduous and crude means boats were propelled up shallow but often swift currents. On the larger rivers sails were employed. Going downstream offered little difficulty except to keep clear of sand bars and snags. Sails, oars, and poles were sometimes relied upon to assist the current in making speed. Large rafts of logs and lumber made by tying timbers together with wooden pins were floated down the rivers and broken up and sold when they reached their destination. Furs, hides, bacon, cured hams, or jerked-meat might form a cargo, stored during transit, in a small cabin erected at the center of the raft, which might occupy from 400 to 600 square feet.

The construction of a practicable steamboat in 1807 by Robert Fulton[68] and another by John Stevens, the same year, revolutionized both river and sea navigation. While many attempts had been made to utilize the steam engine for propelling boats, and some of them mechanically successful, Fulton’s was the first boat built and adapted for the conveyance of freight and passengers on a scale commercially successful. Fulton had had the confidence and backing of R. R. Livingston and the firm of Fulton & Livingston was formed. This firm secured a monopoly for operating steam vessels in the waters of the state of New York. The first boat, the Clermont, named after Livingston’s estate on the Hudson River, was 130 feet long, 18 feet beam, and 7 feet deep, with a burden of 160 tons. The Boulton & Watt engine had been brought from England the year previous by Fulton and the boat built for it. The vessel made a successful trial trip to Albany, August 7 to 9, and returned the following two days; her running speed had only averaged about 5 miles an hour, but she had demonstrated the practicability of steam navigation on inland waters. Following close after this event, Stevens, who had been experimenting for years and, it is claimed,[90] had launched a screw propeller vessel driven by steam as early as 1804, perfected his vessel, but because of Fulton & Livingston’s monopoly took it to the Delaware River at Philadelphia. The trip around by sea demonstrated the feasibility of steam navigation on the ocean. Very shortly thereafter Fulton & Livingston had placed a fleet of their vessels on the Hudson River and Long Island Sound, and had begun to build them at Pittsburgh while John Stevens & Sons had their vessels on the Delaware and Connecticut Rivers. Soon all navigable waters were covered with steam propelled vessels.

Prior to the introduction of the steamboat Mississippi River traffic had been, as has been stated, carried on by flat boats, rafts, and perhaps some twenty barges[69] of a better quality. These latter had been making one round trip a year requiring sixty days down and ninety days back from Louisville to New Orleans. This time, by 1822, had been reduced to seven days down and sixteen days up. By 1830 all the navigable tributaries of the Mississippi were traversed by steamboats and the produce of a western empire teeming through the portals was rapidly making New Orleans a great city. The value of these commodities were given as approximating $26,000,000 annually.[70] In 1860 a writer said: “upward of two hundred millions of dollars worth of merchandise are annually brought to this market.”[71] New Orleans was an extremely busy place with all the picturesqueness of pioneer cities generally. Ranking twelfth of the cities of the United States in 1790, it had steadily climbed up to third place in 1840,[72] when the northern cities through the influence of the railroads and the decline of river traffic began to outstrip it. The levee, an embankment along the river, several feet higher than the city, was bordered by a long line of warehouses on the land side and by quays extending into the river on the[91] other side. Miles of ships, boats, and barges were anchored along the levee as automobiles are now parked along a street, heads in. A contemporaneous writer describes it thus:

Under the influence of the river traffic many other cities were springing into importance. Many of these later became centers of railroad activity and thus retained or even bettered their rank. Others gradually wasted away until they are mere hamlets to-day.

The times seem to have been ripe when Fulton’s Clermont appeared, for almost immediately the steamboat industry thrived. During the first ten years 131 steam vessels had been built and by 1832, 474;[73] in 1836 and 1837, 145 and 158 respectively were launched. Building was for a few years checked by business depression but soon revived and in 1846 there were constructed 225 steam vessels. The Civil War reduced the number; immediately following business sprang up again and taking into account coasts, rivers, and lakes has continued brisk ever since.

With the growth in the number of vessels, up until railroads began to monopolize travel and freight, the accommodations[92] and speed were continually improved until river and sound boats were frequently spoken of as “floating palaces.” Packets were built to accommodate several hundred passengers, with staterooms, saloons, dining rooms, bathrooms, barber shops, and other features. The river steamboat may be said to be a development of the pole-boat or flat-boat. On account of the shoals they must be broad and shallow. The paddle wheels on the sides are operated independently in order to facilitate quick turning. The weight of engines, boilers, fuel bunkers, freight and passenger burden, are distributed fairly well over the entire surface. Some of the best lower Mississippi boats had a length of hull of 300 feet, a width of 50 feet and depth of hold of 9 feet. The boat fully loaded drew about 10 feet of water, when light, 4 feet. “Mark twain,” 6 feet, represented the shallowest water the vessels piloted by Samuel L. Clemens could navigate; after quitting steam-boating he adopted that term for a nom-de-plume, under which his inimitable writings were published.[74] The main deck overhangs the hull and is about 90 feet wide. A complete system of ties and braces above the hull gives it strength and stiffness. Modern boats are electric lighted and have swinging gangplanks, capstans, and all the recent power improvements for the rapid handling of freight and passengers. The staterooms are erected on the saloon deck with doors opening into the saloon and on a narrow passageway along the outside. The saloon generally extends the full length of the house, giving a large well-lighted room, used as a lounging and dining room. Above this is another deck on which are officers’ quarters and above all fully glassed in is the pilot house. The freight capacity of these boats is given as 1500 tons, and there are 70 staterooms to accommodate 140 passengers. Deck passage could be provided for a number more. The cost of a “floating palace” was in the ’eighties from $100,000 to $120,000.

Extremely handsome, well equipped, and finely decorated boats ply regularly on the Hudson River and on Long[93] Island Sound. Some of the vessels of one line are over 400 feet long and 50 feet wide. The decks are about 90 feet wide and they have over 350 state rooms; many of them are magnificently equipped.

O’Hanlon’s “Irish Emigrants’ Guide to the United States,” published in 1851, would indicate that all traveling in that day was not as comfortable as might be inferred from the preceding. With regard to steamboats it says:

It is also stated that steamboat traveling was dangerous because of the explosions. It is true there were a number of boiler explosions. Mark Twain mentions one of the very worst,[75] the explosion of the Pennsylvania. He also discusses the subject of racing, which after the Government rules regarding steam pressure went into effect, he claims not to have been dangerous. One of the later races, that between the Robert E. Lee and the Natchez in 1870 was an event of national interest. The time of the Robert E. Lee from New Orleans to St. Louis was 3 days 18 hours and 14 minutes from dock to dock. Mark Twain claims the fastest long-distance running was made by the Eclipse in 1855 when she made the trip from New Orleans to Cairo at an average speed “a shade under fourteen and three-eighths miles per hour.”

[94]

An idea of the rates charged for passenger fare and for freight traffic on steam-boats may be obtained from the following.

In 1816 from New York to Albany the fare was $7, about 4 cents per mile. For way stations between about 5 cents per mile, but no charge less than $1.[76]

Steamboat Fares

In 1817 from Rhode Island to New York, $10, approximately 5 cents per mile.

The Government’s Attitude Toward River Improvement.

—The individual states had been encouraging turnpikes, canals, and other interior improvements by subscribing and underwriting stock in private companies authorized to build and operate the improvements. Frequently monopolies were granted to operating companies.[78] States[95] were jealous of each other and hesitated to appropriate money for improvements which would inure to the benefit of another state, and frequently an improvement in one state was worthless unless joining improvements could be made in neighboring states. Many men, believing in a large and unified nation rather than a confederation of several small nations advocated governmental action. Strict constitutionalists and states’ rights men objected. President Madison had vetoed Calhoun’s Bonus Bill for roads and canals upon the ground that the constitution did not vest Congress with power to undertake such improvements.[79] Calhoun had used all the power of his great eloquence based upon the “common defense and general welfare” clause of the constitution in favor of such improvements. He considered it the duty of Congress to “bind the republic together with a perfect system of roads and canals.” He exclaimed that the very extent of the country “exposes us to the greatest of all calamities,—next to the loss of liberty,—and even to that in its consequences—disunion. We are great, and rapidly—I was about to say fearfully growing. This is our pride and our danger; our weakness and our strength. We are under the most imperious obligation to counteract every tendency to disunion.... Whatever impedes the intercourse of the extremes with this, the center of the Republic, weakens the Union.”[80]

Monroe’s first message indicated that he followed Madison in the belief that Congress was not empowered by the constitution to establish internal improvements; and later he vetoed a measure to authorize the president to erect toll houses along the Cumberland Road, appoint toll gatherers and otherwise regulate its use, on the ground that it exceeded the power of congress. He favored internal[96] improvements but thought a constitutional amendment necessary.[81]

The next year, however, some bills for internal improvements got through among them the first act for the improvement of harbors. In 1802, under the influence of Gallatin, Randolph and Jefferson, 5 per cent of the Ohio lands sold were appropriated for the building of roads.[82] In 1809 was passed the first act for river improvement.[83]

These were the beginnings of National aid for internal improvements in the United States. The “implied powers” adherents seem to have been in the ascendency for a report of the treasurer shows that up to 1830 the United States had appropriated for internal improvements—Cumberland Road, $2,443,420.20; subscriptions to canal stock and improvements of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, $1,263,315.65; for other items such as building of piers, preservation of ports and piers, making roads and removing river obstructions, $1,603,694.31. It was pointed out that only $234,955.92[84] had been expended in the territories where the question of constitutionality did not arise. Presidents had nearly always declared in favor of internal improvements but desired that constitutional provision be made for the same. Jackson, a strong state sovereignty man, suggested that the surplus funds of the Government be distributed among the several states in proportion to their representation in Congress; and in 1830 vetoed a bill for subscription to the stock of one canal and pocketed others, and closed his administration by pocketing a bill for the improvement of the Wabash River. While Jackson’s attitude checked federal appropriations, especially for roads and canals, those for rivers and harbors became almost a national scandal, and were with other public appropriation bills frequently referred to as “pork bills.” A congressional appropriation, whether for rivers and harbors,[97] a federal building, or an irrigation project, brought considerable money into a state; it was considered a feather in the cap of a congressman and enhanced his chances for reelection. Consequently nearly every congressman introduced such an act for his district and “log-rolling” schemes were entered into by many to procure their passage. River and harbor appropriations continued to increase until 1882, when they amounted to the vast sum of $18,743,875 to be applied to some 500 different localities. President Arthur[85] vetoed the bill, but Congress passed it over the veto and the “barrel of pork” was divided up as usual. The publicity given the matter checked appropriations for a while but they soon climbed higher than ever. The appropriation for the fiscal year of 1920 was $33,378,364.[86]

SELECTED REFERENCES

FOOTNOTES

During the period of the development of the canals there was growing up along side of them an agency for transportation that was destined practically to put them out of business. Engineers in both Europe and America were straining every energy to apply the steam engine to the propulsion of wagons along a highway. No one at first looked upon the railroad as a separate and distinct industry. For years upon roads over which there was much hauling of heavy loads planks had been placed in the tracks to prevent rutting. These planks had developed into rigidly set timbers or rails either attached to cross timbers or to stones set in the roadway. A little later iron straps were fastened to the tops of the rails to lessen wear and friction. It was found that a horse could haul on these tramways several times as much as he could on the dirt roadway. The steam engine had revolutionized industry and was turning all sorts of machinery with an efficiency unknown before, why then could it not be applied to propel vehicles? In England George Stephenson and associates were proving that it could. But prior to their time many thinkers of America believed in it. John Fitch, the half crazy inventor of an early steamboat, had built a model locomotive. Oliver Evans, who had placed wheels under a steamboat of his invention (1804) and run it over the streets of Philadelphia, predicted “The time will come when people will travel in stages moved by steam engines, from one city to another, almost as fast as birds fly, fifteen to twenty miles an hour.” His vision went still further; he saw what most people think to be absolutely modern[100] innovations: “A carriage will set out from Washington in the morning, the passengers will breakfast at Baltimore, dine at Philadelphia, and sup at New York, the same day ... and travel by night as well as by day; and the passengers will sleep in these stages as comfortably as they do now in steamboats.”[87] Evans antedated Stephenson’s thought that speed with a locomotive could only be made on nearly level rails. John Stevens, who is often spoken of as the father of American railroads, of course, had similar beliefs, and wrote a pamphlet to impress his ideas of the importance of railways upon Congress. He said: “I am anxious and ambitious that my native country should have the honor of being the first to introduce an improvement of such immense importance to society at large, and should feel the utmost reluctance at being compelled to resort to foreigners in the first instance.”[88] Had Congress not turned a deaf ear to him it is quite possible that he might have been before Stephenson in demonstrating the practicability of the locomotive.[89] Stevens built a small locomotive and demonstrated it on a piece of track on his grounds with himself as passenger in 1820. Several tramways or railroads operated by horse were established in different parts of the country. One of them—sponsored by the people of Baltimore, anxious to retain their trade—was the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, which had secured from Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania charters for its construction in 1827 and 1828. It was being built with many curves, as it, too, was expected to have horse propulsion. Many persons thought it should be made straighter in order to take advantage of the steam locomotive when the inventors had perfected it sufficiently to be usable. It was not considered feasible to operate locomotives on crooked roads. Peter Cooper, justly praised for many benefits to his country, decided to build a locomotive[101] to prove it could run on a crooked track. In his own words: “Under these discouraging circumstances many of the principal stockholders were about to abandon the work, and were only prevented from forfeiting their stock by my persuading them that a locomotive could be so made as to pass successfully around the short curves then found in the road.”[90]

Accordingly in 1829 Cooper fitted up a small engine and boiler on a flat car and with that crude locomotive, the Tom Thumb, was able to demonstrate that curves could be “navigated.” Having made some changes in the Tom Thumb, Cooper, the next year, ran it over the 13 miles from Baltimore to Ellicott’s Mills in an hour and a quarter, an average of 6 miles per hour, returning in sixty-one minutes, including a stop of four minutes. The engine pushed ahead of it a flat car carrying twenty-four passengers. The wheels of the engine had been constructed on the “cone principle” which allowed it to round the curves of 400 feet radius without trouble.[91] This was the first time a car filled with passengers had been hauled over a railroad in the United States by means of steam power.

In England steam engines had been tried out but not until 1820 was the first commercial road, the Stockton & Darlington Railroad, 37 miles in length, completed. Prior to this time the tram roads had been erected for specialized private transportation (from colliery to canal, for instance) or as improvements to the public highways. The Stockton & Darlington was intended to be operated with horses. And even as late as 1828 the Liverpool & Manchester Railroad, intended primarily to haul freight and relieve the congested condition of the canals, was chartered with a provision that the owners could exact toll of all who might put vehicles on the road for the transport of goods. The engineer, George Stephenson, however, was a strong[102] advocate of steam power and the success of the Rocket, built by his son Robert, in 1829, as this road was nearing completion, definitely determined the power to be used. Roads in America followed the same idea that they were public highways. In Pennsylvania the state built a railroad from Philadelphia to Columbia and licensed over twenty different companies to run their horse-drawn cars over it.[92] In other states the same idea prevailed and the right to charge tolls “upon all passengers and property” transported upon the road was legalized by the charter.

The utility and economy of the railways were so manifest that organizations were formed rapidly over the whole well settled portions of the country. Several locomotives were imported from England. One of these, the John Bull (locomotives were for a number of years all named like sleeping cars are now), brought over by Stevens & Son, is said to have given Baldwin information which enabled him to build Old Ironsides, the first locomotive to run on Pennsylvania tracks, and establish a business which afterwards became one of the largest locomotive works in the world. Old Ironsides was built by Matthias Baldwin and his brother-in-law Rufus Tyler for the Philadelphia, Germantown & Norristown Road. Tyler seems to have made the drawings. Baldwin was by trade a jeweler but his mechanical ingenuity had carried him further. He had added to his business that of constructing tools and calico printing apparatus and machinery. He had built a steam engine for his own shop. A museum operator in Philadelphia desiring to add to the attractions of his place of amusement wished to put in a miniature locomotive and railway. He applied to Baldwin, who built the road with its small locomotive and cars. On April 25, 1831, its installation was completed and it hauled two four-seated passenger cars about a circular track, to the great delight of the patrons, who were anxious for the experience of riding on the railroad.

The Evolution of the Railway Train

• 1. The First Railway Coach—1825.
• 2. Horse Power Locomotive—1829-30.
• 3. Stourbridge Lion—1829.
• 4. Stevenson’s Rocket Locomotive—1829.
• 5. The DeWitt Clinton Locomotive—1831.
• (From Brown’s “First Locomotive”—Courtesy of D. Appleton & Company.)

One of the roads that seems to have been prolific in[103] “first things” was between Charleston and Hamburg, South Carolina. Chartered in 1827, again in 1828. In 1829-30 it experimented with sailing cars, as did also the Baltimore & Ohio and with treadmill horse powers. But the company fortunately employed Horatio Allen, who had studied the English roads and was strongly inclined to steam power. He so convincingly presented his ideas that it was decided to strengthen construction and use such locomotives. This then, very likely, was the first railroad in the world to adopt formally the steam locomotive as its means of propulsion (January 14, 1830). The company accordingly built its lines substantially and placed upon them the “first locomotive made in America for regular and practical use on a railway.”[93] This locomotive known as the Best Friend of Charleston was built in New York and shipped to Charleston by sea. After some adjustments it satisfied the demands of the contract, but distinguished itself by being the first locomotive to explode. It is said a negro fireman sat upon or held down the safety valve to prevent escaping steam from annoying him. The Charleston Courier’s account closes with the gratifying information that “none of the persons are dangerously injured except the negro, who had his thigh broken.” A new locomotive, the West Point, was secured, upon which several improvements suggested by experience had been made; among them the safety valve was placed out of reach of the fireman, making it fool-proof.

The beginning of the New York Central may be traced to a charter granted in 1826 to the Mohawk & Hudson Company, which with five or six other small lines was joined together into that company. Its first locomotive, the De Witt Clinton, had a rather interesting initiation. The engine was constructed by the West Point foundry, the same concern that had built the Best Friend and the West Point. A demonstration was announced for August 9, 1831, the road having 17 miles of rails at that time. The locomotive, a small affair compared with the modern[104] engines, is still in existence and with its train of that day was exhibited at the Pageant of Progress, Chicago, July 30, 1921, as the “pioneer American steam passenger train.” The whole engine was only about 12 feet long with large wheels, tall smoke stack and a central steam dome. Back of it were the tender and wood for fuel and two barrels of water, two passenger coaches modeled after stage coaches, and following these several small flat cars to which had been attached temporary benches for seats. The locomotive and cars were joined together with short sections of strong chain. When the engine started these jerked so badly the passengers could not retain their seats; stopping had a similar effect. On the trip it is said the passengers appropriated rails from a near fence and made braces to keep the cars the full length of the chains apart. The wood fuel produced many sparks which flying backward set fire to and ruined much of the passengers’ clothing. But according to a newspaper report[94] the train “passed over the road from plane to plane, to the delight of a large crowd assembled to witness the performance. The engine performed the entire route in less than one hour, including stoppages, and on a part of the road its speed was at the rate of 30 miles an hour.”

On May 10, 1893, Engine No. 999, of the New York Central Railroad, made, traveling alone, a record of 112.5 miles an hour.

The Camden & Amboy road was chartered in 1830 and was somewhat unique in that New Jersey in return for $200,000 worth of stock had granted a monopoly of the right of way between Philadelphia and Newark. Poore says:[95] “The state became a willing party to the scheme, under the idea that it could thereby draw the means for supporting its government from citizens of other States, thus relieving its own from the burdens of taxation.” He says, “the state now (1860) derives a revenue of over[105] $200,000 annually from transit duties and dividends on the stock presented to it.”

NewEngland started three railway projects about the same time: Boston & Lowell, chartered in 1830 first used in 1834, 26.7 miles long; Boston & Providence, chartered in 1831, first used in 1834, 43.5 miles long; and the Boston & Worcester, chartered in 1831, first used in 1834, 44.6 miles long.[96] These roads were chartered with the idea of using horse-drawn vehicles, except the Boston & Worcester, where steam locomotives were authorized, but it was not until about 1834 that they were used. Some of these roads, as did most of those built farther west, followed the English practice of laying track. One of them, at least, laid its track upon wooden cross-ties, thus securing the necessary resiliency for service. It was not many years, however, before several other roads were established with regular trips of locomotive drawn cars arranged both for passenger and freight traffic. The time of passenger service from Boston to New York had been materially shortened by connecting the schedules of stage coaches to Providence with those of steamboats down the Sound. When the steam railway came into existence the time of the trip was again shortened, and still again when an all rail route was opened in 1848, as shown by the following table:

While the railroads of the East were gradually working west, the trans-Alleghany states were themselves looking toward railroad transportation. The first railway in Ohio was begun in 1835 and had completed 30 miles by 1840. It[106] extended from Sandusky to Springfield. When it was chartered, 1832, under the name of the Mad River & Lake Erie Railway, the intention was to connect Lake Erie with the Ohio River. A locomotive was purchased and shipped to Sandusky by canal and lake. It arrived before any track was laid hence the gauge of the track was made to fit the locomotive, 4 feet 10 inches. Other roads in Ohio were laid at that gauge and in time the state adopted that as a standard.

Michigan in 1832, then a territory, incorporated the Detroit & St. Joseph Railroad Company. After several years without doing anything the road was completed to Ann Arbor in 1840. Later its western terminal became New Buffalo, from which point there was steamboat communication with Chicago. This was the germ which has grown into the Michigan Central.

A railroad was begun from Frankfort, Kentucky, to Lexington, a few miles from the pioneer settlement at Boonesborough. By 1840 this road had extended to the Ohio River near Louisville and was 92 miles in length. Indiana chartered not less than a half-dozen railways in 1832 and continued with a score or more in the next few years. The Lawrenceburg & Indianapolis line, chartered 1832, was opened with a Fourth of July celebration, 1834, and had laid less than 2 miles of track by 1836.[97] The Madison & Indianapolis road was opened in 1838. The report of the principal engineer, 1837, states that “the exclusive use of steam as a motive power” had been adopted, thus saving “the cost of a horse path” and avoiding “the delay and confusion arising from the simultaneous use of both steam and horse power,” as well as elevating the “character of the road by greater dispatch in the conveyance of passengers.” He thinks “in the use of the railroads constructed by the state it will probably be best for the state to furnish the motive power, leaving the cars for the conveyance of freight and passengers to be furnished by individuals or companies, from whom the[107] state will exact the proper toll for the use of the road, and for the motive power.” The idea seems everywhere to have prevailed that a railway was a public highway to be used by and for the benefit of the public. Only for a very short time in the history of the country did the theory have prominence that a railway is private property to the extent that its owners could do as they pleased with it and the “public be damned.”

At various points in the South were railways projected and built. Besides the Charleston & Hamburg, which has already been mentioned, and which by 1850 had extended across the state to Hamburg directly across the Savannah River from Augusta, Georgia, and northward to Columbia with some branches, should be noted a few others. From Richmond there was a line westward to the coal fields (1830-31) and a line which by 1840 connected the Potomac with Fredericksburg, a distance of 75 miles. It was constructed in the ordinary manner of wooden rails with strap-iron plates. In Virginia there were the Petersburg & Roanoke, about 60 miles long and other lines sufficient to total in 1840 more than 300 miles. North Carolina also took up the rail question rather early. The Wilmington & Raleigh, chartered in 1833, had laid upwards of 160 miles in 1840. Georgia was building lines in the ’thirties and ’forties from Augusta across the state to link with lines in Tennessee. The lines of these several Southeastern states were joined together later and became parts of large systems. Of the several projects authorized amounting to more than 1000 miles (1837) only one materialized, namely, the road from Springfield to Meredosia, and 58 miles had been completed by 1842. A locomotive was purchased and according to the Springfield Journal, March 18, “the cars ran from Jacksonville, 33¹⁄₂ miles, in two hours and eight minutes including stoppages.” On account of the unsettled condition of the country and the accidents along the way,—no doubt the track was poorly constructed,—it did not pay. The locomotive for a considerable time lay out in the open where it had jumped the track. A man bought it,[108] equipped it with wide tired wheels and attempted to operate it on the wagon roads. This proved unsuccessful and it was finally abandoned on the prairie.[98] The road was sold in 1847. Several roads were reaching out for the Mississippi River and the fertile prairies beyond. The bustling young city of Chicago began its first railway toward the west in 1848. The other extremity was set for Galena on the Mississippi River. Not being financially able to buy T-rails they purchased some second-hand strap-irons. Likewise a second-hand locomotive was obtained, but when it arrived at the water front in Chicago the city authorities having refused the privilege of laying tracks on the street the company was at a loss to know how to get it to the end of their rails. After much discussion permission to lay a temporary track was given, and the Pioneer finally reached her destination. The railway proved successful from the first; later it became part of the Illinois Central System. The locomotive Pioneer is still retained in the Field Museum of Chicago.

There is not space to trace the development of the railways in all the individual states. In all natural growths, increases at first are slow, then accelerated until a maximum is reached, followed by a gradual retardation. So with the railway growth. The number of miles of railroad constructed up to 1830 was 41; 1835, 918; to 1840, 2797; in small widely scattered locations, but from that time on to the Civil War the work went on rapidly. By 1860 about 31,000 miles had been constructed and was going on at the rate of 5000 miles per year. Seven trunk line roads had passed through the Appalachian Mountain system; at eight places they and their connections touched the Ohio River, and the Mississippi at ten.[99] By 1850 there was railway connection between Boston and the east end of Lake Erie, and from the west end of Lake Erie to Lake Michigan with steamboat connection across the two lakes; before 1860 there was a network of rails between the Atlantic seaboard and the Mississippi River. Construction[109] lagged behind in the South. Up to 1856 the building was approximately as follows:

And the very fact that few of these were north and south roads, that travel and intercourse were east and west, that the people of the North did not fraternize with the people of the South, that they grew apart and worshiped at the shrine of different ideals, furnished at least one cause for the cruel Civil War. There are still too few north and south trunk lines of travel and commerce, too little trade and friendly intercourse to heal the differences engendered by a century of separation. There lies one of the hopes of the interchange of summer and winter automobile visitors.

The building of railroads offered an opening for surplus capital; the opportunity for fortune and fame was attractive; but above all the people were crazed with the idea of improvement; every town wanted to grow bigger and a railroad was an absolute necessity; scores of companies were formed with the intention of beginning construction, then deeding the improvement to some established line to operate. Many communities subscribed stock, others voted bonds, others paid for right of way by private subscription in order to secure a railroad. Mob psychology had got in its work; the people were frenzied. The result was often overbuilding, parallel lines, too many roads attempting to occupy the same territory, with the result that branch lines often never paid interest on the cost of construction. On the other hand the gambling instinct was rampant, many roads were overcapitalized, stock was voted influential persons without money consideration, and stock sold to others for more than it was worth.

As there had been for turnpikes, as there had been for canals, once again there came a popular call for governmental[110] aid. Land was then plenty and the general belief was that the prosperity of the country demanded its settlement. If railways could be induced to go out into the open prairies and by their selling agencies bring about the occupation and tillage of these lands, other lands owned by the Government would soon be in demand. There would be no particular hardship on anyone, since Government land was sold to actual settlers for such a small sum, the railroads would be unable to dispose of their land at a much larger price. As a matter of fact the land was sold by the railroads for whatever it would bring; the prices increased as settlement became more dense. In Iowa railroad land sold from $5 to $50 per acre during the ’sixties and ’seventies. The remaining land held by the government was ordinarily increased in price from $1.25 to $2.50 per acre.

Congress, evidently influenced by the demand for railroads, and falling back upon the precedent of the National Highway, heretofore mentioned, granted in 1850 to the State of Illinois a strip of land about 12 miles wide lengthwise through the state to be transferred by it to the Illinois Central Railroad. The act gave six sections per mile on each side of the track, amounting, as certified to later, 2,595,053 acres. In consideration of this and in lieu of all other taxes, the company agreed to pay the state an amount equal to 7 per cent of the gross earnings from freight and passenger traffic. The company had received from the sale (principal and advanced interest) of 2,250,633 acres, up to January 1, 1873, $24,296,596;[100] an average of about $11 per acre.

Other companies were quick to take advantage of this precedent. Each had its representative in Congress. For over twenty years there was scarcely a Congress that did not make one or two such grants. More than a hundred such grants[101] were made between 1850 and 1872,[111] aggregating 155,000,000 acres.[102] Several roads did not comply with the conditions of the grants hence the donation lapsed. Up to June 30, 1880, grants amounted to 155,504,994.59 acres, according to Donaldson, of which there had been patented to the same date, 35,214,978.25 acres.

Pacific Roads.

—The most gigantic land grants made by the Government were for the benefit of the trans-continental or Pacific roads. The idea of a transcontinental railroad has been traced back practically to the beginning of railroad building in the United States.[103] During the ’fifties the debates in Congress waxed strong. Should the states’ sovereignty idea prevail and federal aid be first granted to the states and dealt out by them to the builders as had been done with the Illinois Central and numerous other cases, or should the National Government undertake the work itself or grant the aid to a company for that purpose? Where would the road be built: in the North, which would give an advantage to the abolitionists, or in the South, with corresponding advantage to slavery partisans? The two classes were absolutely antagonistic to each other’s desires. Then there was a middle class, who desired to prevent separation and war who refused to vote upon either side for fear it would create trouble with the other.

As a compromise a bill was passed in 1853 to have the country west of the Mississippi River surveyed to determine the most feasible region for building the transcontinental railroad. The report of the survey is contained in eleven volumes, and was made by the War Department, of which Jefferson Davis was the Secretary. This cabinet officer reported in favor of “the route of the 32d parallel” as the “most practical and economical from the Mississippi River[112] to the Pacific Ocean.”[104] A line this far south, of course, was not acceptable to the North. The election and Civil War coming on changed the status of affairs and on July 4, 1862, President Lincoln signed the bill by which the first transcontinental road should be constructed by two companies: the Central Pacific working from the west, and the Union Pacific working from the Missouri River at Omaha westward. A grant of land of approximately 35,000,000 acres was made, namely, the odd sections lying contiguous to the line on either side. This was not quite a return to the position of the Government when it built out of the funds from the sale of public lands the National Road westward from Maryland, through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, into Illinois. Then the construction was done under the direction of the federal Government and the road remained the property of the Government. Now federal aid was given to private companies to be operated for their own benefit. What might have been the result in this country had the Government taken a firm stand for national ownership is problematical, but the fact that it has made a success of the construction and operation of the Panama Canal leads many to believe that the railroad question would have been handled as easily if that system had grown up from the beginning. Opponents of government ownership point to the roads of continental Europe as being less efficient than those of England and the United States under private ownership. And more recently the fiasco of Government operation under war emergency is considered a strong argument against public ownership.

In addition to the land granted to the Union Pacific for the “purpose of aiding in the construction of said railroad and telegraph line, and to secure the safe and speedy transportation of the mails, troops, munitions of war, and public stores thereon, every alternate section of land, designated by odd numbers, to the amount of five alternate sections per mile on each side of said road,”[105] the company[113] was given for “right of way” 200 feet each side of the track,[106] “including all necessary grounds” for stations, side-tracks and various other purposes enumerated, also to take from the public land “adjacent to the line of said road” (afterwards limited to 10 miles on each side) “earth, stone, timber, and other materials, for the construction thereof.” Further help was also granted by the provisions of the act (Section 5): “That ... the Secretary of the Treasury shall, upon the certificate in writing ... of the completion and equipment of forty consecutive miles ... issue ... bonds of the United States of one thousand dollars each, payable in thirty years after date, bearing six per centum per annum interest ... to the amount of sixteen of said bonds per mile.” The act provides that this loan shall constitute a first mortgage lien on the property, but the act of 1864 allowed the company to issue bonds to the same amount and subrogate the Government bonds to those issued by the company making the Government claim a second mortgage instead of a first. The Government gave similar grants and privileges to the Central Pacific, although it was a purely state corporation and, at first, was only to build to the east line of California. Apparently the last vestige of the traditions of Madison and Monroe, of Jackson and Buchanan had disappeared.

There was danger that other lines would be built. A line was preparing to go west from Leavenworth, lines were converging on St. Joseph and Sioux City, any of which might become rivals of the Union Pacific, so the act provides that they shall unite with the Pacific not farther west than the one hundredth meridian of longitude, and if they do so grants of lands and subsidy bonds will be given to them.

However, the demand for transcontinental lines was so great that three other lines were authorized. In 1864 the Northern Pacific Railroad to connect Lake Superior with[114] Puget Sound, with a land grant of 58,000,000 acres; in the Atlantic & Pacific to follow the old 32d parallel route, now a part of the Southern Pacific, with a grant of 42,000,000 acres; and last, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé received also a large grant. The total Congressional grants certified or patented to railroads and military wagon roads from 1850 to 1880 were as follows:

Construction of Pacific Roads.

—It would be interesting to take up in detail the work of constructing these roads, but space will not permit. Nothing can be said of the intense interest throughout the United States; of the romance and adventure of penetrating 1700 miles of wilderness and desert with hostile Indians ready at any time to attack; with worse than hostile Indians in the rough-necks, gamblers, and prostitutes who followed the camps; of the magnitude of the work employing 2000 graders to go first, 1500 wood choppers and tie-getters spreading their labors over thousands of miles of Government forests; of the engineers and their feats of searching out easiest passages; of the track layers; of the boarding houses; of general camp life; of the exciting race with the Central Pacific ending in the union of the two lines and the driving of the golden spike at Promontory Point on the north shore of Great Salt Lake, 1086 miles westward from Omaha and 689 miles eastward from Sacramento, on the 10th day of May, 1869; and of the crowds in Omaha, Chicago, Cincinnati, New Orleans, Washington, New York, San Francisco, and every other place of importance in the whole nation, who patiently[115] waited the sounds of the bells rung in unison with the sounds of the strokes upon the spike, transmitted instantaneously through the intervening space by the electric telegraph.

There is no doubt but that the benefits that have come from the railways through the increased facilities for transportation and the corresponding gain to civilization has amply repaid the Government for all its bounties, notwithstanding some of them were unnecessary, in fact, a willful waste and led to an orgy of financial and political corruption a little later.

The Crédit Mobilier.

—Perhaps the most widely noticed scandal connected with the railroads was the scheme known as the Crédit Mobilier. This was made much of by the Grange and other anti-monopoly movements which reached their height in the ’seventies. Charges having been made that many congressmen had been bribed by an organization known as the Crédit Mobilier, a Congressional investigation was made,[108] Thomas Durant, vice president, and other leading stockholders of the Union Pacific Railroad, secured a controlling interest in the stock of the Pennsylvania Fiscal Agency in 1864 and had its name changed to the Crédit Mobilier of America. One of the ostensible functions of the company was to loan money for railroad construction. The same men were instrumental in awarding the contract for the building of the Union Pacific Railroad to one of their number, Oakes Ames, a member of the United States House of Representatives, for stipulated amounts per mile for the different sections ranging from $42,000 to $96,000, amounting in the aggregate to $47,000,000. The contract was right away transferred to seven trustees composed of the same controlling stockholders, who were to execute it receiving therefor $3000 per year each, and the profits were to be divided among those stockholders of the Crédit Mobilier of America who would comply with certain conditions. The Crédit Mobilier agreed to furnish the necessary money at 7 per cent per annum and 2¹⁄₂ per cent commission, not to exceed the[116] amount provided in the contract to be paid by the Union Pacific company. These same leading stockholders of the Union Pacific being also controlling stockholders of the Crédit Mobilier were thus, because the contract prices were said to be twice the actual constructing prices, making a big profit, practically all of which was coming from the United States treasury. Complaints were being made and adverse legislation was feared. Stock in Crédit Mobilier was offered to members of congress at a very low figure on which it is said they made dividends of 340 per cent. It amounted to this: The men entrusted with the management of the road let the contract for its construction to themselves at a figure double its real cost, and pocketed the profits, estimated at about $30,000,000. These same men started the scheme, which afterward became common, of watering the stock, that is increasing the outstanding stock, and distributing it as dividends, upon the plea that the property had increased without any new outlay of money. It also appears to be a method of earning dividends upon money never invested.

Railroad Consolidation.

—It has been shown that at the beginning railroad building consisted of short stretches from town to town, or from the end of one water communication to the beginning of another. It was but reasonable that these would join for the purpose of through traffic. The result was also better efficiency as the equipment could be used to better advantage; the terminal costs were reduced as there were not so many of them; and, what may have been a leading cause, the control, and perhaps prevention, of competition. Unrestricted competition caused rate wars; rates once down it was difficult to get them back and frequently bankruptcy occurred. Government regulations were made prohibiting rate agreements and pooling. Such apparently hastened consolidation. One objection to consolidation was the concentration of vast financial powers in the hands of a few, and since money had much influence in Washington and in the state capitals, political power as well. This and combinations of other industrial concerns were causes which brought about the[117] enactment of the Sherman Anti-Trust law of July 2, 1890.[109] This law did not come in time to stop consolidation and it may be doubtful if it would for the Supreme Court has decided that combinations are not unlawful unless they exercise an unreasonable restraint upon trade.[110]

The methods of consolidation are: merger or outright purchase, in which case the individual lines lose their separate identity; stock purchase, wherein a controlling share of the stock of another road is held by the purchasing line or by a holding company; lease usually for long periods, a rental being paid periodically for the use of the line; and, community of interest, that is the establishment of friendly relations. The consolidations are more often financial than physical. When two roads physically combine under one management it is customary to reorganize and assume the same name. In the consolidations given in the table below many of the roads are operated separately and almost independently but are dominated by common financial interests with common policies or very friendly relations. Some of the principal consolidations prior to 1912 are:[111]

[119]

Mechanical Development.

—There is not space to follow in detail the mechanical development of railroads. The rail, for instance, was at first a mere plank placed in the cart track to prevent rutting; this evolved into a rail of timber about 4 x 6 inches held in proper position by cross-ties not to be considered as sleepers or supports especially. On top of the rail was later placed a strap iron. Since this strap iron under the wheel loads curled up, thicker plates began to be used. Then cast-iron rails some 4 or 5 feet long from tie to tie, cast deeper at the middle for greater strength. Then the rolling mills were becoming sufficiently improved to roll out wrought-iron rails, at first rectangular plates, then T-rails held up by chairs and finally through a dozen or more forms to Bessemer, then open-hearth steel rail shapes as at present used. The fastenings and fish plates have gone through a stage of evolution. The track soon assumed a standard form and has retained it with little variation notwithstanding attempts to use steel and concrete ties.

The freight cars, at first boxes with wheels on them, have gradually developed into monsters of steel with draw bars, automatic brakes and couplings. Passenger cars at first very variable were developed from stage coaches and Conestoga wagons hitched together. In Europe they remained short, like stage coaches with side doors. In the United States they lengthened out with seats through the interior and doors and platforms at the ends. Platforms were eventually housed in with vestibules. Both types have their advantages and disadvantages. Sleeping cars seem to be a development of the canal and steamboat sleeping quarters. Here a single company early obtaining a working, if not a legal, monopoly of the business of making and operating sleepers. As a result no improvements of note have appeared in them for years. For financial efficiency the monopoly seems to be a good thing; for mechanical progress it is not.

Locomotives have shown a continual progress. One reason perhaps is their short lives; new ones must always be coming along and there is ample opportunity for experimentation.[120] From the Tom Thumb to the powerful Mountain Type is a long climb, but as each step was taken the individual changes were not very noticeable. Like the hour-hand of a watch only by observing its position at times quite separated can it be noticed to have traveled.

In fact the entire railway system with its millions of cars operating on hundreds of roads has grown complex and yet standardized. To get a common gauge that cars from one road might pass to another required an act of Congress. At first companies adopted diverse gauges that their cars could not go onto another road, but when transcontinental roads were to be built and through lines of traffic established President Lincoln was called upon to set a gauge. He “side-tracked” the matter and threw it onto Congress, who established the distance 4 feet 8¹⁄₂ inches as the standard width between rails.

Without the telegraph the present amplification of railroad business could not have taken place. The early trains traveled by time schedule. No extra train could be added, although looking-posts were established at the stations up which the train men could climb to watch for the smoke of an approaching train. Now every division point must have its coterie of dependable dispatchers. Each wire carries multiple messages. Electric signals and other safety devices to lessen accidents are universal, while the bewildering network of tracks in the ordinary city yard are operated easily from distant towers by interlocking switches. That railroads have brought about an industrial and social revolution, that they have increased enormously the country’s transportation, that they have thus been very instrumental in bringing the present civilization to its high and uniform state of attainment, cannot be denied.

© Underwood and Underwood

MODERN LOCOMOTIVES

• 1. Showing the Growth in the Size of Locomotives During the Past Twenty Years. The Smaller Locomotive is an American Type Class Engine of 1900. The Larger is a Mountain Type Engine. Both are Used on the C. B. & Q. R. R. Photographed at Lincoln, Nebr., Sept., 1922.
• 2. One of the New Gearless Electric Locomotives Built by the General Electric Company for the C. M. & St. Paul R. R.

The Evolution of the Sleeping Car.

—Mr. Husband has made a very interesting book of the story of the Pullman car and its evolution[116] in which he traces with much detail, step by step, the improvements from 1836, when the first[121] sleeping car was offered to the traveling public, to the most modern parlor car now in use. The discomfort and inconvenience of travelers by rail was so much greater than that by canal that only the greater speed of the former caused it to forge ahead of the latter. As the mileage of the roads increased so also did the comforts of travel. It has already been noted that sparks set fire to the clothing of passengers. Soon box-like cars replaced the open carriages and bogie trucks replaced the rigid wheels, the former giving much more protection and the latter comfort while rounding curves. But yet passengers were herded like cattle on stiff-backed narrow benches in cars with scant head clearance and width. Clean stone ballast for the road bed had not yet been thought of and the dust blew in clouds through the open windows in the summer time, and a stove vitiated the air in the winter. There were no screens or vestibules. It is a far cry from the dim flaring candle to the brilliant white incandescent electric lights. Passenger cars were rapidly improved until by 1844 they had taken on something of the appearance of the present coach.

George M. Pullman, a Chicago contractor, having experienced the inconveniences of railway travel and also being acquainted from close association with the Erie Canal and the sleeping arrangements of the canal boats, had visions of similar or better rail comforts. In 1858 he engaged Leonard Seibert, an employee of the Chicago & Alton Railroad, to remodel two coaches into the first Pullman sleeping cars. Mr. Pullman’s invention of upper berth construction whereby it could be closed during the day and serve as a receptacle for bedding was introduced into these cars, before which time sleeping car bunks had been stationary and on one side only. The success of his venture was such that he established a shop for the manufacture of the cars and employed technical skill to plan and make them. He had such organizing ability, however, that before his death he saw the Pullman Company holding a practical monopoly of all the sleeping cars in the[122] country, with through cars scheduled so that change of Pullman was unnecessary from coast to coast, or if a change had to be made it was merely a transfer from one car to a connecting car on another route. A single ticket will carry a passenger from Portland, Maine, to San Francisco, by way of Washington, D.C., New Orleans and Los Angeles with only two changes of cars, namely, at New York and Washington, a total distance of 4,199 miles.

It may be interesting to note that some 26,000,000 persons are annually accommodated by the 7500 cars operated by this company.

Street Car Service.

—Now that more than one half the population of the United States live in cities makes the matter of local transportation of at least passing interest. Railroads were at first tram cars and many of them were built through the city streets, it was easy, therefore, to make of them street cars caring for such local traffic as desired to take advantage of them. They became a popular means of local transportation in the decade 1850-60. As the demand became greater the one-horse car gave way to the two-horse with its longer body and greater capacity. These not being sufficient steam locomotives were used in some cities, in others the tracks were elevated above the surface, the first in New York in 1876, or depressed below with steam locomotives operating trains of cars rapidly loaded and unloaded at stopping points about four blocks apart. In 1879 or 1880 in San Francisco where the hills were too steep for horses the cable car was designed, whereby an endless cable operated from a central station ran continuously in a trench or conduit under the track. A grip attached to the car could be made to take hold of this cable and the car was thus drawn along. Notwithstanding they were expensive to install cable cars were rapidly replacing horse-drawn cars when electric traction came in and displaced them.

Electric Traction.

—There are reports of attempts to obtain magnetic traction by the use of batteries, but not until the electric dynamo and motor had become practical working[123] 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[124] 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

FOOTNOTES

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.

© Underwood and Underwood

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[127] 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[128] 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[129] 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]

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:

Also Bill Nye, the humorist, takes a rap at the roads in this manner.[128]

This bit of doggerel appeared in Good Roads about the same time:

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[133] 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....”

© Underwood and Underwood

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]

[134]

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[137] 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]

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[139] 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]

[140]

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[141] 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.[142] 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.

Chart of the Organization of the U. S. Bureau of Public Roads and Rural Engineering, 1917

Text version of chart

[143]

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[144] 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[145] 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[146] 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:

© Underwood and Underwood

HARD SURFACE HIGHWAY IN OREGON

© Underwood and Underwood

A FARMER’S WIFE MEETING THE POSTAL TRUCK

[147]

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[148] 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[149] 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:

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[150] 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[151] 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[152] 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[153] 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[154] 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[155] 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[156] 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

FOOTNOTES

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[160] 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[161] 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[162] 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[163] 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[164] 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:

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[165] 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[166] 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.

© Underwood and Underwood

TRACKLESS TROLLEY OPERATED ON STATEN ISLAND, N. Y.

© Underwood and Underwood

GASOLINE LOCOMOTIVE AND TRAILER

Operated by the Chicago & Great Western R. R.

[167]

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[168] 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:

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[169] 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[170] 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:

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[172] may be hauled, therefore, on truck, 12 miles to balance the railway terminal expense or charge.

A formula might be worked out this way.

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,

x = tm - r.

With Mr. Cabot’s figures this formula gives

x = 6.00 .50 - .055 = 60044.5 = 13.5.

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

x = 6.00 .25 - .05 = 60020 = 30 miles.

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[173] 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:

It should be remembered that certain kinds of goods,[174] 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[175] & 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[176] 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.

[177]

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[178] 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[179] 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

FOOTNOTES

Automotive transportation is a matter of such recent growth that only a few of the elements entering it have as yet become fixed or standardized—the whole question is still in the experimental or growing stage. The next few years will probably see as many, if not as radical, changes in equipment and operation as have the past few. The law of evolution seems to include a period of slow growth or sort of weak feeling-out; then a period of very rapid growth, developing usually along several lines; and finally a ripening or fixing period in which standardization is reached. The automotive industries are now beginning the third period. Revolutionary changes are not to be expected, but there will be many minor ones seeking efficiency or economy. The machinery of transportation, the motor car and the roadway, are, perhaps, in a later stage of standardization than are the social and legal phases of the subject. The relative rights of the people on the street and driver of the car have yet to be determined. The relation between automotive transportation and the older forms of transportation is still in a very formative stage. Plans and organizations for operating systems of highway transport and methods of accounting which shall be fair to owner and patron have in a large measure yet to be developed.

These things must necessarily be true in a new and growing industry. Why, encyclopedias published in the ’eighties make no mention whatever of the motor car or automobile. In fact, the first practical automobiles were[182] put on the market after 1893, and trucks were not sold as such until 1903, ten years later. This was about the period when automobiles were being made over by change of body into “business wagons.” But so rapidly has the use of the motor car grown, automobile registrations increasing from about one million in 1912 to more than eleven millions in 1922, that, so it is stated, 80 per cent of all cars manufactured are still in use.

Automotive transportation may be considered to include all conveyance from one place to another by means of motor vehicles. A motor vehicle is one which carries within itself the source of mechanical power which propels it providing that source be not muscular. This definition would include the tractor, the road roller, the torpedo, and the locomotive, which are ordinarily excluded. For the purposes of this discussion an automobile or motor car may be considered as a self-propelled vehicle which transports a burden other than itself as a weight upon its own wheels. This will exclude the tractor and the locomotive, which though self-propelled, are intended to draw other vehicles rather than to carry the load; also the road roller and the torpedo, which have no burden to transport other than their own weights. Some definitions would confine a motor vehicle to one designed to move on common roads or highways. However, motor cars are now being used on railroad tracks; they are entitled to and should be allowed the use of the name. The automobile may have as the source of power internal-combustion engines using such fuel as gasoline, kerosene, benzol, and alcohol; it may use steam generated by these fuels; or an electric storage battery charged by sources outside the engine may furnish the propelling force. The load transported will either be passenger or freight. Passenger traffic may be classified as business or pleasure. If a vehicle is used mostly for business, first cost and economy of operation may play a more important part in the purchase of the car than if used for pleasure, in which case appearance and luxurious appointments may be the deciding factor.

The Evolution of the Steam Automobile

• 1. The Cugnot Steam Carriage—1770.
• 2. The Trevithick & Vivian Steam Carriage—1801.
• 3. The Gurney Steam Carriage—1827.
• 4. The Church Automobile Carriage (Steam)—1833.
• 5. Gaillardit’s Steam Carriage—1894.
• (Courtesy of the Scientific American.)

[183]

Business Passenger Traffic.

—All machines that haul passengers for hire, that are used as a means of performing, promoting, or extending business relations, while so used, may be rightly considered business machines and the traffic business traffic. The physician who finds that he can quadruple the number of his daily calls; the traveling salesman who can double the territory covered and do it much more efficiently; the business or professional man, of whatever kind, who uses his automobile in going from one place to another in the performance of his duties; the farmer who comes to town to get his mail and information relative to markets or otherwise to assist him with his farm industry; and the multifold other uses which are for the advantage of financial or industrial enterprise may constitute a legitimate business passenger traffic. The transportation, however, by taxi-cab, jitney or bus is considered by many persons to be the type that should be classified under the term business passenger traffic.

Jitney and taxi-cab traffic are of vast importance in the cities and are of real economic use in furnishing a rapid means of transit from point to point. The jitney is usually a privately owned vehicle not especially constructed for the business, which plies with more or less regularity over a route that may or may not be set out in the owner’s license. In early days the price of a ride was a “nickel” or “jitney” hence the name.

Taxi-cabs are regularly licensed automobiles that carry passengers for hire, usually making the charge dependent more or less upon the distance traveled, which is registered by a taximeter. For example, the charge may be 25 cents plus 15 cents per mile or fraction thereof. This would make the charge for distances less than 1 mile, 40 cents; from 1 mile to 2 miles, 55 cents; from 2 to 3 miles, 70 cents; and so on. The driver usually turns the taximeter up to the fixed charge plus 1 mile, if fractions are counted as full miles, when the passenger enters, and the instrument adds on as the cab travels. Of course the taximeter may be made to register every quarter, every fifth, or every[184] tenth of a mile, or even continuously. A special waiting charge is made if the cab is held by the passenger. Taxicabs are variable in form, from “flivvers” to limousines. Many of the larger cities are supplied with cabs owned in quantity by substantial companies which put on a line of cars usually all alike and painted with some striking feature or color. The larger ones are limousines seating five or seven passengers in the tonneau and one on the seat with the driver. Some of these cars are almost luxuriously fitted with fine cushions and special lighting. They have speaking tubes or electrical devices to signal the driver. The drivers for the large companies wear the livery of the company. Taxis, as may be inferred, have no established routes, but go wherever the passenger may desire.

The motor-bus is well established both in city and cross-country traffic. As at first made motor-buses consisted of special bodies with seats placed upon freight truck chassis. This did not prove altogether satisfactory because of their excessive weight, too much of which is “unsprung.” They also have a high center of gravity, high floors, long turning radius and rather rigid suspension. A bus, to be efficient, durable and comfortable, should be especially designed. There should be lightness and strength; small unsprung weight; a low center of gravity; a flexible control; special transmission; wide treads; ample wheel base; short turning radius; low step entrance and exit; low top clearance; curb receipt and delivery of passengers; ample brake capacity; and high lowgear efficiency.[167] Pneumatic tires on account of their resiliency make the bus much more comfortable for the passengers by absorbing shocks, and for the same reason they also increase the life of the car and make it possible to travel faster. Cushion tires are next in order of merit and are an effort to combine the durability of the solid tire with the easy riding qualities of the pneumatic. Tests made by the U. S. Bureau of Public Roads show that the cushion or semi-solid tires stand between the solid and the pneumatic as regards riding comfort. With many bus operators a combination equipment is being used—pneumatics are used on the front to protect the engine and gasoline tank from vibration and cushion tires on the rear where the hardest wear comes.

A MODERN RURAL PASSENGER BUS

© Underwood and Underwood

A NEW YORK CITY “STEPLESS BUS”

It Has an Emergency Door, with Wire Window Guards, and will Seat 30 Persons.

[185]

Buses are made both single and double deck. The latter are in demand where traffic is large and also where sight-seeing is an important item, the upper deck being usually open to the weather.

The fare charged by the bus is either the same or in many cases a little higher than that by the trolley car, but the bus has the advantage in that it can travel over streets where the trolley is not allowed, can usually make better time, and can load and unload at the curb, thus avoiding danger from passing vehicles, a matter of no little importance to timid passengers. The trolley car is able to haul large numbers at a less expense. In such cases no passenger transportation is cheaper. But the field for the auto bus is wide and no doubt it will come more and more into competition with the street car and steam railroad lines. The former, whose single and primary business is transporting passengers, are already complaining bitterly of the inroads made upon their business by the privately owned automobile and motor bus. The automobile is the larger factor because there are more automobiles than buses. Since about every tenth person owns a machine which can accommodate from two to seven passengers, one can readily see the importance of this item to the traction companies. The result has been a falling off in passenger fares, which the companies have endeavored to offset by increasing rates, and this in turn has only accentuated the trouble by driving more men to automobiles. The only way the street car can hope to compete with the motor car is by keeping its rates low and hauling large numbers of passengers. The handiness of the automobile, going at the instant wanted, avoiding the usual walk of two or three blocks to and from a car line at the beginning and the end of the journey, the consequent saving in time, coupled with the[186] exhilarating effect of riding rapidly through the open air furnishes a great handicap which the traction companies will have difficulty in overcoming. About the only things the street car has in its favor are cheapness and dependability. It can no doubt be shown that it is cheaper to patronize the trolley than to own and operate the average car. The street car will go in rainy or snowy weather when motor cars must be laid up. But the average American does not count cost; he thinks more of his own comfort and doing as his neighbors do, i.e., being in style. It may become necessary, as stated in another chapter, for the public to take over the street-car lines, run them at as low rates as possible for the accommodation of those who cannot afford motor cars, since their work is an absolute necessity to the community, and charge any deficit to the taxpayers.

There seems to be another feasible and legitimate use for the motor bus which may help the street car companies as well. That is extensions by means of buses at the ends of the car lines or into territory not well served by them. The bus might collect passengers from an outlying district and bring them to the car line where the trolley can take them on to the heart of the city. Thus motor buses will become feeders rather than competitors of the regularly established traction lines. The car companies should attempt to take advantage of this sort of thing, using either the trackless trolley or gasoline motor, as may be thought the more suitable for the situation in hand.

Cross-country motor service has proven quite feasible and scores of buses now leave every large city for the surrounding smaller towns. The bus seems to negotiate a 50-mile trip very easily at a speed of approximately 20 miles per hour including stops. These buses or stages carry from 12 to 20 passengers and are operated by one man; they are well sprung and equipped with pneumatic tires. For country traffic seats cross ways of the car are much more comfortable to the rider than lengthwise seats. Their usefulness[187] seems to lie in suburban traffic or as feeders to railroads.

Such buses are also largely used as carriers of children to and from consolidated schools. The little red school house, wherein began the educational training of so many of our great men, of which silver tongues have orated, whose virtues have been painted in poetry, and praises commemorated in song, cannot stand against the superior advantages of the consolidated graded school brought near to the pupils by the advent of the automobile. Since each consolidated school with about five teachers replaces eight to ten ungraded schools, and since it is easier and cheaper to maintain and heat one consolidated school than eight ungraded schools, the advantage is economical as well as educational.

Another place where the motor bus seems extremely well adapted is in the transfer of travelers from one railroad terminal to another. Railroads contract with transfer companies to do this and a coupon, a portion of the traveler’s ticket, is detached by the bus-man when the transfer is made. To one who is not used to the city this is a great convenience. In the city of Chicago, through which many long-distance tourists pass and through which no or at least few railroads extend in both directions, hundreds of such transfers take place daily. Passengers and baggage are thus taken care of on a through ticket with despatch and little inconvenience.

Pleasure Passenger Traffic.

—Vast and important as may have become the business passenger motor traffic, purely pleasure travel by automobile probably exceeds it. Of the more than ten million motor cars licensed in the United States perhaps 80 per cent of them were purchased not for their use in the business of the owner, although that might have been the final excuse that consummated the deal, but for the pleasure the purchaser and his family would get from owning a car. The great car industry which has sprung up like a mushroom during the past quarter century may thank the people’s desire for personal pleasure[188] for its tremendous prosperity. The movie picture industry is another instance of the same character; likewise the newest epidemic to attack the people—radio. It is not claimed that these have no economical uses. But the business and economical uses have followed rather than preceded the pleasurable uses. There are many who think the automobile fad, like the bicycle fad, will eventually wear out and the whole automobile question settle down to a purely business basis. Such a thing is not likely to occur, however. The automobile is a much more perfect pleasure machine than is the bicycle. The knack of riding a bicycle has to be learned and requires considerable muscular exertion. It is not the thing a tired person eagerly turns to for recreation and rest. Anyone without exertion and with complete relaxation may ride in an automobile. Soon there comes a desire to drive the machine; then complete relaxation while no longer possible is replaced by a mental effort which drives out all thought of business, all care and anxiety regarding the ordinary affairs of life. The mind for the driver’s own safety must be confined to his effort to manage the machine and make it go where and as he wants it to go—change of work is often better than complete relaxation, although the latter has its beneficial effects in the treatment of diseases.

For these reasons then, if for no other, the use of automobiles to cater to the pleasure propensities of the people will continue. There are very few persons who do not enjoy an automobile ride—they are only the timid who fear accident. The recreational and pathological benefits to be derived cannot be overestimated. During the recent war the Government gave much attention to the entertainment of the soldiers and endeavored in many, many ways to divert their minds from the serious side of war. So with the people generally. They are much better off for pleasurable diversions and the automobile furnishes these in a very high degree.

The Evolution of the Gasoline Motor Car

• 1. Panhard & Levassor Carriage—1895.
• 2. Duryea Motor Wagon—1895.
• 3. The Benz Motocycle.
• 4. Hertel’s Gasoline Carriage—1896.
• 5. The Olds Horseless Carriage.
• 6. Winton’s Racing Machine.
• (Courtesy of the Scientific American.)

[189]

If, then, there be included under the head of pleasure passenger traffic all not purely business it may with propriety be estimated that three-fourths of all automobile travel is for pleasure. Considering ten million automobiles in use in the United States, that they average 4000 miles per year and carry two passengers each, there results a total passenger mileage of

10,000,000 × 4,000 × 2 = 80,000,000,000

80 billion miles. A number beyond ordinary comprehension. The passenger mileage upon the steam railroads is roughly speaking about 37¹⁄₂ billion miles, a little less than half as much as that by automobile. It is evident that all this travel, even though a large percentage be local, must affect seriously the earnings of the steam and electric railway lines. Since 75 per cent may be estimated to be for pleasure purposes, it will not be possible for the steam and electric lines ever to regain it. The people who do the dancing are perfectly willing to pay the piper, and even though automobile riding cost more than trolley or train riding the people will continue to have it as a means of entertainment.[168] Most men who own cars pay the expenses in lump sums and forget about them. To have the speedometer register in dollars and cents instead of miles, while[190] it might be a deterrent on the use of the automobile, would “take the joy out of life.”

Freight Traffic.

—When it comes to freight traffic cost and time will be the principal factors to determine the type of performance. The element of pleasure is here eliminated and only cold economical features remain. Already horse trucking is rapidly disappearing as it seems to be able to compete with the motor only where many stops are to be made. In large cities motor trucks are utilized to haul packages to certain districts at considerable distances from the store, where they are turned over to small wagons for delivery. Ice and milk are often distributed in the same manner, thus taking advantage of long rapid hauls upon fully loaded trucks and less expensive delivery wagons where many stops are to be made and smaller loads are to be carried. Even in delivery service some merchants have by carefully arranging and timing their routes brought the cost of delivery to below ten cents per parcel. All purchasers of goods at the store whether delivered or not should be interested in reducing this cost because usually in the accounting it is spread out over the entire turnover and charged to the expense of doing business. It may be possible that in a few years horses will be barred from the streets for sanitary reasons; then it will be necessary to use motors for all sorts of deliveries, possibly large ones for hauling to the distant districts and small ones for the house to house delivery in the district.

In very congested districts motor trucks are at a great disadvantage because they cannot be used at their most efficient speed. If the congestion can be eliminated or at least relieved by such means as one-way traffic, paving parallel streets, removing buildings which obstruct passage, widening driveways, elevating railroads and street cars, supplying overhead crossings, making subways, or by careful rearrangement and planning of terminal facilities, warehouses, and other accommodations, the cost of transportation in the large cities may be materially reduced.[191] In many such cities public service commissions are studying these questions and applying remedies which will allow motor trucks to operate at a greater rate of speed and much more efficiently.

Accurate observations of motor truck performance in city trucking business has shown that a large part of the day is given up to loading and unloading, that the truck stands still so much of the time that the cost is more nearly proportional to time than to mileage. Since certain charges such as interest and insurance go on whether the truck is idling or not, it is better to keep it moving. To do this effectively depots, warehouses, and other terminal facilities are provided to lessen the time of loading and unloading. It may be wise to hire an extra stevedore or two to assist with these operations, or mechanical devices may be installed where the saving will justify it. Usually there is not only a saving in time when a mechanical device is used but the amount of expensive manual labor is decreased.

Among the practical devices used are removable bodies. The whole body of the truck may be swung by means of a crane from the chassis to a platform where it is loaded or unloaded while the truck with another body is proceeding on its way. Other bodies are so arranged on rollers that they may be readily rolled from the chassis to the platform. Railways are also taking advantage of removable bodies for the shipment of less than car-load lots. These bodies are made to fit a truck and also of proper sizes so that several of them may be nested or interlocked upon a flat car. One of these units or containers may be left for any length of time for loading then rolled upon the truck and off it to the steam train. At the other end of its journey it is rolled from the car to the truck and from that to the unloading platform with a great saving of time at each terminal. The New York Central railway places nine containers of 6000 pounds capacity on one flat car. These are unloaded by means of a crane in less than five minutes for each container, or the whole car in approximately[192] forty minutes. By this means the railroad is able to take advantage of what has been called store-door delivery. Instead of the consignor hauling its goods to the station and unloading them on the platform to be loaded into cars by stevedores, transported, unloaded into the warehouse, and the consignee notified to come for them, the railway leaves a container which when filled is hauled by truck to the railway yard and in five minutes’ time placed upon the car, which upon reaching its destination is placed upon a truck and hauled to the consignee. Goods shipped in these containers which may be made of steel and securely locked are considered just as safe from predacious hands and the weather as in a way car, and possibly are safer.

The demountable container which is rapidly coming into general use, and which has for some time been used by the New York Central Railroad and the interurban railways of Australia, consists of a large steel box or safe, the doors of which can be locked. When it is placed upon a steel flat-car with sides two feet high it cannot possibly be opened as the doors are on the side of the container. And it cannot be removed from the car without the use of a derrick, the top corners of the container being equipped with hooks for this purpose. The containers have a capacity of 438 cubic feet and will hold from 6000 to 8000 pounds of package freight. When the packages are locked and sealed within the containers they are safe from fire and rain as well as marauders. One flat-car will accommodate from 4 to 9 containers, depending upon their size.

In addition to the safety furnished by these containers they are economical in saving time of transportation. Re-handling is unnecessary. The transfer of the entire container from truck to car and from car to truck is very quickly made. The mileage of the flat cars is thus greatly increased—with mail cars it is claimed to be doubled. Expensive packing and crating is avoided and the checking at each rehandling of parcels is eliminated.

Mass loading or unloading, whether the whole truck[193] body is swung off by a crane, rolled off, or even if trailers and semi-trailers are left to be worked upon after the truck has gone, save little in the way of manual labor. On the other hand they require the installment at each end of the route of special arrangements to facilitate their use.

Another class of devices are those connected with the truck itself. For example it may have a winch on it to draw up an inclined plane at its rear such heavy articles as pianos, safes, and large castings. It may have a crane with a pulley running along a central beam over it to facilitate loading and unloading heavy boxes or other things. A swinging crane is also used with some trucks. On others, hoists are arranged to tip the body backward for unloading building and road materials, grain, and so on. Many of these devices make use of the truck power for their operation. Pumps with suction hoses empty catch basins, cess-pools, stopped-up sewers and flooded cellars, pumping the fluid to a tank body of the truck, whence it can be hauled away and dumped by elevating the front end of the tank and opening a gate in its rear. Devices for lifting and dumping coal truck bodies directly into the bin save much time over hand shoveling.

Still another class of devices are entirely separate from the truck and may or may not be connected with the warehouse. For example a chain conveyor which can be rolled up to the back of a truck elevates barrels and boxes, sand and stone, and is operated by a small electric motor the lead wires of which are plugged into a suitable socket, up to the floor at the rear of the truck from which place they can be easily pushed or shoveled to proper position. Elevated bins are utilized to store road materials from which the materials run by gravity into the body of a small motor-car which then goes to the mixer where it is grabbed by a device that empties the body into the mixer, thus saving much handling of material.

Many special types of bodies are made for peculiar purposes. These often facilitate loading and unloading, for[194] example tank ears for hauling water, milk, gasoline or other fluids; or trucks fitted with shelves on which are placed trays containing fruits and so forth. As the motor truck enters newer fields of usefulness multiple devices will be developed to lessen the time of loading and unloading. The financial importance to both the owner and the public of keeping the truck moving will no doubt lead to the adoption of these devices providing they are practical and will accomplish the desired result.

Traffic between Towns.

—Wherever the roads are dependable and passable at all seasons of the year truck and bus lines have sprung up to ply regularly between the towns. The length of haul most profitable seems to be that over which the motor can make the round trip each day and have sufficient time at terminals for loading and unloading. Forty to 50 miles for trucks and 60 to 65 miles for buses seem to be negotiable and double these distances are proving to be practicable. In many of the states such enterprises have been declared to be common carriers subject to the laws governing such carriers, and must secure licenses to do business from the public service commissions. It is but reasonable that the public should be safeguarded and these concerns be required to take out insurance or give indemnifying bonds to cover loss of goods to shippers by carelessness or theft or injury to passengers by accident. On the other hand the licensed motor transport is entitled to protection against irresponsible truckers. The modern method of state regulation does not contemplate competition as an economic factor in the determination of rates and routes. The old doctrine of “everyone for himself, and the devil take the hindmost,” is certainly most wasteful. This is about the way that method worked. A starts a bus line between two towns. After he has run it a short time and built up a trade B, seeing his success, decides to put a competing bus on this same route. Then there is a period of competition. Rates may be cut and speeds quickened until each bus is running at a loss. This cannot continue indefinitely. The result is that either one man goes[195] out of business or there is a combination of interests by actual coalescing or by a “gentlemen’s agreement,” so that there is practical monopoly anyway. The modern method is to regulate all common carriers as far as rates and routes are concerned so that each may make a justifiable profit. This may be tending toward socialism and away from individualism; it may be a violation of the Darwinian doctrine of a survival of the fittest. But that is departed from every day. Our cornfields and gardens would amount to nothing if the weeds were allowed undisputed sway.

It would seem to be the duty, therefore, of public service commissions to grant licenses to truck and bus lines, to establish routes and equitable rates, to require careful and complete accounting and to make public from time to time such items as the people may be interested in.

The Railway Commission of the state of Nebraska was, perhaps, the first public service commission to exercise the right of regulating highway transport (1918). Colorado, California, and other states soon followed. In California the matter came upon a complaint that adequate service was not given by the railway and the decision was:

“We are of the opinion that the public deserving transportation of freight and express ... is entitled to a more expeditious service than that at present being given by the Southern Pacific and American Railway Express.”

It went on further to state that notwithstanding their ability to give service the evidence was to the effect that it was not given, hence motor highway transport was licensed.

The first highway transport freight rates established by the Railway Commission of Nebraska placed the freight under four classes, describing 103 items. The rates were:

1st Class 20 c. plus (1¹⁄₂ c. per mile per 100 pounds).

2d Class 85 per cent of the 1st class.

3d Class 70 per cent of the 1st class.

4th Class 60 per cent of the 1st class.

In addition they established rules and regulations, standard bills of lading, etc. These rates have since been rescinded.

[196]

In Colorado two sets of rules were adopted, one for the prairie and one for the mountain division. For the prairie division the minimum charge was 25 c. and the mountain 30 c. per 100 pounds. The rates for motor truck hauling was made, for the prairie division, 30 c. per 100 pounds for 5 miles and for distances up to 100 miles graduated 5 or 10 c. for each additional 5 miles until they reached $1 per 100 miles. For the mountain division, the rate for 100 pounds carried 5 miles is 36 c., graduated to $1.20 per 100 miles.

Motor Bus Traffic.

—Suburban and interurban motor bus passenger service is growing rapidly. Buses accommodating as high as sixty persons are being used on the haul where the roads are well paved, but twenty to thirty seems more popular. At present these buses seem to be well patronized, usually bringing their passengers to the larger city in time for business or shopping and returning them home in the afternoon or evening. The rates of fare for bus travel are about the same as those for steam car travel, or approximately 4 c. per mile. The rate of travel depends upon the character of the roadway and the condition of traffic, being usually routed upon dependable but less congested roads.

Just what may be the outcome of this traffic is problematical. Can the buses compete with other forms of transportation in fares and speed? If so, they will survive; otherwise they will gradually discontinue. Some writers seem to think they will not only live but will eventually kill the older forms of transportation. Although they will no doubt take over very much of that transportation it seems highly improbable that all transportation can be taken care of by motors.

To and from the Farm.

—Farm trucking seems to be firmly established and very much if not all farm hauling will eventually be done by automobiles. Very many farmers now own their own trucks and the number is constantly being increased. Glowing statements by government officials, reports of investigational committees, and[197] propaganda by manufacturers and dealers have worked up the farmers’ desire for trucks. A congressional joint committee on agricultural inquiry has recently stated that,

There is the evidence of no less a person than Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover that the farm motor truck will be of vast importance to the agricultural interests of the country. Here is his statement:

Some of the arguments advanced in favor of the farm truck are:

(a) The motor truck allows the farmer to haul larger loads, longer distances in less time, thus reducing the actual cost of haulage.

(b) That he can better take advantage of market fluctuations and thus be able to sell at high markets.

(c) That a truck on the farm will replace several horses; that the cost of keeping these horses far exceeds the cost of keeping a truck.

(d) That the truck may be used to market produce while the horses are busy in the field.

(e) That the truck will allow land otherwise too far[198] from market to be farmed with perishable but better paying crops.

(f) By means of trucks the farmer is often enabled to put his hogs or other live stock on the early morning market in less time from the farm and consequently fresher, gaining the advantage of better prices.

While there may be some question as to the validity of all these assumptions they are no doubt, in the main, correct. The United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Crop Estimates, collected data showing that in 1918, the hauling in wagons from farm to shipping point cost on the average for wheat 30 cents per ton-mile; for corn, 33 cents; for cotton, 48 cents. For hauling by motor truck the average costs were: wheat, 15 cents; corn, 15 cents; and cotton, 18 cents. These unit costs were, consequently, reduced to less than half by the use of the truck. The same bulletin gives the average length of wagon haul for these products to be 9 miles, and of motor truck haul, 11.3 miles; furthermore the average number of round trips by wagon per day was 1.2 while by truck it was 3.4.

Whether or not the truck on the farm will release any horses will depend on what determines the number of horses kept. To do his hauling does the farmer keep more than is necessary for farm operations alone? The passenger automobile, no doubt, did release many driving and riding horses, but will the truck release many more? The thoughtful, foresighted farmer usually plans his yearly work so that he may do his hauling when the horses are not otherwise busy. This of course limits his farm operation to products which, like wheat and corn, can be stored indefinitely. This limits also diversified cropping which farmers find in the long run to be very much safer than “putting all eggs in one basket” by raising a single product. It is seldom that a wheat crop, a corn crop, a beet crop, a hay crop, an apple crop, and gardening crops all fail by drought, wet weather, hail, or other untoward events during the same season. Good roads, trucks or anything[199] else which will lend assistance to diversified cropping are without doubt beneficial to the farmer.

Intensive farming of perishable crops can be done only where the roads allow daily contact with the market. The truck, because of its more rapid speed, will widen the zone of such farming very much over the old zone when the horse-drawn vehicle was in vogue. Because of the risk involved and the labor necessary the net returns per acre for this sort of farming are high, allowing small parcels of land to keep a family. As the distance, or rather time, the “fourth dimension,” from market increases the less intensive the farming operations and the less net returns per acre. The community as a whole is deeply interested in widening the zone of intensive farming in order that more people may profitably make a living upon this land.

Persons who are not familiar with stockyard activities will be surprised on visiting them early in the morning at any one of the packing-house industries to see the large number of hogs and other farm animals arriving for the early market in motor trucks. These animals have been brought from distances up to 60 miles, but have been on the way less than three or three and one-half hours. Careful stockyard figures show that in 1921 more than 6,000,000 cattle and very many more hogs were transported in motor trucks. These animals upon arrival are very much fresher and show less shrinkage than those that have been driven to their home station and loaded into stock cars the day previous. Other things being equal, the top of the market is accorded to the fresher animals. Also for short hauls, say up to 60 miles, the transportation costs are in favor of the trucks.

The farmer may obtain the benefits of motor transportation in at least four different ways: (a) He may own and operate his own truck. This pays when the farm is of sufficient size to keep the truck reasonably busy. (b) Two or more neighbors may coöperate in the ownership of a truck. This is applicable to small and medium-sized farms. (c) By patronizing truck lines privately owned which haul[200] products, freight, and express upon a charge basis. (d) By the trucks of the United States Postal Service.

Whether or not it pays for a farmer to own and operate a truck depends upon the size of the farm, kind and quantity of the commodities hauled, distance from market, character of the roads, and the loading on the back trip. A small farm could not be expected to furnish sufficient hauling to keep a truck busy unless intensively farmed and producing commodities which require frequent marketing. Even a small farmer, though, might by hauling for neighbors keep his truck reasonably busy. Or several neighbors may coöperate in the purchase of the truck and arrange how it shall be operated. They may even form an express line and go into the transportation business as a side issue.

The parcel-post service has been very successful in handling packages of produce even as large as a case of eggs. The post-office department allows its carriers to pick up and deliver packages along the route the same as letter mail. Privately owned Rural Motor Express vehicles are also operated successfully which pick up and deliver all sorts of express packages, farm produce in small quantities, fruit, butter, eggs, and cream. Trucks which haul nothing but milk and cream are quite common. The farmer leaves his full cans of milk or cream at a specified place, usually a platform at a level with the truck floor, on the roadway. The driver of the milk truck picks up the full cans, leaving empties in their place. Or he may pick up the full on his way to the market, creamery, or railway station, and leave the empties on his return. Such routes are both privately owned and coöperatively owned by the several farmers patronizing them. Often these trucks deliver the milk and cream to the railway in time to catch a special milk train into the city.

HAULING BEANS BY MOTOR TRUCK AND TRAILER

Sacramento Valley, Calif.

HAULING SUGAR BEETS TO MARKET IN A MOTOR TRUCK

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Since the trucks come directly to the farmer’s gate to pick up and deliver express or freight, the convenience is much greater than the service given by either the steam railway or the interurban trolley. As a result the trucks will probably be patronized when the railways would not. The habit of sending eggs, cream, and other perishable products daily to the market is formed. The daily credit the farmer receives amounts to a considerable sum by the end of the month when he collects from the dealer. Many farmers much more than pay living expenses from the sale of small items utterly ignored before the days of the motor express.[169] Even the farmer who owns his own truck could hardly afford a daily trip of several miles and the time entailed to market small amounts of cream, eggs, vegetables, and fruits, but the express man by combining the incoming and outgoing commodities of many farms can without much expense to anyone do a very good business for himself at an economic benefit to his patrons.

If the farmer, or several farmers, desire to purchase a truck it would be well first carefully to consider the question with an idea of finding out the character and amount of trucking at hand and then purchase a machine best adapted for the purpose. The kind of bodies available should be studied, remembering that he may wish to haul grain on one trip, hogs or sheep on another, then cream and vegetables. He will want, probably, to haul back groceries, flour, feed, lumber, hardware, implements, fertilizer, cement, and gravel. In looking ahead he should estimate the increase in the quantity of hauling that more rapid transportation, the going to more distant markets, and the possible raising of different products which may come about through the owning of a truck, will bring to his farm. In this connection the reader is referred to the chapters on “Highway Transport Surveys” and “Effects of the Ease and Cost of Transportation on Production and Marketing,” given later.

Terminal Facilities.

—Railways have found it advantageous to spend enormous sums of money upon terminal facilities. Depots and warehouses, garages and repair shops will be necessary if truck lines are to prove efficient[202] and successful. It would be quite feasible and profitable for all the truck lines leading from a city to have a union or common terminal station. Portland, Oregon, has such a station owned by a corporation composed of bus lines that operate from there to every city of any importance within a radius of 100 miles. The terminal resembles a railroad depot with waiting rooms, ticket office, announcer, and conveniences. Buses load and unload on a platform at the rear of the building reached by a drive-in from the street. Patrons remain in the waiting room until the bus is announced. Two buses are sent out if more than enough tickets are sold for one. Under the present schedule 150 departures in 21 different directions are provided for. This gives the farthest cities two stages per day while many closer ones are served hourly.

Some of the advantages of a terminal station may be inferred from the above. Another is that the total number of clerks and employees may be cut down, for one clerk can route goods on half a dozen different lines almost as easily as on one, and there will be no competition between lines, except by service, if the public service commission has allowed no duplication of lines and establishes rates. Much of the freight and express will be brought by the shipper to the depot, where bills of lading will be made out and charges paid. To be sure, large shippers may desire freight to be picked up elsewhere, or small express trucks may be used for this purpose, but orders for this can conveniently be phoned to the central office and directions given from there accordingly. Similarly one garage and one repair shop may easily look after the cleaning, repairing, oiling, and fueling of several cars more economically than could each keep its separate shop or even go to a commercial shop.

The terminal building may be arranged, if desired, so that it can be used jointly for a passenger station, a freight depot and a storage warehouse. If for a passenger station there would be need for the agent’s office, waiting rooms, and toilet accommodations for men and women. The[203] freight depot is a place for the collection of freight and should be arranged for convenience and rapid loading and unloading of the trucks. The installation of devices for this purpose may become advisable as the amount of traffic increases. Storage room should be provided for those articles which are to wait some little time for shipment. A check stand to care for parcels is a convenience to passengers and furnishes the company some revenue.

The Social Aspect of Motor Transportation.

—The change from poor roads and horse-drawn vehicles to good roads and motorized vehicles has produced in society changes quite as radical. These changes are not entirely separate from economic changes and one cannot always say that this particular thing or that particular thing is due to the automobile alone because every activity in life has its effect on every other activity. As the waves upon a pond circling about the point of shock come into contact with other waves their effect is enhanced, minimized, or transformed, and just what part of the resultant may be due to one agency or to another agency is impossible to decipher. That each has entered into a combination with the whole and affected the result there is no doubt. For example it is claimed that because of the prevalence of pleasure riding the giving and receiving of dinners and teas have very greatly diminished. No doubt the high cost of living has had its effect also. Clothiers and haberdashers complain that automobile owners finding it impossible to keep grease spots from their clothing, are now buying an inferior grade and losing the art of good dressing. Builders claim that the expense of buying and maintaining an automobile has prevented many persons from making needed repairs on houses or even building new ones. As people live most of their leisure time in the car a very small apartment will accommodate them for the remaining time. Fewer books and newspapers are read, it is claimed, and there is less attention paid to the cultural niceties of life. People go riding in the evening, so the Sunday evening church service is not attended.

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An editorial in the Nebraska State Journal of August 31, 1921, puts the matter piquantly, at least:

The above editorial indicates that people are beginning to notice the social changes being brought about by the automobile, and more, they are ascribing them to the automobile. Changes usually come about so gradually that, like the hands on a watch, the movement can be noticed only by comparing what is with what was some time previous.

Rapid transportation and rapid communication has extended Broadway clear across the continent. One writer by taking an automobile tour found the American world extends from ocean to ocean, that the hat she purchased in New York had its duplicate in every millinery window all the way across to Los Angeles. She further found that the people between were not all “hicks,” and that farmers did not go around with alfalfa on their chin and straws in their mouths as shown in the cartoons of the funny section. Some farmers play golf on their own pastures. The fact that the sack containing their clubs is often tied with binding twine is of no consequence.

The social intercourse which good roads and the rapid moving automobile makes possible between neighbor and neighbor and between country and town tends to produce a more homogeneous people. Each gets the view point of the other, which reacting modifies his own. Factions are largely broken up. Tolerance gains sway and more satisfaction and happiness results.

High wages and profits during and following the war led the average citizen to purchase some of those luxuries which before then he was unable to afford. He has had a taste of a “higher standard” of living. No wonder he objects to a return to pre-war conditions, no wonder he objects to giving up his automobile, the thing which has furnished him with more pleasure than his previous humdrum life[206] believed possible. No, he will fight to maintain the new standard and new living conditions. A social revolution has taken place, and in traveling about the spiral the world is one step higher.

And while some will for a short time be content to live in one corner of the garage, as the editorial writer opines, the natural longing for a home will assert itself. By the aid of the automobile property will be bought in farther-out district where lots are cheaper, where taxes are not so high, where there is more breathing space, and healthful conditions are more likely to prevail. Men of wealth can build suburban estates, and men of less means comfortable homes leaving the downtown apartments and tenements to those who cannot yet afford motor cars, and many there be, more’s the pity.

It will be a good thing to have the farms near large centers of population divided into smaller tracts whereon by intensive cultivation can be supported many families. Here there is always a demand for garden products which by means of a small car, or through the agency of motor express lines, can be marketed daily. It does not require a very great deal of land to support a poultry farm from which there will be a continuous income. By diversifying crops something will be coming in at all seasons.

Good roads and the automobile not only make it possible to diversify farming but make the home life in the country less monotonous. No trouble to go after supper 12 or 15 miles to the town to take part in civic affairs, to attend a lecture, watch the movies or go to church. No extra horses need to be kept for these purposes, neither are the farm horses deprived of their rest. While the swift ride through bracing air rests the weary farmer after his day’s toil in the fields and gives new life to his faithful spouse upon whom the lonesomeness of isolation lies the much more heavily.

Salesmen have in great numbers provided themselves with automobiles large enough to carry their samples. With these they can make many more towns than when[207] they were compelled to depend upon trains and the small-town livery stables. The result is either a wider territory or more frequent calls upon customers.

Hotels, during the summer season, especially, if located on one of the popular cross country roads, are seldom without tourist guests. Nina Wilcox Putnam[170] states that from Washington westward the “wily tourist will always wire ahead for rooms, and preferably two days ahead. The truth is that the best places to stop are not nearly large enough to accommodate the crowd.” Speaking of these hotels she finds them well equipped, clean, and well cared for. There is no doubt but that the automobile tourist traffic has had its effect, too, upon them. Each spring they clean and spruce up with the idea of securing as much of this traffic as good service reported by the camaraderie of travelers all along the way will bring to them.

Mention has been made of the country people going to the larger cities to market their products and purchase goods wanted. It is not considered at all unusual for country and small town people to auto 30 miles to patronize the large department stores in the city. If a trade which satisfies both trader and tradee is beneficial and of economic importance to both then this would seem to be a good thing. The selling of the goods is beneficial to the store-keeper because he makes his profit. The trader has a large variety to select from and having made a voluntary selection is satisfied, because he or she may secure exactly what the city cousin gets.

But what is to become of the business of the country store-keeper? How is he to get along? The best thing he can do is to put upon his shelves goods of a standard quality. His rents and overhead are less than those of the city competitor; he, therefore, can sell at a less profit. This is so true that the writer has known of city dwellers going to the country store for these standard articles. Such interchange while of economical importance is also sociological[208] in differentiating between city and country merchandising and in bringing together in a new way the city and country dwellers.

Consolidation of Rural Schools.

—The people of the United States have been justly proud of her public schools. No one has ever considered them to be perfect, but the influence exerted upon the minds of the growing children has been wholesome. The very life of a republic depends upon an educated citizenry. With thorough education along right lines there is no reason why the nation should not live forever. To obtain such an education as is commensurate with right living and with the upbuilding and maintenance of our government and civilization requires that every means at hand should be utilized. The broadening, informational, and unifying influence of the automobile should not be underestimated. Edison’s theory that the movie should supplement the textbook because visual education is remarkably interesting and effective, needs more than a passing thought. The instruction which the young people receive from parents, from associates, from newspapers, magazines, and miscellaneous books, from civic organizations of various kinds, and from Sunday school and church cannot be overestimated. Neither should be forgotten the vast and important education which comes through the hard knocks of experience.

An illustration of what the public schools may do for the preservation of the country can be drawn from the history of the Great War, the worst and the fiercest the world has ever seen. During that war the patriotism of the people shone forth with undiminished luster. The response to the President by the citizenry of the country, whether of his own or opposite political faith, by every honest organization, public or private, by business and professional men, by Congress and legislatures, was all but unanimous. This surprising unanimity was, no doubt, due to the influence of the public schools. The public schools have always inculcated patriotism and loyalty, and these lessons were potent as was evident because even before the[209] draft many young men with Teutonic names took their places with others whose forebears were of other nationalities as well as with those of long-standing American descent. Therein went astray one of the guesses of the enemy, namely, that our Teutonic citizens with their children would prove more loyal to the “fatherland” than to democratic America. The lessons of patriotism the children brought home from school, the stories of Valley Forge and Yorktown, of Gettysburg and Appomattox, were communicated to their parents and penetrated deep, so that only a moiety of our foreign born element could be classed with the enemy. Thus have the public schools in this great melting pot of the world been the conservators of liberty.

The effect of the public school upon the ideals of peace is no less than that upon their state of mind during war. Every day examples are so plentiful they need not here be mentioned. Suffice it to say that it should be made possible for all the young people to come under the influence of the public school learn the American’s Creed, and be steeped in the symbolism of the flag that stands for true democracy.

Changing Concepts of the Public Schools.

—Schools have continually had to change with changing society. During the pioneer period, and that extended through many years from the first settlements along the coasts, and the occupation of the great fertile areas of the mid-west to recent efforts to subdue the semi-desert and desert regions of the farther west, the schools taught for a few months only a little reading, writing, and arithmetic. The farm and home life supplemented this with manual labor and the attainment of skill in making and repairing necessary articles and machinery by the boys, and the arts of home making, weaving, and cooking, by the girls, thereby completing a well-rounded education for the times. But with the increase in population there came a division of labor and specialization. This meant that the simple school of the pioneers could no longer fit for life, hence[210] new and additional subjects were added to the curriculums, until at the present time no one pupil can hope to complete all the work given by the larger secondary schools. The changing character of society caused the earliest private schools to be transformed into semi-private and semi-religious schools, and these to tax-maintained schools. The graded schools in the larger communities were found to be more efficient than the ungraded. In country districts the advantages of the graded system could only be brought about by consolidating several small schools thus enlarging the districts to get sufficient pupils. This made distances from home so great that walking to and from school was no longer possible; pupils must be hauled. Considerable progress was made in such schools with horse-drawn vehicles, but not until the advent of the motor bus was attained anything like a practical solution of the problem. So rapidly has the consolidated school made its way that now there are more than 12,000 such schools served by motor buses. Since a six-room consolidated school will replace about nine small schools the greater efficiency of a graded school extending through a longer school period is gained at little if any increased cost. In the years to come the results of these schools must have a marked beneficial effect upon the entire country.

Rural Mail Delivery.

—The development of the Rural Mail Delivery and its relation to the better roads movement has been touched upon in Chapter V. It will only be necessary to say here that the psychological effect of a daily mail upon the inhabitants of the rural districts has been most remarkable. Through its means these people are no longer isolated, they know daily what is transpiring in the world; they are thinking of the great questions of finance, politics, and what not, at the same time as their fellows in other parts of the country. The nation is thus more or less unified, the country dweller looks and thinks of himself as an integral part of the whole. Rural mail, telephone, the automobile, modern home conveniences and, now, radio telephony are rapidly making agriculture one[211] of the great and desirable professions. The rural home need no longer be a place where there is nothing but ten hours’ work and six hours’ chores. The farmer of to-day, with his daily paper, his market reports, his books and magazines, his furnace-heated and electric-lighted house, his automobile ready at hand, is better off, more independent, and should be more happy and contented than those who dwell in the murky city.

The Automobile and Health.

—“Health is something more than strength, it is a universally good condition,” according to Munger. The automobile, by inducing people to get more into the open air, may be considered to be a prophylactic, and something that will bring them into that universally good condition. The forgetting of business, the obliteration of household cares, the unstringing of high-tensioned nerves by a swift run like a swallow in its flight over smooth and undulating roads brings rest with relaxation, and cure with comfort. Then away from the mad’ning crowd, away from close poorly ventilated rooms, away from foul-smelling germ-laden cars, to the roads, to the hills, to the country with their varied shades of living carpets, with freshening winds and glad’ning brooks, with bees, and birds, and flowers into nature’s great laboratory where are brewed nectars and panaceas for the ills which infest mankind.

But all cannot have automobiles, pity ’tis, ’tis true, but all may have the benefit of fresh air and the style for an open air life set by those who can afford to drive the “red flyers,” the “quivering arrows,” the “bear cats” or the “poodle dogs,” have been followed by the less fortunate hoi polloi. Thus outdoor exercises and amusements have been popularized.

While motoring may not be the best form of exercise, may not bring into play as many muscles as walking, horseback riding, or rowing, say, it must be remembered that not many can have horses to ride or boats to row and walking is too slow. Gymnasium exercises or even home gymnastics are not exciting enough to keep one practicing, so[212] that the outdoor life of the present day, brought about largely by the automobile, has had a more wholesome effect on the people generally than perhaps any other measure.

Styles of clothing have kept close pace, and the garments now worn by both men and women are both comfortable and sanitary, allowing freedom of bodily movement. It is to be hoped that the same influences which induced such hygienic clothing will continue and that never more may the autocratic demands of style force people into close-fitting uncomfortable, unsanitary wearing apparel. For years hygienists, health reformers, and physicians preached against tight lacing for women without results until the automobile came to their assistance. Until very recent years women’s long skirts have swept clouds of germ-laden dust into the air from sidewalks to be breathed by all passers-by. All men know that their present dressing, while it might be bettered, is so much more comfortable than formerly that they have much reason for rejoicing. Formal dressing except for an occasional party has almost disappeared. In the summer time men may be comfortable on the streets without coats. But the women, though more responsive to style changes, now go the men one better and abandon long sleeves and high collars.

Medical science, always alert to adopt modern improvements, was one of the first to take advantage of the time-saving benefits of the automobile. Its universal use by physicians and surgeons, allowing them to reach the bedside of sick patients more quickly and allowing them to visit more patients in the same time, is certainly a pathological asset of great value. Automobile ambulances called in emergency cases save the lives of many injured persons by getting them quickly to the hospitals and under the care of competent medical and surgical attention.

From a purely sanitary point of view good roads have been great agencies for health. Clean streets, clean pavements, and clean roads are much more wholesome than the mud puddles and quagmires that formerly served as passageways for man and beast. In order to get better[213] roadways drainage was resorted to. Ponds and standing water along the side of the road were done away with, at the same time obliterating the breeding places of the myriads of mosquitoes that always abounded in summer time. Since mosquitoes are carriers, as is well known, of such diseases as malaria and yellow fever, the consequence has been a very great reduction, almost elimination, of these ailments.

Again just as the use of the horse on the highways has diminished, so has the summer pest of flies grown less. The favorite breeding place of the housefly is horse dung. When nearly every house in both city and country had its stable with a pile of horse manure by the door flies bred abundantly. The fly has been convicted of being a most energetic distributor of typhoid and other bowel complaints, hence the distruction of its breeding places will be the most effective means for its extermination, and with it one of the most virile sources of contagion.

Thus, upon analysis, it may be seen that the influence of the automobile extends throughout the whole domain of life, changing and modifying nearly all social customs. It is called into use at the birth of the babe to bring the physician to the bedside of the prospective mother. It is the correct equipage at the wedding and starts the bride and groom upon their honey-moon and, it is to be hoped, a happy journey through life. And finally, it bears the remains to their last resting place in the silent city of the dead.

The Automobile and Crime.

—But not always have the changes produced by automobiles been in the interest of better living. Criminals and those who verge upon criminality have been quick to employ the superior advantages of modern means of rapid transit to assist them in their nefarious work. Automobile theft has taken the place of horse thievery, and automobiles are used daily as a means of getting to and getting away from the place of the crime. Trucks are utilized to haul the loot. Since the adoption of prohibition laws motor cars have been seized upon by[214] booze runners as a convenient vehicle for transporting liquor from one place to another, thus becoming an aid to “bootlegging.” In several of the states cars used for illegally transporting intoxicants are confiscated upon discovery and sold by the state. Drastic laws also deal with operators and owners.

Highway robbery of trucks hauling goods across country is reported. In New Jersey two trucks were robbed of $120,000 worth of merchandise. In other places express drivers have been held up and relieved of their money. One of the earliest improvements of the roadways of England was due to the prevalence of highway robbers—the brush and trees were ordered to be cut from the highway in order that their might be fewer lurking places for robbers.[171]

Here the results of robbery may lead to interesting possibilities. For instance if the trucks above mentioned as robbed in New Jersey were owned by the shipper the $120,000 is a dead loss to him unless he had insurance. Even if the trucks were owned by a small capitalist he would probably not be able to recompense the shipper. Had it been lost on a railway it would have been paid for. If motor shipping is to continue shipments must be covered by bonds or insurance. Even then there is a loss to the public when outlaws seize a loaded truck and drive it into wilds whence its contents can be disposed of at leisure. Shall truckers, like the ancient caravans of the deserts maintain guards with long guns to fight off marauding Bedouins? The western stages of some years ago furnished employment as guards to the quickest shots in the world. Is it the duty of the community to make its highways safe for transportation or must the shipper take the risk and employ guards and machine guns?

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Vandalism.

—Complaints are made that those who drive or walk to the country are often guilty of vandalism and disregard for the rights of property. Note this editorial utterance in the Saturday Evening Post of June 17, 1922:[172]

Spooning in automobiles parked along the roadways is a subject of regulation in the city of Omaha. An ordinance makes it a misdemeanor subject to fine.

However, the motor car will not be discarded or outlawed because unscrupulous persons put it to illegal and immoral purposes. A net cast into the sea gathers fishes of every kind, and among the wheat there will always spring up tares.

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Conclusion.

—The world cannot now get along without the motor car. What was a luxury yesterday has become a necessity to-day. Automotive transportation is carving out a path for itself. While it perhaps will take much from the older forms of transportation it can never hope to supplant them. The final result will come only after the world has had opportunity through competitive experience to determine which is most economical in time and money and which is most desirable and comfortable from a personal or a sociological standpoint for the various purposes and various kinds of transportation.

At present it would seem as though the automobile will be used more largely than ever: I. As a pleasure and business vehicle driven by its owner for passenger traffic: (a) for local travel near home; (b) for short runs from town to town; (c) for more extended tourist traffic, and (d) for the use of salesmen. II. For pay passenger traffic: (a) Taxi-cabs in the cities: (b) Motor-bus service in the cities either in competition or in conjunction with street car service; (c) motor bus service to suburban and outlying districts; (d) motor bus service between towns up to 75 or 100 miles, with towns not more than two hours apart, (e) motor bus service between railway terminals. III. For freight and express traffic: (a) Haulage of farm products to market or shipping point in owner’s truck; (b) Haulage to market of perishable farm products in rapid going privately or coöperatively owned trucks; (c) Heavy trucking lines through farm districts; (d) Light express lines through farm districts; (e) Suburban or radial distribution of goods from large cities; (f) Short-haul traffic between towns; (g) Short branch-line or stub-end transportation to be taken over by trucks either in competition or conjunction with railways; (h) Trap car and store to door service by railways; (i) Terminal distribution allowing cars to be loaded and unloaded at a greater distance from congested centers; (j) Terminal distribution between different lines of railway or between railway and waterway either to relieve congestion or where there is no physical[217] connection; (k) Longer hauls where there are no rail facilities; (l) Logging and lumbering formerly done by horses, oxen, or even light railway, (m) Rural mail service, and IV. By modified or combination motors: (a) Trackless trolley; (b) Rail motors.

Addendum.

—Since the above was written President Harding has issued the annual legislative message to Congress (December 8, 1922), in which he discusses at some length the transportation problem in the United States. Among other things he says:

The President then urged merger of railroads, pooling of equipment and a central agency to aid in their financing and to suggest economies. This portion of his message was evidently inspired by the great labor strike during the summer of 1922, and the subsequent shortage of cars and inadequacy of transportation facilities. He argued that there “should be a guaranty against suspended operation. The public must be spared even the threat of discontinued service.” He then recommended[218] an abolition of the Labor Board as not being “so constituted as best to serve the public interest.” This board is composed of three members selected by the railways and three by railway employees, and three by the Government. According to President Harding “it is inevitable that the partisan viewpoint is maintained throughout hearings and in decisions handed down. Only the public group of three is free to function in unbiased decisions.” He, therefore, suggested the abolishment of the partisan membership and that the work of the board be performed by or in very close contact with the Inter-State Commerce Commission which already has supreme authority in rate making to which “wage cost bears an indissoluble relationship.”

When a president of the United States takes up so much of his annual message with transportation and the relationship which the different forms bear to each other, when he argues for harmony between them and between them and their employees, there is certainly reason for study and legislation which will bring about just and adequate methods of administration, operation and regulation.

SELECTED REFERENCES

FOOTNOTES

A road is a strip of land set apart or appropriated for travel, public or private. When a road has been dedicated to the public or has been used so long that the public has a legal right of easement therein, it becomes a highway.[173]

The object of a road is to provide a way for transportation. It goes without saying, therefore, that its situation should be such that it can perform this function most efficiently, and a system of highways should perform the same function for the public in the same manner. Efficiency here includes the ideas of economy and satisfaction combined.

In order to make a layout of a system of highways they should first be classified as to use, for the proper treatment will depend upon the use to which the roads are to be put. Anyone attempting a layout will make his own classification suitable to the inherent conditions pertaining to the district covered. The classification of Mr. T. H. MacDonald, Director of the Bureau of Public Roads, U. S. Department of Agriculture, made for another purpose may be adopted:[174]

1. Those used chiefly related to agriculture.

2. Those which are recreational in character.

3. Those which are commercial.

4. Those which are military.

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Agricultural roads comprise those leading from farm to town and are used chiefly for marketing, and for social, educational, and religious activities.

Recreational roads are either local, upon which driving is done for pleasure, or through, those followed by tourists in traveling over the country. Either of which may lead to places of interest within or without the state. The national park roads and forest highways can be classified under the head of recreational.

Commercial highways comprise those exclusive of agricultural, upon which the haul is chiefly of a business nature such as freight and express and bus traffic.

The War Department of the United States during the war refused to designate any roads as special Military Highways, saying a road which would adequately serve the agricultural; recreational, and commercial interests would serve the military. However, it might be well to keep in mind this possible use of the highways. A classification of roads into National, State, County and Town has frequently been suggested. Since national roads do not exist as such in the United States the most densely traveled routes and those used largely for through traffic are usually designated state roads, and all others local roads.

Keeping the cost and use of the roads in view the problem before the road planner is:

(1) To secure the most economical routes in construction and maintenance and future haulage, taking into account topography, alignment, grades, and amount of traffic.

(2) To accommodate the greatest number of people commensurate with the money available for expenditure.

(3) To utilize existing roads as far as practicable.

The system will ordinarily consist of one or more trunk lines to be laid down first and several branch lines connecting with the trunk lines. Some of the essentials to be considered are:

(1) Ruling points. These ordinarily will be (a) the main community centers—the large cities and villages, for[224] to and from these will naturally flow the greatest traffic; (b) Natural configurations such as mountain passes, low points in hills, ridges and valleys, rivers and bridge sites; (c) Parks, scenery, and recreational and amusement centers; (d) Articulation with the highways of adjoining jurisdictions, so that they may eventually be united into one continuous passage.

(2) Branch lines and detours. The question will frequently arise whether to run a branch line to some locality or detour the trunk. Much pressure will be brought by the inhabitants along the way and the deciding power will needs have firmness and fairness in the highest degree.

(3) Alternate routes. If two roads of equal or almost equal importance are available a choice must be made between them.

(4) Existing highways and principal streets of cities should be utilized as much as practicable. Although sometimes betterments so great may come through changes that old routes should be discontinued, in which case the

(5) Vested rights of citizens living along discontinued routes and damages caused by any improvements made must be considered.

(6) The widening of existing roads and streets and costs of the same.

(7) The location of railways, trolley lines, and street car tracks may influence the layout for grade crossings should be eliminated, or at least placed where there is clear vision each way for a considerable distance.

(8) Bridges, culverts, and railroad crossings should, preferably, be directly along the highway and at right angles to the obstruction.

(9) Ruling grades, dependent upon the class of road will also affect the layout.

(10) Esthetics. Perhaps the people of the United States have been too materialistic and have paid too little attention to the beauty and interest elements in highway location. Especially for pleasure riding and recreation should the esthetic side be considered.

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Motor Transport Efficiency Outline.

—At this point it would be well for the road planner to consult an excellent paper by M. C. Horine and his efficiency chart which is substantially as follows:[175]

• Economic Efficiency
• Highway Efficiency
• Adaptability of road to carrier
• Road capacity
• Width of road
• Pressure capacity
• Impact capacity
• Seasonal limitations
• Tractive resistance
• Grades
• Route
• Curves and corners
• Adaptability of carrier to road
• Dimensions
• Capacity and weight
• Speed
• Climbing ability
• Accelerating ability
• Stopping ability
• Turning radius
• Tractive effort
• Transport Efficiency
• Adaptability of carrier to volume and character of load
• Total load units to be carried
• Range of load units to be hauled
• Average load units to be hauled
• Density of load
• Length of haul
• Route
• Number and probable duration of stops
• Comparative adaptability of motor transport
• Horse transport
• Highway efficiency
• Transport efficiency
• Vehicle efficiency
• Public health
• Railway transportation including trolley express[226]
• Transport efficiency
• Economy
• Haulage cost
• Packing cost
• Adaptability of carrier to traffic
• Legal restrictions on equipment and operation
• Possible average running speed
• Bridges and ferries
• Vehicle Efficiency
• Operation
• Moving factor
• Loading delays
• Unloading delays
• Waiting for loads
• Clerical delays
• Loafing
• Traffic delays
• Load factor
• Body capacity
• Special deliveries
• Return loads
• Outside hauling (custom work)
• Pickups
• Deliveries
• Trailers
• Maintenance
• Active factor
• Disability layups
• Chassis repairs
• Body repairs
• Accessory repairs
• Tire repairs and replacements
• Overhaul and painting
• Driver’s disability
• Requirement layups
• Seasonal fluctuations
• Off-peak period
• Shut downs
• Labor troubles
• Economy
• Earning factor
• Unit miles
• Packing cost
• Loading cost
• Unloading cost
• Time in transit[227]
• Marketability
• Insurance
• Interest on value
• Shrinkage and breakage
• Perishability
• Tracing and follow up
• Advertising value
• Goodwill of trade
• Increased radius of trade
• Increased business turnover
• Cost factor
• Operating cost
• Fixed charges
• Maintenance charges
• Running charges
• Overhead
• Loading devices
• Shipping room devices
• Office and clerical expenses
• Telephone
• Labor
• Loaders
• Watchmen
• Clerks
• Supervisors
• Accountants
• Traffic department
• Miscellaneous

The Highway System Unit.

—Ordinarily the units will be the same as the political divisions, that is, national, state, or local. A national system would include the whole United States and will comprise trunk lines paralleling each other across the country east and west and north and south, considering, of course, ruling points, with a few branch lines of importance. The total number of miles of such highways should probably never exceed 2 per cent of the total mileage in the United States, or about 50,000 miles. A national highway committee estimated that this mileage of roads would serve 87 per cent of the people. The arguments made in favor of a national system of highways may be briefly summarized as follows:

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(1) Political lines would be obliterated, thus welding together and unifying all the people. Commercial and social intercourse would wipe out sectional differences, hatreds, and enmities. The people of one section would learn that the people of another section are human beings as they themselves are, and are actuated by the same instincts and inspirations.

(2) Economic, commercial, and pleasure routes cut across state lines and it would be much better to have the roads continuous and administered by one central control. They would then be kept in a more uniform condition of usefulness. The roads radiating from New York City are mentioned as an example. They pass out of the state of New York and into the states of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. On any one of these roads it would be difficult to say which state you are in by observing the license tags on the trucks and automobiles. A Connecticut traffic census on a road carrying approximately 3000 passenger cars and 500 trucks per day showed that 47 per cent of the cars in the analysis came from without the state.

(3) Military. All roads would become military during war. It is frequently stated that the good roads of France saved Paris from invasion and probably saved the war to the allies. The German General Kluck admits that while he was advancing upon the British and French south of the Marne, an army of which he had no suspicion had struck outward from Paris and put his flank in deadly peril.[176] This army was one that Joffre had concentrated in Paris under General Maunouri, which had been brought over two or three good French roads from Paris by motor trucks and lorries to a point within striking distance of the German right flank, where he attacked and began the First Battle of the Marne. In the Second Battle of the Marne, motor cars performed a very important part in the concentration of troops which were to make a surprise attack.[229] In addition the motorized armed cars known as tanks played an important part.

On this side of the ocean the trunk line roads during the war supplemented the railways, which were badly congested at the eastern terminals, by hauling large quantities of men, materials and munitions. It is said that 16,000 trucks were engaged in this work.

(4) The benefit of example. The federal government not hampered by local prejudices may construct roads of the highest type along best possible locations which when completed will serve as an example for state and local officers to pattern after. The people having seen such roads will more willingly vote bonds and taxes for road betterment.

State System.

—The benefits to be derived from and the arguments for a national system of roads apply with equal force to a state system. In fact it may be better to avoid the two extremes of one consolidated central control for the whole country and a very highly dispersed decentralized local control. The state seems to be a sufficiently large unit to do good work and sufficiently small to be approachable. Competition with other states may bring out developments which under a single central control would never have been thought of. Notwithstanding the excellent research work that is being carried on by the Bureau of Public Roads there is no doubt but that that which is being done by the several states more nearly solves those special problems arising on account of climate, topography, soil, and so on of the particular state.

The state system should cover a greater per cent of the roads than a national system can hope to do. The effort seems to be to take over about 10 per cent of the established roads as state highways. Such roads, if carefully selected and located, can accommodate from 90 to 95 per cent of the inhabitants of the state.

The remaining roads would continue under local—county and town—authorities. A county system might be[230] laid out and money expended upon its roads about in proportion to their use.

Again there is a feeling on the part of many that the first expense of improving a road (that would include grading, bridging, and paving, even if the latter should be done some time subsequent to the former) should be borne by the state and the abutting property, that the maintenance should be under the direction of the local authorities, and paid for by local taxation and by a portion of the state automobile license and gasoline taxes to be returned to the county for this purpose.

The Procedure of Laying out a Road System.

—To fix the mind definitely suppose it to be a state road system that is to be laid out. It is generally conceded that the planning should be done by an unprejudiced commission headed by an engineer of wide experience, one who is fair but will show no favoritism. The first question, after deciding to make a layout and who shall make it, is what shall be the determining factor of the lay-out. Shall it be primarily a farm to market system, primarily a commercial system, or primarily a recreational system? A wise commission will, no doubt, attempt to embody all these features in one system, as they should be, for, nowadays, more than half the population of the country reside in the cities and villages. They pay taxes and are as much entitled to road facilities for their particular industries and pleasures as are the “farm bloc,” and every fair-minded person will admit this.

Good maps must of course be obtained. Government contour maps when available will assist materially in selecting roads that will come within a ruling grade. On these maps will first be noted the trunk line terminals and other ruling points. The trunk lines should be as direct as practicable from one ruling point to the next. An endeavor should be made to have the roads with the greatest travel upon them the straightest, so that the total future haul may be a minimum. The roads having the greatest travel will usually be those connecting the largest cities of[231] the state or articulating with roads leading to large cities of other states. Then will be drawn in branch lines and detours so that when the plan is complete every county seat, every village of more than 1000 inhabitants, and every manufacturing, scenic, and pleasure resort of importance will have been reached, as well as connections with the main roads of adjacent states.

This will form a tentative system. Observation upon the roads themselves will now be necessary. A reconnaissance survey may be made quite rapidly from an automobile. Two men are necessary. The engineer will ordinarily drive while the topographer will be supplied with a clip board and ruled sheets of paper. The straight line up the center of the sheet represents the roadway. Small squares on the sheets represent distances and areas. The scale should be made according to the work. On a road with few houses and few topographical features to be recorded 1 inch to the mile might be sufficient. With more houses, and other features, 1 inch to the quarter mile might be none too much. As speedometers (odometers) usually read to a tenth of a mile cross-section paper with ten smaller divisions equal to one larger is convenient. The engineer will observe features and the recorder will record them as the machine is driven along. The miles may be marked off on the sheets ahead then very quickly by a series of notations, such as a for a farm house, a dot with a roof over it for a school house, a steeple or cross on top makes a church. A crossing wagon road , railroad track , a trolley line , stream , and so on. Written explanations can be made along the margin where necessary.

The reconnaissance survey should cover all routes on the tentative map together with alternative or competitive routes and others when found to be worthy of consideration. The record will show all farm houses within a prescribed limiting distance of the roadway, factories, stone quarries, sand and gravel pits, schoolhouses, and churches. All intersecting roads, railroads, trolleys, mail routes, creeks, canals, rivers, drainage and irrigation ditches, culverts[232] and bridges, together with the approximate angle of crossing the highway. Note should be made whether grade crossings may be eliminated by underground or overhead crossings, or by change of route. The character of the soil whether clay, loam, gumbo, or sand, when it differs from the general run of soil should be recorded, also hills, swamps, bad condition generally with brief notes as to how they may be bettered. Turns in the road itself may be noted by an angle thus , , , . Where no turn is shown, straight away is understood. Other information and natural or artificial features that may prove interesting or helpful will suggest themselves for record as the survey proceeds. Of course the mileage of each route as measured by the odometer or speedometer from fixed and known points on the map will be taken. By tabulating and mapping the information recorded it will be possible to get at the comparative merits of alternative routes.

A few simple surveying instruments will be useful in the work of reconnoitering. A steel 100-foot tape, a hand level and inclinometer, a pedometer, a pocket compass, a small aneroid barometer in mountainous countries, a pioneer ax for blazing, and a small spade may be mentioned.

After the reconnaissance, hearings should be held, usually at county seats, notice of such hearings having been given ahead of time. At these hearings the maps are shown and a statement made relative to the procedure. After which an invitation for suggestions and constructive criticism and even complaints is given. From these people who are locally interested in the roads many valuable suggestions will be received, and if they cannot be followed the reasons therefor may be stated. The people will thus know the investigation and the location of the road have been fairly made and that any suggestions that cannot be settled offhand will be duly considered before final location.

The final location will usually be arrived at or at least influenced by the following considerations: Alignment and[233] distance, population served, grades, amount and character of haulage, other kinds of transportation available, character of soil (sand, clay, gumbo, loam), structures, bridges, railroad grade crossings and their possible avoidance, discovery of entirely new routes, topography, geological formation, and other natural features and numerous local conditions, including availability and freight charges of road materials. These are not intended to be in the order of importance, for no two roads may have the same determining factors. The character of the road surface to be used in construction may greatly affect the location. For example it does not pay to use steep grades with hard smooth pavements. But steeper grades may be used with earth and gravel roads without material loss in efficiency.

It will seldom be necessary to resort to preliminary or complete survey to lay out the plan. Sometimes further viewing of alternative roads may be desirable and many times compromises will have to be made. A traffic census on the several routes would be extremely valuable for it would determine to which class, agricultural, commercial, or recreational, the road belongs, and also the character of the traffic and what type of construction is best suited. Especially where there are alternative roads, as is usually the case in midwestern states where the roads were established along the section lines of the U. S. land survey, it is very difficult to determine which is the important highway without a traffic census. It must be remembered, however, in this connection that the improvement of a road will often draw to it much traffic from an equally short competing line. It is quite likely that if 10 per cent of all roads, provided they are properly selected, should be well improved they would carry 90 per cent of all traffic.

Financial Considerations.

—While little has been said of financial considerations they are, of course, of prime importance. The amount of money as a whole that may be expended is usually limited by the taxes voted or the bonds issued. The planner must cut the garment according to the[234] cloth. He must know the approximate unit costs of the roads that will be constructed as well as the mileage of the several types. To know this he must estimate the amount of traffic that will pass over the road, he should know also about what part of this is local and what part through, in order that a just division of the cost may be made between the local and larger units. If all the money of construction were to be furnished by the national government, say, and only through traffic were considered, directness and grades between controlling points would be the determining factors. But since local traffic cannot be excluded from the use of such roads it is but just that part of the cost of building be paid locally, and if so, that modifications in the lay out be made to accommodate the local conditions.

While the first cost of the road or the road system is of very great importance and will probably be the greatest influencing factor for any particular improvement or layout, the continued cost or cost covering a series of years approximating the life of the road surface should also have consideration.

Traffic Census.

—An important consideration in the selection of a road alignment, of its grades, its width, and of the type of its foundations and surfacing, is the amount and the character of the traffic which will pass over the roadway after it is built. The best way to get a reasonable estimate of this is to take a traffic census. This is to be used as a basis and to it should be added an estimate of the increase in traffic which the improvement itself will produce by drawing from parallel and contributing lines, and by the probable change that the improvement will work in the character of the farming, the industries and the settlements along its way.

The alignment will be affected by the quantity of traffic, for the cost of haulage depends, though not proportionally, upon the length of haul. No less will the alignment be affected by the class of traffic. With horse-drawn vehicles curves of 40-foot radius were perfectly acceptable, but with the automobile a 200-foot radius is none too great. The new road systems now being adopted by states quite generally endeavor to make all curves to have radii greater than 200 feet except in mountainous regions, with a preference of 500 to 800 feet.

© Underwood and Underwood

TRAFFIC ON FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY

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The longer radii allow the turns to be made without slowing up the traffic, providing there is proper superelevation of the outer edge. The longer the radius, that is, the flatter the curve, the less superelevation is required, and the less the tipping sensation experienced by slow-moving vehicles on the turn. Moreover, on short curves a considerable widening of the pavement is required in order that the inner and outer edges, and therefore all traffic lanes, may have the same degree of curvature. Also, clear vision for the longer distances necessary for fast-moving traffic is easier to obtain on flat than on sharp turns.

The minimum grade of a roadway is usually a question of drainage, but the character and quantity of traffic is a determining factor in the establishment of steeper grades. Passenger cars can more easily negotiate grades than can commercial trucks. The average passenger car shifts to second gear at about a 7 per cent grade and there is very little shifting necessary on a long 6 per cent grade, hence for such cars 6 per cent may be considered a maximum for the high-speed gears. This same car will have to drop into low at about 10 per cent. Hence from the standpoint of the convenience of operating a passenger car there is no justification in going to great expense to cut a 10, or a 9, or an 8 per cent grade to a 7 per cent grade. For the average 5-ton truck 4 per cent and 8 per cent are the maximum grades for convenient running in high and intermediate. There may and possibly are many other reasons for cutting grades wherever possible. Where time is an element economy is effected by the possible speeds on grades.

The width of the roadway will likewise be influenced by the quantity and character of traffic. With slow-going wagons a width of 8 feet was sufficient for one lane of[236] traffic, but with the automobile safety demands 10, and the Good Roads Conference of 1922 voted that no road should be less than 22.

The best type of foundation and surface is a factor of quantity and class of traffic, and while as yet all engineers do not agree, the numerous experiments now being made may lead to standardization. Just as an example may be mentioned the change that has taken place in the effect of vehicles on waterbound macadam. Under horse-drawn, iron-wheeled wagons and carriages this was considered an ideal pavement. The horses’ shoes and the iron tires wore off of the stones a sufficient amount of dust to keep the road crust well cemented. The rubber tires of the automobile do not do that; furthermore, what dust is on the road is picked up and scattered to the winds. The force of the drive wheels also is sufficient to loosen the stones and roll them from their bed, causing the roadway to ravel and disintegrate rapidly.

These arguments might be multiplied indefinitely, but enough has been given to demonstrate the value to the road planner and the road designer of a traffic census.

Methods of Taking Traffic Censuses.

—It is well known that the traffic on any road is not constant. A count, then, made on a single day could not be applied for an entire year. Counting every day for the year would, of course, give a correct total, but that is impracticable. It is customary, therefore, to take the count on a limited number of days and consider their average to be the average for the year. There seems to be a seasonal variation in traffic and a weekly variation. The season variation in crops affects all sorts of commercial enterprises, of which the road traffic is one. Sunday traffic is largely pleasure traffic, and is more dense as a rule than week-day traffic, which is partially pleasure and partially business. In France, where more regular and scientific censuses have been made than in any other country, the counting days are divided uniformly between the seven days of the week and the four[237] seasons of the year, in order to eliminate, as far as possible, the periodic variation. The number of counting days per year is therefore, 28, and these are so arranged that each of the days of the week figures once in each quarter. The interval between counting days is, consequently, 13. For 1923, then, the count might be made as follows:

This method distributes the counting days uniformly over the entire year, but evidently the expense would be considerable unless it can be done by the regular patrolman. For the purpose of laying out a system of highways quicker results might be desired. In Massachusetts, Connecticut and other states two counts were made about two or three months apart. If one were taken in July, say, and another in October and the results averaged it is thought they might fairly represent the year. Each period could cover an entire week, thus giving an average of 14 days during those seasons of the year when traffic might most nearly represent the normal. Blanchard’s method[177] contemplates taking the census in four periods of three days each, one in April, May, or June, one in July, one in August, and one in September or October, as local conditions may dictate. The days selected should include Sunday in order to include the heavy automobile traffic on that day. If further information is desired additional three-day periods could be taken during the winter season.

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Most of the authorities seem to think that the daylight hours from 5 A.M. to 9 P.M. are sufficient. But in the light of the tests being conducted by the Illinois Highway Commission which show alternate convex and concave warping of pavements from day to night it might be well to take account of night traffic.

Some of the latest censuses, namely Iowa and Connecticut, placed scales on the highways and actually weighed the vehicles. In Connecticut road scales were used which weighed the individual wheel loads.

The observers are supplied with cards on which is printed the classified list of vehicles and animals likely to pass with columns for tallying them during the separate hours. The in-and-out-of-town vehicles are recorded separately, and, if actual weights are not taken, whether loaded or unloaded. Information relative to the weather and condition of the roads is also noted, and there are blank spaces for the station, the date, and the signature of the observer.

The station, or stations, should be so placed that the road or district will be fairly represented, since it will not be practicable to get exact data on every portion of a highway, for every turn-out, branch line, or tributary will alter results. Each station should be established in some place where a good view of the road for some little distance may be had, and where the observers may be reasonably comfortable. The number of observers will depend upon the amount of traffic and the detailed information desired. With considerable traffic it may be necessary to divide up the work, giving one set of observers the in-traffic and another the out-traffic, one man to observe passenger automobiles another trucks and delivery wagons, or one man to jack up and weigh front wheels and another rear. System will result in more accurate results, and in less loss of time for the drivers, and less congestion of traffic. It is customary to take the census over the entire system on the same days although that is not absolutely necessary.

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Classification of Traffic.

—The object of a classification is to obtain: (a) the maximum loads and average number of heavy loads per day. (b) The lighter loads, whether horse drawn or motor driven, iron, solid rubber or pneumatic tire, trailers, traction engines, animals, harnessed and unharnessed, and any other load which might affect the wear of the roadway. (c) Any other interesting data regarding the traffic, such as, local or through, cars belonging within or without the state or county, camping parties, and so on.

Maximum wheel loads are required, primarily, to see if state regulations regarding them are being complied with. In the Connecticut census it was found that a majority of trucks were loaded beyond their rated capacity and many of them beyond the legal maximum wheel loads.

Again heavy loads stress a pavement near to its elastic limit every time they pass over it. It is well established that any structural material when stressed near, to, or beyond the elastic limit will become fatigued with repeated stresses. The higher the stress the quicker they will fail by fatigue. It is not considered good practice to stress a material, especially a brittle material, repeatedly to a point half-way to its elastic limit. (The elastic limit is that stress that may be given to a body without producing a permanent set; below which it will return to its original shape upon the removal of the stress.) A walnut may not crack at the first blow but with a sufficient number of no harder repeated blows will crack. The higher the stresses the sooner the crack occurs. So it is important to know how many loads daily are stressing a pavement near to its elastic limit. From all the loads it has been the endeavor of road engineers to work out “importance factors” that will measure the relative damage done by the several classes. The Road Board of Great Britain has adopted the British ton as a unit and calculations are based on the traffic in tons per yard of width per year or per mile.[178]

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The British Road Board Unit Weights are as follows:

The French unit of traffic is technically known as the “collar,” a draft animal harnessed to a wagon being counted as 1.0. The metric ton, 1000 kg., is also sometimes used. The French, feeling that the dead weight of a vehicle or animal did not truly measure its effect as to wear on a road surface, classified the traffic and assigned importance factors to the several classes. From 1882 to 1903 the classification consisted of: 1st, Trucks and farm wagons, loaded; 2d, Public vehicles designed for transporting passengers and their baggage; 3d, Light vehicles, such as private vehicles, and empty farm wagons; 4th, Larger animals, such as horses, mounted or not, mules, and[241] large cattle; 5th, Small beasts, such as sheep, goats, and pigs. In 1903 motor vehicles were separately listed; they were divided into five classes: 1st, Metallic-tired automobiles, “which in general are heavily loaded, have a slow movement and produce the effect of wearing away the road surface”; 2d, Elastic tired automobiles licensed to make a speed of not more than 30 km. per hour; 3d, Automobiles whose speed was less than 30 km. per hour; 4th, Bicycles or velocipedes propelled by the feet of the rider; and 5th, Motor cycles, whether having two, three, or four wheels. The report of the second international road congress further states that “it is necessary to attribute to each element of the traffic an importance which belongs to it from the viewpoint of the destructive effect exercised on the road crust.” Consequently the numbers of vehicles or animals in the several classes were modified by multiplying them by importance factors arbitrarily assumed.

From this it was possible to reduce all traffic to the unit “collar,” which was used as a comparative measure of the[242] use of the several roadways. The tonnage was calculated by multiplying the numbers by average weights obtained by weighing a sufficiently large number of the units in each class.

Consideration was also made of the weight of the useful load as separate from the weight of the vehicle itself. Animals not harnessed were considered as a part of the useful load.

In Italy traffic censuses followed practically the same classification and methods as in France.

In the United States some of the states have used coefficients of reduction, or importance factors, while many others have contented themselves with a count of vehicles only.

In 1910 Maryland used the following:

The New York State Highway Department took a census in 1909 in which the following classification and reduction coefficients were used:

The Massachusetts Highway Commission, 1912 Report, say, “After all it is not numbers which tell the story, it is weight, and it is not weight alone, but the vehicle by which it is transported, whether by horses or by motor.... All these considerations are probably not so important on many road surfaces as the actual weight imposed upon the road per inch width of tire resting upon the road.” There was used in this census the following weights:

James and Reeves, with the United States Bureau of Public Roads, recommend the ton-mile basis and give the following weights:

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In a traffic census taken by the Borough of Brooklyn, New York, the weights were reduced to traffic units per minute per foot width of roadway which was called density. By this rule, “the number of vehicles passing a given point in eight hours times the traffic unit divided by 8 times 60 times the width of the roadway equals the density.” The weights and traffic units used were:

A suggested form for a traffic census sheet presented by a committee appointed to study the question of traffic censuses to the New Jersey State Association of Roads is shown on p. 245. This sheet also bears, for the use of the office, blanks for the tabulation of the traffic by classes:

[245]

SUGGESTED FORM OF TRAFFIC CENSUS SHEET

Destructive Factors.

—From the above it appears that there is a general opinion that there should be some common measure for the destructive effect of vehicles upon road surfaces. As yet no unanimity of opinion has crystallized. While density of traffic influences the surface wear of the road crust—considerably in the case of earth and gravel, less for macadam and asphalt, and still less for brick and concrete—the actual weight of the wheel load[246] seems to have a much greater destructive effect. The impact due to speed and irregularities of the road surface, the resiliency of the tires, the proportion of sprung to unsprung weight, and the shoving forces of the wheels all have their effects which are usually in some way connected with either the weight or the speed, or both, of the vehicle. The many experiments now being carried on by the United States Bureau of Public Roads, and the several states may furnish data from which a practical measure will some day be devised. Mr. Older, Chief Highway Engineer of the State of Illinois, under whose direction the comprehensive investigational and endurance tests under way in that state are being carried on, recently stated to a party of visitors, of which the author was one, that in his opinion weight, including impact, is the prime factor in the destruction of a pavement. Wear is of very minor importance, temperature and weather is of considerable importance.

Road surfaces must be considered as bodies acted upon by forces. Some day the stresses produced by these forces will have been analyzed, then will it be possible to standardize the importance of the several vehicle loads. At present it is known that the weight of the load and the weight of the pavement itself are under some circumstances sufficient to produce cracks in the pavement and disruption of the road crust. Bearing tests and bending tests are being devised to measure the effects of such loads. Road crusts, earth, gravel, macadam, asphalt, brick, concrete, are to varying degrees elastic bodies and when loaded they give, as an elastic band stretches, a spring shortens, or a bow bends, until the internal stresses reach a limiting point where the crust is broken or permanently distorted. It is well known that the effect on an elastic body of a suddenly applied load is twice as destructive as the same load gradually applied. And when the action is an impact the destructive effect may be very great indeed, depending on the physical properties of the impinging bodies. But however the load is applied, whenever the internal stresses reach the limiting strength of the material of which the[247] road crust is composed it will go to pieces. The sudden application of the load by fast driving is a sort of impact. The stresses produced by this impact are now being studied. Much good is expected to come toward the solution of the problem of destructive vehicle influence from these researches.

Another effect of speed is noted on the more or less viscous materials of which road surfaces are composed. The pushing of the wheels against the surface causes wrinkles which continue to grow until the wrinkles become waves entirely across the pavement. Such waves may also be produced by expansion and contraction due to changes in temperature, but are probably always accentuated by wheel pressure. Side thrust of wheels often produces longitudinal waves in viscous road crusts.

In the classifications given no one seems to have considered the proportion of sprung and unsprung weight in the motor car. There can be no doubt but that the resiliency of the springs relieves the pavement of very much of the shock of impact. This is illustrated by an attempt to drive a nail into a springy board. It can hardly be done because the springiness of the board uses up, absorbs, the work of impact. A mechanical statement is, the work of impact equals the change in kinetic energy, or algebraically stated

Fs = Wv²2g

when the entire energy has been absorbed. Here F is the acting force and s the distance through which it acts, Fs, is the work done by the force F. W is the weight of the ram or moving body (vehicle, wheel load), v the velocity of impact and g the acceleration of gravity, a factor that enters the equation in the expressing of mass in terms of weight. Solving this equation for F there results,

F = Wv² 2gs,

[248]

which shows that the smaller s is the greater the force of impact F. When s is made long by means of a spring the force F becomes smaller. This is illustrated by the old method of catching a baseball without gloves—the hands were allowed to go backward so that the work of stopping the ball was spread over a greater distance, the impact force thus becoming so small it did not sting the hands.

The effect upon the road, and also the vehicle, is like that of the hammer which hits a nail on the anvil. The nail is flattened, pounded to pieces very soon. But if the nail were not placed upon the solid anvil but upon a slab of springy steel, it might be pounded all day without doing it much harm, the spring at all times absorbing the shock. So with the weight of the vehicle largely sprung the damage to the roadway is comparatively small. Therefore, it would seem, as though a fair classification would take into account the springs of the vehicle.

The pneumatic tire, and the cushion tire and wheel, each act as springs and shock absorbers in varying degrees. In some of the censuses, pneumatic or solid tires were noted, and very many of the earlier noted whether rubber or steel tires were used.

Just how far all these things should be taken into account is questionable. Whether or not just as good results would not come for even a simpler classification is not yet determined. It might be that only the heavy loads and their frequency is all that need be considered if the destructive effect of traffic alone is aimed at.

The great amount of pleasure riding and the tremendous desire for such riding should be considered in laying out a system of roads and in the selection of a type of road, therefore all passenger cars and motor cycles should be counted and given an influence number.

Other Methods of Estimating Amount of Traffic.

—The amount of road traffic may be roughly estimated from the area served by the highway. Upon a map is outlined the tributary territory and its area measured by any one of several means. The area may be divided into small squares[249] of known size and the number of squares counted; it may be divided into strips and the length of the strips measured with a scale and thence the area computed, or a planimeter may be used. Having found the area the unit tonnage is estimated from a knowledge of the character of the crops raised and the industries in the territory from which the haulage is calculated. The average haul may be determined, if desired, by finding approximately the center of gravity of the area and measuring its distance from the market. If the market place is at the center of a circle surrounding it and the products are uniformly distributed over the circle the mean distance is two-thirds the radius of the circle.

The tonnage, arising from farms, which is transported over the roads varies with the kind of crop, the fertility of the soil, the amount of stock fed, or kept for dairying, and numerous other local conditions. Studies made by various authorities[179] indicate that the marketable products vary from ¹⁄₁₀ to ¹⁄₂ ton per acre. If a circular area with market place at the center is served by six uniformly distributing radial roads a mathematical analysis will show that the tonnage upon each one of these roads, one-sixth that from the whole circle, will be

T = 335.12qr²

Dividing T by the number of working days per year (usually taken as 300) gives the average daily haul into the market. The average length of haul may be taken as ²⁄₃ r. The haul over any zone whose edges are concentric with the circle is considered to be all that originating in the area outside the zone plus that originating within the[250] zone times the mean distance from the inner edge of the zone. The result of the analysis gives this equation, for the haul over any zone having an outer radius a, and an inner radius b,

H = T_r - T_a + 2a² - ab - b² 3(a + b) (T_a - T_b),

where T_r, T_a and T_b represent the tonnage originating on the sectors of radius r, a and b respectively.

For the first mile,

a = 1, b = 0.

H = T_r - ¹⁄₃T_a.

For the eighth mile,

a = 8, b = 7.

H = T_r - T₈ + ²³⁄₄₅(T₈ - T₇)

Theoretical Average Tonnage of Six Uniformly Distributed Market Roads[180]

[251]

The table shows the theoretical average tonnage on each of six uniformly distributed radial roads. It is taken from Bulletin 136, U. S. Department of Agriculture. Since roads do not run in practice in this manner the results can only be used for comparison in confirming estimates.

Mr. E. W. James, of the Bureau of Public Roads, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, makes an analysis of the distribution of traffic over the roads of a township located along the section lines of the United States land survey. The market place is taken at the center of the township.[181]

Graphic representation of distribution of traffic on roads located along section lines.

His analysis assumes the lay of the country makes all roads equally traversable and that the traffic seeks the nearest highway thence to the main traveled road east and west or north and south through the market center. This analysis shows that 4.8 per cent of the total mileage carry 39.3 per cent of the traffic; that 9.5 per cent of the roads carry 71 per cent of the traffic. In his opinion this analysis corroborates the observation of engineers to the effect that 20 per cent of the roads carry 80 per cent of the traffic.[252] Of course the most important roads, measured in traffic, are the ones nearest the market, 15-22, 15-16, 16-21, 21-22. Following these naming only one of the four symmetrical roads, in the order of importance are 14-23, 14-13, 13-24, 13-x, 14-15, 11-12, 12-x, 12-13, 1-x, 11-14, and 1-12.

The same objections to this method hold as to the preceding. Local conditions always affect the travel on roads; hills, valleys, soil, drainage, nearness to other cities, railways, streams, and location of farmhouses, schoolhouses, churches, and factories, all enter into the estimate. A reconnaissance and the good judgment of the observer must supplement any method of formal procedure.

The Selection of a Suitable Type of Road.

—The highway plan should, if it has been carefully and scientifically made specify the type of roadway as well as the location of the highway. However, when the improvement is to be paid for by a special tax on the abutting land, it is customary to allow the taxpayers to have something to say about the type. Road engineers often object to this as being unscientific and unsound, on the theory that the layman is ignorant of the properties and behavior of road materials and that only an expert can make the proper selection. The author’s observation is, however, that hard-headed business men and farmers who have passed through the experiences of rough knocks are no more likely to make a mistake in the selection of a road type than is the young engineer fresh from the halls of college, or the engineer[253] whose experience has prejudiced him in favor of particular types of road surfacing. The best and fairest of engineers cannot agree, then why not give the man who must pay the fiddler an opportunity to dance?

It will be well, nevertheless, for the engineer to suggest a type, or types, of roadway with his reasons for its or their suitability. If he can show that one type is superior to another the tax-payer will usually follow his advice, and agree to the type suggested. The final decision must rest with the road officials. They should know the requirements of the road, whether, for example, it is to be largely commercial or used largely for pleasure; whether durability or noiselessness is a determining factor; or whether a pleasing appearance and convenience to the inhabitants living along the way are of greater importance than directness and low grades. The decision must be made after taking all things into consideration even to the whims of the property-holders. The best road for a given location is the one which at a reasonable cost will give over a long period of time a service which is most satisfactory to the majority of its users. What is a reasonable cost and what is satisfactory service are debatable questions and usually must be compromised to a greater or less extent.

An ideal road is one that is cheap to construct and maintain, one that is durable, presents light resistance to traffic but is not slippery, is comfortable to travel and not annoying to users or dwellers along its side, and one that is easily cleaned and is sanitary. No road can contain all these qualities to the same degree, neither are they all of equal importance, but each should be given some weight in the selection.

Perhaps the first and most important item to be considered is the economic one of cheapness in construction and maintenance. In making a decision between two types of pavement the first cost will probably have more weight than will the ultimate cost. The fact that a higher priced article will last longer and in the end prove to be a saving[254] has little charm for the man who has not the ready money to pay for the article. He will content himself with the cheaper until he can afford the better. If a community cannot pay for a certain type of road, no matter how desirable that may be, that type cannot be used. Types of roads must be selected which will utilize the materials most available. It would seem to be unwise for brick to be shipped from the Middle West to New England, or granite blocks from New England to the Middle West. Gravel, being plentiful in many states, is being used, and rightly so, more than any other road material notwithstanding the durability of a gravel roadway is less than that of many other types.

Durability is an important factor from an economical standpoint, as it enters vitally in the long-run cost of a pavement. It is also of importance on account of the infernal nuisance of having a roadway full of pot holes and rough places, to say nothing of the inconvenience to users of frequent repairs. Road officers are no more given to regarding the adage “a stitch in time saves nine,” than are other people, consequently non-durable roads are usually more or less out of order.

Durability depends upon the materials used in construction and their manipulation, proportioning, and other treatment; the character weight and density of traffic; system or lack of system in making repairs; the opening up of pavements for water, gas, and sewer or other purposes; building operations along the street; cleanliness; the absence or presence of street-car tracks; climate and possibly other factors.

Materials and Design.

—The physical properties of materials—their tensile, compressive, and shearing strengths, their elasticity, brittleness, etc.—while important elements in the durability of pavements, the design of the pavement, its thickness, the proportioning and mixing of parts, the laying, as well as the subgrade and its treatment are all elements that count very much also. No matter how good a material it can easily be spoiled in the handling. Some materials like vitrified brick and stone will last indefinitely on a little-used street while others like asphalt and creosoted wood block are much better for considerable wear. The use of definite and often meticulous specifications is to insure good materials and proper manipulation of the same, while the plans are carefully prepared ahead, so that durability and satisfaction may result.

© Underwood and Underwood

GIVING A MACADAM ROAD AN APPLICATION OF TARVIA BINDER

This is Followed by a Coat of Screenings and then the Road is Rolled Again.

© Underwood and Underwood

A ROAD OF MIXED ASPHALT AND CONCRETE BEING TESTED OUT

[255]

The effect of character, weight, and density of traffic has been frequently mentioned and will again be referred to in what follows. There is no doubt a relationship between materials and design and the character and amount of traffic. A cinder road may be perfectly acceptable for a park drive where the traffic is light, but absolutely worthless under heavy commercial trucking.

Resistance to traffic varies with different road surfaces. A smooth hard surface offers a very great deal less resistance than does a rough or soft surface. To illustrate, a horse is said to be able to pull directly on the traces one-tenth his own weight without being overworked. With a resistance of 100 pounds per ton (earth road in medium condition) a team of horses weighing 1200 pounds each could draw over a level road 2 × 120010 × 100 = 2.4 tons. On a concrete, asphalt or brick pavement having a tractive resistance of 30 pounds per ton the team could draw 2 × 120010 × 30 = 8 tons. In other words the load that can be drawn is inversely as the tractive resistance. Here speed was not considered. It was the natural walking gait of the horse about three miles per hour. If the speed is greater the load must be cut down proportionally. With a truck the direct pull is the effective power of the engine in foot-pounds per minute divided by distance in feet per minute; and the load that can be drawn is the direct pull times the tractive resistance. Thus if a truck may exert h effective horse power = 33,000h foot-pounds per minute, and the speed is v miles per hour, the load T, in tons, that may be[256] hauled on a road having a tractive resistance of t pounds per ton, is

T = 33,000h 5280v60 · t = 375hvt.

Therefore a truck of 20 effective horse-power will haul over a road whose tractive resistance is 100 pounds per ton at a speed of 10 miles per hour a load of

T = 375 × 2010 × 100 = 7.5 tons;

and on a smooth road with a tractive resistance of 30 pounds per ton at the same speed, 25 tons, or the same load 7.5 tons may be drawn at a speed of 33¹⁄₃ miles per hour.

It must be remembered that when the speed is increased the tractive resistance is likewise increased. The air resistance is in about the ratio of the square of the velocity, so that 33 miles per hour would be too great in the last case.

Experiments to determine the tractive resistance due to the surface vary considerably, for it is impossible to secure like conditions of surface smoothness and cleanliness, to say nothing of hardness. The tractive resistance will with some materials vary with the temperature. That of sheet asphalt, for example, may be twice as much in summer as in winter. The tractive resistance may not be directly proportional to the load although it is customary to express it in pounds per ton. It is conceivable that a heavy load because it sinks into the road crust may require a greater number of pounds to move it than a light load that does not greatly sink in. This also leads to the effect of width of tire and diameter of wheel. Many experiments have shown the tractive force to be less with wide than narrow tires, due, no doubt, to the unequal sinking into the road crust. Likewise wheels ought, for the same reason, to show[257] less resistance for large diameters; in fact some engineers give it as varying inversely as the diameter of the wheel.

The results of tests, while varying much, show in a general way, the direct pull necessary to draw a load at slow speed on the level in well-lubricated wagons to be approximately as follows:

Resistance Due to Grade.

—The resistance due to grade is just as marked as that due to surface. The work necessary to draw a load up an inclined plane is the same as that of drawing on a level along the base of the plane and lifting it directly up to the height of the plane. A mathematical analysis[182] based upon this fact leads to the formulas:

For a horse-drawn load,

L = t - g μ + g H. (1)

For a tractor,

L = P μ + g - T. (2)

[258]

For an automobile or truck,

L = P μ + g, (3)

Equation (3) indicates that the load, including its own weight, that a truck or an automobile can draw varies directly as the horse-power exerted effectively, and inversely as the velocity. Also it decreases as the coefficient of road resistance, μ, and the gradient g increases.

The resistance coefficient, μ may include axle or internal resistance of the vehicle plus road surface resistance plus air resistance. The axle resistance is nearly a constant, the road resistance likewise, but the air resistance depends upon the speed v, varying approximately as the square of the velocity. W. S. James, in the Journal of the Society of Automotive Engineers, June, 1921, uses the formula

F = CAV²

[259]

His researches show that the available engine effort P of equation (3) or horse power h is not quite constant but varies with the speed. His table follows:

Returning to Equation (3) which has been plotted in two different ways on page 260, it may be seen that the load that can be hauled up a grade decreases with the per cent of grade very rapidly for the roads having a small coefficient of resistance and very much less rapidly for larger resistances. For example, on steel rails, resistance 10 pounds per ton, μ = ¹⁄₂₀₀, a 1 per cent grade reduces the load to one-third the load that may be hauled on the level, and a 5 per cent grade reduces it to less than one-tenth of the same load. With a good asphalt, brick or concrete road, resistance 20 pounds per ton, μ = ¹⁄₁₀₀, a 1 per cent grade reduces the load to one-half, while a 5 per cent grade reduces it to about one-sixth the load that can be drawn on a level road. While for an earth road in bad condition or a dry sand road, 300 pounds per ton resistance, μ = ³⁄₂₀, a five per cent grade only reduces the level grade load by one-fourth. This shows clearly that the better the road surface the less the grade must be in order to benefit by it. The plots on page 260 show the same thing in different ways, and also that the maximum load that can be hauled with a given force at a constant speed is greater, no matter what the grade, on the better types of roads than on the poorer, but that the very great advantages due to hard roads come with the better type of roads. Incidentally this plot shows that the load that may be hauled, other things being equal, on steel tracks, is very much greater than that that can be hauled on the best hard surfaced road with same power, therefore it will never be possible to haul loads on highways as cheaply as on railways unless the operating expenses on the highways can be made materially less than on railways.

[260]

Graphical representation of the effect of grade on the load that can be drawn.

Graphical representation of the effect of road resistance on the load that may be drawn.

[261]

Slipperiness.

—Road surfaces which become slippery not only decrease the tractive effort of horses and motors but are very dangerous also. Non-slipperiness ought then to be given weight in the selection of the type of roadway. Observations in London in 1873 by Heywood on slipperiness of pavements indicated granite-block most slippery, then asphalt and wood-block. Greene, in 1885, analyzing a series of observations made in the principal cities of the United States, gave the order of slipperiness as wood-block, granite-block, and sheet-asphalt.

Slipperiness increases with grade. A special committee upon road materials of the American Society of Civil Engineers[183] recommend the following maximum grades for various kinds of pavements:

[262]

This would indicate that in the belief of the committee slipperiness is about in the inverse ratio of the grades. Those on which the steepest grades are allowed being the least slippery.

Climatic conditions affect slipperiness. Roads which are non-slippery in dry weather may be very slippery in wet weather. Pavements having a small amount of clay or earth on them are quite slippery when dampened, but after a hard rain may be much less slippery. Earth roads that have been thoroughly dragged are much more slippery immediately after a small shower than after a hard or soaking rain. Stone blocks and brick are worse after they have worn turtle-backed. Ice and sleet render all pavements slippery, but some more than others.

Sanitariness.

—The sanitariness of a road is the measure of the effect it has on the health of its users and the dwellers along its side. A dusty road is ordinarily an unsanitary one because of the germs of disease carried on the dust particles and which may be widely spread by the wind. An earth or gravel road when not dry or dusty is a sanitary road. A concrete or asphalt pavement when clean is very sanitary, but because dirt and debris brought upon it soon becomes ground into dust may become more unsanitary than an earth road. Mud, when clean, if that expression may be allowed, is sanitary, but when mixed on the road with the droppings of animals, sputum and other unclean things may become very unsanitary.

Noisiness.

—Noisiness is a real source of disease, especially mental disorders. The less noisy types of pavement are usually laid in front of hospitals.

Acceptability.

—The acceptability of a roadway depends in addition to the things mentioned on its looks, appearance, esthetics; on the degree of heat and light which it reflects; upon its springiness and comfortableness to travel over as well as its easiness upon horses’ feet and rubber tires.

© Underwood and Underwood

CROWNING A CALIFORNIA DIRT ROAD WITH TRACTOR DRAWN GRADER

[263]

Some Types of Roads and Their Qualities.

—Earth Roads.—The good qualities are: low first cost, not slippery, noiseless, easy on horses’ feet and on rubber tires, comfortable when in first-class condition. The poor qualities are: high tractive resistance, not durable, high cost of maintenance when traffic becomes dense, requiring constant attention to be kept in good condition, difficult to clean, muddy in wet weather, dusty in dry weather, choppy when dust blows away, rut easily, wear down rapidly under heavy traffic especially in windy localities, uncomfortable except when in prime condition. Adaptability: Satisfactory for light or medium traffic when properly drained and constantly maintained. It will probably pay to put in better roads when the traffic amounts to more than 400 vehicle-tons per day.

Sand-clay Roads.—The good and poor qualities are about the same as for earth roads. In fact they are earth roads with a selected mixture of sand and clay. They are more durable, harder and smoother than the ordinary earth road. They are appropriate for a light or medium traffic and are especially adaptable for sandy stretches or over clay or gumbo soils. The cost will depend upon the availability of materials; the cost of maintenance should be no more or very little more than earth roads. They should be good up to 800 vehicle-tons per day.

Gravel Roads.—The good qualities are: moderately hard, compact, and smooth, not slippery, noiseless, easy on horses’ feet, and not very hard on tires, not muddy, are comfortable, and low in first cost. Poor qualities: rut rather easily and require constant attention to keep them in first-class condition, dusty in dry weather. Gravel sometimes becomes loose on top and rolls under fast moving vehicles, causing skidding. When not thoroughly compacted gravel roads have high tractive resistance. They are particularly well adapted to country roads under medium traffic, especially where gravel may be obtained at[264] a reasonable cost near at hand. At the present time more miles of gravel roads than of any other type of surface are being constructed in the United States. This is because of their low first cost and general satisfactory character for medium traffic.

Macadam Roads.—Moderate first cost and when well compacted smooth but not slippery. They require new dust continually to keep the stones cemented together. Under rubber tires the dust is not worn off the stones and what little there is on the roadway is picked up and spread to the winds. If covered with tar or asphaltic oil the stones cement together and form excellent roadways under medium traffic, where there are no extremely heavy trucks to cut through the surface. Traffic up to 1200 vehicle-tons per day is accommodated well by these roads.

Bituminous macadam roads are ordinary macadam roads impenetrated with bituminous materials. When well made they are excellent roadways, and unless extremely heavy trucking comes upon them ought to prove satisfactory for medium to moderately heavy traffic.

Bituminous Concrete Roads are made of broken stone mixed with a bituminous cement before laying and rolling. They, like bituminous macadam, are smooth, non-slippery, easy riding, have small tractive resistance and the first cost and cost of maintenance are moderate. Such roads have proven very satisfactory where the traffic is dense but not composed of real heavy units. On account of their dustlessness and general sanitary character as well as for their durability they are deservedly popular.

Brick Roads.—Vitrified paving brick give a hard durable surface, reasonably smooth and not slippery. The cost of maintenance is low and the appearance is good. Brick roads are expensive as a heavy concrete foundation is necessary, and they are noisy. They are well adapted for heavy hauling.

Concrete Roads.—This type of roadway is rapidly forging to the front. With the exception of gravel it leads in[265] mileage of hard-surfaced roads. When made of good concrete sufficiently thick it has proven itself to be durable, hard, smooth, of small tractive resistance, comfortable, and not particularly expensive in first cost or maintenance.

With horse-drawn iron-tired vehicles it is doubtful if it would prove as durable as some other types but for rubber tired motorized vehicles it seems to be extremely well adapted. There is no doubt but that this type will continue to be popular. It has a tendency to crack under the action of temperature and moisture. It is customary to fill these cracks with tar, pitch or asphalt, giving an appearance which some people think not pleasing. The pavement is rigid and noisy, therefore objectionable for some localities.

Creosoted Wood Block Roads.—Wood blocks treated with creosote to preserve them from decay make an excellent pavement. They are smooth, durable, noiseless and sanitary, have small tractive resistance and are comfortable to ride upon. The principal objection is their habit of “bleeding” in the summer time. The sticky oil tar that oozes out is very objectionable, as it adheres to shoes and is tracked into houses. The first cost is considerable, but maintenance is low for many years after laying. Wood block roadways seem well adapted for bridge floors, for stable and shop floors, and for heavy teaming when placed on a substantial concrete foundation. They seem to last better for a moderate or semi-heavy use; when left idle they are more subject to decay.

Asphalt Block Roads have proven satisfactory for both country and city roads where the traffic is reasonably heavy. They are laid on both cement concrete and asphaltic concrete bases. They are smooth, easy riding, have light tractive resistance, are not very noisy, and are sanitary. The dark color is rather pleasing.

Sheet Asphalt Roads and Streets, considering their cost, durability, smoothness, ease of riding, low tractive resistance, and general acceptability, are among the most[266] popular roads. What has been said of sheet asphalt will apply to asphaltic concrete of the Topeka specification and bitulithic types. The road is better for use. The asphalt and sand surface has the habit of swelling and cracking when not used. The proportioning and laying of a sheet asphalt surface is a particular job and requires a person of technical knowledge and experience to do it properly. Sheet-asphalt pavements seem well adapted for city streets and roads where there is a medium or dense traffic. With a firm foundation it stands up well under the heaviest traffic. Its popularity is truly deserved. The pavement under some conditions of moisture is inclined to be slippery but when dry is not. Neither is it very noisy.

Miscellaneous.—There are numerous other types of roads that have their proper uses in many localities. Burned clay, shell, furnace slag, coal slack, cinders, plank, corduroy, hay, bagasse, and possibly other materials have and will continue to be used with more or less success. The proper places for their use will depend upon local conditions which every good engineer always takes into account before deciding upon a type of roadway.

Comparison of Roads.

—In order to compare the relative merits of different types of roads weights are usually given to the different qualities entering into the roadway that they may be compared with a predetermined ideal. It must be remembered that such tables apply only to the particular road for which they are made out. No two can be exactly alike.

Here is one adapted from the author’s work on “Highway Engineering.”[184]

[267]

Comparative Table of Several Types of Roadway for Some Particular Locality

Tilson gives the following weights for city pavements having heavy traffic:[185]

[268]

The Forest Service of the U. S. Department of Agriculture presents the following table:

Crosby gives three sets of ideal crusts for country roads: V for main roads, carrying a fairly heavy mixed traffic, W, secondary roads carrying moderate traffic, and X on minor roads with light farm travel almost wholly.[186]

[269]

Anderson gives the following economical table to assist in arriving at a proper type of surfacing:[187]

Method of Making Economical Comparison of Road Surfaces

The choice of selection here is evidently between B and C, with the figures so close together that the one with the least number of uncertainties would probably be adopted if economy is the determining factor.

Another method of making economical comparisons is shown in the table and plot following:

[270]

Plot showing cost of several types of roads under varying traffic density. When the traffic density of road No. 1 (Earth and sand clay) becomes greater than 300 or 400 vehicles per day the curve would turn up because the maintenance costs would be increased. Similarly for Nos. 2 and 3 for 1600 to 2000 vehicles per day.

[271]

SELECTED REFERENCES

FOOTNOTES

The creation of economic utilities by the application of the mental and physical powers of man to the materials of nature is called production. Grass grew abundantly for thousands of years over the great plains of the Mississippi valley, but there was no production until it was utilized by the hand of man for economical purposes. Just so far as change came to that grass through the application of labor, physical or mental, or stored up in capital, there was production. Productive activities may be classified as those which have to do with: (1) a change in form, (2) a change in place, (3) a change in the potential time of use. Productive activities add to the materials as received other values, namely, form utilities, place utilities, and time utilities. The farmer through the processes of sowing, cultivating and harvesting, is instrumental in changing the elements of nature into grain, of adding form utility; it is transported over the roads and railways to elevators, thus is added place utility; it is there stored until needed thereby the third or time utility is attached. In the illustration just given wheat stored in the bin is considered the finished product. But a finished product of one productive activity may be the raw product of another. For instance, the wheat is taken from the bin and ground into flour, the flour transported to the place of storage, and held as a finished product until it is wanted by another productive activity in which the flour is the raw product. The baker takes the raw product, flour, molds and bakes it into bread, which is held by the merchant for sale.[274] The wheat thus has passed through the three productive processes three different times. Other things may have passed through more before the final consumptive process occurs.

Production is very commonly thought of as being only the first one of the three operations, but the changes brought about by the transporter and the merchant are productive of economic wealth through the application of human physical and mental efforts hence are as truly a part of production as is the first operation.

The factors which enter into production are by some economists given as nature and labor, by others as land, labor, and capital. Under nature or land are included all natural elements, external to man, such as the forces of cohesion, gravitation, of moving air and water, and also the stored-up riches of nature. Under labor are placed all those things or utilities which have been added by the application of human endeavor, either mental or physical. Physical strength in and of itself is not sufficient, for the productive output increases with mental strength. The ox or the horse is capable of exerting greater physical force than is man, but without the guiding, directing force of man’s mind it would produce nothing. Moral qualifications are also placed under the general heading “labor” as they affect production. Temperance, dependability, prudence, frugality, etc., have in them productive elements of importance the same as the intellectual qualifications of quick perception, alertness, imagination reason and judgment.

Capital has been frequently defined as stored-up labor. It is the finished product of some previous effort, but as wheat and flour may be considered as intermediate products between nature and bread, so capital may be looked upon as an intermediate product between nature and more labor necessary to produce anew. “Its own origin, its existence, its subsequent action are nothing but stages in the continuous working of the true elements, nature and[275] labor.”[188] Capital—raw materials, tools, machines, buildings, equipment, means for transportation and selling, stored products—is absolutely essential to more production, hence may be considered as an independent factor, although it may have been the product of previous labor allied to natural powers.

From what has been said it will be readily seen that transportation and marketing (selling) are a part of the process of production. Transportation can be divided into two classes: primary, transportation upon the public roads; and secondary, transportation on railroads, canals, steamboats and steamships. Marketing is likewise divided into two classes: wholesaling and retailing. The wholesaler buys goods in quantity from the manufacturer and sells them to the jobber who in turn sells them to the retailer. The jobber usually divides the larger purchased quantities into smaller or job lots in any quantity suitable to the retailer. The wholesaler and the jobber may be combined into one individual or firm. The jobber will, usually, not sell directly to the consumer; he sells only to retailers. The retailers frequently have a sort of “gentlemen’s” agreement with the jobber not to buy directly from the producer. This sort of complicated machinery often involves more expense than direct trading. After each of the transactions mentioned there is usually a change of place and a waiting in store.

Grain Exchanges.

—In the grain business there has been developed a great system of selling through commission merchants, that is, the selling agents take commissions on the sales for their remuneration. A limited number of the commission merchants of a particular city organize themselves into incorporated bodies for the purpose of providing themselves with houses and facilities for doing business and establishing rules for the transaction of the same. Such organizations with places of doing business are known as Grain Exchanges or Boards of Trade. The Board of[276] Trade of Chicago, the most noted grain market in the world, was established in 1846.

Mr. Vincent of the Omaha Grain Exchange explains the matter as follows:[189]

Vincent’s theory that the board of trade is the “location where” is hardly inclusive enough, for only a favored few who have “purchased seats” or are stockholders of the incorporation are privileged to buy and sell on the board of trade, that is, are a part of an organization known as a board of trade. His own pamphlet states that he is a “Member of the Omaha Grain Exchange.”

Vincent defines a commission merchant as “the agent of men (1) who do not have enough grain to sell so they[277] can afford the time and expense to come with the grain so as personally to make the sale, and (2) who would be meeting strangers and who would not know which of the buyers might want the particular kind or grade he might have for sale.” He contends that it is not only an economy to the seller to employ the services of the commission merchant but that it is necessary to have the selling done by some one “who knows who the buyers are in the various lines—corn, oats, barley, and wheat of the different kinds and qualities,” and who knows “the inspection rules and sees that the grain is properly graded—in short” one who “does for his employer, or principal, all those things that he would do for himself if he were in the central market and acquainted with the buyers.”

Vincent upholds the custom of dealing in futures, as it furnishes a sort of insurance to the legitimate dealer in grain. When the local dealer buys, say, 10,000 bushels of wheat which by ordinary methods of business may require from two to four weeks to get to the terminal marketing point, he at the same time sells on board of trade 10,000 bushels for future delivery, thus “hedging” the purchase. If wheat goes up he gains on the actual wheat in transit but loses on his hedge. If wheat goes down he loses on the 10,000 bushels in transit, but gains on his hedge; thus, either way, the one transaction balances the other so there is no gain, and no loss, except the cost of the hedge, and hence no speculation. Hedging is, in short, a sort of insurance that protects the dealer should the price of grain fall between the time he purchased it and the time of selling it at the terminal. The process of hedging when honestly carried on is a stabilizing operation and according to Vincent “effects the commercial transfers of grain from farmer to miller at a less expense than is involved in the marketing of any other product of human endeavor—at less expense than would be possible if grain merchants alone carried all the risk—the speculation.”

Coöperative Marketing.

—Coöperative marketing associations and the intermediate dealer, that is a man who[278] buys directly from the producer and resells to other purchasers, are said to have two points of superiority over the commission merchant: (a) The care and solicitude of the owner replaces the zeal of the agent; (b) by combining the products of many they are able to handle large quantities and thus secure better shipping rates, and take advantage of other benefits of quantity business. The farmer or local dealer, or coöperative association, ships to the commission merchant only in carload lots. The freight charge, nowadays, no matter what the custom may have been in the past, is the same whether one or a dozen cars are shipped at a time. There may be some favoritism in the securing of cars when asked for by the large shipper. The inspection charges are fixed by law. The commission merchant’s fee is a percentage of the sale and thoroughly regulated by custom and the rules of the grain exchange. The commission merchant being acquainted with buyers can usually place all grain the day it is received, so the advantage, if any, of an intermediate dealer are more in name than in reality.

With the idea of eliminating some of the cost of marketing coöperative associations have sprung up over the whole country. While there are many advantages of coöperation, such as by pooling interests, larger quantities can be handled in one bulk, thus getting any advantage that might come in freight rates. Also where large quantities are collected it is practically always possible to take care of buyers; or, the agency may know where to find buyers when an individual would not. The buyer for overseas exports wants to get his grain in as large lots as possible to reduce handling charges. The association usually has facilities to examine and separate the grain or other commodities into the several grades, and the buyer can rely on the grade being as stated by the seller. In the case of some perishable goods, such as fruit, the association advertises freely, spreading the cost over many raisers, and creating a desire on the part of consumers for the association’s[279] named brand of fruit. “Sunkist” lemons and oranges and “Sun Maid” raisins are household words due to extensive advertising by their respective coöperative associations. Coöperative associations purchase from non-members and profits on these purchases go to the association and in due time are distributed to its members. The California Fruit Growers’ Exchange advertises itself as “A non-profit coöperative organization of 10,500 growers.” The object of all such associations is two-fold: (1) To decrease the cost and trouble of marketing, and (2) to increase the common desire for their products. Both of which will tend to increase the grower’s profits.

The grain merchant, whether in business as a dealer for himself, or a coöperative concern must have an elevator, or place, where the grain may be collected and prepared for the larger market. Fruit dealers have houses for the collection and care of the fruit. Since these commodities are collected a little from one, a little from another, or for ripening, grading, or other purposes, they must be kept usually several days before the car is loaded. After it is loaded there is quite a little time before it reaches its destination. During this time there is money invested in these products, that is, capital is required. The local banker is called upon to help finance the purchases. The elevator company or fruit company has some capital, he depends upon borrowing for more. The banks when commodities are freely moving are frequently severely taxed to furnish the required money for the movement of crops. The banks at the terminal markets are also stressed for they are furnishing money to the buyers there, and the export commodities are paid for by money from abroad. So that many financial institutions are intimately interested in the crop movement capital.

Whenever a local dealer consigns a car load of wheat to a responsible merchant he can deposit the bill of lading with his banker and draw upon the merchant for some 90 per cent of the value of the grain, providing the dealer has[280] hedged so that there is no chance of loss. The banker will honor the dealer’s checks and hold the credit of the merchant as collateral.

When grain or other food commodities have been stored the warehouse receipt is considered the best possible collateral for bank loans. Mr. Forgan, president of the National City Bank of Chicago, is quoted as saying:[190] “I have seen the time more than once when high-class stocks and bonds, and even government bonds, could not readily be sold, but I have never seen the time, nor do I ever expect to see it, when anything that has to be eaten could not be sold.” The warehouse receipts, therefore, above alluded to, constitute a collateral which is always available for the payment of debts. Furthermore, if the grain or provisions represented by the warehouse receipts are sold for future delivery, that fact adds a great element of strength to the loan, because there is a third party obligated to take the grain at a certain time for a given price.... The sale for future delivery—the ‘hedge’—is the final link in the chain that makes such loans the best in the world.”

It has been shown that in the production of grain or other farm commodities the three elements, change in form, change in place, and potential change in time enter; while the factors entering are, nature, labor, and capital. These all must be present no matter which method of procedure is followed in the marketing. The cost of marketing must always be counted in the cost of production. A decrease in the cost of any element or factor will of course have its effect on the cost of the whole process. For example, it is claimed by grain merchants that where there is an opportunity to hedge there is less risk and consequently the profits of the middlemen may be less thus decreasing the cost of production.

To get a concrete example of what part transportation bears in marketing the following analysis is made:

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Elements Entering into the Cost of Marketing Wheat Grown in Kansas or Nebraska

The above would indicate that if all wheat were shipped to Liverpool the local price in Nebraska or Kansas should be about 27 cents per bushel below the New York price and 37 cents below the Liverpool price. As a matter of fact the Omaha and Kansas City prices are frequently equal to[282] or exceed the New York prices because there is quite a large local demand for wheat from the mills of the Middle West. It is said nearly one-half the Kansas wheat is milled in that state.

Highway Transportation from Farm to Local Market.

—The table indicates that the highway transportation amounts to about 6 cents per bushel. Had the cost been based on all team hauling it would have been 8¹⁄₂ cents; on truck hauling, 4¹⁄₄ cents. The grand total cost of production would be the

Taking up only the transportation from the farm to the local market point, the question arises, what, if any, effect would a change in it have on the character and amount of farm production?

Let there be considered a zone around a local market point; suppose the width of this zone limited the distance from the market at which wheat can be grown profitably when the hauling is all done by horses. Since it can, according to government authority, be hauled at half the cost by motor truck, other things being equal, the zone of profitable productions would be widened to twice its former width with no greater expense to the wheat grower. Or, looking at it another way, the size of the farm could be somewhat lessened and the farmer still make the same gross sum on his crop. This latter would allow a few more people to live in the same territory as formerly. If again by means of paved roads the cost was further reduced one-half the zone could again be doubled; it is then four times its original width. Also, since a living could be made on smaller farms the tendency would be to increase the rural population. But it is not likely that all farmers under increased advantages would continue to raise wheat. Other crops, more perishable but more profitable, would venture forth.

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Such perishable crops as vegetables, head lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, cantaloupes, watermelons, etc., require dependable marketing facilities. They must be harvested and put on the market at just the right time or they deteriorate in quality and price very rapidly. Crops that could be hauled by team only 4 or 5 miles could be hauled by truck over a hard road easily 20 miles. Near the large cities truck gardeners by virtue of the truck and the good roads have been able to go out 15 to 20 miles and secure land at a very much lower rent, or purchase it on an amortization scheme at no more annual expense for double or treble the amount of land than they formerly paid in rent near the city for the smaller tract. According to Norton outside the large cities of the East market gardening extends back 25 to 30 miles. That it is not uncommon to haul vegetables to market in trucks 40 miles, and that a New Jersey fruit farmer was accustomed to make a 65-mile trip daily to market his fruit in New York City.[191]

Likewise small fruit farming. One acre of land highly cultivated this year, 1922, produced more than $1000 worth of strawberries, which were brought to the railway station every day on a small truck a distance of 15 miles. Raspberries and blackberries will give almost as good returns. Vegetables of all kinds, and cantaloupes and watermelons in favorable localities, will probably bring larger returns. Even potatoes sometimes give a gross return of from $100 to $300 per acre.

It should be remembered that in every case there must be a keen, avid market and adequate transportation facilities. The market, since more than half the people of the United States live in the cities, is likely to be sufficient if the marketing machinery is ample and properly functioning. Horse-drawn wagons may answer the purpose in some places, in others the motor truck, but other crops cannot be marketed without access to the steam railway. For instance, could trucks carry cantaloupes from the Imperial[284] Valley in California to New York City? This requires the steam railway and refrigerator cars drawn in rapid trains. The trucks will greatly widen the zone of cantaloupe culture near the shipping point. The same may be said of citrus fruits from Florida and California, tomatoes and watermelons from Texas, plums from Idaho, apples from Washington, grapes from New York and Michigan, and, indeed, some product from nearly every state of the Union, to say nothing of the non-perishable products.

Stock Raising.

—Marketing facilities and road transportation is greatly changing the character of stock raising. Not so very many years ago the great western plains were covered with large herds of cattle whose owners and caretakers were known as ranchers. The ranch usually consisted of the owner’s residence, which he also used as an office, sleeping and eating quarters for the cowboys, a corral or two for the horses and possibly cattle during the round-up and branding season, though this latter was usually on the open. The cattle ranged and fed upon the wild grass, the cowboys riding around the bunch daily in order to keep track of them. The round-up was held in the late summer while the calves were still running with their mothers and could be identified. The cattle of several ranches ran together and at branding periods had to be cut out—separated. Then the unbranded calves and mavericks were roped, thrown and branded; the bull calves were altered and the herd again turned loose upon the prairies. A little later in the fall they were again rounded-up and those to be sold selected and cut out. These were driven to the nearest railway track and shipped to market, sometimes a train load from one shipping point. During the winter season and in violent storms there were many hardships as well as loss of cattle. The cowboys also had to be on the lookout for “rustlers”—thieves who stole the cattle outright, branded unbranded mavericks they knew did not belong to them, or mutilated brands by placing their own over the rightful one.

Meat from these more or less wild, grass-fed animals was[285] seldom better than second class, and never brought on the market the equal of corn-fed cattle. However, they did furnish a reasonably cheap food and kept down the price of meat.

Along with better roads and markets came a demand for other products; land that furnished the open range was fenced in, and later subdivided into farms upon which were raised grain, hogs, poultry, and perhaps a few cattle. Dairying in many places took the place of stock raising. No longer were the animals driven to market on the hoof. They were fattened upon grain and hay and carried to market in wagons and trucks. Hogs replaced cattle. The turnover is more frequent and they do well on maize, requiring no hay or straw except perhaps a very little for bedding. The corn fed to hogs usually brings about twice as much a bushel as that sold to the dealer.

Since about 12 to 15 miles is the greatest distance hogs may with profit be hauled to market in horse-drawn wagons on dirt roads, there grew up at every small railway station a stock market. The railway company provided stockyards, a series of pens with a chute for loading. The dealers bought from the farmers and placed their animals in the railway pens until a car load was obtained, when they were sent on to the packing house located in one of the large cities. Therefore, between the farmer and the packer there were at least two middlemen, the local dealer and the commission merchant at the terminal stock yards which are nominally under a different corporation than the packing houses.

With the good roads and the motor truck has come much marketing directly by the farmer at the packing-house yards. The Firestone Ship by Truck Bureau, a subsidiary organization of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company of Akron, Ohio, made a careful study of the use of the truck in marketing live stock, and in 1921 issued a bulletin thereon.[192] A detailed showing of the marketing of animals[286] at St. Joseph, Omaha, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis is given. From that bulletin will be copied some statistics and other information that may be of interest. Those wishing the full discussion should write for the bulletin.

Tables are given which “show that at each yard the driven-in receipts during the years 1918, 1919, and 1920 were very much in excess of those of 1917. Of the total receipts (the tables give them each month of the four years) of driven-in hogs at the St. Joseph yards in 1917 approximately 10 per cent were hauled to the yards by motor truck. While the driven-in hog receipts at the same yard during 1918 were twice those of 1917, 40 per cent of this total was driven by truck. In 1920, 60 per cent of driven-in hog receipts were truck hauled. The St. Joseph figures clearly indicate that the truck movement commenced about 1917 and that each of the following years have witnessed decided increases.

“At Omaha truck-hauled receipts appear to have commenced earlier than at St. Joseph; for during the years 1917 and 1918 the best estimates placed the truck-hauled receipts about 90 per cent of the total driven-in receipts, while the year 1919 amounted to 95 per cent of the total driven-in receipts. In 1920 virtually all driven-in receipts were truck-hauled.

“At Cincinnati in the year 1918 more than 90 per cent of driven-in receipts were truck-hauled while in 1919 at least 95 per cent of all stock delivered at this yard other than by freight car came on motor trucks. In 1920 driven-in receipts which were not truck-hauled were negligible.

“Indianapolis has shown the most conspicuous increase in truck delivered stock of any yard in the country. During the last year more than 95 per cent of all driven-in hogs to this yard were delivered by motor truck. It is seldom that team equipment is seen at this yard. At both Cincinnati and Indianapolis on an average day 100 trucks can be seen coming into the yards, while as many as 300 trucks have been counted at Cincinnati in one day, and as many as 450 at Indianapolis.”

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From tables given in the Bulletin are extracted the following data for the Omaha and the Indianapolis yards:

A graphical representation shows the continuous increase of driven-in to the total receipts. The table of percentages and the graphical representation are not given in the bulletin. They show very clearly what happened when the motor truck began to function in 1917. The truck has made a very much more effective showing at Indianapolis than at Omaha. No doubt this is because (1) the average haul at Omaha is longer; Omaha draws from a more sparsely settled country and from longer distances; (2) the roads adjacent to Omaha are nearly all, as yet, earth-surfaced. Only a few hard roads have been built; (3) many of the farms in the Omaha territory are large and[288] sell so many animals at a time that they can easily fill one, two, or three railway cars at a shipment. The percentage of truck-hauled stock will no doubt continue to increase until practically all hogs within the economic radius of truck operation are marketed by motor. When the time comes, if it ever will, when abattoirs are established at distances no farther apart than 100 to 150 miles, making the maximum haul 50 to 75 miles, the percentage of stock handled by the railroads to these abattoirs will be very small indeed. The larger packing houses with the advantages of great quantity production will still be able to reach out into the more remote districts and secure that proportion of animals necessary to keep them going which can not be obtained locally.

Showing the increase of truck-delivered hogs at Indianapolis and at Omaha.

That there is still an opportunity for increases of motor-hauled stock a further quotation from the Firestone Bulletin will show:

“The territory served by trucks in marketing live stock is principally within a 50-mile radius of the market center.[289] In the course of investigation the longest haul which came under observation was 140 miles. The average haul on the days the investigators were at the markets was about 30 miles. The following table gives some idea of the length of hauls at the four different yards:

“While the average haul is 28.95 miles, most of the trucks observed in the course of investigation use solid-tire equipment. This type of equipment had a tendency to restrict the mileage.”

The bulletin also is authority for a statement that 91.3 per cent of the hogs within a 50-mile circle about the Indianapolis yards are carried by trucks, but that only 18.3 per cent at Omaha move that way, and at St. Joseph 10.8 per cent, which indicates to them that there are still great possibilities for the truck, especially as the truck has not come into as extended use at many other packing centers as at the four places treated in the bulletin.

There is no doubt but that pneumatic-tire equipment, and to a lesser extent, the cushion-tire equipment will extend the average haul to 50 miles. Hard-surfaced roads will again extend it 25 to 50 miles, making a haul of 75 to 100 miles not uncommon.

A further effect of the truck and the ease of marketing which it will bring about is that hogs will be marketed in smaller quantities but oftener. The farmer instead of turning off his marketable animals twice a year will send them in four times a year, possibly monthly. The tendency will be to stabilize the market over the several seasons. As[290] yet, the stabilizing, influence of the truck is hardly noticeable.

Average number of driven-in hogs marketed at Indianapolis each month; years 1917, 1918, 1919, and 1920 being averaged.

Average number of driven-in hogs marketed at Omaha each month; years 1917, 1918, 1919, and 1920 being averaged.

Diagrams on pages 290 and 291 show the average monthly number of hogs received at the yards of Indianapolis and Omaha by truck; the years 1917, 1918, 1919, and 1920 being averaged. At Indianapolis, where the roads are good the year around, the receipts from June to December are much larger than those from December to June, the peaks occurring in December and June. In Omaha, on the contrary, the greater number of driven-in hogs came in the other half of the year the peaks occurring in January and[291] July. These may be partially accounted for, in the West, on the theory that January 1st and March 1st are regular settlement days and farmers arrange to meet their obligations then by selling off a batch of hogs. They also plan to reduce the number of their hogs to the minimum during the months of May, June, and July, so as to have few fat hogs to carry through the hot weather. In the Eastern states the farmers seem to work on a different basis. If the selling of live stock could be spread out uniformly over the year prices would be more uniform. An analysis of prices on the Chicago hog market shows that they are[292] usually highest during the summer months, from April to August, the months when the fewest numbers are sold. The advantage which those crops which can be stored without deterioration, such as grain, cotton, wool, and lumber, is manifest. The price of meat is less fluctuating than that of live stock because meat can be kept indefinitely in the cold storage houses at a very small expense. It is quite likely that more good roads and a more extensive use of the truck will tend to a better distribution of live stock marketed throughout the several seasons of the year.

One of the principal advantages of marketing by truck is the less liability of losses in transit. Dealers and owners often crowd too many hogs into a freight car and as a result some smother. Or, if hogs from different farms are placed together in a car there may be fighting, which unduly heats up the hogs with equally dire results. It is reported that at the Chicago yards in 1918 there were removed from cars 24,785 dead hogs and in 1919, 28,356. To be sure many of these cars came from a distance and were, perhaps, several days on the way. But a fat hog is a delicate animal and a stream of cold water from a hose on a hot hog will often kill him instantly. Government figures state that one out of every 319 hogs shipped died in transit; of cattle one out of every 998; of sheep one out of every 936. Losses by motor, because the animals are not crowded so many together, because they are acquainted and do not fight, because the distances traveled are usually such that only three or four hours elapse between the times of loading and unloading, and because the driver is always at hand to quell disturbances and to see that there is no undue crowding, are said to be negligible.

The local buyer at points near packing houses has almost become extinct. These men formerly bought from the farmers and held the stock until they had sufficient number to fill a car. Since they would often have to hold them several days they had to buy on a wide margin to insure themselves against loss, from ³⁄₄ to 1¹⁄₂ cents a pound. Even where the farmer does not own a truck he can get the[293] hogs hauled at a cost of ¹⁄₂ to ³⁄₄ cents a pound, or a saving of about $15 per truck load. If a return load is to be had, such as lumber or feeders the saving will be greater. One difficulty about the return load is the necessity of thoroughly cleaning the truck body. A shovel, a hose with a fair pressure of water, and a hard floor upon which to stand the truck while it is being cleaned are necessary.

Incidentally it may be mentioned that the local stockyards in the way they are often kept are very unsanitary and certainly a nuisance as far as bad smells are concerned as well as a menace to health.

Shrinkage.

—The argument that there is less shrinkage in motor-hauled hogs than in rail-hauled may be as a general rule true, but, according to the Firestone Bulletin, will not net the farmer much, because buyers base the price they are willing to pay on the dressed weight and not the live weight. It is stated that the buyer from long experience is able to estimate with considerable accuracy the weight at which a hog will dress, and that he makes his price offer accordingly. The percentage loss of weight in dressing is, of course, greater for thin than for fat hogs. By grading the hogs into classes the buyer is enabled to discount the price paid enough to take care of the “fill,” which is said to range from 3 to 5 pounds per hundred weight. But notwithstanding this the fact that the animals are fresher and livelier must have some effect on the mind of the buyer. This may be the reason for the rapid increase of hogs received by truck at the packing houses, being as many as 6800 in a single day at Indianapolis.

Dairying.

—The use to which the motor truck has been put in other industries is fully as important. Many industries use several hundred trucks in their work. Creameries have already been mentioned. The very fact that trucks make regular trips along designated routes is an invitation to the farmers to do more dairying. If John Jones can draw from $50 to $75 a month from the creamery for a few hours’ work each day, Henry Smith living on the next farm is anxious to do likewise. Many good farmers[294] find it to their advantage in the long run to allow the women folks to have all the poultry and creamery money while the men content themselves with the returns from grain, livestock, woodlot, and hay land. Thus is created a division of labor which if carried out to the limit will interest every member of the rural family in some particular part of the farm work.

Without going into detail it may be said that from raising beef on the natural grass of the plains region to the raising of stock for butter, milk and cheese may seem a far cry, but with adequate markets and dependable transportation this is rapidly coming to pass. Dairying has already reached enormous proportions, and since it is estimated that dairy products should constitute for the sake of health and economy about one-fifth the average diet, it can easily be seen that dairying always will be of great importance. Over $18,000,000 a year is now received for milk and cream by Nebraska farmers, and Nebraska is not a leader in this line. No doubt with better roads and better marketing facilities that will be doubled or trebled in a few years.

Poultry.

—We have just mentioned the Nebraska income from milk and cream sold by the farmers. It may be surprising that the sum received from the humble hen is nearly twice as much (given by state authorities as $35,000,000 from the fowls and eggs produced each year).

But the only way this can be successful is by quick and adequate markets. Dressed fowls and eggs are highly perishable products and must be put into the cold storage warehouses at the earliest possible moment. The motor car and the rural express, with their necessary accompaniment good roads, make this possible and thus increase the returns to the poultry industry as well as widen the territory over which it will pay to keep fowls for commercial purposes.

As an illustration of the efficacy of the motor truck in the poultry business this quotation from the New York Times, June 8, 1920, is given:[193]

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Diversified Farming.

—Before leaving the farm it might be well to say that easy marketing makes for diversified farming. All eggs are not put in one basket, and in case of a failure or partial failure in one crop the effect is not felt so much because there are others from which returns will be received. Often drought will injure a wheat crop but later rains will “make” the corn crop; or, earth soaked by winter snows will mature a wheat crop while the corn may, due to a few days of hot dry weather, be a partial failure. While chinch bugs may get the wheat, it is possible to kill potato bugs by spraying. And the year the potatoes die by blight may be excellent for alfalfa and timothy. Diversified farming also allows of the rotation of crops, thus conserving the fertility of the soil. And it all can be done over a wide range from the market place because of good roads and easy marketing facilities.

Forestry.

—Realizing that the lumbering methods in vogue in this country since its earliest settlement are most wasteful and are destructive of the future usefulness of the timbered regions the United States Government has set aside as forest reserves several hundred thousand square miles. A forest crop is like any other crop. It must grow from the seed and at maturity be harvested. Those trees that have reached the point in life where years do not add materially to the lumber content are marked for cutting. So that each year brings a harvest. New trees are planted[296] or allowed to spring up where the old were cut so that there is a continuity. It is estimated that there yet remains some 550,000,000 acres of forest land unsuited for agriculture.

The older lumbering methods meant that a company gained control of a tract of timber land, sometimes they had not purchased it, it was really government owned, and cut and slashed all the trees that were upon it. No attempt was made to utilize any of the tree except the bole; the limbs, containing thousands of cords of good wood, were left with the slash to become the prey later of fierce fires, which often got beyond the bounds of the cutting and destroyed millions of acres of growing timber.[194] At a still earlier day the trees were cut so that they would fall with their tops together, then they were burned in order to clear the land for farming purposes. The only reason settlers did not go to the great prairie lands of the Middle West where such wanton destruction was unnecessary, was the lack of means for rapid transportation, and communication.

Even the loggers and lumbermen were often isolated from all civilization except their own party or neighboring parties of like kind, with no roads but the trails of their own making. The highways of commerce were the streams and rivers to which the logs were rolled or snaked by oxen, mules, or horses, and down which they were floated in the spring when the flow was sufficient to carry them. When they reached the larger rivers they were often bound into rafts and floated hundreds of miles to the mills for sawing, a cheap means of transportation.

As the timber was cut off near the streams it was necessary to go farther back for logs. Then developed the logging railways. Usually narrow gauge lines with small locomotives which brought logs down from the forests to the streams or to other lines of railway. But as yet scientific means of lumbering had not been adopted. Not until the government by making large forest reserves and by insisting that loggers should clean up and burn the slashes in such a manner as not to injure standing timber, and leave the ground in such a condition that new trees of good varieties would spring up to take the places of those cut, did there come any real advancement along these lines.

© Underwood and Underwood

A MILK TRUCK

Equipped with both Cans and Tank

© Underwood and Underwood

A LUMBER LOG TRUCK

Used in the Northwest

[297]

In order that the better methods of lumbering and forest management could be successfully carried out it became necessary to supply roads of such a character that transportation would not be unduly burdensome. If the trees to be cut were to be selected hither and yon, getting the logs and wood from the tops would be a much more expensive process than the mere rolling of boles to the stream and leaving the slash to decay or burn. The Government, realizing this, is now expending millions of dollars on the forest roads making them usable not only by teams but by trucks and automobiles.

The truck and trailer have rapidly made their way in the logging and lumbering industries. By the use of the trailer and the Government-made good roads the truck is able to haul logs of almost any length down from the logging grounds. Trucks and tractors are utilized in the forests, too, for snaking logs and pulling stumps. In places where the grades are steep or on the interior where the roads have not yet penetrated causeways have been built of timber; these usually being cross-ties, and under trussing across draws, with lengthwise planks for the wheels to run on and side planks or logs to keep the machine on the track. Down this causeway by means of a two-wheeled semi-trailer, immense logs are transported. As they are sometimes very steep, chains on the wheels are necessary to prevent slipping and assist in braking.

The average load that a logging truck and trailer will haul is from 3000 to 5000 feet. Larger loads are hauled over snow on sleds, but when distance and time are considered the truck is claimed to be more efficient. F. W. Fenn states that a lumber camp truck to be efficient “must have maximum traction, ample clearance, and proper service and care and be stout enough and strong enough to[298] stand the severest strains.”[195] He further claims that the truck is replacing the older means of transportation, dragging by horses and oxen, skidding down mountain sides, rafting upon rivers, not because it is cheaper but because the great stands of timber are gradually decreasing and the modern method of cutting only properly developed trees is coming into vogue. “Thus the logging industry has developed from one of independence to almost total dependence upon improved transportation facilities, with its consequent problems and expense.”

The hauling of logs down to the water edge by trucks upon natural earth roads and upon specially prepared skidways is said to be cheaper than the narrow-gauge railways formerly in use in the state of Washington.

One of the types of trailers worked out has four wheels, 44 inches in diameter for the front and 46 for the rear with a 10-inch tread all around. The trailer is fastened to the truck by a long pipe coupling. The most satisfactory trailer, according to Fenn, is the two-wheeled rubber-tired with wheels 40 to 44 inches in diameter. Roads which theoretically require steel tires for ironing out ruts would better be planked or otherwise hard surfaced.

Proper attention and routing will greatly prolong the life of the truck. A longer smoother road is rather to be preferred to a short rough one. The depreciation of the truck is figured on a basis of 100,000 miles as its minimum life.

Other Uses of the Truck.

—But the use of the truck in the lumbering industries is not limited to logging. About the saw mills it is used for getting the logs to the saw and taking the sawed lumber away. And at yards, all over the country, for taking the lumber from the railroad tracks to the storage piles and for delivering it to customers. Special loading devices save much time. A gantry or other[299] type of crane will pick up and handle an entire load of lumber at one time.

Amos Log Loader.

—The Amos log loader is described as an efficient loading machine in which a friction drive takes power directly from the drive shaft of the motor truck and by means of a worm gear transmits it to a long winding shaft, or small diameter drum, which extends the length of the truck bed, being mounted parallel to it just under the bed. Loading chains are attached to this drum either at the ends or middle as the driver wishes. The movement is regulated by means of a lever just over the truck step. By a small movement of his foot the driver has control of the friction drive while his hands are free to operate the engine. He can raise or lower the log or stop it at any point. Stopping it if desired so he can leave his position to make needed adjustments of the log, chains, or skids. The small diameter of the winding drum insures steady strong pull. It may also be used for skidding logs into position for loading. It is claimed the truck driver soon becomes very expert as he realizes the possibilities of the loading device. After the logs are loaded the loading chains are used to bind them to the truck.

In the Yards.

—After the logs are sawed the lumber is stacked up in yards either at the point of sawing or elsewhere. It must be hauled to the shipment point and from the cars to the yards. Trucks are applicable for all these purposes. When it comes to delivering the lumber to the consumer a wagon known as a dolly is of great assistance for collecting materials to load on the delivery truck. Most retail yards now deliver their lumber by truck even to a distance of 15 or 20 miles. When an order for mixed grades, sizes, or kinds of materials is received, a light wagon or cart having a dolly upside down for its floor, the whole known as a “dolly,” is used in the loading. The dolly has a roller placed cross-ways of the wagon bed and the lumber is piled directly upon it, care being taken that some long pieces are used for the bottom of the load. The dolly is pushed by hand from place to place in the yard until the[300] order has been filled with the various pieces desired. The truck, which may be out during the time the selection is being made, is backed up to the end of the dolly, the floor of the truck body passing under the lower boards; then by turning the cross roller with a crank the whole load is conveyed to the truck. To facilitate the action another roller is placed in the floor of the truck near its rear end. Both rollers may be turned at the same time. The dolly may have two or four wheels.

A short truck is often arranged for a semi-trailer which may be loaded in a manner similar to the dolly. With two or three of these trailers a busy yard will keep the truck and driver on the road practically all the time at a considerable saving in expense over waiting time if the lumber is loaded directly upon the truck.

Mining.

—The building of railway tracks to mines was at one time a very expensive part of a railroad’s business. It required much expert knowledge on the part of the railroad officials to determine whether or not such a road would pay. In fact a great many miles of such tracks have been abandoned and very likely the loss to the railroad has been equal to that of the mining companies. Motor trucking is to a large extent doing away with the enormous track building that formerly went on in the mining communities. This eliminates the switching charge which seldom paid the railroad, and possibly the trucking is more convenient and cheaper to the mining company. Here again the use of trailers, special bodies, and mechanical loading and unloading devices will greatly expedite the work. When the mine has grown so that the quantity of ore or coal taken out will pay for it a railroad track may be laid without risk of loss to either railroad or mine.

The hauling of mine products a long distance is not altogether uncommon. Transporting borax from Death Valley, California, was formerly done by twenty-mule teams. It is now much more expeditiously and cheaply hauled by motor trucks. And the transport of supplies from point of purchase to interior and isolated mines, or to[301] depots from which they may be continued by pack horses is common practice.

Factory Products.

—Scarcely a manufacturing industry but that owns motor trucks, some of them running into the hundreds. No doubt these trucks have had their effect on the goods manufactured just as any other machine introduced into the process might do. In some instances goods that were marketed through jobbers are being sold directly to the retailer and sent to them by routings which return to the same customer every day, every two days, twice or once a week, or once a month, or in such regular periods the customer may look forward and depend upon the coming. Packing houses by delivering meat with truck directly to the retailer’s butcher block daily have practically driven out of business the old slaughter houses with their unpleasant odors and unsanitary conditions.

Special bodies have been devised for the different manufactured products. A slatted rack accommodates nearly 300 empty barrels; tanks are made to haul milk, gasoline, or other liquids; cracker factories have racks which will accommodate cardboard cartons without injury by crushing; low long-bodied trucks upon which cotton bales may be placed without much lifting lessens the time and labor of loading; different-sized drawers on the inside of a body have been used to take clothing-store goods to customers in outlying districts; plumbers fit up shops on wheels, claiming thereby to save time and expense to their patrons by not having to go back to the shop numerous times in the course of a job to get tools and supplies; furniture and automobile trucks have large roomy bodies to carry bulky but not very heavy goods. Hoists, cranes, tipping bodies, combination bodies, conveying belts and chains and many other devices facilitate rapid unloading and loading.

By sending goods from factory to retailer by motor railway terminal expense is cut out. Just how far it is profitable to send goods by truck is a question depending on the relative terminal charges, the hauling rate, and the collecting charges. The collecting charges at a factory might[302] or might not be the same for shipments by rail and by truck. If the railroad switch is such that there is no hauling from factory to car except that on the floor of the factory itself, there would be no difference, otherwise there would be the expense of hauling to the loading tracks. If the expense of selling is not affected by motor hauling the only thing to be considered is the actual cost of transportation. If this be taken to be made up of two items, namely, terminal costs, and hauling costs, the distributing charge by railway may be written:

D = T + Rx

The distributing charge by truck would be a similar equation

d = t + rx

where the letters represent the same items referred to the truck. If D is made equal to d, there results,

t + rx = T + Rx

and,

rx - Rx = T - t

x = T - t r - R.

Railroads do not separate the terminal and hauling charge for the good and sufficient reason that if this be done there are a number of other factors of transportation that could with equal reason be segregated. The terminal costs, and by that is considered all the expense except the actual cost of haulage, has been variously computed. G.M. Jones, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, United States Department of Commerce, estimates “that the average expense of hauling a ton of freight[303] 240 miles is 74 cents while the cost of handling the same freight at the terminals is 75 cents.”[196]

A more definite and possibly more accurate statement is that of the Inter-State Commerce Commission, also quoted by Lane, p. 53:

An example may be worked out with the assumption that the railway terminal charge is 30 cents per hundredweight, the truck terminal charge is 10 cents, the railway haulage charge is 0.02 cent per hundredweight mile and the truck haulage charge 0.3 cent per hundredweight mile. Then the economical length of the haul must not be less than

x = 30 - 10.3 - .02 = 20.28 = 200028 = 5007 = 71 miles.

The length of haul varies directly as the difference in terminal charges and indirectly as the difference in rates.

The example given should not be applied generally, but each case must be considered by itself. If there are collecting and marketing costs, they may be added to the terminal costs and the sum treated as a terminal charge.

Construction.

—It will hardly be necessary here to take up more individual cases. The almost universal use of trucks in the handling of materials of construction no doubt has affected the quantity and cost of construction, truly a productive process. Everyone is familiar with one or[304] more of the many devices for loading and unloading, for in this class of haulage these things have reached a very high state of development.

Other Agencies.

—It is not the intention here to claim for the motor car entire credit for the manifold changes in marketing—buying and selling—which have occurred during the past two decades. Many other factors have entered into these changes and the corresponding advancement in the average standard of living. Transportation of all kinds, upon the highways, upon the railways, upon the waters, by telegraph, by telephone, by improvements in the postal service, and by the general increase in knowledge through the schools and printed literature, have all been instrumental in the development. But the automobile directly and indirectly has stimulated each of these activities and hence deserves credit with the rest.

SELECTED REFERENCES

FOOTNOTES

Highway financing may be divided for consideration into two parts, namely: financing the road and financing the operation of the road. Both are necessary if goods are to be transported from where they are plentiful, grown, manufactured, or stored, to where they are needed for sale, consumption or transshipment. Money is required for both parts and it must be obtained in some legal manner.

As has been shown roads developed from mere trails that originally were paths along which by common consent, force, or otherwise the privilege of passing was gained. This, when ownership in land was recognized, became an easement. After the development of civil governments the right to traverse and transport goods over such roadways, that is, the easement, was vouchsafed to the inhabitants and protected by laws. In England the right of way over another’s land became known as the king’s highway, as all public property was held and measures taken in the name of the king. In the United States it is known simply as a public highway. The highway is in reality the right of passage, not the beaten track, for in both England and the United States the laws recognize the privilege the traveler has when for any reason the road becomes blocked or obstructed of taking to the fields and making another track. Equity courts may grant damages for such usage of private land by the public but no court will attempt to prevent it; if necessary they will, however, by writ of mandamus command road officers to repair the established roads so as to make them passable. In England the law[307] allowed the traveler to turn into the adjacent field, whether cultivated or not, whenever the track became worn or rutted. In order to keep the used way within due bounds and at the same time maintain it in a passable condition the freeholders, perhaps at first voluntarily then by force of laws, worked the roads once or twice a year. By doing this they saved their lands and crops from being trampled down. It has also been shown how Edward I took up the question of improving the highways as a police measure in order that it might be safe for man and goods to pass along the road without being attacked from ambush by robbers.

Such robberies have taken place in the development of every land, and those who have made a profession of it are variously styled highwaymen, bandits, brigands, and so on. Even to the present day, as has been shown in a preceding chapter, highway robbery still exists, although the profession of highwayman no longer commands the respect of reputable society as was the case during the time of Robin Hood, and Claude Duval of England, and of the Robber Barons of Germany.

Thus the public good demanded that the time of the freeholders and the money of the government be expended upon the highways. Of late years in the United States the “working out” of road or poll taxes has been practically abolished and the taxes are collected in money which is expended in road construction and maintenance by persons regularly delegated for that purpose. With the increased use and the building of better types of roadways more and more money is demanded so that the financing of highway improvements has become a matter of vast importance. The money must come from either private sources or from the public. If from the public it results directly from taxation or is borrowed and the obligations paid off by taxation.

Private Financing.

—A few persons of wealth have built roads as a benefaction to the public. Perhaps one of the most ambitious projects of this sort is the DuPont Road, which is located through the state of Delaware from north[308] to south. The intention of the DuPont family is to make this road eventually one of the finest in the world. It has been very carefully laid out and constructed. Later it is to be widened and beautified. Some $3,000,000 have already been expended, and it is contemplated to spend $1,500,000 more. It might be well if more men of wealth would commemorate their names by constructing and endowing roads.

In spaces about wharfs and depots, although on privately owned ground and privately constructed, the pavement is often used generally as a highway. Such places are of course primarily for the convenience of the steamship or railway companies and they are maintained at their own expense. However, all such expense forms a part of the cost of operation and no doubt is charged to the patrons in the overhead, or it is intended to be a means of advertising in the hope that it will increase business.

In timbered and rough mountainous countries, roads have frequently been built and maintained by the companies interested in lumbering, mining, or other enterprises therein, and thrown open to the general use of the public. Here the companies figure that the benefit to be derived by them more than balances the expense. Furthermore, the use of them by the public, while a minor consideration as far as the road itself is concerned, is a means of maintaining a friendly feeling with the inhabitants.

Turnpike or toll roads, as has already been pointed out, were very extensively built in the days preceding the advent of the steam railway. These were built with money raised by the ordinary methods for financing industrial enterprises. A good many thousands of miles of such roads were chartered and constructed by private capital amounting to millions of dollars before the steel tracks put them out of business. Only a few now remain in Pennsylvania and Virginia with now and then scattered short stretches of roadway, and bridges over larger streams elsewhere, and ere long they, too, will be taken over by the states and become a part of the great public highway. As[309] late as 1915 a private toll road in Tuolumne County, California, operated by a mining company was purchased by the state and nation, a portion of it being within the Yosemite National Park, and made a part of the California state system. The people will never be content to go back to the inconvenience of being stopped by a turnpike every 4 or 5 miles to pay a toll amounting in many cases from 1 to 2 cents per ton-mile, when the same amount of money in the form of licenses and taxes will keep up magnificent systems of public “free” highways.

Public Financing.

—Every civic government has its methods for the collection of revenue to pay its necessary expenses. One of the easiest things theoretically to do, then, is to collect by a tax on the property of the district—state, county, township—sufficient money to meet expenses, including the building and maintenance of roads, from the property holders in proportion to their wealth and turn it over to the proper officers for expenditure. When roads were yet simple things, before they had become elaborate and complicated structures, that might have been done. Practically, however, even then the working of the roads was a farce; men sat around, told stories, retailed the neighborhood gossip and smoked their pipes or whittled sticks, while the horses hitched to the scraper or plow stood limp with one hip lower than the other, eyes half shut lazily swishing at the flies with their long tails. Soon the necessary hours were passed, their poll or road tax had been “worked out.” The roadway was left in an almost impassable condition to be gradually worn smooth during the intervening six months until it came time again to work the roads. To most of those old timers the working of the road was a necessary evil and done only because the law required it. When occasionally a road supervisor insisted on a full day’s work for a day’s credit he was a skinflint and at the next election lost his job.

The tremendous amount of money necessary to construct present types of roads must, in the long run, be obtained from the citizens through some medium of taxation. A tax[310] is a compulsory contribution levied upon persons, property, business, occupations, privileges, or enjoyment of the people for the support of government or governmental functions. When levied upon persons it is usually called a poll or head tax; when upon property, a property tax; when upon business it may be a capital tax, sales tax or an income tax; when upon occupations, an occupation tax; when upon privileges, a license; and when upon enjoyment, a pleasure tax. A good many of them may be lumped together under the name of revenue taxes. Some are collected personally by a specified officer of the government, while others are collected indirectly by the sale of stamps which are attached to the article or transaction taxed.

Taxes may also be classified as direct, indirect and special, all of which are of great importance to the highway.

Direct Taxes.

—Direct taxes are levied directly upon property or persons. State laws usually prescribe that general property taxes shall be levied uniformly over the assessed values of the district concerned. A poll tax is levied on all persons of a particular age or class, as all able-bodied males between the ages of twenty-one and fifty years. An income tax is levied according to some prescribed rule on the annual incomes of persons and corporations. An income tax is really a tax on business, either present or past.

In either case, whether the levy is on his poll, upon the assessed valuation of his property, or upon his declared income, the taxpayer contributes, theoretically at least, in direct proportion to his ability to pay. The amount of the tax is definitely ascertained some little time in advance of payment and is collected directly by an officer of government.

The levying of labor or poll taxes on persons living within a particular road district easily expanded to the levying of property taxes to care for the local roads. However, as the cost of road building and maintenance increased the fronting or contiguous property could not stand the entire burden, the zone of taxation was widened[311] to include larger areas, the township, the county or the state, depending on the importance of the highway.

Indirect Taxes.

—Indirect taxes are those not levied upon the various persons or the property of the district, but are placed upon some article of consumption or some article of manufacture, upon imports and exports, or some privilege or pleasure. The government does not look to each individual for its money, but to the seller or manufacturer or importer of the article taxed, or the licensee, or the operator of the theater or other pleasure resort. The amount of the tax is added to the price at which the article is sold or to the fee charged so that it is at last borne by the ultimate consumer, in proportion to his consumption of the article taxed, or the privilege enjoyed.

Federal aid moneys all come from indirect taxes, for the Constitution forbids the national government to levy direct taxes.

In Alaska 65 per cent. of the “Alaska Fund,” a fund derived from all returns from liquor, occupation or trade licenses obtained outside incorporated towns, must by Congressional law of 1905-1906; be spent in Alaska for roads, trails, and bridges.

License fees on motor cars and sales taxes on gasoline belong to the class of indirect taxes, and are attempts to charge the user of the road in proportion to the wear and tear produced by him or his consumption of it. If the motor car is an express truck, a bus, or a taxicab the tax is passed on to the patron, and this patron charges it to the cost of living and attempts to pass it on to his employer through increased wages or those who do business with him. It is finally paid for by that visionary personage the ultimate consumer—everybody.

Special Taxes.

—Special taxes are those levied upon property for a particular improvement that is demanded by public interest. They are not uniform but must be levied in proportion to the benefits accruing to the property from the improvement. This class of taxes is very popular for financing the building of roads and the paving of streets[312] as well as other public construction. The area adjacent to the road or pavement for a certain specified distance back, or possibly, halfway to the next thoroughfare, is assessed for the improvement and in road work is technically known as “fronting property.” Each piece of fronting property is required to pay toward the whole cost of improvement an amount proportional to the benefits derived from the improvement.

These benefits evidently decrease as the distance from the improvement increases. They may not always vary in the same ratio, but appraisers will usually follow some definite rule and deviate from it only in extreme cases and as local conditions demand. That they should not decrease directly as the distance but in some geometrical ratio, most engineers agree. Law courts have frequently upheld assessments made upon some such basis.

For the purpose of initiating an improvement by petition it is customary to adopt a fixed scale for the measure of the benefits, based upon distance, that will probably be derived from the improvement. Some legislative bodies have enacted definite rules for evaluating “influence” in petitioning. Generally the rule is based upon some mathematical variation. For example that the assessed value or influence of property of uniform width extending back from the roadway shall vary as the square root of the maximum distance back. In the figure on page 313, a lot of one-unit area fronting the street is given a value of 31.62. This is from the mathematical formula

y² = 1000x

where y represents the assessed value or influence in petitioning, and x, the distance back, considering the value of y = 100 for x = 10.

To draw the curve mark off on a straight line ten equal distances; at the mid-point of these distances or units erect perpendiculars. From the formula calculate values for y as shown in the table; lay these off on the verticals and plot the curve through their extremities. To clarify this[313] some, suppose that upon the center of the first space, there being one unit area or lot here, there is stacked up the value of the assessed benefits 32 (31.62) silver dollars. On the next space, since there are two lots extending back[314] from the street, the stack would contain 45 (44.72) silver dollars—continue this for each space and for the number of lots extending back. A curved line passing through the tops of the stacks representing the assessed values will be the influence curve plotted.

Assessment curve.

For the purpose of initiating an improvement the unit in which the prospective benefits are to be measured is usually adopted by the governing or assessing authorities. Dollars will not do because the cost will not be known until after the improvement has been finished. In the case of roads and streets the unit quite generally used is the “front-foot.” The number of front-feet in any paving district will be the same as the number of abutting feet along the street to be improved. A different definition for “front-foot” is given on page 318. The petitioning power or influence of the several properties constituting the whole frontage is proportional to the number of front-feet assigned to each property, and these are assigned according to the adopted rule which is supposed more or less closely to measure the benefits to be derived from the improvement.

When it comes to paying for the improvement the total cost up to the time of payment, including all charges against the district of whatsoever character, is divided by the number of front-feet giving the cost per front-foot, from which may readily be determined the cost to be assessed to each property according to the number of front-feet assigned to it.

To illustrate this more concretely, consider a road one mile long. Its abutting length is 2 miles, one on each side, or 10,560 feet. The total number of units of influence in the whole assessed area, and the number of units of assessed benefits, is 10,560 front-feet. The number of these units assigned or assessed to a particular plot of land is technically called its “frontage.” Since all land for a specified distance from the roadway must share in the benefits and in the cost, therefore, a piece of property may have[315] frontage even though it does not touch the street or roadway to be improved.

In order to facilitate computation, more or less arbitrary variations are made from the theoretical curve of assessment thought to be ideal. Each infinitesimal portion of land bears a different assessment value according to its position in relation to the improvement. It would be impracticable to divide the land into an infinite number of strips of infinitesimal width and calculate the assessment for each. This could be done by mathematical analysis if all the boundary lines were straight lines and mathematical curves, but the work would be even then too laborious to pay. It is customary to divide the assessed territory along each side of the roadway into zones with edges parallel to the road, and to each zone is given a weight or proportional part of all the assessed value. The weights are obtained from the mathematical curve and are given values corresponding approximately with theoretical calculations.

Zone Weights.

—To determine the proper zone weights the influence curve is plotted as in figure on page 319. The base line, AB, is divided into as many parts as it is desired to have zones; from the mid-point of each part a perpendicular to the base line is erected to meet the curve, shown in the table, as mid-ordinates. These are each multiplied by 100 and divided by the longest, in the case of five zones, 94.85, to get them into percentages of the whole. These are now adjusted to near numbers for easy multiplication. For example, to multiply by 33¹⁄₃ add two ciphers and divide by 3; to multiply by 25 add two ciphers and divide by 4; and so on.

Five-zone Table

[316]

To get weights for six zones take the mid-ordinates at 8¹⁄₃, 25, 41²⁄₃, 58¹⁄₃, 75, and 91²⁄₃, as follows:

To Calculate the Frontage.

—As has already been stated, in some states in order to initiate a road improvement to be paid for by special assessment a petition for the same signed by the owners of a majority of the frontage is necessary. To determine the frontage for this petition general rules are laid down by proper authority or laws enacted, stating the necessary procedure and the weights allowed for calculating frontage based upon distance from the roadway to be improved. In one state the land up to a distance of 2 miles back on each side of the roadway may be formed into an improvement district which constitutes the fronting territory or frontage. The frontage on each side of the roadway is divided into four zones equal in width. The first zone, the one nearest the road, has a weight of 50, or it may be said to contain 50 per cent. of the total frontage; the second zone has a weight of 25, or contains 25 per cent. of the frontage; the third, 15 per cent.; and the fourth, 10 per cent. Along a mile of the road there are, of course, two miles or 10,560 front-feet frontage. This 10,560 front-feet is not considered to be uniformly distributed over the entire 4 square miles (assuming the district 2 miles each side the road) of assessed territory abutting the mile of roadway. Nor to be decreased according to the mathematical laws stated above. But the distribution is by arbitrary rule laid down by legislative authority. In this particular case, assuming a[317] straight roadway and equal zones, the first one will contain 50 per cent. of 10,560 = 5280 front feet. Since the actual area of the zone is 1 square mile = 640 acres, there are 5280 ÷ 640 = 8¹⁄₄ front-feet per acre in this zone. The table will show similar results for each of the four zones:

As an illustration, suppose two taxpayers have farms of exactly the same size, 800 acres each, but placed differently in regard to the road, see figure below. Their influences or petitioning power may be calculated in front-feet from the preceding table thus:

Assessment Influence

Two farms of the same shape but situated differently with regard to the improved highway have different “petitioning influences” and are assessed differently for improvements. Farm A is in contact with the road for 5280 ft., and has an influence or assessment value of 4158 front-feet. Farm B is in contact 1320 ft. and has an assessment value of 2442 front-feet.

[318]

Procedure with Unequal Zones or Irregular Lots.

—Where the zones are not equal in area or the property lines do not intersect the roadway at right angles or the lots are irregular in shape, the method of procedure is not quite so simple, although the principle is the same. While it is customary to make the zones of uniform width this is not absolutely necessary. Likewise the ratio of weights vary with different states and cities. One city uses 33¹⁄₃, 20, 16²⁄₃, 10, 10, 10 for the weights in its six zones; another uses 33¹⁄₃, 25, 16²⁄₃, 15 and 10. Neither of these, as shown in the tables on pages 315 and 316 varies materially from the theoretical ratio.

Using the latter of these ratios a small district has been worked out as shown in the figure and table on page 320. Incidentally this also shows a good method of recording lot assessments during the process of computations. The work is readily checked. The sum of the lot areas must equal the sum of the zone areas and that of the whole district. The sums of the weighted areas for the same divisions must balance. The sums of front-feet likewise. Also cross and vertical summations may be made to check.

Second Method of Apportioning Assessments.

—A second method based upon a different definition has something in its favor. If the front-foot is defined as a lot 1 foot wide measured in the direction of the street extending[319] directly back through all the zones to the limit of the assessed area it will have a weighed area of W₁z₁ + W₂z₂ + W₃z₃ ... and so on, where W₁ represents the weight of the zone, whose width is z₁, and W₂ the weight of the zone, width z₂, etc. If z₁ = z₂ = z₃ ... etc., as is usually the case the weighted area of 1 front-foot is (W₁ + W₂ + W₃ ... ) z = Wz = 100z, since W is always = 100. The total number of front-feet in the district, or in any lot, will be the number of weighted feet in the district or in the lot, divided by 100z. In the district represented on p. 320, the number of front-feet is the total frontage, 1,936,000 divided by 4000 = 484; and for each lot the amount shown in the table. The results obtained by the two methods are directly proportional, so that either may be used for making[320] assessments. In fact they are proportional to the weighted areas, so that the weighted areas may be used instead of the front-feet if desired.

Rule for Assessment.

—To get the assessment for any particular lot divide the total cost of the improvement by the total number of front-feet in the district and multiply the quotient by the number of front-feet in the lot.

First Method

Front-Feet = 600
Weighted Area per front Foot = 1,936,000600 = 3226²⁄₃
Lot frontage = Weighted area of Lot ÷ 3226²⁄₃

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Second Method

Front Feet = 1,936,0004000 = 484
Frontage of each lot = weighted area of lot ÷ 4000

 

It should be remembered that the assessment of cost must be in proportion to the benefits to be derived from the improvement. The assessors will therefore have to use sound[321] judgment and modify the mathematical results if deemed wise. As a rule it is best never to deviate, though, unless there are extraordinary good reasons.

Miscellaneous Sources of Revenue.

—A few years ago much was said relative to the right of a city to take a portion of the earnings of public service corporations as compensation to the public for the use of its streets. Many cities granted franchises under such agreements and until the automobile depleted the earnings of street railways and the general costs of manufacturing gas and electricity went up received considerable revenue from these public utility organizations. While in most cities this went into the general fund money was usually appropriated from that fund for street maintenance and improvement, so indirectly, at least, the roadways profited. In the large cities franchises for the use of the public streets at, above, or beneath the surface are sufficiently valuable to warrant good returns to the public. It seems logical that such money be used for street improvements. Bus and truck lines fall directly under this head, and since they are very largely conducive to the distruction of pavements, it would seem as though they ought to pay for at least a part of this damage. The tax might be graduated according to weight as is now in most states the automobile license tax.

A number of cities are entering the commercial and industrial enterprises such as the sale of water, gas, electricity, ice and coal. While usually these are operated on a low margin so as not to make money there is nevertheless, here, an opportunity to secure necessary funds for public improvements. And if the operation of these enterprises is such that private competitors can make reasonable profits the people will be the gainer by having more available funds for worthy objects. It may not be the proper province of the government to go into gainful enterprises in competition with its own citizens. In fact, public opinion in America has been so one-sided on such questions that wherever private enterprises have been taken over by the states or the nation they have thereafter been conducted[322] free or at the bare cost of operation. The turnpike roads were bought by the states and made part of the free public road system. Cities like Cleveland and San Francisco have handled their street railways at the bare cost of operation. Efforts are being made to make the Panama Canal free to certain classes of commercial shipping. Government land reclamation by irrigation and drainage has been made so that it could be paid for by the settlers in small amounts, running through long periods of time. But notwithstanding all this there is an awakening to the possibilities that may come from the development and operation by government of resources that were formerly considered fair game for private exploitation.

Such disputes as the two nation-wide industrial strikes of 1922, the coal miners and the railway craftsmen, are rapidly forcing those not directly connected with the “operators” or the “strikers” to the opinion that government ownership is the remedy for industrial ailments of this character. They point to the Post Office Department as an argument in favor. While it is a fact there has been no trouble so far with postoffice employees, it does not follow that the same would be true with the railway, coal mining, and cotton industries. And if the Government should begin taking over industrial and commercial enterprises, where would be the end of such paternalism, and would it lead to sovietism? It is barely possible that governmental regulation has already gone too far.

But, nevertheless, from some such sources as have been mentioned or from a sales tax on gasoline may eventually come a relief to the burden of taxation which now and increasingly so in the future must otherwise be borne by the land.

Bonds.

—It is not always possible to raise by taxes sufficient money to make public improvements on a pay-as-you-go basis. It would not be economical to attempt to pave one-tenth the width of a street each year. One patch would be worn out before the next is put down. The whole must be done at the same time in order not to be vastly[323] wasteful. And, in order to enjoy the improvement while money is being collected for its payment, the municipality must resort to borrowing. It is also argued that since future generations will enjoy the improvement they should be required to help pay for the same. The indebtedness represented by the bonds become a lien against the assessed property in the state, county, township, or district over which they have been laid. The taxes to pay off the bonds will be levied uniformly over all property or specially in proportion to accruing benefits according to conditions prescribed at the time the improvements were made.

Kinds of Bonds.

—Bonds are certificates of indebtedness by means of which the repayment of borrowed money may be spread over a series of years. They are classified as Sinking Fund, Annuity and Serial, depending on their manner of payment.

Sinking fund bonds are paid as a whole at the end of their term, interest being paid annually, or at some other fixed regular period, upon their face value. The name arises because of the custom of establishing a sinking-fund into which a certain proportion of the debt is to be paid annually, and this loaned out so that at the end of the period it will amount to the face of the bonds. Since there is always time lost between the collection and loaning of the sinking fund money the interest derived therefrom will not usually be the same as that of the bonds. For this reason and from the further fact that sinking funds are frequently drawn upon for other purposes than that for which they were created this type of bonds is less economical than either of the other two types.

The sinking fund which must be raised annually to discharge a debt of P dollars in n payments, if it can be loaned at i per cent, is given by the formula:[197]