A Maximum of Good Results: 

Martin Dodge and the Good Roads Trains 

Table of Contents 

Who Was Martin Dodge? 

Chairman, Ohio Good Roads Commission 

Road Building in Ohio 

A Malthusian Comparison 

On To Washington 

Steel-Track Wagon Roads 

Director, Office of Public Road Inquiries 

Era of Transformation 

Death of President McKinley 

Colonel W. H. Moore and the National Good Roads Association 

Horatio S. Earle 

Good Roads Trains 

Southern Railway Good Roads Train 

Winston-Salem, North Carolina 

Asheville, North Carolina 

Greeneville, Tennessee 

Chattanooga, Tennessee 

Birmingham, Alabama 

Mobile, Alabama 

Montgomery, Alabama 

Atlanta, Georgia 

Greenville, South Carolina 

Columbus, Georgia 

Augusta, Georgia 

Columbia, South Carolina 

Charleston, South Carolina 

Raleigh, North Carolina 

Lynchburg, Virginia 

Danville, Virginia

Richmond, Virginia 

Charlottesville, Virginia 

Results of the Southern Railway Good Roads Train 

The Great Northern Good Roads Train 

James Abbott on the Great Northern Railway Good Roads Train 

Martin Dodge’s Other Initiatives 

National Road Inventory 

Fighting for Federal-Aid 

The Brownlow-Latimer Bill 

58th Congress, 3rd Session 
Congressional Revenge on Martin Dodge 

Logan Page Takes Charge 

Logan Page and the Road Improvement Trains 

Martin Dodge’s Later Years 

Testifying on the Townsend Bill 

Looking Back 
1

A Maximum of Good Results: 

Martin Dodge and the Good Roads Trains 

By 

Richard F. Weingroff 

Joyce Ritter, former writer-editor with the Federal Highway Administration 

(FHWA), gathered information about Martin Dodge while developing America’s 

Highways 1776-1976 for publication by the FHWA in 1976. That information, 

passed on to the author, was invaluable in preparing the biographical portions of 

this article. 

Who was Martin Dodge? 

Martin Dodge was the second person to head the Federal road agency, during most of 

which time it was called the Office of Public Road Inquiries (OPRI). From August 1898 

to January 1899, he served as Acting Director of the Office of Road Inquiry (ORI) while 

General Roy Stone, the first head of the agency, served as a volunteer in the SpanishAmerican War. After General Stone retired in October 1899, Dodge became Director 

and served into 1905. When Dodge took office in 1899, the OPRI’s budget was $10,000 

a year, the same amount as the first year of General Stone’s tenure in 1893. 

Dodge was born on May 27, 1851, in Auburn, Geauga County, Ohio, the youngest son of 

Joseph and Hannah Dodge. According to information provided by the Geauga County 

Historical Society, Dodge grew up on his father’s farm and attended the common 

schools. When he was 17 years old, Dodge began teaching in the District School during 

the winter term. Although he entered Hiram College in 1871, he continued teaching for 

eight winter terms, serving as superintendent of a village graded school for two years. 

Dodge attended Hiram College for 4 years and Buchtel College in Akron for 1 year. The 

historical society material states, “A degree of Master of Arts was conferred upon him by 

the Trustees of Hiram College in 1893 in recognition of his services to the State.” 

Dodge moved to Cleveland in 1876 to study law. He was admitted to the bar and 

practiced law in the city for several years. According to the historical society, “He also 

became interested in real estate and did considerable building. For three years he was 

business manager of the Cleveland Sun and Voice.” 

In 1891, Dodge began the political career that would take him to Washington when he 

won election to the 70th Ohio General Assembly. Representing Cuyahoga County, 

Dodge “served ten consecutive terms, being one of the Republican leaders, first in the 

House and for four years in the Senate.” 

Hal P. Denton, writing in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, explained that “it was while 

serving in this position that he put in his first licks for better roads.” [“Father of Good 

Roads a Clevelander,” November 6, 1931] Shortly after taking office in January 1892 as 
2

Governor of Ohio, William McKinley included a passage in his first annual message to 

the General Assembly calling attention to the need for better roads. The legislature did 

not act on the new Governor’s remarks. After the Governor included a similar passage in 

his second annual message, Dodge helped secure approval of a resolution on February 

28, 1892, calling for the Governor to appoint a four-member commission to address the 

issue: 

Whereas, The Governor of Ohio, in his last annual message, most earnestly asked 

the consideration of the general assembly to the subject of good roads, and 

suggested the appointment of a commission to investigate and carefully consider 

all plans proposed and experiments being made, and to submit a report with 

recommendations in time for the meeting of the first session of the next general 

assembly; and 

Whereas, It is the opinion of many engineers and inventors that electric and other 

artificial powers may be successfully applied to the country roads, when properly 

prepared, so as to reduce the cost and time of transportation, both on freight and 

passengers, far below that which can ever be attained by the continued use of 

horses and other animals; therefore, 

Be It Resolved, By the general assembly of the state of Ohio, That the governor 

be and he is hereby authorized to appoint a commission, composed of four 

suitable citizens of the state, two of whom shall be chosen from each of the two 

political parties which received the largest number of votes in this state at the last 

general election, whose duty it shall be to thoroughly investigate the whole 

subject of road construction and the cost of transportation over roads, including 

those operated by steam power and electric power as well as those operated by 

horse power. Said commission shall make report to the governor what the 

average cost per ton per mile now is by horse power, and what the approximate 

cost would be if artificial power should be substituted for horse power; and 

especially whether it is possible and advisable to construct country roads so that 

both cars and wagons can pass over the same road, propelled by either horse 

power or artificial power; also the estimated cost of such combination roads as 

compared with the cost of roads established for horse power only, together with 

whatever recommendation they have to make as to the road laws of Ohio, or as to 

the enactment of any new laws by the legislature of the state. [Reprinted in 

Dodge, Martin, “McKinley -- Pioneer of Roads,” National Republic, Vol. 18, No. 

8] 

Denton explained: 

In contending for the passage of the resolution, Dodge directed attention to the 

fact that already we had reached the limit of horse power, and that there was no 

possibility of increasing the speed, strength or endurance of that animal; and on 

the other hand that applied science stood ready to furnish us with a power which 

was unlimited as to speed, strength and endurance. 
3

Chairman, Ohio Good Roads Commission 

In 1893, Governor McKinley appointed Dodge the Chairman of the first Ohio Good 

Roads Commission. As Chairman, Dodge published an article in the May 1894 issue 

Good Roads magazine called “A Plea for Inanimate Power and Steel Roads.” The article, 

an adaptation of the commission’s report, outlined ideas that would be part of Dodge’s 

good roads gospel for many years. The article began: 

The two largest factors in the problem of improving our common roads are, first, 

the enormous cost of such improvement in the aggregate if the system is coextensive with our territory, and, second, the excessive cost of transportation over 

such roads, if animal power is to be applied. 

Ohio, for example, contained approximately 80,000 miles of common roads. The level of 

improvement would vary from road to road based on location and use (“in some sections, 

$9000 per mile; in others it may cost as little as $3000 per mile”), but he estimated an 

average cost of $6,000 per mile, which theoretically “could be reduced to $5000 per mile 

on the average.” Overall, Dodge estimated that “it would still cost the enormous sum of 

$400,000,000 to improve all the roads in the State.” He added: 

This enormous cost of construction, though easily ascertained, is not so large a 

factor in the problem as the excessive cost of transportation over these roads when 

built. It is not generally known how high the rate of transportation with horses 

and wagons is, because most of this transportation is not paid for in cash, and 

therefore those who bear the burden of it are not mindful of how great it is. 

He estimated that “our own rate in Ohio is twenty-five cents per ton per mile, and that 

there has been but little improvement or reduction in this cost in a generation or more, 

and that there is not likely to be much in the future.” 

The railroad, the steamship, and the electric street car had significantly reduced the cost 

of transportation where they operated. Applying electricity to the vehicles on the roads 

“is destined to do for the short haul what the steam cars have already done for the long 

haul.” He elaborated on this point from a historical perspective: 

It is a significant fact to which attention has been frequently called, that the 

history of the development of the means of transportation shows no instance in 

which, after a better means has been devised, mankind has gone back to a former 

method. 

Every improvement in means of transportation reduced the comparative value of 

the former means of transportation, and frequently destroys it altogether. The 

bridle path and the pack animal disappear as soon as wheeled vehicles are placed 

upon the common roads in competition. The ox-team is abandoned for horses, 
4

and the post-rider for the stage-coach. These, in turn, all give way and disappear 

wherever it is possible to introduce a steam car or an electric car. 

It is undeniable that the development of the railway arrested the building of 

wagon roads on a large scale, such as the “National Road,” running through Ohio. 

The horse cars in cities superseded other methods of carrying passengers, and the 

electric and cable cars have about rendered the horse car obsolete. 

At this early date, Dodge was not envisioning the automobile—gasoline-powered or 

electric-powered—as the vehicle for our common roads; the first gasoline-powered 

“motor-wagon” in the United States had been driven by the Duryea Brothers in 

Springfield, Massachusetts, only a few months earlier (September 1893). Dodge was 

seeking a way to reduce the cost of horse-drawn transportation by extending street-car 

tracks 30 or 40 miles into the country, but with the tracks designed for use by wagons and 

carriages drawn by horses initially but eventually by the electricity that operated the 

street cars in the city. Dodge believed that allowing horse-drawn and electricity powered 

vehicles to operate on the same tracks would so clearly demonstrate the superiority of 

“inanimate power” that horse power would soon be abandoned. 

After repeating the argument he had made in the State Legislature about the limits of 

horse power, Dodge continued: 

The only improvement we could hope to make to lessen the cost of transportation 

with these animals would be in improving the road-bed. A comparison of cost 

will show that the average expenditure required to macadamize a road or make it 

hard with any kind of metal is fully equal to the cost required to lay down steel 

rails over which not only wagons and carriages propelled by horses but cars 

propelled by electric power might also go at a greatly reduced cost in 

transportation . . . . [The] same vehicle can be moved over steel rails with oneeighth of the power that would be required to move it over a macadamized road, 

and with one-eighteenth of the power that would be required to move it over a 

gravel road, and with one-twenty-fifth of the power that would be required to 

move it over a common earth road in good condition. 

The rails, especially with the replacement of horses, could carry passengers and freight. 

If the area between the rails were paved, it could carry bicyclists—then enjoying 

nationwide popularity in what historians refer to as “The Bicycle Craze” and leading to 

the push for better country roads. Dodge said: 

Another new, unexpected and wonderful means of transportation has lately 

appeared in the form of the bicycle which is destined to give us the cheapest 

means of transportation of anything that can be devised for the transportation of a 

single passenger; and, in constructing a system of roads, some reference should be 

had to the uses of this new machine. It is a most wonderful fact that a person, 

with no cost but his own exertion, can go one hundred miles a day upon one of 

these machines, while, with a horse and carriage he could go but fifty,-which 
5

demonstrates that this is a machine for practical use both in short and long 

distances, and also illustrates the fact referred to above, that by departing from 

horse-power we get great and unexpected gains, while, by adhering to it, we make 

no progress. Steel rails, laid as suggested above, long distances into the country 

upon the principal roads connecting city to city and village to village, with a slight 

additional cost for paving between, would make long, straight, smooth, level 

stretches over which bicycle riders could go with the rapidity of the cars 

themselves; and true economy would be secured by providing such a combination 

road as would allow both wagons and carriages propelled by horses, and cars 

propelled by electricity, to go over the same track while the pavement between 

would be suitable not only for the bicycle rider, but for the pedestrian. These 

roads should be constructed either with double tracks or with frequent turnouts 

and approaches, so that vehicles of the different kinds and going at different rates 

of speed could pass and repass each other. 

(Despite this enthusiastic endorsement of bicycling, Dodge, then in his forties, does not 

say here or elsewhere whether he was a bicyclist.) 

Dodge recognized that his proposed steel rails would have to be adapted for present uses, 

as well as for the future: 

Wagons propelled by animal power, which would only be used during the 

evolutionary stage of development, could also be provided with wheels with a 

double tread, so as either to follow the tracks or to go upon the hard pavement, as 

desired. 

He continued: 

If it is objected that it would be impossible to make the system so extensive as to 

include all roads, this much has certainly been demonstrated: That we are on the 

threshold of the door that leads to a more extended use of inanimate power to take 

the place of animal power as a means of transportation; that more electric roads 

will be built, that they will be almost innumerable, in fact, unlimited, as evidenced 

by every indication, so that the problem of building the wagon road is made easier 

and easier by reason of the shortened distances for which horses may be 

profitably used for purposes of transportation. [p. 181-187] 

General Stone commented on the commission’s report in New Roads and Road Laws of 

the United States, a book published by D. Van Nostrand Company in 1894 (p 109-113). 

The chapter titled “The Report of the Ohio Road Commission” began: 

If the late report of the Ohio Commission is, as some friends of good roads think 

it, a distinctly retrograde step in the march of road improvements, it is the only 

one taken by any State authority. 
6

The Commission recommends to the Legislature to pass no new road laws, but to 

adopt a plan of masterly inactivity in the matter, mainly upon the ground that the 

extension of electric railways will greatly restrict the use of wagon roads and 

curtail the extent to which they need be built. 

General Stone quoted a contrary view by Engineering News magazine that “especially in 

the neighborhood of large towns and cities, the present rapid extension of suburban 

electric railways will in itself hasten the general improvement of all roads affected by 

them.” The magazine explained that by connecting “chains of villages and towns,” the 

lines would increase “facilities for travel, tend to enhance the value of country property 

as a place of residence, and as a consequence create a demand for better roads and make 

it easier to meet the cost of improvement.” 

The magazine, General Stone pointed out, also took exception to the cost estimates in the 

report. The commission had estimated that the average cost of “suitable improvement” of 

80,000 miles of common roads would be $5,000 a mile. Engineering News considered 

this estimate “altogether too high”—four or five times higher than the cost of excellent 

hard roads around the country. General Stone summarized the magazine’s argument that 

10,000 miles of the common roads in Ohio were satisfactory and that 30,000 more miles 

“are not of such importance as to demand much improvement.” Ohio would need $50 

million, not $400 million, “judiciously expended . . . to give the State a good system of 

highways.” 

Further, General Stone questioned the report’s characterization of the State’s role. In 

some parts of the State, the commission found that people do not “appreciate nor desire 

good roads.” The Ohio report goes on to say: 

There are, undoubtedly, some places in the State where material for road-making 

is sufficiently abundant and cheap, but where the character of the population is 

such that they prefer the discomforts and loss occasioned by defective highways 

to the trouble and expense required to improve the roads. It is manifest that no 

legislation can or should alter such a state of affairs. It is not the province of 

legislation to change human nature, and where a community deliberately prefers 

to adopt a course of action that is opposed to its best interests, it should be left to 

its own devices. 

General Stone said of this passage that, “This is a novel exposition of the relations of a 

State to its citizens.” Education, he pointed out, is one of the primary duties of a State: 

[If] any part of its people are so benighted as this, on a subject of such importance 

to their welfare, it would seem that duty, self-interest, and State pride would all 

conspire to urge the better-informed sections of the State to work a speedy 

reformation among them; and, since no lessons are so useful as object lessons, the 

most effective and persuasive teaching would be to help build some bits of good 

road in each of these districts. 
7

Next, General Stone cited a passage in the commission’s report on fairness. The passage 

read: 

There are counties in Ohio that have improved their roads at their own expense in 

the past; they have borne the burden willingly and are now enjoying the benefits. 

To tax these counties again for the purpose of building roads in localities where 

the people, through lack of enterprise or inability, have failed to secure good 

highways, is unjust and is discouraging to enterprise. Why should Logan County 

or Hardin County or Union County, in which turnpikes have been built by local 

assessment, be required to contribute money for the purpose of building roads in 

Geauga County, where there is not a single mile of turnpike? 

General Stone replied that “an enlightened self-interest would commend to the wealthy 

counties the policy of stimulating improvement in the poorer ones.” Such a policy would 

“enable the latter to bear in time their proper share of the burdens of the State; and, again, 

there are many ties of blood, friendship, and business which cross county lines, and the 

people who confine their driving to their own county limits are few indeed.” 

In conclusion, General Stone gave the commission’s report a mixed review: 

The Commission has done good service in collecting information regarding the 

cost of various kinds of transportation, and though it does not propose any further 

action or investigation, but confines itself to negative recommendations, it may be 

hoped that its report will stimulate private experiment in the direction of such 

“combination roads,” and ultimately bring in a new era of rural rapid transit; 

meanwhile, it seems a pity to raise up obstacles to such immediate and substantial 

improvement of the ordinary highways as is progressing elsewhere in the United 

States, and thus to bring a great State to a standstill in the path of progress. 

Dr. W. D. Kempton, secretary and treasurer of the Ohio division of the premiere bicycle 

organization, the League of American Wheelman (LAW and L.A.W.), also was 

uncomplimentary regarding the commission. In October 1895, he addressed the National 

Road Parliament, a convention that General Stone presided over in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. 

Kempton explained that Ohio did not have a State-aid program, such as the program in 

New Jersey where the State provided funds to counties to help them improve roads. He 

said: 

There is nothing of that kind done. There was a law passed by the legislature not 

long ago—two or three years ago—authorizing the governor to appoint a 

commission to investigate the nature of the roads and suggest plans for improving 

them. This road commission consisted of Mr. Turney, of Cincinnati, Martin 

Dodge, and another gentleman, neither of whom was particularly interested in the 

country roads. Their report was not accepted by the committee on public roads in 

the legislature, and they did not recommend any legislation from it. 
8

As a result, he said, “the road laws of Ohio have not been modified for a great many 

years.” 

Dr. Kempton did agree with the report on one point, namely the attitude of the State’s 

citizens (although he did not reference the report in discussing this subject): 

The League of American Wheelmen tried to get some improvement in the road 

legislation. They soon discovered that until there was a popular sentiment 

backing up any legislation, it was folly to try to secure it, because it excited a 

prejudice among the people . . . . The National Association of the League 

published several little pamphlets on that subject and I secured a number of these 

and sent them around to township trustees and road supervisors. Still, the very 

fact that that literature was published by a bicycle organization and sent out by it, 

prejudiced the road interests . . . . 

I think we need in Ohio more agitation, because when the people become 

convinced that a certain thing is a good thing they will have it. When they are not 

convinced, you can not get it, because the legislators will vote the way their 

constituents want them to, and I think attempts at road legislation until the people 

are convinced, would be useless. [Progress of Road Construction in the United 

States: Reports by Delegates to National Road Parliament held at Atlanta, Ga., 

October 17-19, 1895, Bulletin No. 19, ORI, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 

1897, p. 34-35] 

(The prejudice against the bicycle and bicycle organizations was common in rural areas. 

Farmers thought the bicyclists were idle city “peacocks” parading around the country, 

scaring the horses, and “scorching” (speeding) while the farmers had to work for a 

living.) 

Road Building in Ohio 

For ORI Bulletin No. 17, General Stone compiled information on road building in the 

United States. The bulletin included an essay by Dodge on “Road Building in Ohio.” 

Ohio, Dodge began, “stands in the first rank as to her road improvements, both in number 

and quality.” He proudly noted that Ohio had more mileage than any State of the 

National Road built by the Federal Government in the early 19th century—it was “in a 

fair state of preservation for the most part.” However, “with the advent of the railroad 

national road building ceased,” and later road work was done by counties and 

municipalities. 

Dodge explained how State road laws had encouraged road development in the first part 

of the 19th century: 

The most extensive road improvements outside of the paving of streets in cities 

and villages have been made in the form of free turnpikes under the 1-mile and 2-

mile assessment plan, by which all land outside of municipal corporations and 
9

within 1 mile or 2 miles is taxed according to the benefits. Whether the 1-mile 

limit or the 2-mile limit is taken depends upon the petition which accompanies the 

application. There is also a supplementary provision in the general law by which 

the entire property of the county may be taxed at a rate not to exceed 4 mills on 

the dollar to supplement the fund raised for free turnpikes under the 2-mile 

assessment law as referred to above. Before this can be done the proposition must 

be submitted to the voters of the county and favored by a majority. 

(The phrase “4 mills” is a term used for property tax purposes. A “mill” is 1/10th of 1 

cent or 1,000 mills to a dollar. The tax rate is based on “mills per dollar of taxable 

value.” If the tax is “4 Mills,” the tax assessor would calculate the tax by multiplying 

4/1000ths of a dollar times the market value or assessed value of a property.) 

Under this law, Ohio’s counties had worked on “many miles of turnpike of an excellent 

character . . . which have an aggregate of 6,000 miles of turnpike.” Dodge added: 

So that, with the national road, the free turnpikes in various counties, and her 

extensive system of canals, the State has always been in the first rank as to the 

means of cheap transportation. 

Because of the railroads, “the line of turnpike building has been gradually on the wane” 

the previous two decades. Now that interest in good roads had revived, the Nation had 

slipped into the worst economic depression of its existence to that point. Beginning with 

the Panic of 1893, the depression continued through 1896. In Ohio, “it being felt that the 

farmers were too poor to bear the burden of improving the roads by assessing the entire 

cost upon the benefited areas adjacent to the improved roads,” the General Assembly 

enacted legislation to revive road building without relying exclusively on the proximity 

taxation. 

Dodge cited a special law for Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, as “perhaps 

the most important of any.” The county had not employed the earlier law for 

construction of free turnpikes, so “the only improved roads it had before the passage of 

this special law were toll roads built of plank.” (The toll plank road craze had hit the 

country in the mid-19th century. Wooden planks were placed along the center of a road 

so wagons traveling in either direction could ride with one set of wheels on the planks. 

The craze lasted about a decade—just long enough for the wooden planks to rot. In the 

absence of sufficient revenue to replace the planks, the owners abandoned the roads to 

general use.) He explained: 

Toll roads and toll bridges are generally of short duration among the American 

people. The time has come when their abolition is demanded and when free roads 

must take their place. 

The General Assembly passed a law in 1892 to allow Cuyahoga County to build free 

roads where no toll roads had been built: 
10

This act provides that all of the property in the county, both personal and real, 

shall be taxed at the rate of one-half mill on each dollar valuation on its assessed 

value; and in addition thereto the agricultural line outside of the city of Cleveland 

shall be taxed 1 mill on every dollar valuation. This is to form a general road 

fund for the improvement of the country roads in such manner as the county 

commissioners may direct. 

With the tax, the county commissioners had about $80,000 a year available for country 

roads, with about $60,000 coming from within Cleveland. With this “magnificent sum,” 

Cuyahoga County had selected three roads leading out of Cleveland for improvement, 

with civil engineer Jay Brown in charge. Dodge reprinted Brown’s lengthy statement of 

plans, costs, and details for one of the projects on the Wooster Pike. This project was of 

sufficient interest that historian Albert C. Rose identified it as a milestone—“1893—First 

Brick Rural Road”—in Historic American Roads: From Frontier Trails to 

Superhighways (Crown Publishers, Inc., 1976, p. 77). Rose wrote: 

The four miles of brick pavement were built in the fall of 1893, on the old stage 

route between Cleveland and Wooster in Wayne County, now United States 

Route 42. The brick section was [quoting Brown] “reached by following out 

Pearl Street in the City of Cleveland, through the village of South Brooklyn to the 

second toll gate, four miles southwesterly from said village, where the four miles 

of road built in 1893” began . . . . Built over a heavy white-clay soil, believed by 

many residents to present insuperable drainage obstacles, the brick road was 

completed successfully at a cost of about $16,000 a mile. 

The road was 60 feet wide from fence to fence, with a 32-foot wide roadway. A brick 

pavement was installed on an 8-foot strip along the drainage area “leaving 24 feet of dirt 

road for summer use,” as Brown explained. “This dirt road was repeatedly rolled with a 

heavy roller until the upper foot or 2 feet of the crust of the roadbed became hard and 

solid.” To hold the brick in place along the dirt portion without building a stone curb, 

Brown used “three courses of brick, standing edgewise, the first course flush with the top 

of the pavement, the second breaking joints and dropping two inches lower, the third 2 

inches lower still, forming a stairwise bond for the brickwork course of curbing brick . . . 

.” 

Dodge considered the new Cuyahoga County road “probably the best ever built in the 

State of Ohio,” but he added, “it remains true that the rate of transportation over these 

roads with horses and wagons is higher than the rate which prevails upon the electric cars 

wherever they are introduced.” The appearance of macadam and electric roads allowed 

for comparisons: 

The macadam road is built with public money at a cost of $16,000, while the 

electric road is built with private money at a cost of from $5,000 to $7,000 per 

mile. Still, the one that is built with private money is furnishing now, and is 

destined to furnish hereafter, a cheaper means of transportation than can be 

obtained over the free turnpike with horses and wagons. 
11

Dodge explained his view that laying steel rails on the roads would be the best use of 

public money, quoting extensively from the commission’s report. He added: 

The effect of this report has been to stimulate the building of electric roads in 

various parts of the State, all of which have been extremely successful, and have 

shown the intrinsic value of the electric road to so greatly exceed any other means 

of transportation for short distances that the public is likely to extend to it the 

same friendly policy that it has heretofore given to vehicles propelled by animal 

power; that is to say, the public will provide the track upon which the vehicle 

runs, while private enterprise will supply the vehicle and power as heretofore. 

 

He clarified the public and private roles: 

It is not proposed that the public should operate these roads, but only furnish the 

track, according to the established public policy that has prevailed time out of 

mind for the public to furnish the way and private enterprise to furnish the power 

and vehicles. 

As an example, Dodge cited the electric road from Norwalk to Sandusky via Milan as one 

of the most successful lines yet built. It was “being used for carrying package freight and 

food products as well as express and mail.” 

The outlook for Ohio, he concluded, “is brighter than ever”: 

And we shall demonstrate here first, most likely, how far it is wise to provide 

roads for the wagonload haul by means of horses, and how far it is best to provide 

steel tracks and inanimate power to supersede the horses. [p. 16-23] 

On July 5 and 6, 1894, Dodge participated in the National Road Conference held at the 

Westminster Church in Asbury Park, New Jersey. (General Stone published the 

proceedings as ORI Bulletin No. 10 later that year.) Dodge began his address by 

recognizing that “the opinions of the members of this conference are, like Joseph’s coat, 

of many colors.” The principle that he thought everyone would agree on is that 

“whatever judicious expenditure of money is made to really better the roads so as to 

cheapen the cost of transportation, will result in lightening the burden rather than in 

putting greater burdens upon the people.” If a road improvement “finally results in 

cheapening transportation, and thereby adds to the value of land and the rewards of 

labor,” he said, “then we have done a good thing.” 

Judging the value of a road improvement can vary over time. He pointed out that Shelby 

County, Ohio, had expended $2.5 million for common wagon roads that cheapened 

transportation costs and increased the value of land and labor when they were built earlier 

in the century. Because the railroad had reduced the value of the roads when measured in 

this way, “it has not proved to be for the best interests of the people to continue this 

method of building.” 
12

Now that roads again had the potential for increasing the value of land and labor while 

reducing transportation costs, Ohio had “departed somewhat from the usual rule” in other 

States. Ohio had not adopted the “clearly established principle that the horse and the 

wagon is the proper thing for the common people for the common purpose of common 

transportation upon the common roads.” Cleveland’s electric car system had provided 

the inspiration for Ohio’s view: 

I think I am right in saying that the first practical system of electric cars was 

introduced in the city of Cleveland, although experimental lines had been used in 

two or three other places; and we have had object lessons there by means of those 

cars that have been most wonderful. I quite agree with the gentleman from North 

Carolina [Professor J. A. Holmes, State Geologist] when he says that a single 

object lesson is of more importance and value than any number of theories which 

may or may not prove to be correct. 

Noting that the electric cars had greatly reduced the cost of transporting passengers, Ohio 

officials believed the same could be accomplished for freight, “especially farm products 

that are raised in the neighboring territory and largely consumed in the great cities, or 

shipped to the seaboard or other places.” After discussing costs, Dodge told the 

conference: 

Every investigation and observation that the commissioners have made in Ohio 

tends to show that the electric [street] car is exactly suitable to come in and 

supplement these other means of transportation, and so give you, over every 

distance in the county, a cheaper means of transportation than we ever have had 

or ever can have unless we shall encourage and adopt, to a certain extent, the 

electric-car system; or, if not the electric-car system, some other system which 

shall use inanimate power rather than horse power. 

Dodge favored electricity as power, but acknowledged the arrival of a challenger: 

There are other systems of generating power which may be cheaper for such 

purposes than the electric system. It is possible that the gas engine, which had 

been largely developed in Europe, and somewhat in this country, whereby the unit 

of power is entirely detached from the central plant, and is entirely under the 

control of the operator, the same as a horse, may be cheaper than the electric 

system . . . . 

Nevertheless, Dodge believed that the track system was the best alternative for 

accommodating the existing modes of road transportation. He concluded by urging the 

conference not put “new wine into old bottles.” If the common methods are best, he was 

for it, “but if there is a better way by which we can give better and more advantageous 

means of transportation than by the horse and wagon, let us do so.” 
13

After Dodge concluded, General Stone asked him if Ohio had made provision for 

experiments of the theory Dodge had expressed. Dodge replied: 

I will state that the Ohio legislature has passed three different acts authorizing the 

people to build in three different places experimental roads for the purpose of 

testing their value, and I will state to you that when a road is so built that both the 

horse and inanimate power can be applied side by side over the same track, then 

the question will be solved, and the object lesson that my friend from North 

Carolina discussed will be given before your faces and eyes, and those who think 

it is cheaper to uses horses will either find out that it is or else that it is not, for 

they will be in competition over the same road and rail with the other power . . . . 

Dodge submitted a paper, reprinted in the proceedings, about a combined rail and road 

way that W. I. Ludlow of Cleveland had invented. 

A Malthusian Comparison

Dodge reiterated his key points at every opportunity, including the July 1895 issue of the 

literary magazine The North American Review. The article, “The Need of Better Roads,” 

began: 

The Malthusian doctrine of population teaches that the people will increase faster 

than the means to sustain them, and that it is only a question of time when the 

population will press upon the means of subsistence so as to prevent further 

increase in numbers, or, in other words, that the entire energy of the people will 

be insufficient to supply them with food. 

(British mathematician Thomas Malthus, in his An Essay on the Principle of Population, 

published in 1789, had made his predictions based on extrapolation of current data. 

Although his theories were influential, skeptics have cited his predictions to illustrate the 

dangers of extrapolation.) 

Although population had increased on the Malthusian principle of doubling once in 25 

years, Dodge explained that the United States did not face the predicted problem of food 

supply. Food “has increased . . . [because of] the increased power and productiveness of 

human labor, whereby the output of product proceeding from the same unit of exertion 

has been increased from two to ten fold.” Increased productivity meant that fewer people 

were needed on the Nation’s farms or in the small communities serving the farms. The 

result was a population shift to the cities and to the industries operating in them. 

“Cheap transportation,” Dodge told his North American Review readers, “has contributed 

much to the increased capacity of labor, by making it possible to concentrate surplus food 

products and material for manufacture.” Cheap and abundant food produced by fewer 

people and the increased output of products where labor and machinery are concentrated 

combined with cheap transportation resulted in “the prevailing condition by which nearly 

one-half of our population in the older settled parts of the country is concentrated in cities 
14

. . . .” This condition “is a normal and not an abnormal condition, and being based upon 

scientific causes is permanent and not temporary.” 

Dodge summarized his views on the need to reduce reliance on horse power, then noted 

that those who live in the declining rural districts cited the Nation’s railroad building to 

support the view that “if the same energy and expenditure were given to the improvement 

of the common roads, the results would be equally beneficial, and perhaps more 

beneficial than those that have followed the era of railroad building.” Dodge did not 

share this view. Horse power can never exceed the value of the railroads in reducing 

transportation costs: 

The rate of transportation with horses and wagons can never be brought on the 

average below twenty-five cents per ton mile, while the average cost that prevails 

upon the steam [railroad] cars is not to exceed one cent per ton per mile, and in 

many instances but half a cent a ton a mile. The steam railroads have served and 

will continue to serve a great purpose, but it is probable that the limit of their 

usefulness is nearly reached so far as the ramification of their branches is 

concerned; but at the very point where the ramification of these roads ceases to be 

an advantage, the electric road comes in and is destined to contribute still more to 

cheapen transportation than it is possible that the horse and wagon can do by any 

amount of expenditure directed to that end. The average cost per ton-mile upon 

the electric cars would not exceed five cents, and the cost of building the steel 

roadbed suitable for such cars to run upon would be no greater than the cost of 

building stone roads. 

Dodge went on to describe his vision: 

My plan is to extend the street-car tracks from our cities out into the circumjacent 

[sic] territory a distance of thirty or forty miles, so that all the territory between 

the centres [sic] of population sixty or eighty miles apart would be reached. Let 

these tracks be so made and laid that wagons and carriages propelled by horses 

may go upon them, as well as cars propelled by electricity or other inanimate 

power. 

He saw no reason why the electric cars, thus far confined to passengers, could not be 

adapted for freight, especially food products. He was convinced that such shared roads 

would quickly result in “a complete substitution of electric power for horse power 

wherever the rails are laid.” 

Dodge made clear he did not think the electric roads should be built out of “the profits of 

the carrier.” He thought they should be financed by those who benefit from them, as was 

the case under Ohio’s State road law: 

No better expenditure of public money could be made in the State of Ohio for 

road improvements than to build a system of electric roads connecting all the 

county seats with each other and with the great cities of the State . . . . And the 
15

roads when so built could be operated by leasing to lowest bidder or by taking toll 

for each vehicle, the same as the State now does from canal-boats. 

In closing, Dodge acknowledged that the dollar amounts he used for savings were simply 

estimates. “Observation to confirm this only waits upon experiment.” [p. 125-128] 

 

On To Washington 

Some years later, Dodge said of his service as chairman of the Ohio Good Roads 

Commission: 

Governor McKinley . . . often told me that if he should become President he 

wanted me to take charge of the road office for the United States government. 

Governor McKinley became President on March 4, 1897, and served until he was 

assassinated in 1901. The new President retained General Stone in the ORI, but brought 

Dodge to Washington at the first opportunity. In June 1898, General Stone took a leave 

of absence to serve in the Spanish-American War. While Stone was away, President 

McKinley brought Dodge to Washington in August as Acting Director of the little ORI. 

General Stone returned to the Office on January 31, 1899, but resigned later that year on 

October 23. This time, Dodge was appointed permanent Director. According to Dodge, 

the opportunity arose when he “completed my term of service as senator in the state 

senate of Ohio.” [National Republic, p. 26] 

President McKinley’s Secretary of Agriculture, James Wilson, had a more aggressive 

approach than his predecessor, Secretary J. Sterling Morton, under President Grover 

Cleveland. Secretary Morton, a fiscal conservative opposed to all forms of government 

“paternalism,” had spent much of his tenure trying to reduce the Department’s 

expenditures and role. He had limited General Stone to gathering information and 

disseminating it. By contrast, the Department’s official history stated that Secretary 

Wilson’s 16 years as Secretary (1897-1913) marked “a new era . . . for the Department, 

one characterized by expansion, the widening of the scope of its activities, and the 

strengthening of the relationship between the Department and the land-grant colleges.” 

[Centennial Committee, Century of Service: The First 100 Years of the United States 

Department of Agriculture, Department of Agriculture, 1963, p. 39] 

Wilson, known as “Tama Jim” after his hometown in Iowa, had been a professor at Iowa 

Agricultural College, served in the Iowa State Legislature and the U.S. House of 

Representatives, and had introduced the first bill, in 1874, to elevate the existing 

Department of Agriculture to a Cabinet-level Department. [p. 40] Consistent with his 

general approach, Secretary Wilson wanted General Stone to “push the practical side of 

our work in preference to the academic,” as Stone put it in his annual report for fiscal 

year 1897. [p. 173] 

In accordance with the Secretary’s injunction, General Stone initiated an object-lesson 

roads program modeled on a similar program by the Massachusetts State Highway 
16

Commission. The idea was to build short stretches of road on or near State experimental 

farms for demonstration purposes on the theory that “seeing is believing”—that short 

stretches of good road would encourage the public to want more such roads. As 

explained in America’s Highways 1776-1976: “These would serve to instruct the 

roadmakers, to educate the visiting public and to improve the economic administration of 

the farms.” [p. 45] 

With a limited budget, the agency had to rely on outside groups to assist in building the 

object-lesson roads. As General Stone explained in his annual report for FY 1897: 

No funds being provided by Congress for actual road construction, I have been 

compelled to carry on road building by means of contributions from the various 

parties interested, viz, the agricultural colleges and experiment stations, the 

citizens concerned, and the manufacturers of road implements and machinery; the 

Road Inquiry contributing only a small installment of the expenses, through the 

payment of freight on machinery and part payment of wages of experts sent in 

charge of the machines, but keeping full control of the construction in order that 

the roads may be creditable to the Government when done. [p. 173-174] 

With an investment of $300 to $500 in Federal funds for each locality, the Office could 

build from $2,000 to $10,000 worth of road. [America’s Highways 1776-1976, p. 46] 

The first object-lesson roads, on Nichol Avenue and College Avenue, were built at the 

Agricultural College and Experiment Station in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in June 

1897. The ORI team improved 660 feet of Nichol Avenue with crushed rock from the 

cross street to the gate of the farm. Because of the difficulty of obtaining materials, ORI 

was able to provide crushed stone for only a portion of the planned 500-foot College 

Avenue project; the work was completed by local authorities. [Stone, Roy, “ObjectLesson Roads,” United States Department of Agriculture Yearbook, 1897, p.376] 

Steel-Track Wagon Roads

Although the object-lesson roads would demonstrate the latest techniques in road 

building and encourage their adoption, Secretary Wilson wanted General Stone to explore 

experimental methods as well. As historian Philip P. Mason explained: 

The Office of Road Inquiry also was interested in the building of sample roads for 

purely experimental purposes in order to gain first-hand knowledge of the best 

methods of road construction. This program differed from the object-lesson road 

work in that the federal government paid all of the expenses . . . . 

In the 1880’s and 1890’s . . . the main emphasis of road reformers was on hardsurfaced or macadam roads. It was soon discovered, however, that not only was 

this type of construction too expensive for most rural communities, but that many 

areas of the country lacked the gravel, rock or other hard material necessary to 

build such roads. The Office of Road Inquiry was soon aware of this problem and 

began to conduct experiments in 1897 with other types of road materials. [Mason, 
17

Philip P., The League of American Wheelmen and the Good Roads Movement, 

1880-1905, Ph. D. dissertation, 1957, University Microfilms International, p. 162-

163] 

As the number of motor vehicles increased, the problem would worsen because broken 

stone road surfaces, such as macadam, that served horses and wagons were not suited to 

automobile tires. The search for a suitable surface would continue into 1910s, with 

asphalt and concrete overtaking macadam, bricks, stone-clay, and other materials as the 

dominant surfacing materials for the automobile age. 

Secretary Wilson wanted General Stone to focus initially on steel roadways. Dodge, who 

had not yet been appointed Acting Director, stated that he convinced the Secretary of the 

practicality of the concept. In the Department of Agriculture Yearbook for 1898, Dodge 

discussed his involvement, dating to 1891, with steel-track wagon roads. [p. 291-296] 

The principal advantages in any surfacing material, he said, were cheapness, durability, 

and reduction of power required to move a vehicle. He believed that everyone agreed 

that steel tracks offered the advantages of cheapness and durability, but acknowledged 

that in reference to cost and manner of construction, “there is great diversity of opinion.” 

He disagreed with earlier plans, proposed in 1894 and discussed during the National 

Road Conference in Asbury Park, where the steel tracks were placed on wooden 

substructures. He explained: 

This wooden substructure adds to the cost of construction without adding to the 

real value or utility of the road, and can therefore be omitted with advantage, 

provided we can so adapt the steel track to the roadbed that it will combine with the 

materials composing the latter in such a way as to form a substantial and integral 

part of it. 

Mr. Abel Bliss of New Lenox, Illinois, and Mr. F. Melber of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 

had put down short experimental sections, only 25-30 feet long, reflecting what Dodge 

considered “the best form of construction,” but the sections were too short “to furnish any 

full and sufficient tests as to the value and utility of such roads.” In the fall of 1897, 

Dodge said, he had conducted the first true test of the value of steel-track wagon roads: 

At that time the county commissioners of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, authorized the 

writer, by contract, to lay 500 feet of steel track on the Brecksville road, 

immediately south of the city limits of Cleveland. The form chosen for this track 

was one designed and recommended by Mr. Melber, but without the wooden 

substructure provided for by him in 1894. This track was not completed till June, 

1898, and has been somewhat disturbed and obstructed since by reason of grading 

done adjacent to the track by the contractor, who was charged with carrying out 

more extensive improvements on the Brecksville road. The track, when completed, 

presented a fine appearance, and will doubtless give satisfactory results, but 

sufficient time has not yet elapsed to test it thoroughly in every respect. 
18

With the Secretary’s backing, General Stone initiated the experimental work by 

contacting the principal steel manufacturers, which offered construction plans. Stone 

favored a proposal by the Cambria Iron Company of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. In his 

annual report for FY 1897, he said: 

Upon investigating what has been already done by private experiment I am 

confirmed in my former opinion that a well-designed steel trackway can be 

successfully built and will be profitable to use and maintain, especially in localities 

where other road materials are scarce. 

The considerable expense involved in preparing to roll special shapes of rail has 

prevented much experiment in this direction heretofore, but the Cambria Iron 

Company is disposed to aid in the matter and will undertake this expense whenever 

a definite order for 1 mile of road shall be received. I have not succeeded as yet in 

getting such order and it will probably be necessary to ask Congress for a small 

appropriation for this purpose. The cost of material for a mile of road will be 

$3,500. It will be advisable to put this down in several places, widely separated, in 

order that the test may be more complete and the exhibition more thorough. [p. 

174-175] 

Stone did not say so, but the Office was aware of Dodge’s work in Cuyahoga County. 

The annual report for FY 1989, drafted by Assistant Director M. O. Eldridge and 

submitted by Acting Director Dodge, described Dodge’s work: 

This road is composed of inverted channel bars placed in such a position that 

they become a tramway or trackway. A broken-stone surface has been 

prepared for the horses to walk upon, and to enable the teamsters to take 

their wagons on and off the road at will. The road is laid in a street on which 

there is a large amount of heavy traffic and has already demonstrated the 

great value of steel in road construction. [p. 161] 

The first Federal experiment took place under Dodge’s direction while he was filling in 

for General Stone. At Dodge’s urging, Secretary Wilson authorized construction of a 

steel trackway on the grounds of the October 1898 Trans-Mississippi Exposition in 

Omaha, Nebraska. Dodge’s Yearbook article indicated that Secretary Wilson 

“determined to undertake, through this Office, a test as to the utility of the steel track, 

made and laid so that vehicles without flanged wheels might have the great advantage of 

a smooth track, heretofore enjoyed only by vehicles with the flanged wheels.” [p. 292] 

For the FY 1898 annual report, drafted by Eldridge and submitted by General Stone, 

described plans for the trackway: 

The contract for the steel work has already been let to the Cambria Iron Company, 

and it will be completed in a few days. It is the purpose of the director of this 

office [Acting Director Dodge] to proceed to Omaha and superintend the laying of 

this track upon the roadway connecting the main street of the exposition with the 
19

Indian village, where it can be seen and examined by all persons attending the 

exposition. It is also proposed to make traction tests upon this steel road, with a 

view to showing how much less power would be required to move vehicles over 

such a road than over any other heretofore built. It is expected that this experiment 

will show that steel roads can be built at no greater cost than other hard roads, that 

when built they will last many times as long with but little repair, and that the 

power required to move a vehicle will be reduced to a small fraction of that which 

is now required. It has been claimed that an animal can move fifty times its weight 

over such a road as is to be built at Omaha. The tests to be made by this objectlesson road will prove or disprove these claims. [p. 162] 

Under Dodge’s supervision, the Office’s engineer in charge of object-lesson roads, 

General E. G. Harrison of Asbury Park, New Jersey, built 280 feet of steel track on the 

exposition grounds. In the Yearbook article, Dodge described the facility: 

The road thus laid consists of two parallel lines of steel plates, 8 inches wide, laid 

at a sufficient distance apart to receive the wheels of vehicles of the standard 

gauge. These plates have a slightly projecting flange upward and on the inner 

edge, so as to prevent the wheels of ordinary vehicles, which have no flanges, from 

easily leaving the track. At the same time the flanges, being only one-half inch, are 

not of a height to prevent the vehicles from leaving the track for the purpose of 

passing other vehicles whenever the driver so desires. These steel plates are not 

supported by wooden cross-ties or longitudinal stringers of any kind, but are 

provided with flanges projecting both downward and outward. These flanges are 

embedded in the concrete of the roadbed so as to form a substantial part of it, and 

the steel plates are supported at every point by a substructure of cement or other 

enduring material. [p. 292-293] 

The trackway included cross-ties, “not for support, but only to maintain the steel plates at 

a uniform distance from each other and also to prevent tilting and to maintain the face of 

the plates in a horizontal position.” Without cross-ties of wood, the trackway “contains 

no perishable material . . . heretofore used and thought necessary for all steel-track 

construction.” [p. 293] 

After completing the exposition tracks, General Harrison built a 150-foot steel trackway 

at the State experiment station in St. Anthony, Minnesota, and a 180-foot trackway at the 

State College at Ames, Iowa, both in September. 

Dodge reported that the cost of the steel-track road was about $1 per foot, but he thought 

the cost would be lower when trackways were built in longer sections “requiring large 

quantities of material, and when the rolling mills are equipped with suitable rolls to get 

the shapes desired without the extra cost incurred in making the ‘built section.’” He also 

thought that experience would indicate that the weight of steel could be reduced, resulting 

in additional cost reduction. 
20

At the Omaha exposition, Dodge demonstrated that one horse on a steel trackway could 

haul an 11-ton load that would require 20 horses on an ordinary road. In the case of the 

steel trackway, the 11 tons consisted of men and boys, including Dodge in his top hat, on 

wagons. He also demonstrated that a “horseless carriage propelled by electricity” could 

operate on the steel-track wagon road, and that a bicycle could ride one track of the 

double trackway. 

Thus, the experiment proved his point that the steel-track wagon roads were cheaper and 

theoretically more durable than regular roads. It also demonstrated that “the power 

required to move a vehicle . . . is only a small fraction of the power required to move the 

same vehicle over any other kind of road.” (In his National Republic article, Dodge 

stated that “The same demonstration was made at the Paris Exposition in 1900.”) 

Although Dodge considered the trackways a success, the three experimental trackways 

built in the autumn of 1898 would be the ORI’s final experiments with the concept. The 

cost of retooling steel plants for manufacture of specially designed steel tracks proved 

prohibitive. With General Stone back in office but having missed much of FY 1899, 

Eldridge again wrote the annual report, which included a summary of the experiment: 

These experimental sections of steel road clearly demonstrated their usefulness for 

the Western States and for the other level States which are but sparingly supplied 

with good stone or gravel. The time was so limited and the means at our disposal 

so inadequate that we had to prepare a design for these steel roads, using rails of 

the regular shapes found in the market. Imperfections were naturally found which 

can be easily remedied if steel again becomes so cheap that the manufacturers can 

take the matter up and make rails of special shapes, or if sufficient means are 

appropriated by Congress to perfect the system. [p. 157] 

Director, Office of Public Road Inquiries 

As the permanent Director beginning October 23, 1899, Dodge continued many of 

General Stone’s initiatives, but with a different emphasis. Historian Bruce E. Seely said 

of Dodge: 

In most respects, Dodge retained Stone’s mix of technical and promotional efforts 

through cooperation, but altered the balance of these activities, not to mention the 

style of operation. Stone had used technical activities to further promotion ends, 

whereas Dodge reversed the order. [Building the American Highway System: 

Engineers as Policy Makers, Temple University Press, 1987, p. 17.] 

Dodge was aided by new instructions provided by Secretary Wilson on May 29, 1899. In 

the OPRI annual report for 1900, Dodge wrote: 

According to the strict construction put upon the law by your predecessor (see 

letter of instruction printed in the report of this Office for 1893), we were, up to 

the time of your accession, prohibited from engaging in any practical road work. 

On May 29 of last year the Director of this Office received the subjoined letter of 
21

instructions, to the effect that we should push the practical side of our work. 

Under these instructions this Office has embraced every possible opportunity to 

assist in or take charge of the construction of object-lesson, sample, or 

experimental roads. 

U.S. Department of Agriculture 

Office of the Secretary 

Washington, D.C. 

May 29, 1900 

Sir: In order that the provisions of the statutes relating to “Public-road 

inquiries” may be properly and efficiently executed, you are hereby 

authorized and directed to supervise, manage, and conduct investigations, 

inquiries, and experiments relating to the following subjects, viz.: 

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

management throughout the United States. 

(2) To make investigations, by experiment and otherwise, regarding the 

best methods of road making and the best kinds of road-making 

materials to be found in the several States. 

(3) To prepare didactic reports and statements upon the subjects of road 

making and road management suitable for publication and distribution 

as bulletins of this Department. 

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

in disseminating, by object-lesson methods and otherwise, information 

on the aforementioned subjects. 

The necessary expenses attending the execution of these instructions will 

be provided for upon requisitions and specific letters of authorization. 

These instruction supersede all former general directions given you 

respecting the scope and purpose of the work of the Office of Public Road 

Inquiries. 

 Respectfully, 

 James Wilson, Secretary 

These instructions [p. 279-280] formally confirmed the Secretary’s desire that Dodge 

continue the initiatives that he and General Stone had begun while undertaking the 

“practical” activities that Secretary Morton had opposed. 

At the same time, OPRI remained a small office compared with its broadened 

task. Dodge would have to use his ability to work with the private sector, as well 

as his political skills, to accomplish the mission. 
22

With the Secretary’s and congressional support, Dodge took several steps in 1900 to 

strengthen his staff. One was to establish the organization’s first field structure, with four 

divisions headed by special agents. The FY 1900 annual report explained: 

The Congress at its last session appropriated an additional sum of $6,000, over 

and above that usually appropriated heretofore, in order that the work of this 

Office might be extended; and for the purpose of carrying out that idea the United 

States has been divided into four divisions known as the Eastern, the Southern, 

the Middle, and the Western . . . . 

The special agents were: 

Eastern division—Logan W. Page of Cambridge, Massachusetts, who was the 

Chief of the Bureau of Chemistry’s Division of Tests in the U.S. Department of 

Agriculture. 

Southern division-- Professor Joseph A. Holmes, State Geologist, Chapel Hill, 

North Carolina. 

Middle division--Horatio S. Earle, State Senator and Chairman of the Michigan 

State Highway Commission, Detroit, Michigan 

Western division--James W. Abbott, Lake City, Colorado. [p 290] 

Except for Page, the special agents were part-time employees. Dodge provided a look at 

their work in his annual report for FY 1901. Special Agent Abbott traveled 12,000 miles 

by railroad for the following activities: 

He has, by personal interviews and private letters, brought the subject of road 

improvement to the attention of governors and other State officials, the editors of 

leading newspapers, professors in institutions of learning, presidents and 

managers of railroads, prominent civil and mining engineers, members of the 

legislatures, boards of county commissioners, road supervisors, the heads of 

leading industries, manufacturers of road machinery, besides a large number of 

influential private citizens. 

He attended and participated in the work of four very important conventions, at 

two of which he read papers. He has written several articles for publication in 

leading newspapers, and numerous interviews have been published giving 

accounts of his movements and work. He spent some time in consultation with 

the road committees of the Colorado legislature and assisted in framing a 

carefully prepared road law. He visited many places in Colorado, Utah, and 

California, and gave advice where it was desired regarding specific or general 

road improvement. Mr. Abbott visited, practically at his own expense, this Office 

and the highway departments of New York, Massachusetts, and California . . . . 

[p. 238] 

America’s Highways 1776-1976, quoting this material, added: 
23

All this for $1,500 per year! Obviously, Special Agent Abbott also had a private 

income to draw upon, as did the other division heads. [p. 47] 

Seely summarized the efforts of the special agents as reflecting Dodge’s political style: 

He hired three part-time special agents in part to supervise object-lesson roads but 

also to organize road conventions and meet with political and civic leaders. One 

drafted several bills after consulting with ten legislatures in 1899, while another 

agent distributed 200,000 copies of an OPRI circular on state aid to thirty-five 

Illinois farmers’ institutes in 1901 before preparing a bill. In 1900, OPRI agents 

appeared in twenty-three states, for as Dodge’s assistant later explained, “a great 

deal can be said in a speech that cannot be printed in a Department publication.” 

[Seely, p. 17] 

This division structure would be retained in expanded form until the mid-1940’s. 

The arrival of Logan Page in Washington would have long-term significance. Born in 

Richmond, Page graduated from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute in 1889 and went on to 

become one of the first three graduates of the highway engineering program that his 

uncle, Professor Nathaniel Shaler, had begun at Harvard. 

In 1893, Shaler appointed Page, then 23 years old, to direct the testing laboratory of the 

Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard. In this capacity, Page served as geologist and 

testing engineer for the Massachusetts State Highway Commission, the Nation's first 

State highway agency. To learn about laboratory testing from the acknowledged 

international leader in good roads, Page took courses in France’s School of Bridges and 

Roads (l’Ecole nationale des Ponts et Chaussees). 

One of the challenges facing road builders was the availability of material suitable for use 

in roads. Each State had its own unique materials that were more or less suited to road 

building. In 1897, the ORI had begun working with the U.S. Geological Survey to 

identify satisfactory road materials. In 1900, Congress appropriated funds for a materials 

testing laboratory in the Agriculture Department's Bureau of Chemistry. Dodge, who 

believed that material testing was at the heart of French success in building good roads, 

hired Page to head the laboratory. 

Page, with 7 years of experience in Massachusetts and training in French laboratory 

science, would establish the new laboratory as the Nation's primary scientific laboratory 

on road building materials. As Seely explained: 

Like the object-lesson road program, the sample testing program was extremely 

popular. The railroads, contractors, quarry operators, government officials, and 

the public all sent samples of stone, rock, tar, oil, sand, and other materials for 

analysis and often asked for proper instruction on their use. Almost every letter 

received a short reply, and whenever applicable, a copy of a relevant office 

bulletin or circular. Under Page’s guidance, the testing division also began 
24

research projects into the use of Portland cement and other materials for road 

surfacing. The laboratory director was especially interested in cement and 

concrete, and as this work became known, he even received requests for help 

from manufacturers of concrete fence posts and cement wash tubs. The primary 

point is that the laboratory very quickly strengthened the Office of Public Road 

Inquiry’s national position as the standard source of information on road materials 

and construction methods. [Highway Engineers as Policy Makers: The Bureau 

of Public Roads, 1893-1944 , Ph.d. Thesis, 1982, University Microfilms 

International, p. 40] 

Era of Transformation

Dodge’s tenure coincided with a national shift in surface transportation. As reflected in 

his Ohio work, he initially saw a shift from animal power to inanimate power. This was, 

he believed, part of a larger debate in society about the shift of population from farms to 

the industrial urban areas. In December 1898, the Acting Director told The Washington 

Star: 

Some ten years ago I became satisfied that the agricultural industry in this country 

was passing through a period of decline, especially in the eastern and middle 

states. When the census report for 1890 was published, it was more apparent than 

ever before that the agricultural industry had not only declined as to its prosperity, 

but that relative to other industries it was losing its place. This was manifest by 

deserted villages in the rural districts, abandoned farm-houses, and an absolute 

decrease in the rural population . . . . In studying the causes of this decline in 

agriculture I soon observed that those communities which had the best and 

cheapest means of transportation had suffered the least, and that those 

communities that were poorly provided with the means of transportation had 

suffered most. [Emphasis in original] 

States in the trans-Mississippi group, which had “the cheapest means of transportation for 

long distances by the steam railroads and the steamships upon the great lakes,” suffered 

less of a decline: 

On the other hand, the local communities who are dependent upon animal power 

to move their products have suffered the greatest decline where the wagon roads 

are poorest, and the least decline where wagon roads are best. So it seems 

apparent that the most important factor in producing the changed condition of 

population and the decreasing value of agricultural land is the item of 

transportation. 

Dodge pointed out that the relationship was so clear that “the value of agricultural land 

can be accurately estimated by its distance from easy means of transportation.” By 

“easy” or “cheap” transportation, he explained, “I mean something better than an 

ordinary wagon drawn over an ordinary unimproved road by animal power.” 
25

Documenting the cost of transportation under varying conditions was a task that General 

Stone, Dodge, and his successor would consider an important part of their scientific and 

promotional work. The purpose of the three steel trackway demonstrations in 1898 had 

been to illustrate a way of reducing the cost of transportation. Dodge summarized the 

latest findings: 

The cost of moving tonnage 1,250 miles by steamships upon deep water, 250 

miles on steam cars, or 25 miles upon electric cars, is no greater than the cost of 

moving tonnage five miles by animal power upon a common road. Having 

noticed this great difference in the cost of moving the productions of the country . 

. . it seemed to me imperative that everything should be done to supply the rural 

districts a cheaper means of transportation than they have ever enjoyed, and 

restore them as much as possible. [Star article quoted in “Effect of Roads on 

Population,” L.A.W. Bulletin and Good Roads, December 23, 1898, p. 459] 

While promoting the shift from animal to inanimate power, Dodge served as Director 

during the period when the automobile replaced the bicycle as the primary vehicle behind 

the Good Roads Movement. During the 1880’s and 1890’s, bicyclists had dominated the 

movement during The Bicycle Craze, including efforts to convince farmers that good 

roads were in their interest. Dodge, as Acting Director in 1898, cited the bicycle as an 

example of one of the trends he favored in an era when alternatives to the railroad were 

being examined. He suggested shifting focus from the roadbed to the vehicle riding over 

it and the means of its propulsion. He explained: 

The roadbed, as commonly constructed, is of great width and solidity, yet the 

burdens passing over these roads are, as a rule, only from one or two tons in 

weight. It is unnecessary and unwise to build roads for the transportation of light 

burdens capable of sustaining burdens a hundred times the ordinary weight. Of 

course the new roadway should be hard and smooth. This can be effected by 

substituting steel for stone. In reference to the vehicle, the fault which expresses 

itself in excessive weight, is the result of a natural evolution based upon 

conditions heretofore existing, but now rapidly passing away and capable of 

complete elimination. 

The bicycle offered four advantages over the horse-power commonly used on the roads: 

First of all, the improvement of the roadbed can be effected without increasing the 

cost of its construction. In the second place, the weight of the vehicle can be 

greatly diminished in proportion to the load it carried. The bicycle is a noted 

example of what has been done in this respect. The chief value of the bicycle 

resides in the fact that it carries a burden many times its own weight. If it were 

constructed on the principle of nearly all other vehicles, so as to weigh as much, 

or more, than the burden it carries, it would have no practical value and would not 

be in use. It is possible, in my opinion, to construct other vehicles so as to attain, 

to a very great extent though not to so high a degree, the perfection of the bicycle 

in that the vehicle shall carry in all cases more than its own weight, and in most 
26

cases many times its own weight. In the third place, having such vehicles as I 

have referred to above, it is possible to substitute inanimate power for animal 

power for all distance [sic] upwards of five miles, and by such substitution there 

would be a gain equal to four-fifths of the present cost for animal power. As a 

fourth element of advantage, and one resulting from the foregoing, there would be 

an increase in the speed of vehicles and consequently a proportional saving in 

time, which is also an economic gain of great consequence . . . . 

No real progress was made in the development of the bicycle until the low wheels 

were put on and the centre of gravity lowered to the lowest possible point. This 

example should be imitated in the construction of other vehicles . . . . With a 

smooth truckway and a light vehicle placed upon roller bearings, it is possible to 

substitute inanimate power for animal power on all distances of five miles and 

upwards with a very great saving, equal to what is estimated to approximate fourfifths of the present cost for animal power, and as a natural result of these 

conditions there will come a great increase in the speed of the vehicle. [Dodge, 

Martin, “The Disadvantages of Animal Power,” L.A.W. Bulletin and Good Roads, 

February 10, 1899, p. 201-202] 

Soon, Dodge had to acknowledge that technology was moving in the opposite direction, 

away from light vehicles with heavy loads. Dodge put the evolution in historical 

perspective: 

In the early history of this country the plan of internal improvement by the general 

government included the building of highways. This plan was strongly advocated 

by such statesmen as Clay and Calhoun and was followed until the introduction of 

the railroad furnished a cheaper means for the long haul than could be attained 

upon the ordinary highways . . . . Within the past few years new inventions have 

been made which are destined to change all this. We now have the bicycle, the 

automobile, the suburban street car, all moved without the aid of animal power 

and suited for use upon the highway . . . The time has now come to take up, 

develop and carry out the original thought and intention of providing a cheap and 

easy way of moving light and ordinary vehicles over the common highways, to 

and from the houses of the people carrying themselves and their products. The 

one great thing which we need in order to accomplish this very desirable result is 

better roads. And in order to make sure of a rapid and permanent improvement of 

our highways we should appeal to the original system of internal improvement 

advocated by Clay and Calhoun. [Dodge, Martin, “Ideas of Clay and Calhoun,” 

The L.A.W. Magazine, June 1900, p. 16-17] 

The November 1900 issue of L.A.W. Magazine contained this brief item in its 

“Observations of the Month” column that reflected the shift to the automobile: 

In relation to his active interest in the construction of an inter-state side path from 

Boston to New York to Chicago, Director Dodge, of the office of Public Road 

Inquiries, at Washington, informs us that he is confident that the completion of 
27

such a wheelway would be but the first step toward the construction of an interstate national highway along the same route. 

Having brought this part of the plan to a successful conclusion, the next step 

would be to interest the automobile people. Judging from the rapidity with which 

the automobile is becoming popular, and the success which has attended recent 

long-distance runs, the horseless vehicle is destined to spread beyond the 

metropolitan districts. As good roads are essential for the rubber tired carriage, 

Mr. Dodge hopes, by the aid of manufacturers, automobile clubs and property 

owners along the proposed route, to widen the cycle path into a road sufficiently 

broad for the automobile. 

Having obtained a smooth and serviceable road, twenty feet wide, and running in 

as nearly a straight line as possible from Boston to Chicago, the further task of 

widening it for a universal highway would be the natural sequence. As soon as 

the states west of Chicago evince a willingness to fall in line, as some have 

already done, the work will be extended westward in the same manner. [p. 1] 

Death of President McKinley 

On September 6, 1901, Dodge’s patron, President McKinley was in the Temple of Music 

at the Pan American Exposition, a World’s Fair held in Buffalo, New York. McKinley 

was greeting exposition visitors. Historian Paul F. Boller, Jr., explained that shaking 

hands with well-wishers was a favorite activity: 

McKinley's handshake was famous. To save wear and tear on his right hand at 

receptions, the President developed what came to be called the "McKinley grip." 

In receiving lines, he would smile as a man came by, take his right hand and 

squeeze it warmly before his own hand got caught in a hard grip, hold the man's 

elbow with his left hand, and then swiftly pull him along and be ready to beam on 

the next guest. [Boller, Paul F., Jr., Presidential Anecdotes, Oxford University 

Press, 1981, p. 188] 

Just past 4 p.m., the President reached out to apply the “McKinley Grip” to the next guest 

in the receiving line. The guest, a Polish anarchist named Leon Czolgosz, shot the 

President twice, once in the chest and once in the abdomen. After emergency surgery in 

the exposition’s small hospital, the President was taken to the home of the exposition 

president, John Milburn. The President’s condition was considered too grave for the 

longer trip to a larger hospital. 

On September 14, The New York Times reported on the President’s final hours. The 

article began: 

Buffalo, Sept. 14.—Before 6 o’clock last evening it was clear to those at the 

President’s bedside that he was dying, and preparations were made for the last sad 

offices of farewell from those who were nearest and dearest to him. Oxygen had 
28

been administered steadily, but with little effect in keeping back the approach of 

death. The President came out of one period of unconsciousness only to relapse 

into another. 

But in this period, when his mind was partially clear, occurred a series of events 

of profoundly touching character. 

His Cabinet had arrived at the Milburn House: 

They knew the end was near and that the time had come when they must see him 

for the last time on earth. This was about 6 o’clock. One by one they ascended 

the stairway—Secretary [of War Elihu] Root, Secretary [of the Interior Ethan A.] 

Hitchcock, and Attorney General [Philander C.] Knox. Secretary [of Agriculture 

James] Wilson also was there, but he held back, not wishing to see the President 

in his last agony. There was only a momentary stay of the Cabinet officers at the 

threshold of the death chamber. Then they withdrew, the tears streaming down 

their faces and the words of intense grief choking in their throats. 

The President revived about 7:45 and asked to see his wife: 

She came to the room strong in her weakness compared with the weakness of the 

strong man whose life was so fast ebbing. The physicians and all but one of the 

nurses in the room, and for ten minutes husband and wife sat alone. Mrs. 

McKinley came from the room and was escorted back to her own. This was the 

second time last evening she had been by the side of the dying President. When 

she left Mr. McKinley murmured words from the hymn, “Nearer, My God, to 

Thee.” 

From the Milburn house came State Senator Martin Dodge of Cleveland, an old 

friend of the President and a fellow-worker with him in years gone by. He was 

not permitted to enter the room, but stood in the hall trying to catch one last 

glimpse of the face of his early companion. As he reached the barrier in the street 

he stopped, looked about, and, while weeping, said “Gentlemen, the Nation’s 

chief is dying. There is absolutely no hope, no chance.” 

While officials kept vigil, the President approached his end. It came on the afternoon of 

September 14. McKinley regained consciousness long enough to say his final words to 

his family: 

“Good bye all. It is God’s way. His will, not ours, be done. Nearer my God to 

Thee!” he said softly. Soon, he would be gone, and his Vice President, Theodore 

Roosevelt, would become President. 

(Czolgosz would be executed in the electric chair at Auburn State Prison on October 29, 

1901.) 
29

Colonel W. H. Moore and the National Good Roads Association 

Just 2 days after President McKinley’s death, the International Good Roads Congress 

opened on September 16, 1901, on the grounds of the Pan American Exposition. On July 

22, 1901, the National Good Roads Association (NGRA) had called for the congress, 

with Martin Dodge supporting the proposal by issuing a notice of the congress. Acting 

Secretary of State Alvey A. Adee had issued an invitation to foreign governments on 

August 8, noting that, “The congress has the indorsement [sic] of the director-general of 

the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo” but “will not be under the auspices or patronage 

of the Government of the United States.” Nevertheless, “the Department would be glad if 

the Government of the country to which you are accredited could find it of advantage to 

send delegates to the congress.” [Proceedings of the International Good Roads 

Congress, OPRI Bulletin No. 21, 1901, p. 5] 

Throughout his tenure, Dodge would be closely linked with the NGRA, a private group 

headed by Colonel William H. Moore and based in St. Louis. America’s Highways 1776-

1976 said of the NGRA: 

Like many other good roads organizations, the National Good Roads Association 

had no permanent membership list and depended for its support on donations 

from civic groups, manufacturers of road machinery, suppliers of road materials, 

wealthy individuals, the public at large and even the railroads. Colonel Moore, 

the guiding spirit of the NGRA, was a skillful and persuasive promoter, with a 

wide acquaintanceship among influential people. [p. 48] 

Moore was born in 1856, a native of Sheffield in Ontario, Canada, who grew up in 

Ontario’s Lambeth. As he would put it in a speech to the North Carolina Good Roads 

Convention on February 12, 1902: 

I lived on a farm until I was 16 years old, and I know what it is to travel through 

the mud to school, and I also know I missed many days when I should have been 

there. 

He also discussed the origins of the NGRA: 

This is the eleventh year I have been associated with this movement. It started in 

a Southern State—Missouri—in 1891. We next held a convention in Omaha, and 

then in St. Louis, and finally we got up to Chicago, and there held a national 

convention in 1900, with representatives from thirty-nine States, at which time 

this National Good Roads Association was organized . . . . [Proceedings of the 

North Carolina Good Roads Convention, OPRI Bulletin No. 24, 1903, p. 12] 

With the Nation in mourning for the assassinated President, Moore opened the 

International Good Roads Congress on September 16. He explained: 
30

It is not necessary for me to state that we meet under adverse conditions, for the 

hearts of the nation to-day are following the funeral train that is now on its way to 

the Capitol bearing the remains of our beloved President. [Bulletin 21, p. 6] 

Dodge, addressing the congress as temporary chairman, began his comments in a similar 

vein: 

I appreciate very highly, I assure you, the honor of being called upon to preside 

temporarily over your deliberations. I do so, however, with feelings of the most 

intense regret, that we and the entire nation have been overtaken by this great 

calamity—the assassination of our beloved Chief Magistrate. Undoubtedly the 

attendance of delegates is diminished by reason of that unfortunate fact. 

Turning to the subject at hand, he stated that “it is a matter of regret that the Government 

has been somewhat slow to appreciate the necessities of the people in this great 

movement.” Citing annual appropriations as low as $8,000, he explained that Congress 

had increased the appropriation to $14,000 the previous year and to $20,000 for the 

present year. “It is still, however, ridiculously small to meet the necessities and 

requirements of the case.” 

(The reference to $8,000 is correct. Although the Office began in 1893 with a budget of 

$10,000, the annual amount was reduced in later years during the depression that 

followed the economic panic of 1893.) 

The remainder of his speech covered familiar territory, including the evolution of 

vehicles, the shift from animal power to inanimate power, and the need for cheap 

transportation by road. He concluded with an observation that he made in other speeches 

and articles: 

In conclusion, let me call your attention to the fact that the cheap rates which 

prevail upon the steam roads and the steamships have been largely brought about 

by the aid which has been given to them by the Government of the United States. 

You all know how many millions of dollars are and have been appropriated 

annually for many years past in the “rivers and harbors” bill to deepen the rivers 

and harbors and the water communication between the Great Lakes . . . . The 

Government has also given its aid to the long-distance railroads going through the 

prairies of the West and over the mountains to the Pacific coast, and in that way 

great results in the cheapening of transportation have come through Government 

aid . . . . But what I now think is that having accomplished so much in those 

directions and the needs being so great in reference to a matter which has been so 

long neglected, we ought all to agree that the Government itself should give 

suitable aid, and the various States would follow the example set by this State, 

Massachusetts, New Jersey, and other States, and push this work forward until we 

have accomplished for the short haul as much as has been accomplished for the 

long haul. [p. 11-15] 
31

Later that first day of the congress, delegates adopted a resolution on the death of 

President McKinley, expressing their grief and deciding to adjourn on September 19, the 

day of his funeral. 

Despite the somber circumstances, the congress was successful in its array of topics. The 

OPRI published the proceedings in November 1901 in a first edition of 10,000 copies. 

When that edition was exhausted, OPRI printed another 10,000. 

Horatio S. Earle

Horatio S. Earle, born in 1855 in Vermont, moved in 1889 to Detroit, Michigan, where he 

was a businessman specializing in road-related activities: Earle Cycle Company, 

Genesee Gravel Company, the Good Roads Supply Company, and the Earle Equipment 

Company. He joined the LAW in 1896, becoming chief consul of the LAW’s Michigan 

Highway Improvement Committee in 1898. As he traveled around the State speaking on 

good roads, he observed the difference between rural and urban audiences, as historian 

Kenneth Earl Peters explained: 

It became apparent that city dwellers were saying “if the farmers want good roads, 

let them build them,” while the farmers were saying “if the cities want good roads 

to use for their pleasure, let them build them.” Trying to soothe each group, Earle 

stressed to rural audiences that the roads could be partially financed by cities, but 

when he addressed urban groups, he tended to soft-pedal this line of argument. 

[The Good-Roads Movement and the Michigan State Highway Department, 1905-

1917, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Michigan, 1972, University Microfilms 

International, p. 19-22] 

In October 1899, Earle became Chief Consul of the LAW’s Michigan Division. In 

December 1899, he announced a contest to increase membership and promote good 

roads. The first Michigan city to recruit 200 LAW members would host an international 

good roads congress in July 1900. Port Huron won the contest and became the site of the 

First Annual LAW Festival and Good Roads Congress on July 2-5, 1900. 

Earle asked Governor Hazen S. Pingree to appoint 1,000 delegates but the Governor 

declined because, as Peters put it, “he felt that the majority of Michigan people did not 

favor good roads.” Peters explained where Earle turned for support: 

Consequently Earle approached Martin M. Dodge, the director of the U.S. Office 

of Public Road Inquiry [sic], who eagerly sent special invitations to prominent 

good-roads advocates throughout the United States and Canada as well as to 

Michigan legislators, journalists, and local officials. [p. 23-24] 

Peters described Earle’s plan to attract all types of people, not just good roads advocates, 

to the congress: 
32

In order to attract and win over such a diverse crowd of people, Earle scheduled 

for the event a variety of activities, ranging from bicycle races to automobile tests, 

athletic games, band concerts, vaudeville shows, fireworks, a carriage parade, and 

all-night smoker, speeches, and a banquet. [p. 24] 

Although the festival had to be fun, it was designed “to dispel the belief that road builders 

were mere visionaries.” Peters described how Earle helped to convey this idea: 

Earle sought to establish the idea that with wise investment of money and modern 

techniques, men could build roads at a reasonable price. Earle sought to 

demonstrate his ideas through two devices—his good-roads train and the objectlesson road. On July 4 Earle hitched together the first good-roads train ever 

assembled. It consisted of a traction engine, a road roller, a sprinkler, dump 

wagons, and farm wagons, which were loaded with several hundred people riding 

to the festival’s major event, the object-lesson road. This macadam road, 

financed through donations of equipment and materials from the Port Huron 

Engine and Thresher Company, was the first object-lesson road built in Michigan 

under the supervision of a road expert from the U.S. Office of Public Road 

Inquiry [sic]. [p. 25] 

(Peters pointed out that, “Earle admitted that the credit for the train rightfully belonged to 

Maurice O. Eldridge” of the OPRI. [p. 25, footnote 10]) 

Dodge described the object-lesson road in his annual report for FY 1900. He had 

dispatched General Harrison to build the object-lesson road at the Port Huron festival: 

The crushing plant and the road machine, kindly placed at the disposal of the 

Office by a road-machine company, were operated by Mr. J. M. Starkweather, 

who also had general supervision of the road. An enterprising engine and thrasher 

company supplied a traction engine, provided with extra wide wheels for rolling, 

a spreading wagon, and sprinkling cart, as well as otherwise materially aiding the 

enterprise, and it was largely due to the efforts of this company that the work was 

so successfully completed. 

A special feature of the work was that the traction engine was used instead of 

horses to draw the road machine and dumping wagons, which plan proved very 

satisfactory. Thus, the traction engine served the treble purpose of furnishing 

power for the crusher, drawing the road grader, etc., and rolling the road . . . . 

Part of the sample [road] had been completed and part was under construction 

when the convention met. Thus the delegates were afforded an opportunity to 

observe the methods and details of construction and to see the principles, taught 

by the road builders present, actually put into practice. 
33

Dodge joined General Harrison on July 2 “and took general supervision of the work July 

2, 3, and 4, making explanations of the work done there and in other parts of the country 

by this Office.” Dodge also presided over the convention of July 3 and 4. 

The results of this meeting, and especially the object-lesson road, of which there 

was about a mile built under the auspices of the Government, were so satisfactory 

that many applications were made to have similar work done at other places. 

[Annual Report, 1900, p. 289] 

Peters concluded that Earle’s “hard work yielded overwhelming success and tangible 

results,” with hundreds of delegates from the United States and Canada: 

Another important outcome was the adoption of the following bold resolutions: 

to call upon the United States government for liberal assistance in road building; 

to extend the powers of the Office of Public Road Inquiry [sic] so that it could 

develop educational campaigns and object-lesson roads in every state; to use 

convict labor for preparing road materials and building macadam roads. [p. 25-

26] 

When Dodge announced his selection of special agents for regions of the country, he 

granted Earle a 90-day appointment as a special agent of the OPRI for the Midwest at a 

salary of $500 plus expenses. [Peters, p. 27, footnote 14] Earle sought the appointment 

partly because he thought it would help his effort to win election to the State Senate 

where he planned to promote good roads: 

As special agent Earle concentrated most of his efforts on publicizing, and 

educating the public about, good roads in Michigan. He primarily sought to 

achieve his purposes through good-roads conventions. The largest was in 

Saginaw on August 21-22, 1900. Martin Dodge wholeheartedly cooperated with 

Earle by sending a road engineer to supervise an object-lesson road, by ordering 

an assistant to negotiate with railroads for free transportation of machinery to the 

convention, and by offering to issue invitations. Although the convention was not 

as large as the one in Port Huron, hundreds of people attended, and the event was 

very successful primarily because of the . . . object-lesson road, which good-roads 

proponents hoped would persuade the farmers to join the crusade for better roads. 

[p. 27-28] 

Dodge described the Saginaw work in his annual report for FY 1900: 

About August 10 the work of actual construction was begun on the object-lesson 

road built south of the city of Saginaw. A distance of 8,017 feet was prepared, by 

properly grading first, then the crushed stone was put on in layers as usual and 

rolled, so that when the convention assembled on the 21st there was an 

opportunity to see the road in every stage of improvement, from the undisturbed 

earth at one end to the finished roadway at the other. The work was substantially 
34

a repetition of what we did at Port Huron, except that a longer distance was 

undertaken. [Annual Report, p. 289-290] 

Again, Dodge joined General Harrison on August 18 “and remained until August 22 

explaining the work.” Dodge also presided over the Saginaw convention. 

(In September 1900, Dodge appointed a new special agent for the Middle Division, State 

Senator James H. Stout of Menomonie, Wisconsin. Stout, who was elected to the State 

Senate in 1894, was a good roads advocate who had sponsored an ORI object-lesson road 

in FY 1899 in Menomonie. The “model road” proved itself in the rainy months, 

according to the Milwaukee Sentinel, which stated: 

If there were such roads throughout the State, as there may be eventually if a 

systematic scheme of road construction is indorsed by the people, thousands of 

farmers will reap benefits that will be worth to them many times what they are 

assessed to help pay for the roads. As the assistant director of the Agricultural 

Department Bureau of Road Inquiry [Eldridge] said in a recent report: “The 

difference between good and bad roads is often equivalent to the difference 

between profit and loss.” Anyone who observes the results attained by the 

Menomonie model road can appreciate the significance of this remark. [Quoted 

in Annual Report, 1900, p. 286]) 

On November 6, 1900, Earle won election to the State Senate, running almost entirely on 

a good-roads platform. Earle was also encouraged that voters elected an LAW member, 

Aaron T. Bliss, as Governor. 

Although the new Governor would support good roads, Earle realized it was up to him to 

get good roads legislation through the legislature. In the 1901 legislature, Earle “perhaps 

made a pest of himself by using a rule that permitted him to make a good-roads speech on 

every bill.” [Peters, p. 29] In May, he secured passage of a concurrent resolution calling 

on Governor Bliss to appoint a Michigan State Highway Committee. Governor Bliss 

signed the resolution and appointed the seven men Earle had recommended, including 

himself. The committee met the same day, May 21, and chose Earle to be chairman. 

[Peters, p. 31] 

In February 1901, Earle had been elected president of the national LAW, but the 

organization was fading along with the Bicycle Craze as a result of the automobile. 

When Earle’s term as president ended on December 6, 1901, he began to create an 

organization, which he called the American Road Makers, to carry on the fight for good 

roads that the LAW with its declining membership could no longer lead. Earle had 

chosen the name for his group because its acronym “ARM” meant that the association 

“will never lower its arm until its purpose, ‘The Capital Connecting Government 

Highway’ is attained, connecting every state capital with every other state capital, and 

every capital with the United States Capital—Washington.” 
35

Peters stated that, “Earle’s plan to start the American Road Makers received prompt 

endorsement from Martin Dodge, who, like Earle, discerned that if the rapidly growing 

number of professional road builders and engineers could be effectively organized, better 

roads might emerge more quickly.” Although Earle issued invitations to 200 people 

around the country to attend the organizational meeting, only four were present at the 

Cadillac Hotel in New York City when the American Road Makers was organized on 

February 12, 1902. [p. 33-34] Despite this inauspicious beginning, ARM would evolve 

into the influential American Road Builders Association, which was renamed the 

American Road and Transportation Builders Association in the 1970s. 

In the OPRI’s annual report for FY 1903, Dodge recalled the Saginaw object-lesson road 

built in 1900, “the longest piece of object-lesson road ever built in any one place by the 

Office of Public Roads Inquiries . . . it being nearly 2 miles in length.” The road had, he 

explained, helped enact the State good roads law as well as encouraging Saginaw County 

to vote to expend $60,000 a year to improve its roads: 

This new work was inaugurated on June 19, 1902, at a great meeting held in the 

city of Saginaw, after which a grand procession marched through the city about 2 

miles out to the road where the actual work was begun. This procession was 

headed by the governor of Michigan and his staff, and the mayor and police force 

of Saginaw. Ground was broken for the new work by the governor. Governor 

Bliss, of Michigan, therefore, has the credit of being the first governor to put his 

hands to plow in this new and great work of road building by cooperation. The 

city of Saginaw, the county of Saginaw, the State of Michigan, and the United 

States Government were all represented at this meeting, and they all cooperated in 

producing the result. [p. 334] 

On July 29-31, 1902, Earle and the State Highway Committee staged a 3-day exposition 

in Greenville. Dodge, who had helped plan the event during a visit with Earle in Detroit 

on June 13, issued invitations to influential people around the country. Peters noted that, 

“Earle received word on July 1 that Michigan railroads, which were vitally interested in 

obtaining better roads to and from their stations, would grant half-fare rates to persons 

traveling by train to the exposition.” [p. 37] Over 25,000 people attended the event. 

On July 30, Dodge addressed the convention on "Government Co-operation in 

Object-Lesson Road Work." He discussed the history of road building in the United 

States, including construction of the National Road, the era of toll roads, and the passing 

of responsibility for roads to counties and townships. That was sufficient in an earlier 

time, but now, the local road officer finds “himself deficient in skill and the proper kind 

of resources.” Dodge summarized the work of the OPRI, including object-lesson roads 

and Logan Page’s work in testing rock samples. In discussing object-lesson roads in 

1900 and 1901, he said, "In all of these cases the co-operation has been very hearty on the 

part of the state, the county, the municipality in which the work has been done, and the 

results have been very satisfactory and beneficial." Good Roads Magazine, August 1902, 

p. 3-6] 
36

According to Peters, Earle was encouraged by the popularity of the object lesson roads 

built in Michigan to begin developing plans for another good roads train. It would 

“consist of an engine, several railroad cars containing current road building machinery, 

and a Pullman car for road-machinery operators and for good-roads experts, such as 

Martin Dodge and E. G. Harrison.” Earle’s plan was elaborate: 

The train was to travel to twenty-five states, stopping at designated communities, 

where the road experts would give talks on good roads, and the machinery 

operators would construct object-lesson roads. According to Earle, the purpose of 

his good-roads train was to show the people what could be done toward building 

and improving roads by using the most scientific, modern machinery. 

Earle began organizing the Earle Good Roads Train Company in June 1901, but planning 

lagged. Peters stated: 

The train began to roll when financial backing came from many railroads, the Port 

Huron Engine and Thresher Company, the Acme Road Machinery Company, and 

individuals who offered free meals and lodging to passengers on the train. On 

May 5, 1902, the Pere Marquette Railroad even assured Earle that it would haul 

the good-roads train free of charge over company tracks, whenever Earle desired. 

Earle’s good-roads train operated in Michigan for four weeks in 1901 and for 

nineteen weeks in 1902. [p. 38-39] 

America’s Highways 1796-1976 stated that neither Dodge nor the OPRI’s road experts 

participated in the Michigan venture. [p. 50] The book did not explain their absence, but 

by then the OPRI was involved in a more grandiose enterprise. 

Good Roads Trains 

Although Earle had employed a railroad to promote good roads, Colonel Moore is usually 

credited with conceiving the Good Roads Trains. America’s Highways: 1776-1976 

explained: 

In 1901 he conceived the idea of a traveling good roads show that would cover 

the country, educating the public on the advantages of improved highways, very 

much in the manner of the circuses and the popular Chautauqua shows [a 

traveling series of lectures]. He persuaded the road machinery companies to help 

with this project by donating their latest models, along with trained operators, to 

run them. [p. 48] 

He asked the railroad companies to help transport the men, exhibits, and equipment, and 

asked Dodge for his support: 

[He] approached Director Dodge to give Government sanction to the idea by 

providing a road expert to lecture on roads and supervise demonstrations of 

roadbuilding. Dodge was unable to help because his budget was already 
37

committed to other work; however, when the Association offered to pay the 

expert’s salary and expenses, he agreed to participate and designated Special 

Agent Charles T. Harrison of New Jersey [the son of General E. G. Harrison, who 

had died in February 1901 at the age of 73] as the OPRI’s representative. [p. 48-

49] 

The Good Roads Trains increased the impact of the object-lesson roads by allowing the 

free use of the latest equipment, generating publicity over a wide area, providing a forum 

for meetings, and promoting formation of State good roads organizations and adoption of 

State road laws. 

In preparation for the Good Roads Trains, the NGRA used an advance publicity 

campaign to promote attendance, sent agents ahead of the train to organize conventions, 

and arranged for donations of labor and materials for the object-lesson road construction 

that served as the cornerstone of each stop. After construction was underway, Harrison 

would conduct a Good Roads Day for the farmers and local officials. He would explain 

the new construction as he worked on it, lecture on the importance of drainage, and 

explain stone surfacing and road maintenance. [p. 47-49] 

These trains, which were popular and effective, were an example of the close relationship 

between the early good roads movement and the railroads. Because highways were 

viewed as feeders bringing people and goods to the railroads, officials of the railroad 

companies saw road improvements as being in their own interest. (This relationship 

lasted until World War I, when heavy demands exceeded railroad capacity, giving 

truckers an incentive to expand their range in intercity shipments. Only in the 1980's and 

1990's would the relationship be revived, thanks largely to the container/piggyback 

revolution.) 

The first Good Roads Train ran on the Illinois Central line from Chicago to New Orleans 

(April 20 to July 27, 1901), with Dodge along most of the way. (He left the train at 

Jackson, Mississippi, where Assistant Director Eldridge took his place for the remainder 

of the trip.) The nine-car train stopped in 16 cities and five States. In the annual report 

for 1901, Dodge explained: 

The “good-roads train” visited the following places, where sample roads, varying 

in length from a half mile to 11⁄2 miles, were built and where the officers of the 

National association organized permanent local and State associations: 

Flossmoor, Ill.; New Orleans, La.; Natchez, Vicksburg, Greenville, Clarksdale, 

Oxford, Granada, McComb City, and Jackson, Miss.; Jackson, Tenn.; Louisville, 

Hopkinsville, and Owensboro, Ky.; Cairo and Effingham, Ill. 

About 20 miles of earth, stone, and gravel roads were built and 15 large and 

enthusiastic conventions were held. The numbers attending these conventions 

and witnessing the work were very large, in nearly every instance more than a 

thousand persons and in some cases 2,000 persons being present. Among the 

attendants were leading citizens and officials, including governors, mayors, 
38

Congressmen, members of legislatures, judges of the county court, and road 

officials. This was undoubtedly the most successful campaign ever waged for 

good roads, and the expedition has been of great service to the cause, and 

especially to the people of the Mississippi Valley. [p. 243] 

In the annual report for 1902, Dodge printed comments from good roads associations 

regarding the roads built during the first Good Roads Train. One was from Harry H. 

Hodgson, Secretary of the Louisiana State Good Roads Association. Although nothing 

had been done to the earth road since it had been built in the city, “it was so built that it is 

in very good order.” Further, “the piece of road built had greatly benefited several road 

committees in our parishes, resulting in their making a number of improvements.” 

Similarly, J. W. Ross, Secretary of the Goods Roads Association in Natchez, reported 

that the road built in that city “had done a vast amount of good,” and had inspired the 

Board of Supervisors. As a result, “we think in time that every road in this county will be 

put in magnificent condition.” 

Stokely D. Hays, President of the Tennessee Good Roads Association in Jackson, 

reported the object-lesson road “is in good condition and is well constructed.” It had 

inspired “a general demand for road improvement in this county.” He predicted: “I think 

it will not be a very great while before there will be a concerted effort on the part of the 

citizens of the county looking to the construction of better roads throughout the county.” 

In Louisville, OPRI’s Harrison had built a mile of earth road from Elwood Avenue to the 

country club. It “has awakened interest in the movement throughout the state,” reported 

J. C. Van Felt, Secretary of the Kentucky Good Roads Association in Louisville. Since 

then, “the country club has had it macadamized, and it is as pretty a road as one could 

wish to see.” Because of the interest stirred by the Good Roads Train, the 4-year old 

association was “doing more for the cause than ever before.” [p. 310-311] 

The second Good Roads Train ran from Chicago to Buffalo, New York, later that same 

year. In the 1902 annual report, Dodge said: 

During the month of September, 1901, another good-roads train, organized in 

Chicago and carrying all kinds of modern road-building machinery, proceeded 

over the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad to Buffalo, where the 

machinery was used in the construction of samples of macadam and earth roads 

on Grand Island, near Buffalo. The good-roads train was on exhibition on the 

grounds of the Pan-American Exposition during the session of the International 

Good Roads Congress. This was the first international good roads congress ever 

held which was attended by European delegates. It was attended by prominent 

statesmen and officials, road experts, and engineers from various parts of this and 

other countries, and the results, it is believed, will prove far-reaching in their 

benefits. [p. 309] 

Southern Railway Good Roads Train 
39

Of all the Good Roads Trains, the Southern Railway Good Roads Train was "the most 

spectacular project," as Seely put it. [Book, p. 18] It left Alexandria, Virginia, on 

October 29, 1901, and continued its work until April 5, 1902 (with a December break for 

the holidays). It cost the Southern Railway $80,000. 

Dodge’s annual report for 1902 summarized the tour: 

During the intervening time it traveled over the Southern Railroad and its 

branches through the States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, 

Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama, a distance of 4,037 miles, stopping at eighteen 

different places and building as many object-lesson roads. The following places 

were visited, where conventions were also held: Winston-Salem and Asheville, 

N.C.; Greenville and Chattanooga, Tenn.; Birmingham, Mobile, and 

Montgomery, Ala.; Atlanta and Augusta, Ga.; Greenville, Columbia and 

Charleston, S.C.; Lynchburg, Danville, Richmond, and Charlottesville, Va. 

The governors of several of the States issued proclamations announcing the 

arrival of the train and urging the people to witness the object-lesson work and to 

participate in the deliberations of the conventions held. These conventions were 

addressed by the governors, United States Senators, Representatives in Congress, 

generals, professional and business men, farmers, and others. The addresses were 

of an unusually high class and were very instructive, as they covered almost every 

phase of the road question . . . . 

This Southern Railroad good roads train was equipped with twelve carloads of the 

most modern and improved road-building machinery, as well as two officers’ cars 

for the road experts and officials of this Department and the National Good Roads 

Association, and one camp car for the laborers. The train, its equipment, and 

operating force were all supplied by the railroad company, while the roadbuilding machinery and the expert operators of the same were furnished by the 

road-machine companies. In all cases the materials and common labor for the 

road work were supplied by the local authorities. The Government furnished 

instruction and scientific information, expert road builders, and didactic literature 

pertaining to the work. At all the places visited samples of stone, gravel, chert, 

earth, or shell roads were built, so adapted to local conditions as to show the best 

and most economic use of the available materials. [p. 309-310] 

The train carried the following machinery: 

Road graders: One Western road grader, two elevating road graders, three steel 

Champion road machines, and one Buckeye road machine. 

Engines: One 25-horsepower portable engine and boiler, and one 18-horsepower 

portable engine and boiler. 

Rock crushers and elevators: One No. 4 Champion mounted crusher, one No. 4 

stationary Champion crusher, one Aultman mounted crusher with elevator, one 

18-foot elevator with mounted bin, and one 10-foot elevator with bin. 
40

Wagons and carts: One 11⁄2–yard Aurora wagon, 2 Champion distributing carts, 

one iron-axle cart, one dump wagon, and one sprinkler. 

Road rollers: One Buffalo-Pitts 10-ton double-engine road roller, one 61⁄2-ton 

horse roller, and one 31⁄2–ton horse roller 

Miscellaneous: Eight wheel scrapers; seven plows of different styles and sizes; 

two disk harrows; seven drags; picks, shovels, screens, etc. [Road Conventions in 

the Southern States , OPRI Bulletin No. 23, 1902, p. 10] 

Dodge, Assistant Director Eldridge, and other OPRI officials accompanied the train, 

which traveled in a westerly loop via Tennessee to Mobile, Alabama, before returning to 

Virginia on an easterly loop. Participants constructed a total of 12 to 15 miles of roads 

using earth, gravel, sand and clay, chert, shell, and macadam, depending on the 

availability of the material. 

OPRI Bulletin No. 23 discussed the object-lesson roads built at each stop, described the 

conventions, and printed many of the speeches delivered along the way. From the 

bulletin and articles in Good Roads Magazine, a sampling of the activities at each of the 

stops can be provided as a way of exploring the concerns of a time when the United 

States was still trying to decide whether to commit to the automobile and the road. 

Winston-Salem, North Carolina 

The train reached the first stop, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on October 30. The 

road building equipment, all of it new, was put to its first use on North Liberty Street, just 

beyond the city limits. The OPRI bulletin explained the project: 

About 1,000 feet of macadam road and 400 to 500 feet of earth road were made. 

The soil for the roadbed and the other materials at hand were well adapted for the 

purposes. The subgrade had previously been prepared by convict labor for a 

width of about 34 feet and was comparatively level. The road graders were 

utilized in preparing the foundation for the stone work, and the steam roller was 

used both on the foundation and in preparing the macadam. The foundation stone 

was composed of crushed granite shipped by rail from the Mount Airy (N.C.) 

quarries. This foundation was of a uniform depth of about 5 inches. Excellent 

local trap rock was crushed by the good roads crushing plant and used for the 

second layer and for finishing. A most excellent piece of macadam was 

constructed, demonstrating the use of local material in preference to that shipped 

in by rail. In making the earth road the elevating grader, road machine, and roller 

were used. 

The bulletin added: 

Since the visit of the good roads train the local authorities have largely extended 

the work done there, and plans have been made for building in Forsyth County a 

large amount of modern macadam road as well as improving many earth roads. 

[Bulletin 23, p. 11] 
41

Governor Charles B. Aycock opened the 2-day convention by thanking participants in the 

Southern Railway Good Roads Train “for what they are doing for good roads.” In his 

brief remarks, he stressed the link between good roads and education, saying, “When our 

roads are good we can do something for the country schools, and that is what I hope for.” 

[Bulletin 23, p. 12] 

U.S. Senator Furnifold M. Simmons, a lawyer who served in the Senate from 1901 to 

1931, told the convention about the political reality that a way must be found to convince 

the majority of people in a community to support good roads “for the roads must be built 

by some system of taxation.” He continued: 

You ask why the legislators do not pass the needed laws anyway. Well, you may 

say what you please, but the fact stands that the average man who goes to the 

legislature or to Congress will not vote for a measure that he knows the majority 

of the people who elected him are opposed to. 

He hoped that in North Carolina, at least, “we can discuss such questions as this without 

consideration for one’s political fortunes.” 

Senator Simmons agreed with the Governor about the link between good roads and 

education: 

Good roads and education go together. Educate the people and there is no power 

in the world that will keep them from building roads. Build roads and you can not 

keep the people from becoming educated. [Bulletin 23, p. 12-13] 

Delegates organized the Northwestern Good Roads Association of North Carolina, with 

headquarters in Winston-Salem. They also adopted resolutions endorsing the work of the 

Good Roads Train and the OPRI. [Bulletin 23, p. 15] 

Asheville, North Carolina 

The train was in Asheville from November 4 to 7. As at Winston-Salem, convicts were 

employed to construct a sample road at Emma outside the city. It included 1,000 feet of 

earth road and 1,000 feet of macadam. The convention lasted 2 days, November 6 and 7, 

resulting in formation of the Appalachian Good Roads Association. [Bulletin 23, p. 15] 

The bulletin printed only one of the speeches. Mr. M. V. Richards, Agent of the Land 

and Industrial Development of the Southern Railway, assured the convention: 

I express the opinion that this good roads movement will be carried forward until 

the fullest measure of benefit will be received therefrom by the people of the 

South. There is growing demand for better roads; the present decade will pass 

into memory as the good roads age. [Bulletin 23, p. 17] 
42

Greeneville, Tennessee 

The Southern Railway Good Roads Train reached Greeneville on November 8 and stayed 

through the 12th. Inclement weather delayed the object-lesson work on the road from the 

village limits to Tusculum College. (According to the college’s Web site: “Founded in 

1794, Tusculum College is the oldest college in Tennessee, the twenty-eighth oldest 

college in the nation, and the oldest coeducational institution affiliated with the 

Presbyterian Church (USA).”) Despite delays, the team prepared 1,000 feet of 

foundation for the crushed stone road. The account noted: 

A fund for the improvement of this road to Tusculum College, a distance of 3 

miles, has already been raised, and it is believed that the object-lesson road work 

at Greeneville will inaugurate not only scientific and practical methods of 

construction, but the building of many miles of roads out of the excellent 

limestone rock which is so plentiful in that county. [Bulletin 23, p. 18] 

The 2-day convention, November 11 and 12, featured speeches by a representative of 

Mayor Mitchell, J. B. Bewly of the Greene County Commissions, Colonel Moore, and 

Representative Walter P. Brownlow, who spoke on the road history of east Tennessee, as 

well as the importance of securing improved highways. However, the ORI Bulletin 

reprinted only one of the addresses, Assistant Director Eldridge’s illustrated lecture on 

“The Highways of Europe and America.” Eldridge presented versions of this popular 

speech, using stereopticon images, on many occasions. As reproduced in the bulletin, 

Eldridge began: 

When we review the pages of history back to the dawn of civilization we find that 

the first promoters of art and science, commerce and manufacture, education and 

government were the builders of enduring highways. 

He cited ancient examples, beginning with Memphis, the first capital of unified Egypt 

dating to about 3100 B.C., and Babylon, the ruins of which are in Babil Province, Iraq, 

about 55 miles south of Baghdad. He said that “the two most ancient centers of 

civilization . . . were connected by a commercial and military highway.” After discussing 

roadbuilding in modern England, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and other countries, 

he turned to the history of roads in the United States. He described the National Road 

built in the early 19th century, as well as more recent efforts. Eldridge concluded: 

For beauty, grandeur, and magnificence our mountain scenery can not be 

surpassed, but it is unfortunate that so much of it is practically inaccessible to the 

lovers of nature. Except in a few isolated spots like this [Colorado along the 

Ouray and Silverton Toll Road, shown in the illustration he used] or the 

Yellowstone Park it is far more pleasant for wealthy Americans to spend their 

summers traveling through Europe, where good roads abound. By the 

construction of good roads Switzerland has been made “the pleasure ground of 

Europe,” but if we should add good roads to all our other attractions and 

advantages over foreign countries we could turn the tide of pleasure seekers and 
43

make our country not only a garden spot but the pleasure ground of the whole 

world. [Bulletin 23, p. 19-24] 

(Comments such as this were common at the time and would coalesce into the “See 

America First” movement over the next decade.) 

The East Tennessee Good Roads Association was organized “to cooperate with the State 

association, the national association [i.e., the NGRA], and the Office of Public Road 

Inquiries.” Delegates adopted resolutions thanking the NGRA, OPRI, and the Southern 

Railway Company “for their presence and assistance.” Other resolutions called attention 

to the importance of the Good Roads Movement, demanded the opportunity to vote on 

issuing road bonds, and promised “redoubled efforts along the lines mapped out by the 

convention.” [Bulletin 23, p. 24] 

Chattanooga, Tennessee 

In Chattanooga from November 13-16, OPRI’s Harrison led construction of a sample 

road on a 3,500-foot straight stretch of Vance Avenue at the foot of Missionary Ridge. 

The clay loam soil of the roadbed was a good soil for a road “if properly drained and 

consolidated.” To illustrate proper construction of an earth road, Harrison proceeded by 

“simply rounding it up with the road machine, leaving wide and open ditches on both 

sides, and rolling the surface with the heavy steam roller.” [Bulletin 23, p. 25] 

Col. Moore, in his speech to the 2-day Chattanooga convention, referred to the road to 

Tusculum College: 

I am sure those people in Greeneville, where we had such a successful meeting, 

would not have had anything permanent done in the near future for good roads 

unless we had visited them. They are going to complete that road to Tusculum 

College, and it will enable that college to get more money and more students. If 

they get that road to the college they are going to put in an electric car line. So 

you see what improvements follow in the wake of good roads. 

The same could happen in Chattanooga, destined to be “one of the greatest cities in the 

country” in 25 years or so. Moore did not expect much help from the State legislature at 

the time, “but in a short time, when you have your organization, I am sure the legislature 

of Tennessee will fall in line and help the roads.” [Bulletin 23, p. 26] 

Hamilton County Commissioner J. W. Clift addressed the convention on “Requisites to 

Road Improvement.” He recalled being summoned to Chattanooga for a meeting of the 

commission building the county courthouse: 

The whole country was flooded with water and the river was out of its banks. I 

mounted my horse, however, and came. Up here by Square Forks my horse mired 

down with me in the public road so that I had to get off into mud knee deep. That 

was the condition of farmers then. Such a state of affairs could not be 
44

encountered now with our improved roads. It would be impossible for a horse to 

mire now on the road between Chattanooga and the upper end of our county. 

Clift discussed the two most important requisites of road building. First, he said, was a 

“wise, wholesome, common-sense law under which these roads may be constructed.” 

The current law in the county was effective, but he added, “The most important requisite 

in carrying out of the provisions of the road law is the selection of proper men to take 

charge of the roads.” The second requisite was funding. Although the county had been 

“crippled somewhat for funds,” he said that “a long stretch of good roads [had been] built 

in our county under the contract system.” By selecting contractors solely on merit, “we 

have made good progress in road building.” [Bulletin 23, p. 27] 

Colonel R. W. Richardson, secretary of the NGRA, addressed the convention on the 

“Character of the Good Roads Movement.” He explained that, “The high purpose of this 

movement is not always understood.” The railroad men, he said, understood that 

developing roads “means eventually larger returns for them.” What was not as well 

understood was that the issue crossed city and county lines. The “question of 

transportation is one of greatest importance to every town and section.” If the 

“enterprising men of Chattanooga” want to build up their city, they must not limit 

themselves to improving the city’s roads. They “must broaden their views until they 

reach all the surrounding country.” He said: 

Now, the question of good roads is primarily an industrial question. It is at the 

very basis of the transportation question. Its solution means larger, broader, and 

better commercial and social conditions, and the people of this particular district 

can do nothing wiser than to improve the highways over which are transported all 

their commodities before they reach the great railroads. 

Each locality would have to work out its transportation problems “according to the 

conditions involved.” The Good Roads Train was designed to help: 

We come to you with this train, carrying its complement of machinery and 

improved methods. We do not hope that we are going to revolutionize your 

methods. We only hope to inspire the people where we make these stops to give 

their attention to the matter of organization for road improvement. 

Communities should work together to build common highways that cross jurisdictions. 

“It will not do much good to build a short stub of a road if you plunge into the mud at the 

end of it on reaching a county line.” Cities, counties, and towns should cooperate to 

connect their roads. He concluded: 

These are the thoughts that we have tried to burn into the minds of the business 

men of the country through which we have come. [Bulletin 23, p. 27-28[ 

The Chattanooga District Good Roads Association was organized during the convention. 

The bulletin did not list the resolutions adopted, but noted that they were “suitable.” 
45

Birmingham, Alabama

Beginning with Birmingham, the first stop in Alabama, the train spent a week at each 

stop to allow more time for sample road building. Unlike some other locations visited, 

Jefferson County, in which Birmingham is located, “has often witnessed practical road 

demonstrations, that county to-day having 225 miles of improved public highways, 

including chert and macadam roads, and some of the finest to be found anywhere in the 

United States.” As a result, “The interest of the people in the coming of the train and in 

the movement was very great, greater perhaps because the people were constant 

witnesses of the value of improved highways.” 

The sample road was built on an extension of Avenue A from 24th Street, from 

Birmingham to Avondale, a distance of about 1.5 miles: 

In the six days’ work fully a mile of this road was completed, and some work was 

done over the entire distance. This work consisted of cutting, filling, grading, and 

macadamizing.” 

The main goal was to demonstrate “the proper use of local materials, slag and chert, in 

connection with the latest improved road-building machinery.” [Bulletin 23, p. 29] 

The convention was held on November 20 through 22. Mayor W. M. Drennen welcomed 

convention participants to Birmingham. Although the county had good roads, he 

welcomed the opportunity presented by the Southern Railway Good Roads Train to learn 

“the most up-to-date methods of building country roads.” He added: 

Now, if we can get the people of Alabama more interested in the improvement of 

public roads throughout the State we will have won a great victory. 

Colonel J. M. Falkner of Montgomery, Alabama, addressed the convention on the duty of 

the Federal Government. Although he was a “strict constructionist” of the Constitution, 

Colonel Falkner said “there is no question as to the power of either the Federal or State 

governments to do what is necessary in the interest of good roads.” He argued: 

The Government of the United States has undertaken to carry and deliver the 

mails, and this to-day is essentially a governmental function; and the governments 

of the several States have undertaken to furnish highways; therefore, it follows 

that whatever powers may be necessary to enable either the Federal or the State 

governments to perform their duties exist, and it remains for us to see to it that 

these duties are performed. 

The delegates formed the Northern Alabama Good Roads Association and adopted 

resolutions “embodying the form of the organization and the rules which are to govern its 

operations.” [Bulletin 23, p. 33] 
46

Mobile, Alabama

The train stopped in Mobile, “the southernmost point visited,” from November 24 to 30. 

The road improved was Washington Street from Virginia Street southward. In keeping 

with the idea of using the best available road building material in the area, Harrison used 

oyster shells, “of which there is a great supply in Mobile and in near-by sections”: 

Mobile had already many shell roads constructed by simply putting a deep layer 

of unbroken shells over the road improved and leaving them to be crushed into 

good condition by the traffic which should pass over them. 

(This idea of letting traffic compact the road surface was at the heart of a long-running 

debate over the value of narrow bicycle-type tires and wider tires for heavier vehicles.) 

Harrison removed the sand surface, used the steam roller to create a good foundation, 

placed a 6-inch layer of oyster shells on the foundation, and compacted them with the 

steam roller before placing sand and gravel for top dressing: 

Near Mobile there is an abundant supply of good gravel, and by using the 

combination of oyster shells and gravel it is possible to make, at a reasonable cost, 

an excellent road. Nothing of the kind, however, had been constructed previous 

to the arrival of the good-roads train. This demonstration, therefore, not only 

attracted the attention of the people in that vicinity, but undoubtedly will lead to 

excellent results at other points along the Gulf Coast. [Bulletin 23, p. 33-34] 

Although Dodge addressed earlier conventions, his remarks were not included in the 

bulletin until the Mobile convention. His subject, an excerpt of which was reprinted in 

the bulletin, was “Relation of Roads to Rural Population.” He said, “It is a fact, known to 

every one of us, that agriculture has declined within the last two decades, and especially 

compared to the general advancement of the Nation.” He explained his theory on why 

this decline occurred: 

We find that the concentration of population in the cities has been brought about 

mainly by the cheapening of transportation rates on railroads and steamships and 

the securing of long hauls at an exceedingly low rate. These advantages, 

however, have left the agricultural interests relatively worse off than before the 

change took place. Therefore it seems to me it is incumbent upon us to remove, if 

possible, the obstacles in the way of more rapid advancement of population in the 

rural districts. 

The goal was to reduce the cost of the short haul. He believed that “those having more 

wealth, who are securing direct benefits from the rural districts, should assist in building 

the rural highways,” as was the case in the Cleveland area. Cuyahoga County had a 

$100,000 fund for road improvements, 80 percent of which was raised in Cleveland. No 

one in the city, Dodge reported, complains that the money will be used mainly in rural 

areas: 
47

While all who live in the country must go to the city, a smaller proportion, though 

a greater number, with their carriages, bicycles, and automobiles, go from the city 

to the country. While without the aid of taxation we have been able to secure 

cheap transportation by means of the railroads, we have not obtained the cheap 

transportation over the common roads which we ought to have. [Bulletin 23, p. 

35] 

Rabbi Alfred G. Moses of Mobile addressed the convention on “The Citizen’s Duty to 

Public Improvements.” The excerpt of his speech began: 

The Romans were the great organizers of antiquity. Without holding good roads 

conventions, they went to work to pave the broad domains of the republic and the 

empire. They saw the absolute need of good roads as the media of political and 

economic unity. The Roman roads spread forth like arteries throughout the 

system of States and colonies, transmitting the lifeblood of the nation . . . . The 

Roman ideal of civic duty and practical patriotism has never been excelled. The 

citizen’s duty to the public might be emphasized by many examples from Roman 

sources. 

The Egyptians, Chaldeans, Babylonians, and Persians were other societies that “have paid 

particular attention to this form of public improvement.” The Bible, Rabbi Moses said, 

contains many references to roads: 

Moses himself showed an appreciation of good roads when, in Biblical language, 

he sent messengers unto Sihon, King of Heshon, saying: “Let me pass through 

thy land; I will go along by the highway; I will neither turn unto the right hand 

nor unto the left.” (Deut. iii, 27.) No figure of speech was employed more 

frequently by Bible writers than that of a highway or road. The great prophet of 

the exile, the second Isaiah, rises to the full length of prophetic vision when he 

conceives the imminent return of the exiles from Babylon as a triumphal march 

along a smooth and even highway: “The voice of him that crieth 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.” 

(Is. xl, 3, 4.) 

Moving to the present, he said that, “From ancient down to modern times no public utility 

received more attention than the roads, for they were the only means of transportation.” 

Until the “shrill whistle” of the locomotive sounded the “knell of public roads,” every 

President through James Monroe issued messages containing “elaborate discussions of 

this matter.” Now, “We are again realizing the necessity of good roads,” as this 

convention made clear in a practical way: 

In this country I am afraid there is too much apathy on the part of citizens toward 

public improvements. Europe is far ahead of us in this respect. We have yet to 
48

acquire the art of beautifying our cities with the proper style of architecture and 

landscape effects. We have yet to learn the duty of providing our rural and 

municipal districts with ordinary public improvements, such as proper roads, 

harbor facilities, and with the higher forms of public utilities, such as advanced 

schools, public libraries, city parks, public statuary, museums of art and nature, 

and imposing municipal structures. Yet all these things will come in time. With 

our great resources we will yet vie with Europe in useful and beautiful public 

improvements. Mere sentiment will not suffice. We must produce concrete 

results. A good, well-paved road is one of the best paths leading to the 

development of real patriotism. [Bulletin 23, p. 36-37] 

In addition to forming the South Alabama Good Roads Association, the delegates 

adopted a resolution stating that the association will “vigorously present” information to 

the State legislature urging “the importance of enacting a well-digested and practical road 

law, founded upon modern experience and applicable to the several counties of the 

State,” with the goal that “common road construction may be encouraged and put in 

active operation.” The delegates also endorsed the OPRI’s work, and regretted that it 

“has not received the support which its importance demands.” Therefore, the delegates 

urged their representatives in Congress to “use their influence and votes to secure proper 

recognition and financial support for this Office.” [Bulletin 23, p. 38] 

Montgomery, Alabama 

The Southern Railway good roads train was in Montgomery the week of December 2, 

1901. “Several years ago,” according to the bulletin, Montgomery County “took up in 

earnest the question of improved highways, with the result that she has to-day upward of 

100 miles of chert and macadam roads leading from Montgomery to the county lines in 

all directions.” Plans called for two object-lesson roads, but inclement weather prevented 

work on a country earth road at Snowdoun. However, Harrison was able to build a 

1,200-foot long stretch of macadam road on Sayre Street in the city, including “a great 

deal of grading and foundation work, and chert and gravel were used for surfacing.” 

The 3-day convention, December 4 through 6, took place in the chamber of the House of 

Representatives. The bulletin described it as a “very large and enthusiastic convention,” 

adding that, “Some expressed the opinion that it was the finest and most earnest body of 

men ever gathered in an Alabama State convention of any character whatever.” [Bulletin 

23, p. 38] 

State Superintendent of Education John W. Abercrombie addressed the convention on 

“Common Schools as Affected by Roads.” He was proud of what the State had 

accomplished since the law establishing public schools had been approved in 1854. The 

State now appropriated a million dollars a year for common-school education or 50 

percent of all State revenues: 

Considering the conditions under which our people have labored, that 

notwithstanding our poverty we have been confronted with the absolute necessity 
49

of educating two races almost equal in numbers, and that this burden has been 

borne practically without assistance from any source, our achievement has been 

remarkable. 

Still, he said, “the results have not been wholly satisfactory.” In particular, attendance 

was not as good as it should be, and the lack of good roads was one reason: 

A school may be perfectly equipped as to building, furnishings, and trained 

teachers, and at the same time prove a failure on account of a lack of accessibility. 

Accessibility depends upon the kind and condition of the public roads. 

Why build good school buildings, he asked, “along impassable highways?” We would 

not build homes or businesses there, so why schools? Abercrombie quoted U.S. Senator 

John T. Morgan as saying: 

Not only are good roads pleasant and ornamental features of a country, but they 

are the wisest and most economical bestowal of money and labor. Every civilized 

country is measured by its roads, as much as it is by its industries, in the estimate 

that men place upon its value. 

Abercrombie mentioned other factors affecting good schools, but summarized his views 

on the link between schools and roads: 

It is possible to have good roads without good schools, but it is absolutely 

impossible to have the best of schools without good roads . . . . Let us be 

encouraged by this movement looking to an improvement in road building and 

road working. I see in it a better day for the boys and girls who must look to the 

country schools for preparation for citizenship and for success in everyday life. 

[Bulletin 23, p. 39-41] 

Henry Fonde, president of the recently formed South Alabama Good Roads Association, 

also addressed the convention. Like many of the early good roads advocates, Fonde gave 

a history lesson: 

The great importance of the public highways or roads was recognized at the very 

earliest times of which we have any historical knowledge. Herodotus refers to a 

great road in Egypt, which was built during the reign of King Cheops, and upon 

which more than 100,000 men were employed for a period of ten years. Strabo 

informs us that the city of Babylon was paved about the year 2000 B.C., and that 

three great roads were constructed, radiating from that city and extending to Susa, 

Ecbatana, and Sardis. The road leading from Babylon to Memphis was paved at a 

very early date, and along or near to it were constructed the great cities of 

Nineveh, Palmyra, Damascus, Tyre, and Antioch. The senate of Athens and the 

governments of Lacedaemon and Thebes exhibited great interest in roads and 

bestowed a great deal of care upon them. The Carthaginians were systematic and 
50

scientific road buildings, and it was from them that Rome learned the art of road 

making. 

Alabama and Mississippi, by contrast, “are hampered in whatever we may undertake for 

the improvement of our highways by unsatisfactory laws,” which relied on rural 

residents, who know nothing about how to build a road, to donate time to road 

improvements. He argued for more involvement by county and State governments based 

on proper road building techniques. [Bulletin 23, p. 41] 

The Alabama State Good Roads Association was formed. (If the convention adopted 

resolutions, the bulletin did not mention them.) 

Atlanta, Georgia 

The next stop was in Atlanta from December 9 through 14, 1901. The object-lesson road 

work, rebuilding Soldiers’ Home Road, was difficult because of the rain that seemed to 

follow the train from stop to stop: 

The demonstration work was conducted under many difficulties, there being 

storms most of the week. Excavating to a depth of 10 feet over a considerable 

portion of the course and heavy filling in other places was necessary. This cutting 

through heavy clay, and the time allotted under the bad weather conditions was 

not sufficient to make the demonstration desired. The work showed, however, 

what modern machinery will do. In addition to this heavy grade work a short 

stretch of macadam was made, the rock used for the purpose being local granite. 

[Bulletin 23, p. 42] 

Although Dodge spoke at each convention on the way, only a few of his speeches, 

including his presentation in Atlanta, were reprinted in the OPRI bulletin covering the 

good roads train. Dodge’s speech was called "Work of the Federal Government for Good 

Roads." Dodge began by discussing the migration of the population to urban areas: 

This has worked a hardship on the agricultural regions, and they have failed to 

keep pace with the cities in public improvements. One of the chief causes of this 

will be found in bad roads. 

He noted that the cost of transportation over railroads and deep waters had been 

diminished, but the cost of road transportation was as great as ever: 

On the deep water of the Great Lakes we take tonnage 1,000 miles at no greater 

cost than is required to carry it 5 miles by animal power. There is no doubt we 

can reduce this cost greatly by improving highways. Therefore, it ought to be a 

matter of interest to the people to take up this subject. 

He urged the States to get involved, as they once had been involved with roads and 

railroads in the 19th century. As for the Federal Government, it had once been involved 
51

in roadbuilding, having appropriated $7 million to build 700 miles of road in the early 

1800's, "but that policy was abandoned long ago." As for the present: 

Within a few years Congress, in consequence of the demands from various 

sections of the country, has thought it wise again to foster in some measure the 

improvement of the highways; and for the purpose of ascertaining the facts and 

publishing useful information established a small office in the Department of 

Agriculture, appropriating, however, only $8,000 from year to year until last year. 

They have now made it $20,000, and I am informed that there will be at least 

double that amount appropriated for the next year. But this is too small to enable 

the Government to make any contribution toward the actual construction of roads. 

For many years past the Director of this Office and his subordinates have been 

engaged in visiting the different localities and giving such information as might 

be of use to the people in improving their highways. The General Government is 

doing all it can in the way of giving scientific information to diminish the cost of 

construction, and thus increase the amount of improvement in proportion to the 

money expended. General Stone, my predecessor in office, published a large 

number of pamphlets giving instruction on the various phases of our work, and, as 

it is not possible for me to enter into the details of construction, I will simply call 

your attention to these publications, which will be furnished to any person making 

application for them. [Bulletin 23, p. 43-44] 

Professor T. P. Branch of the Georgia School of Technology also addressed the 

convention on the technical aspects of “Road Construction.” He explained that the 

"locating of a road is one of the fine arts of the profession." He considered location even 

more important than the details of construction: 

In time the mistakes of construction are usually corrected, those of location rarely 

ever. The mistakes of the roadmaker are not so fatal, but they are none the less 

costly. All that has been said to you of the expensiveness of poor roads applies 

with double force to poorly located roads. The mistake is not announced by a 

crash, as when a bridge goes down. The consequent loss runs in a trickling 

stream, which is making our country poorer and poorer. The time has come to 

stop this. 

Branch also stressed the importance of maintenance. 

The road must be kept in good order at a reasonable cost. One of the weakest 

points in the old road system was this lack of provision for regular repairs. "A 

stitch in time saves nine" is more than true of road repairs. [Bulletin 23, p. 45] 

During the convention, advocates formed the Georgia State Good Roads Association. 

(Again, the bulletin did not reprint resolutions.) 

Greenville, South Carolina 

 
52

The Southern Railway Good Roads Train was in Greenville, South Carolina, the week of 

December 16, 1901. Two macadam object-lesson roads were built. One was constructed 

on four blocks of Washington Street with granite from nearby quarries: 

The crushing plant from the good roads train was set up on one of the side streets, 

where the granite bowlders [sic] had previously been placed for this work. They 

were crushed in the usual sizes, separated with the revolving screen, from which 

they dropped into specially prepared compartments, and from these bins they 

were dumped into spreading wagons, which in turn spread the materials upon the 

road, thus illustrating the use of modern labor-saving machinery. 

The street posed a unique problem: 

The street where this work was done had previously been macadamized by hand, 

the materials used being large stones, varying in size from 6 inches in diameter to 

12 and 14 inches. It was difficult, therefore, for the road machine, or even for 

men with picks, crowbars, and shovels, to prepare the subgrade unaided; and so 

spikes were placed in the wheels of the steam roller, with which the surface of the 

street was torn up. The large bowlders were then taken out, and the foundation 

leveled with the road machine and rolled with the steam roller without the spikes. 

Only one side of the street was used for this demonstration; that is, from the car 

track in the center to the curbstone, a distance of about 16 feet. The materials 

were spread on with the spreading carts in two layers, according to the usual 

custom, and sprinkled and rolled, enough binding material being added to form an 

impervious crust and to make the road smooth and fit for immediate use. 

[Bulletin 23, p. 45-46] 

The bulletin did not mention the fact that the ground was frozen, but this point was cited 

in an article about the Good Roads Train in the June 1902 issue of Good Roads 

Magazine. [p. 5] 

In addition, a half-mile of earth road just outside the city was "graded up and prepared 

with the elevating grader and blade machine and rolled with the steam roller." For this 

work, convict labor was used, consistent with a State law that required all convicts 

sentenced to less than 5 years in jail to work on the public highways. 

Governor Miles B. McSweeney had appointed delegates from every county to attend the 

convention and nearly all were present. Although the convention was confined to a 

single day, many participants spent several days in the area observing construction of the 

two object-lesson roads. The bulletin observed: 

One of the most interesting features of the week was the active effort of these 

supervisors to inform themselves about all improved methods of road making and 

their holding of frequent meetings for the discussion of road work and means of 

pushing road improvement. [Bulletin 23, p. 45] 
53

State Senator A. H. Dean, in his address of welcome, said that he considered the meeting 

the most important to be held in the State in a decade. He ended on a rousing note: 

We regard good roads as next in importance to our great duty in training the 

minds and hearts of the young. We are thoroughly alive to the importance of this 

movement and have resolutely determined that within the confines of Greenville 

County good roads shall not be simply a Utopian dream, and we invite other 

sections of the State to lock shields as did the Roman legions and let us bear our 

grand old State onward in this work to that measure of accomplishment to which 

our conditions entitle us. [Bulletin 23, p. 47] 

Duncan C. Heyward, a farmer who had been elected Governor on November 4 and would 

take office on January 20, 1903, addressed the convention. He began: 

The only roads with which I have had experience are not the kind which we care 

to discuss on this occasion. Most of us are too familiar with them already. The 

only thing which may be termed good about them is that they remind one of St. 

Paul’s definition of faith, being at best but the “substance of things hoped for, the 

evidence of things not seen.” 

Everyone understood the importance of good roads, Governor-elect Heyward said, but 

this issue appealed to no one more than “to that great class who are the bone and sinew of 

our country, the farmers.” The greatest obstacle was “the cost that must necessarily be 

incurred in constructing good roads.” He encouraged the NGRA and all other supporters 

“to endeavor to remove the natural aversion which people have to an increase in taxation; 

they should persuade them to let ‘down the bars,’ so far as taxation for good roads is 

concerned.” 

Practical demonstrations, such as the two in the Greenville area, were valuable because 

they “let the people see what good modern roads really are, how easily they can be built 

and kept in repair, and how durable they must be when built in a scientific manner with 

improved machinery handled by men who are experts in the business, having devoted to 

their profession years of study.” He added: 

I speak from my own experience when I say that road building is something 

which grows upon one. A man can catch the fever for better roads just as he can 

catch the measles or mumps, and it is a fever which is extremely contagious. 

Everyone who had been driving over bad roads all of his life and comes upon a 

mile of good, hard road which was once a miserable quagmire is sure to catch the 

contagion. 

He knew that the common practice of farmers devoting a few days each year to road 

work “will not give us good roads.” The State’s duty was to “assist the people in their 

work by the passage of wise road laws and the election or the appointment of officers 

who shall supervise the construction of roads.” [Bulletin 23, p. 47-48] 
54

(Governor Heyward would not be able to deliver on these words. The State Legislature 

did not approve legislation creating a State road commission until 1909, 2 years after he 

left office in January 1907.) 

The South Carolina Good Roads Association was formed, resolving: 

• The State should give counties the right to levy taxes for road construction and 

maintenance. 

• The State should allow counties to issue bonds for road improvements. 

• The State should pass legislation altering present law to assign all convicts 

serving 2 years or less to county chain gangs for road work in the county where 

they were convicted. 

• The State should encourage the use of broad tires on the public highways of the 

State. 

• And the Congress should approve "a liberal appropriation for the support of the 

Office of Public Road Inquiries . . . for the diffusion of literature and the 

extension of general instruction on public road improvements throughout the 

States.” [Bulletin 23, p. 47] 

Columbus, Georgia 

After a Christmas and New Year's break, the Southern Railway Good Roads Train 

resumed the tour in Columbus on January 13-18. 

The road work consisted in making about 2,000 feet of earth road and a short 

stretch of macadam, the latter by the use of the local granite. There was much 

heavy grading to be done, but the road builders were able to show the use and 

advantage of improved road-making machinery and of scientific methods of road 

construction. [Bulletin 23, p. 49] 

Inclement weather delayed the object-lesson road work. In addition, Good 

Roads Magazine explained that “comparatively little work was done on account 

of lack of proper materials” on the road in the North Highlands district of the 

city: 

Much of the work consisted of cutting down a steep grade and in filling. 

A very much improved roadway was constructed, a short portion of 

which was macadamized, the stone used being a native granite from the 

banks of the Chattahoochie. [February 1902, p. 2] 

The bulletin described the 2-day Columbus convention as "very large" and "with an 

attendance from southern Georgia and southern Alabama." Colonel Moore, Colonel 

Richardson, Dodge, and others addressed the convention, but the bulletin did not reprint 

their speeches. The only presentation reprinted was a technical talk by Professor S. W. 

McCallie, Assistant State Geologist, on “Roads and Road-Building Materials of 

Georgia.” 
55

Delegates formed the Chattahoochee Valley Good Roads Association to represent nearby 

counties in the two States. Resolutions demanded better road laws; condemned the 

system of working out the poll tax, preferring the payment of taxes in money, not labor; 

endorsed “organization and action in the work of road improvement”; favored the use of 

convict labor; and thanked leaders of the Southern Railway Good Roads Train. [Bulletin 

23, p. 51] 

Good Roads Magazine noted a development that was sufficiently unusual to deserve 

mention: 

One feature of the convention was the presence of a delegation representing the 

Woman’s Federation of Georgia, headed by Mrs. J. L. Johnson, who made a brief 

address to the convention. This president of this association was made an 

honorary president of the Chattahoochie Valley Association. 

The magazine also observed that, “The superintendent of the public schools, with all the 

pupils of the high school, attended both sessions of the convention.” [January 1902, p. 3] 

Augusta, Georgia 

The train arrived in Augusta, Georgia, for a 1-week stay on January 20. Again, heavy 

rains interfered with the object-lesson work on the unimproved road in front of the 

Schuetzen Platz, extending to the Sibley and King Mills. [Good Roads Magazine, 

February 1902, p. 3] The bulletin observed that despite the heavy rains, the 

demonstration “was successful in attracting large numbers of people and in showing the 

uses of improved machinery and the best methods of road grading and construction.” 

The county in which Augusta is located, Richmond County, “has one of the best 

improved road systems of the United States,” with a great portion of public highways 

consisting of improved earth or macadamized roads. [Bulletin 23, p. 51] 

The Augusta convention was held on January 23 and 24, with participants from Georgia 

and South Carolina. The convention chairman was General Mathew C. Butler, a lawyer 

who had served in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Confederate Army, the United 

States Senate, and the Spanish-American War. He emphasized the need for systematic 

organization and the hardest of hard work, and he suggested that his State, South 

Carolina, appoint a good roads engineer with a sufficient salary to ensure his ability. He 

did not want to absolve the State and municipalities of all burden, but believed that 

permanent improvement of roads could not occur without Federal Government aid. He 

thought such aid should be matched on an equal basis by the localities. [Bulletin 23, p. 

52] 

Governor A. H. Candler of Georgia agreed. “Nothing is so calculated to bring about the 

advancement of the material interests of the States and promote interchange of 

communities as good roads.” He added, “But talk does not build roads. Talk is cheap; it 
56

takes money to buy land.” Still, he acknowledged that “talk is important after all. You 

have got to do the wind work first.” [Bulletin, p. 52] 

The convention also featured John D. Twiggs, an Augusta engineer, presenting a 

technical speech on “Practical Problems in Road Building.” He discussed such topics as 

grades, location, drainage, cross section, road classification, and surface pavements. He 

ended by quoting Georgia State Geologist Yates who said that “if all the common public 

roads of Georgia were first-class macadam roads, there would be a saving to the State of 

over $6,250,000 annually, or enough to gravel or macadamize over 6,000 miles of roads.” 

Twiggs said: 

These figures should be a sufficient incentive to make each man use his best 

efforts in furthering the great work of perfecting the roads throughout our State. 

[Bulletin 23, p. 56] 

The Savannah Valley Good Roads Association was organized, with General Butler as its 

president. Resolutions favored formation of associations to work for road improvement 

and recommended giving the OPRI bureau status with increased appropriations. 

[Bulletin 23, p. 56] 

Columbia, South Carolina

The Southern Railway Good Roads Train spent the final week of January 1902 in 

Columbia, South Carolina. Rain again limited the planned object-lesson road work. The 

bulletin summarized the activity: 

The engineers and machinery experts with the train began the work Monday 

morning, January 27. A portion of a city street was graded and macadamized and 

a new country earth road about 1 mile in length was graded and rolled. 

The convention, held in the hall of the House of Representatives on January 30, was a 1- 

day affair. The State legislature, which was in session, adjourned for the day, but 

virtually all members of the House and Senate attended the convention. [Bulletin 23, p. 

57] The addresses were necessarily shorter than at other conventions, with sessions 

during the day and night. 

Governor McSweeney welcomed the convention participants with the observation that: 

The day of economy in time has dawned with the twentieth century, and the 

annihilation of space, as far as practicable, is one of the coming needs of our great 

country. With this comes the general movement throughout the United States in 

behalf of good roads. 

Interest in good roads was growing around the State, he said, noting that Richland 

County’s “clay-sand roads have been pronounced by experts to be the finest of their kind 

in the country.” Still, “it remains for the general assembly to act,” and he encouraged 
57

participants to debate “the promotion of good country highways from the standpoint of 

finance and feasibility and, deciding upon the best, take the interests of our people as our 

watchword and act.” [Bulletin 23, p. 57-58] 

Colonel Moore agreed with the Governor, saying, “One practical road bill passed by this 

legislature will do more good than all other legislation that can be adopted.” He added, 

“The road question is going into politics, and it will go into national, State, and county 

politics.” [Bulletin 23, p. 58] 

The convention did not result in formation of a new promotional group, but did endorse 

the memorial that the South Carolina Good Roads Association had adopted on December 

19, 1901, during the Greenville convention, to the legislature. 

Charleston, South Carolina

The Southern Railway Good Roads Train arrived in Charleston while the South Carolina 

Interstate and West Indian Exposition was in progress. The Charleston exposition or 

World’s Fair ran from December 2, 1901, to May 31, 1902, with the goal of highlighting 

the city’s commercial advantages. Only 675,000 people attended the 6-month exposition, 

in part because of poor weather, with the result that the Exposition Company went 

bankrupt. 

In anticipation of the expected crowds, the OPRI and the NGRA planned a Southern 

interstate good roads convention for the week of February 3-8. The two organizations, 

along with the Exposition Company, invited the Governors of Alabama, Arkansas, 

Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, 

South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia, along with the Mayors of 

cities and villages throughout the region and commercial bodies and the public. 

When the train arrived in Charleston on February 1, it went to the exposition grounds 

(where Hampton Park is now on Charleston peninsula). The object-lesson road work on 

Grove Street was designed to show how to build roads in the sand of the area. A road 

machine shoved the sand aside, leaving a flat surface that was rolled with the steam 

roller. Clay-gravel “of excellent quality, which had been secured in an adjacent county, 

was spread in one layer of 6 inches in depth, which was then rolled until the desired 

surface was secured.” 

The bulletin noted that when material of this character can be had, “the building of 

improved roads is a comparatively simple proposition, because little or no attention has to 

be paid to the question of drainage, for when the water is shed from the surface of these 

clay-gravel roads it sinks down into the sand alongside.” Only a thick layer of surface 

material was needed because South Carolina does not have “the deep frosts which 

destroy the highways of the North unless their foundations are deeply laid and thoroughly 

drained.” [Bulletin 23, p. 59] 
58

The convention was held on February 5-7 in the Exposition Auditorium. The exposition 

designated February 7 as “South Carolina Legislature and Good Roads Day,” with the 

entire State Legislature in attendance. Although the convention featured many speakers, 

the bulletin reprinted only two addresses: “Improved Highways” by E. L Tessier, Jr., of 

Charleston (a former chairman of the Good Roads Committee of the LAW) and “Road 

Building in the Mountain County” by S. F. Kelsey of North Carolina. Both were mainly 

technical in nature. 

The convention adopted several resolutions, including one endorsing the idea of changing 

the OPRI to a bureau with a larger appropriation. The resolution also recommended that 

Congress empower the Secretary of Agriculture to appoint a special agent for each State 

to “devote his entire time to the betterment of the highways of that State.” Other 

resolutions recommended formation of State highway commissions or engineering 

departments in each State, endorsed the use of convict labor, and “heartily” approved the 

use of wide tires where practicable “and the payment of the usual road taxes in cash 

instead of labor.” [Bulletin 23, p. 65-66] 

Raleigh, North Carolina 

On February 10, the train arrived in Raleigh. Bulletin No. 23 referenced the stop without 

elaboration. However, OPRI Bulletin No. 24 reprinted the proceedings of the North 

Carolina Good Roads Convention, held February 12 and 13 in Raleigh’s Metropolitan 

Hall, in conjunction with the visit of the Southern Railways Good Roads Train. 

The object-lesson road work began on February 11 on Salisbury Street in Raleigh to 

make it accessible to convention goers. The 50-foot wide street was macadamized to its 

full width over a length of two city blocks. The bulletin said of the work: 

The building of the sample road was watched by a large number of delegates to 

the convention, who showed great interest, not only in the methods of 

construction, but in the handling of the road-building machinery. This objectlesson road had the one disadvantage of being located in the city, and being itself 

a city street instead of a country road; but it had the advantage of being easily 

accessible to all the delegates, and its educational value was enhanced by its 

location at the State capital, where it will serve as an object-lesson in scientific 

road construction to visitors from all parts of the State for several years. [OPRI 

Bulletin No. 24, p. 8] 

As the convention began, Governor Charles B. Aycock welcomed the delegates. He 

pointed out that when North Carolina was settled, “our forefathers settled in scattered 

communities,” with one old resident stating that “he did not want to live so close to his 

neighbor that he could hear his dog bark.” In that way, the State lost “the power of 

combination; we miss the strength which comes from unity . . . .” Times had changed: 

This is a rapid age, an age in which every man is on the move. We must do 

something if we would keep up with it. The struggle for the good things of life is 
59

intense, and we can not keep the pace with other States and peoples unless we 

bring to bear the whole power of all the people . . . . We live in an age which 

does not count distance by miles but by hours. If I should ask any man to-day 

how far it is to Washington, he would answer in the number of hours it takes to 

travel there.

The State must “meet the conditions which confront us.” He said: 

The roads are the only thing in the State of which I am ashamed, because they are 

in a condition which is without excuse. Captain Galloway once said that there is a 

sand road in eastern North Carolina 8 miles long and 2 miles deep. The 

difference between the sand roads of the eastern and the clay roads of the middle 

and western parts of the State is that the latter are still longer and deeper. If we 

ever expect to get the power of combination and unity we must make better roads 

. . . . There is no interest in the State which is not vitally concerned in the 

building of public roads; and I extend to you gentlemen from a distance, and to 

the citizens of North Carolina, to all who are here, the heartiest welcome, and bid 

you Godspeed in your great work. [Bulletin 24, p. 9-10] 

Colonel Moore, in addition to discussing how he became interested in good roads (cited 

earlier), told the delegates that the movement was “taking root, and in a very short time 

the question of good roads will take precedence of the money question and similar issues 

of the past. What you want is something that will improve your home, your children, 

your wife, your property, and that is good roads.” In the year the NGRA was formed, he 

said, “the good roads office at Washington [was] struggling along with only $8,000 a 

year; they hardly gave it enough to run the office.” He repeated the oft-cited contrast 

with other funding programs: 

And yet in the last Congress the Lower House voted $60,000,000 for rivers and 

harbors. We don’t like that sort of treatment. Organize and go up to Congress 

and say you want an appropriation for the Office of Public Road Inquiries, to 

extend its educational work to all the States. The Government has a right to do it. 

Congress appropriates $90,000 a year to test soils. Remember that we can not 

have successful rural free delivery unless we have roads that can be traveled over 

twelve months of the year. 

Colonel Moore also discussed the Illinois Central Railway and the Southern Railway 

Good Roads Trains, inviting delegates to the major Charlottesville convention in Virginia 

that would end the present tour. He also discussed some of the issues, recommending 

appointment of a State highway commissioner who can provide leadership and guidance. 

Money, of course, was the “very important question.” He thought counties could employ 

tax valuation and that the corporations, railroads, and cities could help finance road 

improvements. Bonds could be issued: 
60

This method will build the roads now; you will enjoy them, and your children will 

help pay for them. The bonds, if not paid, will be refunded when they are due at a 

lower rate of interest. 

As an alternative, he recommended the State-aid approach used in Massachusetts, New 

Jersey, and New York. “I do not believe such a system could be adopted in North 

Carolina now; but in a short time, if the subject is studied and agitated, public opinion 

will be developed in favor of State assistance.” He added that, “I believe our bones will 

be under the ground long before you have 25 per cent of the roads in North Carolina 

macadamized.” He recommended that the officials “deal with the earth road, the 

common dirt road” by grading each one, with the plan to macadamize it as population 

and wealth increase. [Bulletin 24, p. 11-14] 

Dodge addressed the convention on “Progress of the Good Roads Movement in the 

United States.” He wanted to focus on “States which are older in experience in dealing 

with the improvement of the public roads” where “we find that there has been an 

evolution both in sentiment and substance.” Although “improvement of the highways 

has been deferred too long,” he was pleased to note “that all over the country, East and 

West, and North and South, there is a sort of uprising among all the people for better and 

more permanent improvement of the highways.” 

He briefly cited the evolution of transportation from highways to railroads and water 

routes. “Long-distance transportation has been cheapened beyond expectation, but the 

cost of transportation over the common roads is as expensive as ever.” He did not think 

the burden of rural road improvement should fall on the farmers, who could not afford it. 

City property should be taxed for the purpose. The State-aid programs cited by Colonel 

Moore were another possibility. But he added: 

In all my observations, covering most of the States of the Union, I do not find that 

anything is being done to make any substantial improvement in the highways 

except where one of three conditions obtain. The first is where they work prison 

laborers, as you are doing here in North Carolina and some of the other Southern 

States. The second condition is, a general fund of money paid into the county 

treasury and expended under the direction of county engineers, supervisors, etc. I 

find that there are a few counties—quite a number in the aggregate, but few in 

proportion to the whole number—that have that general fund. The third condition 

is that of State aid. Where the State is aiding, the people have not only made 

improvements, but are encouraged to go on and make additional improvements. 

It is thought by many, and possibly by most of you, that many counties and many 

States are too poor to improve their highways. The fact is the opposite. You are 

not rich enough to afford to neglect them, because the cost of transportation by 

existing means is an incubus upon your industry. It diminishes the returns of your 

labor and the profits of your industry. You are wearing out your lives, 

impoverishing your land, and decreasing the value of it by the lack of these 

facilities. It is a question of necessity, not of choice. 
61

Dodge described the OPRI’s work, including its budget increase from $8,000 a year, to 

$14,000 the previous year, and $20,000 for the current year. The laboratory work cost 

$7,500 a year. He had recommended an increase in budget to $45,000, but “Congress did 

not see fit to make that appropriation.” Nonetheless, he was optimistic: 

I hope that, where these object-lesson roads are built and the people see them and 

see the benefits of them, there will be a public sentiment that will uphold the 

members of Congress in making these appropriations . . . . You must understand 

that any scheme or proposition we put forward in this matter is based on the belief 

that the benefits coming from these expenditures would be many times what the 

expenditures would be. [Bulletin 24, p. 16-19] 

Dodge and Colonel Moore had prevailed on General Butler, the former Senator from 

South Carolina, to address the North Carolina convention. Referring to his service with 

“tar heel” troops in the Civil War and the arrival of cadets from the Agricultural and 

Mechanical College during Dodge’s presentation, General Butler said, “I want to say to 

you now—to the young gentlemen and to the old gentlemen—that if you work roads as 

hard as you fought in those days you will have the best roads in the world.” 

He knew that everyone in the convention believed in the good roads cause, so he joined 

in endorsing the idea of State highway commissioners and State-aid programs where 

feasible. “But let me say what many of you already know: The people in the rural 

districts in the South—and I believe it is so in the North, both East and West—are not 

able to raise the amount of money necessary to improve the highways.” Still, cities could 

help directly through taxation and by issuing bonds. 

He thought the Federal Government, which “has appropriated $439,000,000 for the 

improvement of rivers and harbors, although the people do not all get uniform benefit 

from these appropriations,” could do more. “There is as ample constitutional warrant for 

the improvement of the public roads out of the United States Treasury—as large as there 

is for improvement of rivers and harbors or for the support of the agricultural colleges.” 

He knew the objection: “when the Federal Government comes to the aid of the counties 

and States the counties and States will fold their arms and do nothing.” The State-aid 

concept where the States must help would defeat that objection. 

General Butler urged people to speak to their Representatives and Senators about Federal 

involvement. He added: 

Let me say another thing: If something is not done . . . the depopulation of the 

rural districts will be nearly complete; the people are not going to live where they 

can’t get about. The young men will come to the towns and cities; the tendency is 

everywhere toward the concentration of population and the depopulation of the 

country districts; but decent roads would obviate this to a great degree. 

He concluded that with efforts such as the work of the NGRA, “the leaven is working and 

will work until we get a movement by which the rural population of this country can 
62

derive their share of the benefits growing out of the liberal appropriations.” [Bulletin 24, 

p. 19-22] 

Other addresses covered the “History of Good Road Making in Mecklenburg County” 

(by Captain S. B. Alexander of Charlotte), “Good Roads and Their Relation to the 

Farmer” (T. B. Parker, secretary of State Farmers’ Alliance based in Hillsboro), and 

“Interest of Railways in Road Improvement” (M. A. Hays, Agent of Land and Industrial 

Development of the Southern Railway). Alexander, whom Good Roads Magazine

referred to as “the father of good roads in North Carolina,” had worked for good roads as 

a State Senator. He appreciated General Butler’s proposals for national and State aid, but 

said, “I am afraid I won’t be here when that comes, and I want some good roads to go 

over while I am here.” [Bulletin 24, p. 24] 

The evening session began with the announcement that “on account of an unavoidable 

accident to the stereopticon apparatus, Professor Holmes, State Geologist and OPRI’s 

Southern special agent, “would not be able to give his illustrated lecture on good roads.” 

Addresses that evening covered “Economical Roads for Rural Districts” (Professor W. C. 

Riddick of the State Agricultural and Mechanical College),”Good Roads and Their 

Relation to Country Life” (General W. M. Cox, ex-president of the State Fair 

Association), and speeches from delegates representing North Carolina’s counties. 

February 13 began with talks on “Roads and Road Laws of Wake County” by W. C. 

McMackin, superintendent of roads for the county, and “Good Roads and Their Relation 

to Churches” by the Reverend T. N. Ivey, editor of the Christian Advocate in Raleigh. 

The Reverend Ivey concluded his address by referring to his observations of the objectlesson road and convention: 

I have seen the wonderful road machinery at work, and the enthusiasm of the 

convention here assembled; I have listened to the speeches; and I see in it all a 

harbinger of a better day for North Carolina. I see the sunshine of prosperity 

falling like a mantle over our State; I see increased numbers of school children 

wending their way toward schoolhouses; I see the church filled with warmer and 

more enthusiastic congregations; I can hear the sound of trade as it sings and 

laughs on our highways, and to-day, as an humble representative of the church in 

North Carolina, as an official representative of the paper with which I am 

connected, I here pledge the efforts of all our good people to do with their might 

what their hands find to do in getting for North Carolina benefits which mean so 

much. May the blessings of God rest upon this convention and upon the cause 

which it represents. [Bulletin 24, p. 45] 

He was followed by J. W. Abbott, OPRI’s energetic western special agent, who spoke on 

“The Good Roads Movement in the West.” He said of his territory: 

The country I represent, beyond the Missouri, an empire so diversified in its 

products and in its possibilities that it covers almost everything desirable under 
63

the sun, is if possible more primitive in its roads than any portion of even your 

South, but they have begun to wake up to the question. 

He said that while visiting the OPRI offices in Washington on Monday, he had seen the 

Sunday edition of the Raleigh News and Observer, which contained a three-page good 

roads feature: 

I saw that you people in the South had waked up on this question; that your 

education had proceeded very much further than ours and I was glad of it . . . . I 

am going to return to the Pacific coast, and I shall tell them out there that they can 

look toward the South, from whence their help and inspiration in this matter is to 

come. 

He explained that he was trying to convince western States that good roads could reduce 

shipping costs and to encourage newspapers to take up the cause, but at times, he felt 

“that we are undertaking a hopeless task without the means to accomplish the settlement 

of this road question.” Then, he said, “I look back over other things in my life I have 

fought with, and, although the prospect now looks discouraging, we are bound finally to 

succeed.” He concluded his brief remarks by noting that the South did not need the type 

of proselytizing as the West. “I don’t believe any such work as that would be necessary 

here in the South; it seems to have been done.” [Bulletin 24, p. 45-46] 

After a speech on the “Economy of Good Roads” by Dr. George T. Winston, president, 

State College and Agriculture and Mechanical Arts, the General Superintendent of FreeDelivery System of the Post Office Department, A. W. Machen, spoke on “Rural Free 

Delivery of Mails.” He began: 

The great popularity of the rural free delivery causes such an incessant demand 

for the service that I am kept busy at my desk almost day and night. 

However, he could not resist the invitation from Governor Aycock, Senators Simmons 

and Jeter C. Pritchard, and the NGRA to attend the convention “to point out to you in 

what way it [rural free delivery] affects the good roads movement.” He put rural free 

delivery in context: 

The school, the postal service, and good roads are to my mind among the most, if 

not the most, effective means through which the people may be given or may 

attain the full employment of material blessings here below. 

Schools were first on his list because on them “rests the stability of our institutions.” 

Mail service was second because “it is a great aid to each [schools and good roads] and at 

the same time dependent upon both”: 

Without education the mail service would be useless, and without good roads a 

modern universal mail service can not be brought to the degree of efficiency and 

perfection which an up-to-date public requires. 
64

Before discussing roads in relation to mail service, Machen provided a brief history of 

rural free delivery: 

At the sexennial convention of the Universal Postal Union held in Vienna in 1891 

a proposition was made that every postal administration belonging to the union 

should undertake to establish a universal delivery of mail as soon as possible. Out 

of compliment to the United States, that agreement was signed on our national 

birthday—July 4, 1891. The American representatives on their return from 

Vienna made a report to the Postmaster-General. Mr. Wanamaker, the merchant 

prince of Philadelphia, was Postmaster-General at that time. He at once looked at 

the subject from the standpoint of a business man, saw the impracticability of 

attempting a universal free delivery immediately, and realized that the only thing 

to do to carry out our part of the agreement was to make an experiment to 

determine what could be done toward establishing a feasible system of rural 

delivery. He asked Congress for an appropriation of $10,000 for that purpose, 

which was promptly granted, effective July 1, 1893 . . . . I promptly made 

inquiries of friends, postal experts, and asked for suggestions as to the best 

method to be pursued in an experiment. The Postmaster-General of that day, 

confronted with decreasing revenues and increasing deficits, was loath to take a 

step which might involve the future revenues of the service, so the money was not 

expended. 

Although Congress appropriated $10,000 the following 2 years, Postmaster-General 

Wanamaker did not use the funds before leaving office with President Grover Cleveland 

following the 1896 election. That year, Congress appropriated $40,000 for the 

experiment: 

The late William L. Wilson was then Postmaster-General. While the phraseology 

of the appropriation did not make its disbursement mandatory on the PostmasterGeneral, Mr. Wilson considered the fact that Congress had quadrupled the 

appropriation in the absence of a recommendation or suggestion on his part to 

mean that the legislative branch of the Government had determined that an 

experiment should be made. On October 1, 1896, five and a half years ago, the 

first route was established in Charlestown, West Virginia. 

By July 1, 1897, 44 rural free delivery routes were in operation, and by the end of 1898, 

148 routes were active. With appropriations increasing to $1.75 million for FY 1901, the 

Postal Service brought the total to 4,301 routes serving 2.7 million rural inhabitants. For 

the current year, Congress had appropriated $3.5 million: 

To-day there are 7,700 routes, covering 160,000 miles every day over country 

roads. By the 1st of next July fully 8,600 carriers will reach from 4,500,000 to 

5,000,000 people in the country and travel 200,000 miles of road every day. 

He anticipated that Congress would increase the funding for the coming fiscal year: 
65

The great annual increases in the appropriation for rural free delivery have not 

been equaled in any other department of our Government and never in the history 

of the postal service. It took the city [postal] service twenty-five years to grow as 

much as rural free delivery has grown in five and a half years. 

The mail carrier did more than deliver the mail to the farms so the farmer did not have to 

go to the nearest post office for other services: 

He not only delivers and collects mail, but he registers letters and delivers 

registered letters and special delivery letters; he accepts money for a money order, 

gives an official receipt for it, and within a few months he will pay money orders 

at the farm; he answers all the purposes of a postmaster; he carries stamps and a 

special kind of stamped envelopes specially suited for rural districts. 

Roads were the key to providing this service: 

This service to be satisfactory, therefore, must be efficient; it must be regular and 

punctual; it must be a daily service; it must be prompt, because the farmer should 

know just what time every day to expect the carrier. Such a service can only be 

maintained with good roads; with bad roads it is impossible. Good roads are 

indispensable to rural free delivery if we hope to have an ideal service. 

Therefore, Machen said, something had to be done to improve the roads. The previous 

summer, “the [Post Office] Department undertook . . . to call to the attention of those in 

charge of the construction and maintenance of public roads the necessity of improving 

them at once if a continuance of rural free delivery was desired.” To follow up, the 

Department had sent a circular letter to postmasters seeking information on the condition 

of roads used by rural carriers. “A letter to the postmasters directed them to notify 

patrons that service would be discontinued if roads were not improved.” The letters had 

the “desired effect” of prompting rural residents to ensure the local road superintendent 

tended to their roads. 

In this brief history of rural free delivery, Machen had “shown what it does for the good 

roads movement and what it is bound to accomplish in the future wherever the people 

want the service.” He added: 

If they are as insistent everywhere else as they are in North Carolina through their 

Senators and Representatives, nothing will stop good roads. The people are 

bound to have rural free delivery, and in order to have it as it should be, efficient 

and satisfactory, they must provide good roads. 

Before closing, Machen discussed the social benefits of rural free delivery, which helped 

to relieve the isolation of farm life. Like many others of that era, Machen was concerned 

about the isolation and monotony “which I believe is largely responsible for the desertion 

of the farms by the young men.” He concluded by saying: 
66

Rural free deliver means nothing more nor less than the city reaching out and 

clasping hands with the country, bringing our country cousins into a closer and 

more satisfactory relationship. This perfect public convenience, this ideal service 

for which we are now striving, can not be established or maintained without good 

roads. Therefore, good roads mean good rural free delivery. [Bulletin 24, p. 50-

55] 

Senator Simmons, who was the next speaker, delayed the start of his speech to make a 

motion that Machen’s presentation “was worthy of more than passing notice, and he 

moved a rising vote of thanks.” The thanks “was given unanimously and with applause.” 

(In July 1906, the Secretary of Agriculture and Postmaster-General entered into an 

agreement to facilitate rural free delivery by the improvement of country roads. As 

explained in the Office of Public Roads’ annual report for FY 1906, the agreement 

“provides that whenever a road upon which a rural route has been or is about to be 

established is reported by the carrier or inspector to be impassable or in bad repair the 

Fourth Assistant Postmaster-General will advise the Director of the Office of Public 

Roads of the fact and request that he have an engineer inspector detailed to examine the 

road and give such advice and instruction to the local officials as may be required.” The 

inspector would identify defects and advise on their correction—and assume temporary 

direction of the work in some cases at the county’s request for purposes of instruction. 

“By this means correct methods of road building and road maintenance will be 

introduced into practically every section of the United States.” [p. 22-23]) 

 

The subject of Senator Simmons’ speech was “Methods of Raising and Expending Road 

Funds.” He did not have a prepared speech on good roads, but the subject was 

sufficiently important that he decided to attend the convention. He did not come to talk 

about methods of building good roads, a subject he knew nothing about (“I am not in the 

habit of discussing war in the presence of Hannibal; and in the presence of these expert 

road builders I shall not be so presumptuous as to discuss methods of road building”). 

Instead, he came to learn. 

As he understood it, the case for good roads rests on three propositions: 

[It] is contended by the advocates of good roads that bad roads cost more than 

good roads . . . . 

[The] good roads people claim that there are about 1,000,000 square miles of farm 

lands (650,000,000 acres) actually cultivated by the farmers of this country, and 

that the actual cost to the farmers and the community on account of bad roads is 

on an average of about 75 cents for each cultivated acre of land . . . . 

The third general proposition is that it costs about three times as much to haul 

products per ton mile upon a bad road as upon a good road . . . . 

When he first heard these statements, he said, “they so startled me that I was disposed to 

regard them more in the nature of guesses or as exaggerations of good roads fanatics and 
67

enthusiasts.” But he found that the three points were based “upon reliable statistics 

carefully gathered by competent persons.” Martin Dodge, he said, had based his data on 

requests for information sent to 10,000 farmers. “Why, then, should we not accept the 

conclusions of the good roads advocates drawn from statistics?” 

He sometimes heard road builders “say that the period for agitation of good roads has 

passed, and that we have now entered the period of actual construction.” While they 

were correct to an extent, he said, “If we do not progress any faster in good road building 

that we have during the last five years, it will be fifty years before we will have anything 

like a system of good roads in this State.” He stated that, “the period of agitation for 

good roads will not pass until a majority of the people who are to furnish the money are 

convinced that money invested in good roads is well invested.” 

Some advocates thought the legislature would pass laws raising funds for good roads 

whether or not people were willing to be taxed for that purpose. Speaking as a practical 

matter, he said that a legislator is not likely to support “any measure he thinks will be 

obnoxious to a majority of his constituents.” Money, nevertheless, was the key: 

It does not take a minute’s consideration to see that we can not succeed in 

building good roads in North Carolina under the present system of road building, 

by which every able-bodied man of a certain age is required to work upon the 

roads for a few days each year. We have been trying that method for about fifty 

years, and our roads, generally speaking, are but little, if any, better than they 

were fifty years ago. 

Several methods were available for funding good roads by taxation. Convict labor was 

one option, while State aid as in New Jersey was another. “I do not mean to give my 

unqualified approval to either of these plans.” The State Legislature must “evolve some 

satisfactory scheme.” 

He said the city folks had good roads because they taxed themselves to pay for them. 

“The suggestion that you build these [country] roads by taxing yourselves may shock 

you. It shocked the city people at first. I tell you, you can’t have good roads without 

paying for them.” He favored Governor Aycock’s plans for the use of convict labor, but 

stressed: “impose upon yourselves a tax such as you think you can stand.” He 

concluded: 

My friends, let us then gird up our loins for the mighty race that is before us and 

continue in this work of building up the material interests of our State and nation 

as the basis of higher intellectual and social manhood and womanhood. [Bulletin 

24, p. 55-61] 

Senator Simmons did not express a view on whether the Federal Government should 

contribute to the cause. 
68

Much of the afternoon session was devoted to organizing the North Carolina Good Roads 

Association. Resolutions adopted supported bureau status for the OPRI, creation of a 

State highway commission, adoption of a law providing for instruction in road building at 

the State University and the Agricultural and Mechanical College, and endorsing 

extended use of convict labor in road building. 

 

(According to Dr. Walter R. Turner’s history of the North Carolina Department of 

Transportation, the association would play a major role in ushering the State into the 

Good Roads era, including persistent lobbing that led to creation of the North Carolina 

State Highway Commission in 1915. [Turner, Walter R., Paving Tobacco Road: A 

Century of Progress by the North Carolina Department of Transportation, Historical 

Publications Section, Office of Archives and History, 2003, p. 2-3]) 

The evening session on February 13 began with Professor Holmes’ stereopticon address 

on “Road Building in North Carolina.” On the theory that the “present state of road 

improvement in any community can only be correctly understood when interpreted in the 

light of past experience,” Professor Holmes provided a historical sketch beginning early 

in the 19th century. Discussing the present, he said: 

The condition of the good roads movement in North Carolina . . . is, on the whole, 

quite encouraging. The more so, when it is remembered that nearly all of this 

progress has been made during the past decade. Evidently the reform has come to 

stay, and there will be very little turning backward in the future. 

That being the case, he discussed the “four features which must be considered in all plans 

for future road improvement in this State. These are: Money, labor, intelligent 

supervision, and road-building materials.” 

Money was “one of the essential factors” in any public improvement. He explained that, 

“The deep-rooted opposition to all forms of taxation” in North Carolina had been “the 

great barrier to anything like general or uniform road legislation.” Still, taxation was the 

answer: 

Much has been accomplished in an irregular spasmodic sort of way in the past by 

voluntary and compulsory contributions in the form of labor, teams, implements, 

materials, etc. No intelligent man now doubts, or denies in theory, the fact that 

every practical system of road building . . . must be based upon money raised by 

taxation; but in practice we deny it every day. 

He noted that, “The deep-rooted opposition to all forms of taxation by the people of 

North Carolina has been the great barrier to anything like general or uniform road 

legislation in the State.” 

Holmes described how despite the savings from good roads, “many of our people still too 

generally regard a tax simply as a burden.” His expectation was that “some day our 
69

people will come to consider a tax in its true light as an investment, and as the best and 

only satisfactory means of accomplishing certain necessary and beneficent results.” 

He compared the “pay as you go” plan (“which means that the quantity of road building 

during any year must be limited to the amount of taxes raised for that purpose during that 

year”) to bonds (“borrow a considerable supply to be used for road building purposes 

during a short period of time, and use the money raised by the annual road tax to pay the 

interest on the money thus borrowed and provide a sinking fund for the final payment of 

the same”). He summarized the issue by saying that under “pay as you go,” a county 

could build 100 miles of good roads in 20 years, but not complete the work until near the 

end of the period. Under the bond system, the same work could be completed in 5 years 

“and during the remaining fifteen years the citizens of the county get the full benefit of all 

this work.” In short: 

And while the total expense for the construction of the 100 miles of road may be 

greater by the interest on the money borrowed than the sum total of the annual 

expenditures under the “pay as you go” policy, nevertheless by the bonding plan 

the people of the county have had the use of the good roads for nearly twenty 

years, and have used them to excellent advantage. They have made money on the 

investment. 

Holmes discussed the mechanics of bond raising, but concluded that, “whether it be by 

bond issue or by ordinary tax methods, the one thing needful is that we raise the money 

and improve the roads. 

Turning to the use of convict labor, he stated that “compulsory labor” by residents in lieu 

of a road tax was common in the South, but had been abandoned in Northern and 

Western States. The question was whether to employ convicts or hired labor. Professor 

Holmes favored convict labor: 

[It] is generally conceded that these convicts are more efficient laborers than those 

which can be hired to do this work, for the reason that there is more regularity and 

system in the control of their labor, and the majority of the prisoners continue in 

the service long enough to derive considerable benefit from their experience and 

training. 

He pointed out that if a man goes to court, he takes a lawyer. If he wishes to build a 

home, he hires an architect, and if sick, a doctor. However, “we have always had the 

notion that almost everybody was a good road builder, and as a result of this mistaken 

notion we have never had until recently any good roads in the Southern States.” Building 

roads was a business that must be conducted by “men who have had some training and 

experience and who have demonstrated their capacity as road builders.” 

In conclusion, Holmes urged everyone to get involved: 
70

In this great movement each individual, each community, each county, each State, 

and the Federal Government must do its full duty, and the result will be one of 

increasing intelligence and prosperity in all this good land of ours. [Bulletin 24, 

p. 65-71] 

To close the convention, M. O. Eldridge delivered his popular stereopticon speech on the 

roads of the world. The bulletin observed that, “The lecture was highly instructive and 

entertaining throughout, and the audience frequently expressed appreciation by applause. 

According to Bulletin No. 23, the convention “both as to numbers in attendance and the 

general interest aroused, was quite successful.” [Bulletin 23, p. 68] 

Lynchburg, Virginia

The bulletin explained that, “Inclement weather compelled the cessation of work by the 

good roads train during the last two weeks of February.” Operations resumed on March 3 

in Lynchburg, Virginia. 

According to Good Roads Magazine, Dodge and Moore were in Washington arranging 

for the convention in Charlottesville, where the train was scheduled for an 11-day stay: 

A formal invitation to Congress to attend this convention was to be extended, and 

it was expected that the President and members of the Cabinet would be making 

the postponed trip to the Charleston Exposition at about that time, and an effort is 

to be made to secure their presence in Charlottesville. The broad scope of the 

convention is to be seen in the list of speakers, which embraces Governor 

Montague of Virginia, Senator Daniel, General John B. Gordon, General Joseph 

Wheeler, General Fitzhugh Lee, Senator Mitchell, Senator Perkins, Senator 

Dolliver, Senator Hanna, Senator Depew, ex-Secretary of State Olney, exGovernor David R. Francis of Missouri, and Mr. J. J. Hill, the railroad magnate. 

[March 1902, p. 5] 

Although bad weather interfered with the object-lesson road work in Lynchburg, the 

bulletin reported that a “considerable stretch of earth road and another of macadam were 

constructed in the west part of the city.” The interesting feature of the macadam road 

was that it replaced a macadam road built early in the 19th century: 

This old road was built with stones of any size which happened to be at hand, and 

while the road served its purpose in its day, the larger stones kept working up to 

the surface, causing it to be rough at all seasons, and in the muddy season almost 

impassable. Its condition, compared with that of the new road built, showed the 

difference in macadam construction as practiced seventy-five years ago and that 

of to-day. 

(The bulletin did not say so, but the macadam road built in the early 19th century does not 

appear to have followed John L. McAdam’s specifications. McAdam called for three 
71

layers of stones of differing measured sizes, compacted with a heavy roller. Drainage 

was provided via a crowned subgrade and ditches along the side.) 

The convention was held on March 6 and 7 in the Hill City Masonic Hall. U.S. Senator 

John W. Daniel, a native of Lynchburg, was one of the featured speakers on March 7. 

Daniel, a lawyer, was known as the “Lame Lion of Lynchburg” because of extensive 

injuries he suffered as a Major in the Confederate Army during the Battle of the 

Wilderness in 1864. His lengthy remarks were reprinted in full, one of the longest 

addresses in the bulletin. An excerpt: 

An itinerant college on wheels has come among us. It brings its professors and its 

equipment with it. It is known as the “good roads train” of the Southern Railway 

system. This college does not teach out of books, nor solely by word of mouth. It 

teaches by the greater power of example. If you will just watch its operation you 

will see a new good road grow over an old and bad road at the magic touch of 

titanic machinery, and while an orator talks of road building it will set his words 

to the music of practical accomplishment. 

The United States is here with its good roads promoter and its rural free-delivery 

representatives to give suggestions and encouragement. The United States is 

pretty much everywhere. It is a good friend and an uncomfortable enemy, and I 

hope we shall always be ready to accept its friendship and cooperation. Indeed, 

we are a right considerable part of the United States ourselves, and we want to do 

our share of duty to the Republic and receive our share of the benefits. We give 

hearty welcome to its representatives . . . . 

When a child I stood on the old stone wall which still overlooks the union depot 

here and saw Governor Floyd strike the first pick in the ground for the beginning 

of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad. Recently I have gotten on a Pullman car 

here and taken a journey to San Francisco and back, scarcely touching the ground 

going or coming. 

Here and now we behold the initiation of another new movement, a movement for 

good local roads, and many who witness these exercises will live, I hope, to see 

them constructed and to enjoy the pleasures and benefits which they will bring. 

A good road is a universal public benefaction. There is not a single member of 

the community who does not receive advantage and pleasure from it. It is the 

most democratic of all public institutions. A court-house is for litigants, an 

asylum is for the infirm, a jail for criminals, a theater for entertainment, a park for 

recreation, a school for instruction, a church for worshipers, a hotel for wayfarers, 

but a good road is for everybody—saint and sinner, man, woman, and child, maid 

and matron, young and old, rich and poor, healthy and sick, the lame, the halt, and 

the blind—all get a share of benefit from a good road. 
72

A good road is a mark of the progress of the community in which it is located. 

Show me a good road and I will confidently say of the people of the community: 

“They are up and doing: they are going forward.” 

He recalled Lynchburg’s isolated days before the railroad and canal. “A boy who had 

been to Baltimore and gotten back was a returned adventurer,” he said, “and could tell 

greater tales than a modern military hero just home from the Philippines.” 

Senator Daniel extolled the value of good roads, but asked, “Whence are these good 

roads to come? From the United States? From Virginia? From the municipal and county 

organizations?” He praised the General Government for establishing the OPRI “to 

encourage and aid, by literature and object lessons, the increase of good roads in our 

country.” However, he cautioned, “Don’t look for much help from the United States. 

The General Government will give you instructions and suggestions. The rural-delivery 

carriers will talk good roads wherever they go, but beyond this we should not indulge in 

great expectations. The States had “enough on hand with public debt and public 

schools.” The answer, therefore, was: 

[You] must look to yourselves, and face the plain proposition that the question of 

good roads is a question of finance, and therefore a question of taxation. You are 

the taxpayers. It is your business, and it is your burden that is to be lifted, and the 

results are for your benefit. It is for the taxpayers to work out their own salvation, 

bearing this in mind, that any community that has bad roads can not more 

speedily or more thoroughly improve itself than by making good ones. 

In closing, the Senator pointed out that one sometimes hears of a young man “who is of 

the right stuff: “He will take an education.” He concluded: 

[The country] will not only take education, it thirsts for it, it demands it, and it 

will have it. Let us stretch forth the tentacles of good roads to all our neighbors. 

Let us pile up fuel on the flame of enthusiasm for road improvement that is 

burning here to-day. Let us bid godspeed to the good roads train; let us remember 

that good roads mean not only the better exchanges of products and greater 

material prosperity, but the drawing of our people closer together, on better 

understanding of each other, thus leading all to that useful and happy career 

“whose ways are ways of pleasantness, and all whose paths are peace.” [Bulletin 

23, p. 68-74] 

(He was quoting Proverbs (ch. III, v. 17).) 

The bulletin also reprinted a technical address by Colonel W. M. Patton of the Virginia 

Polytechnic Institute on “Alignment of Public Highways” and an address by M. A. Hays, 

representing the Southern Railway, on “Relation of Good Roads to Industrial 

Development.” Hays spoke of the opportunities available to Virginia. He foresaw an end 

to the east-to-west migration that had been common in the United States, to be replaced 

by a north-to-south movement. “I know of nothing which will do so much to accelerate 
73

such a movement as will the improvement of your public highways.” Referring to 

Governor Andrew Jackson Montague, who had taken office on January 1, 1902, Hays 

explained: 

Governor Montague, in his recent addresses upon the road question, stated that 

you are spending $700,00 a year for highways, and that nearly the whole of that 

amount is wasted. That sum intelligently spent would give Virginia a system of 

public highways equal to any in this country . . . . [It] would appear that it costs 

no more to build and maintain good highways, if the work is done properly, than 

it does to have bad highways. 

He concluded: 

The general improvement of American highways will do more than anything else 

to stimulate the productive energy of our people, building up and providing new 

markets, home markets—the best markets we can have—increasing and diffusing 

our national wealth, providing new fields of labor for our youth, broadening and 

bettering all our people, and in every way adding to their prosperity and social 

and moral advancement. Compared with the improvement of our public 

highways all other economic questions now before the people are really 

insignificant. [Bulletin 23, p. 74-77] 

Before the convention ended, delegates formed the Midland James River Valley Good 

Roads Association and adopted a resolution commending Governor Montague for his 

efforts to improve public roads. 

Danville, Virginia 

The Southern Railway Good Roads Train, having canceled its stop in Danville, Virginia, 

on February 17 to 22 because of bad weather, arrived for its rescheduled events on March 

10, with the stay to last until March 15. The weather was excellent, allowing the objectlesson crew to regrade and macadamize a 1,600 foot stretch of city street, 16 feet wide, 

and to build “a considerable stretch” of earth road. The bulletin added: 

 

Capt. C. A. Ballou, city engineer of Danville, estimated the cost of the macadam 

road alone at $1,965. The total expenditures of all kinds in the construction of 

this work by the experts of the good-roads train including the earth road and the 

expenses for holding the convention and bringing the train to Danville, borne by 

the citizens, were $1,600. [Bulletin 23, p. 81] 

Nearly 1,000 people attended the convention, held on March 13 and 14. Many of the 

usual speakers, along with local good roads advocates, addressed the convention, 

including Eldridge, who delivered his roads of the world speech. Logan Page, OPRI’s 

road-material expert, was listed as participating for the first time on the trip, but his 

presentation on “Proper Road Materials” was not reprinted. 
74

Governor Montague’s presentation, according to Good Roads Magazine, was of “chief 

interest,” although the bulletin did not reprint it. The magazine stated that the Governor 

“reminded his audience that bad roads cost as much as good ones, and pointed to the 

macadam road from Staunton to Winchester as having much to do with the prosperous 

condition of that section of the State.” [This was a reference to the Shenandoah 

Turnpike.] Governor Montague said, “There is no State in the Union that has issued 

bonds to improve its highways that has had to increase its taxes. The increased revenues 

resulting from the improvement of the highways have always met all obligations.” The 

magazine summarized his key points: 

He said that Virginia needs a road commissioner to look after her roads, and that 

she will never have good roads until she has such an officer. He would have this 

commissioner be an expert and have his position be kept free from politics. He 

appealed to the people to take more interest in securing good roads, and stated 

that good roads could be built out of Danville and the town could capture the 

trade of other cities, or good roads could be made in the surrounding towns and 

they could take the business away from Danville. He said he believed that the 

National Government would soon be giving aid to the highway improvement 

movement. The Governor referred to North Carolina as the most progressive of 

the Southern States, and said: “With good roads in our mountain sections these 

counties would be filled in summer with wealthy people seeking health and 

pleasure. I would suggest,” he continued, “that you request your legislators to 

give you the means and aid necessary to build the roads, and if they fail to comply 

with your request turn them out and elect men who will. As Governor I will 

promise to do all in my power to further the cause.” [“Good Roads Train in the 

South,” Good Roads Magazine, April 1902, p. 5] 

The bulletin reprinted only one of the Danville presentations, this one by Professor 

Holmes on “Some Essentials in the Modern Systems of Road Building in the Southern 

States.” Holmes stated that: 

Our more thoughtful citizens have long since reached the conclusions that the old 

system of road building by compulsory labor—which is a relic of the Middle 

Ages—is a misfit for our modern civilization and that it must be abandoned and a 

new system inaugurated before we can expect to have any decided and permanent 

improvement in our public highways. 

Given that “the necessity for money as a basis for all road building” was unquestioned, he 

addressed the pay-as-you-go plan and going in debt for good roads as methods of raising 

funds. His comments on these options, as well as on convict labor and the need for 

trained road builders, reflected his comments in Raleigh. [Bulletin 23, p. 82-86] 

The convention resulted in organization of the Interstate Good Roads Association “to 

include the border counties of Virginia and North Carolina.” Resolutions supported the 

Governor’s recommendations, suggested increased appropriations for OPRI’s work, and 
75

commended rural free delivery of mail and the use of convict labor in road construction 

and improvement. [Bulletin 23, p. 86-87] 

 

Richmond, Virginia 

The train arrived in Richmond on March 16 and spent a week in the State capital. As 

usual, the object-lesson work was a key feature: 

A considerable amount of work was done on Floyd avenue between Lombardy 

and Park streets, consisting mainly of cutting and filling and illustrating the use of 

earth-handling machinery. After the grading was completed a short section of 

gravel roadway was built, demonstrating the application of domestic materials in 

connection with modern road-making machinery. [Bulletin 23, p. 87] 

Good Roads Magazine provided a less mundane description of the work: 

Construction work was begun at Floyd Ave. and Park St. The work of grading 

and macadamizing attracted a large crowd, in which were the city engineer and 

assistant engineer and the road supervisors. The operation of the elevating grader 

and loader attracted most interest. [“Good Roads Convention in Richmond,” 

Good Roads Magazine, April 1902, p. 6] 

The Virginia State Good Roads Convention took place on March 20 and 21 in the 

Chamber of Commerce hall. Good Roads Magazine explained that, “All the railroads out 

of Richmond offered half-fare rates to the convention . . . . The attendance on the 

opening day passed all expectation, the hall being filled with delegates from all parts of 

the State.” 

Although the bulletin listed many of the speakers, it did not reprint their presentations. 

The magazine indicated that Colonel George W. Miles of Radford, Virginia, who was 

selected as permanent chairman of the convention, recommended that Virginia issue $5 

million in bonds for road work. Governor Montague welcomed the crowd stating, as 

summarized in the magazine: 

. . . the Legislature does what the people force it to do, and that the convention 

could do what it desired by arousing public sentiment; that the city was more 

vitally interested in the public highways than the country people; that he did not 

think it was altogether a question of money, and that he wanted to see Virginia do 

exactly what North Carolina was doing—appointing an engineer over the 

highways of the State. 

The Governor endorsed the use of convict labor, “referring to the overcrowded conditions 

of the penitentiary, suggesting that the prisoners be put to work preparing road material.” 

The magazine noted that Colonel Moore also endorsed convict labor. 
76

(Dr. Turner’s history of the North Carolina Department of Transportation discussed the 

North Carolina engineer noted by Governor Montague: 

In 1901 the North Carolina General Assembly had created a feeble North Carolina 

State Highway Commission, composed of the commissioner of agriculture, the 

state geologist, and a secretary. The duties of the Highway Commission, which 

had virtually no funding, were to furnish an engineer to assist counties and towns 

(with the agriculture department furnishing one also), to establish rules for prison 

road crews, and to supply technical plans and advice . . . . The Highway 

Commission disbanded two years later, with few results to show for its efforts. 

[Turner, p. 2]) 

The magazine continued: 

Hon. Martin Dodge, director of the Office of Public Road Inquiries, spoke of the 

advantage of hard roads to the farmer. He said that the Virginia representatives in 

Congress and the State Legislature should be asked to make appropriations for 

road improvement, and mentioned Congressman Otey’s bill in Congress to 

appropriate $100,000,000 for the improvement of public highways throughout the 

country. 

W. A. Land, editor of the Blackstone Courier, offered a resolution requesting the 

committees on roads in the State Senate and House of Representatives to attend the 

sessions of the convention and explain the objections to the road bill that failed to pass 

the House on the preceding day, and discuss the advisability of another bill being 

introduced with the objectionable features eliminated. A committee was appointed to 

notify the legislators of the resolution. 

The magazine estimated that on the second day of the convention, more people were in 

attendance than the first day (‘about 300 were seated in the hall of the Chamber of 

Commerce, not including the spectators or visitors.”). Senator Daniel “was a prominent 

speaker.” [April 1906, p. 6] 

Delegates organized the Virginia Good Roads Association. Resolutions urged the State 

to adopt a system for permanent improvement of highways, recommended the State 

Legislature approve a State-aid system, endorsed the use of convict and vagrant labor in 

the preparation of road materials, and supported any measure to extend OPRI’s work. 

[Bulletin 23, p 83] 

Charlottesville, Virginia 

The train arrived in Charlottesville on March 24 for the final stop of the Southern 

Railway Good Roads Train. Dodge and Colonel Moore, who wanted this stop to be 

special, had invited many prominent officials to attend. Good Roads Magazine reported 

that, “Two special trains on successive days took about 150 congressmen and department 
77

officers down from Washington.” [“The Southern Railway Good Roads Train,” Good 

Roads Magazine, June 1902, p. 7] 

The convention, April 2 through 4 in the Monticello Guard Armory, was under the joint 

auspices of the OPRI, the NGRA, the South Railway, and the Jefferson Memorial 

Association. The association, one of the earliest “named road associations” (a common 

feature of good roads promotion beginning in the 1910’s), supported construction of a 

good road connecting Thomas Jefferson’s home at Monticello to the University of 

Virginia. 

The road experts, supervising a crew of about 100 men, worked on the road, as described 

in the bulletin: 

Despite the fact that several days were lost in the work on account of storms, a 

large amount of work was accomplished, consisting of grading, stone crushing, 

and macadamizing, with the building of some culverts. The grading work 

covered three-fourths of a mile. A stretch of about 1,600 feet, 16 feet wide, was 

macadamized in the usual manner, an excellent quality of trap rock being used for 

the purpose. [Bulletin 23, p. 88] 

OPRI Bulletin No. 23 listed speakers but did not reprint their speeches. The text noted 

that, “Many of the visitors took advantage of the opportunity to visit Monticello, the 

home and tomb of Jefferson.” However, OPRI Bulletin No. 25 was devoted to the 

proceedings of the Jefferson Memorial and Interstate Good Roads Convention. The 

introductory letter, presenting the proceedings to Secretary Wilson for publication, stated: 

The Jefferson Memorial and Interstate Good Roads Convention . . . was one of 

the greatest and most successful meetings ever held in this country for the 

consideration of highway improvement. Its national scope was shown by the fact 

that fifteen States were represented, including Maine, Oregon, and Florida. The 

convention was addressed by governors, members of Congress, generals of the 

U.S. Army, the Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, presidents of universities and 

of railway companies, and others . . . . These addresses brought out much 

valuable information relating to highway improvement which will be of interest 

through the United States, and I hereby respectfully recommend that the same be 

published as bulletin No. 25 of this Office. [Proceedings of the Jefferson 

Memorial and Interstate Good Roads Convention, OPRI Bulletin No. 25, 1902, p. 

3] 

The bulletin began with a letter, prepared in December 1902, from R. E. Shaw, civil 

engineer in charge of the Jefferson Memorial Road, regarding the project: 

The idea of building an ideal highway to connect the city of Charlottesville with 

the home and tomb of Thomas Jefferson originated with Hon. Martin Dodge, in a 

conversation some two years ago with certain citizens of Albemarle County, Va., 

who were earnest advocates of good roads. These gentlemen were much 
78

impressed with the vast amount of good which would accrue to their section with 

such a highway in daily use. Preliminary surveys were made in the early summer 

of 1901, and a petition for a relocation of the “Old Monticello Road” was placed 

before the county authorities. Their action was very slow, and it was the middle 

of autumn before matters began to take definite shape, and the Jefferson 

Memorial Road Association was formed for the purpose of building this road as a 

memorial to the great American . . . . 

Through the cooperation of the Office of Public Road Inquiries of the Department 

of Agriculture and the Southern Railway Company, the “good roads train,” then 

touring the South, was listed to make the last stop of its schedule at 

Charlottesville, and arrangements were made for holding the Jefferson Memorial 

and Interstate Good Roads Convention. 

With only 5 weeks to go before the Good Roads Train, the association undertook to 

prepare the road for the experts. One of the keys was to make a 5-foot cut through rock 

within the city limits, sufficient for the width of a single track to save money. It could be 

further widened to 40 feet when funds “should be more plentiful.” Even using convict 

labor, this would be a costly proposition “but the outbreak of smallpox among the 

convicts” prevented their use. More expensive free labor would have to be used: 

The gentlemen having charge of the good roads train, however, urged the 

desirability of having the memorial road the proper width, not in the country only, 

but also for the half mile of its length within the city limits, including this rock 

cut. It was, therefore, decided to risk the additional expensive and give the roads 

its proper width from its beginning at the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway station. 

The decision increased the cost from the preliminary estimate of $940 to $3,641.97: 

The good roads train spent a week at Charlottesville and during that time the 

metal was laid upon about 1,000 feet of the road, which was a very satisfactory 

result, considering that about half of the time was lost on account of bad weather, 

rain, and snow. Owing to the numerous springs in this rock cut, the side ditches 

had to be carried down ahead of the main roadbed. The close proximity of the 

houses and the shallowness of the cut made blasting unsafe. About 18 inches of 

cobblestone (the result of 50 or perhaps 100 years of road mending) had to be 

removed from the old roadbed. All these conditions made the work tedious and 

expensive. 

A good deal of earth excavation was done by the machinery of the good roads 

train on the first half mile beyond the city limits, and after the departure of the 

train, this work was carried on by the use of the county road machines, and plows 

and wheel scrapers, the teams and labor being contributed by the neighboring 

farmers, so that at present (December 1902), in addition to the completion of the 

half mile within the city limits, the grading for a large part of the next mile has 
79

been finished, and the right of way has been paid for, the total expense to date 

being $4,570. 

Much work remained to be done, including two cuts, replacement of the wooden bridge 

over Moores Creek, and relocation of the roadbed for a quarter mile onto an alignment 

that “rises gradually along the sunny southern slopes of the hills, thus giving a series of 

beautiful views, escaping the sharp ascents of the foothills, and finally rejoining the old 

road high above the valley.” 

Shaw estimated that completing the memorial road would cost about $20,000, but 

considerably less if the association could purchase its own crushing and metaling outfit. 

[p. 9-11] 

Following Shaw’s letter, the bulletin began the proceedings of the convention with the 

opening address of General Fitzhugh Lee, president of the Jefferson Memorial Road 

Association. (Lee, a nephew of Robert E. Lee, had served on the Confederate side during 

the Civil War. After the war, he was a farmer, writer, biographer of his uncle, Governor 

of Virginia (January 1, 1886, to January 1, 1890), and Consul-General to Havana 

beginning in 1896 before being reactivated as a Brigadier General for the SpanishAmerican War in 1898. He retired from the Army in 1901.) After calling the convention 

to order, General Lee explained the association’s twofold purpose: 

(1) To give the people of this section of Albemarle County and the city of 

Charlottesville a lesson in making good roads, and to show them the latest modern 

improvements in road-making machinery; and (2) to connect the home and tomb 

of Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia and Charlottesville with a 

splendid broad avenue, in which work we have now made a beginning. 

Lee saw no need to extol the value of good roads. “We all know that; but the problem is 

how to secure the funds to build the roads.” He said: 

I think the time has come when the National Government should make a great big 

annual appropriation for public roads in the various States of the Union 

[applause]; and this is one of the objects in getting these Senators and 

Representatives here to address us. They don’t know much about making good 

roads; they could throw stone into a stone crusher; they couldn’t drive a wagon 

and distribute the stone, nor run a steam roller to compact it. But we want them 

interested in this subject of good roads so that when a bill is brought before 

Congress it can receive their support. 

He thought the government appropriation should be divided among the States based on 

population “or in proportion to its desire to be helped in some way to build good roads.” 

The States would then distribute the money among the counties that were willing to raise 

a certain amount for the work. 

General Lee referred to the appropriation for rivers and harbors: 
80

Now, I am told that nine-tenths of everything that goes either by rail or water 

transportation goes over the common roads first. Therefore, if you improve the 

roads, you begin at the foundation of prosperity for the people . . . . Now, 

inasmuch as good roads are the basis of prosperity both in country and city, why 

should not the Government appropriate an adequate sum of money annually for 

road improvement? 

Before closing, General Lee returned to the subject of the Jefferson Memorial Road. He 

knew that some wondered why the memorial road should be the object-lesson road when 

other county roads needed repair, too. “Very true; but other roads in the county can not 

get outside money to the same extent that this does, for it is of great historical interest. 

So, we selected that road for the object lesson, and we think we have made a very wise 

choice.” It was also a practical choice because it illustrated the value of relocation that 

would apply to many country roads. “We are carrying out this idea between here and 

Monticello. The old road goes up the hill and down again with a 16-foot grade, but by 

going around the hill a little way we have got a 4-foot grade.” He added: 

This road was selected for improvement because some of us, indeed all of us, 

revere the memory of that great statesman, Thomas Jefferson. We believe that a 

memorial road to his home and grave will prove an inestimable blessing to all this 

section of the country. It will bring an increased number of visitors. These 

visitors will return to their homes filled with patriotic inspiration by the thoughts 

and deeds of this great statesman. [Applause.] If the great Jefferson, who is 

sleeping so quietly there at Monticello, could revisit these scenes and find that his 

countrymen, seventy-six years after his death, are designing this memorial which 

will stand in lasting attestation to his name and fame, he would surely consider it 

as the highest compliment that could be paid to him! 

. . . Now, then, is it not the duty of those who survive, of all who admire the 

magnificent character and splendid deeds of that man, to do what they can to 

connect his university with his home and tomb by a big broad way, over which 

the pilgrims can annually go and drink at a fountain that never goes dry? [Great 

applause.] [p. 11-13] 

After Mayor C. W. Allen of Charlottesville welcomed delegates to his city, Dr. P. B. 

Barringer, president of the University of Virginia, spoke on “Lessons from Mecklenburg 

County, North Carolina.” In brief, Dr. Barringer, a native of Mecklenburg County, said: 

To make this convention a success we have got to change. That is the long and 

short of it . . . . If you will do the two things I have said: (1) Declare that you will 

not waste money on impassable grades and in repairing mud holes, and (2) 

determine to put in during this next year 2 miles or more of public road well 

macadamized, you will lay the foundation for future prosperity in this county such 

as you have never dreamed. [p. 15] 
81

Stuyvesant Fish, president of the Illinois Central Railroad Company, addressed the 

delegates on “Importance of Getting Together.” Fish, who served as president of the 

railroad company from 1887 to 1906, was a strong backer of good roads; his company 

had sponsored the first Good Roads Train. Born and educated in New York, Fish said 

that he had been devoting his time to railroad interests in the South of late. Therefore, he 

had a basis for comparing the North, where “everything requiring considerable capital 

was done by a community of interest and a community of capital,” and the South, which 

“inherited the ideas and traditions of large landed properties without proper means of 

transportation from one to the other, where on each great property the whole work of a 

town or a village had to be done.” He was struck by the lack of a community of interest: 

I have been trying for years to get our friends in the extreme South, in the Lower 

Mississippi Valley, to combine their capital and combine their efforts on these 

various matters of common interest. You people of the South have opportunities 

for advancement which are superabundant. You have soil, you have climate, you 

have standing timber, you have iron and coal in your mountains, but you lack the 

capacity of getting together in your combined strength and seizing the 

opportunity. [Applause.] 

He explained his interest in good roads: 

True, I have labored as the representative of a great railroad corporation, but as 

such I have always known that no means of transportation, be it a navigable river, 

canal, railroad, or toll road, can live in prosperity unless its patrons are 

prosperous, unless the farmer, the miner, the manufacturer, and the proprietor of 

the sawmill shall continue to produce in increasing quantities valuable 

commodities for shipment . . . . We do not need more wagon roads, but we need 

better wagon roads. 

Noting that at the time George Washington was elected President of the United States he 

was serving as president of a transportation company (the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal 

Company), Fish concluded: 

Now, surely the business of transportation is something worthy the attention of 

intelligent, patriotic, high-minded citizens of this Republic. [p. 15-16] 

Martin Dodge was the next speaker, addressing delegates on “Removing the Burden of 

Bad Roads.” He started by mentioning that he had heard Captain Alexander, author of 

the Mecklenburg County road law, speak of the difficulty of convincing people that the 

benefits of good roads outweighed the difficulties: 

You simply deceive yourselves when you imagine that you bring burdens upon 

yourselves by undertaking to improve the highways in a stable and scientific 

manner. We know very well from the testimony of all persons who are informed 

upon this matter, that instead of bringing burdens upon the community improved 

roads invariably raise these burdens from the community. You have these 
82

burdens, but you can overcome them. The most encouraging part of the system 

we are advocating is that these beneficial results can be obtained much more 

easily than you imagine. 

Despite spending millions of dollars on roads in the early 19th century, Dodge said, the 

Federal Government more recently had “done very little, making only small 

appropriations from year to year for the purpose of securing useful information and 

disseminating that among the people.” He explained how he came to be involved in the 

Jefferson Memorial Road work: 

I see Lieutenant [C. P.] Shaw [U.S. Navy, retired] sitting in the audience here, and 

I will say that he first called my attention to the desire on the part of citizens of 

this vicinity to have something done in highway improvement. He asked me if 

we could not build an object-lesson road here that would display the essential 

principles of such work; and I replied that I thought it would be very useful if 

such an object-lesson road could be built from your city to Monticello. He agreed 

at once with that, and I sent an expert here to make an examination . . . . He 

found that the road running up to Monticello had a maximum grade of 16 per 

cent, and we determined right away that it would be a waste of money, and a 

display of ignorance, for us to recommend or assist in the improvement of such a 

road. So I stated that we would not undertake to do anything on the part of the 

Government unless there could be a relocation reducing the grade to a reasonable 

maximum. A skillful engineer was employed, and he had made a relocation of 

that road so that it will be possible to make the ascent with a maximum of only 4 

feet in 100 instead of 16 as heretofore. That relocation having been made, I was 

very glad to do everything in my power to aid in the construction of this road 

which will become an object-lesson to people in distant places as well as to those 

in this vicinity . . . . 

(Shaw had been an early convert to the cause of good roads. On November 12, 1892, an 

article in The New York Times reported that reading about General Stone’s activities in 

the Times had prompted him to write to the General. The article said, “Lieut. C. P. Shaw, 

(retired.) United States Navy, who lives in Albemarle County, Virginia, wrote to Gen. 

Stone that he had read the article in the Times relating to good roads, and he asked in his 

communication that he might become a member [of the National League for Good Roads 

formed by General Stone and associates during a convention in held in October 1892 in 

Chicago], saying also that he wanted to subscribe to the magazine Good Roads, and 

would do all in his power to carry out the aims of the league.”) 

Dodge acknowledged the cooperation of property owners who “have been liberal in 

giving the right of way,” the City Council members and County Commissioners who 

appropriated funds, the road-machine companies that furnished the equipment, and the 

Southern Railway Company, which transported the machinery free: 

We did not expect to be able to accomplish the entire result of building this road 

from Charlottesville to the gates at Monticello, but we did expect to locate and 
83

begin it so that it will be possible to complete it in the most admirable way . . . . I 

am greatly encouraged by what I see. I am ready to believe that the results will be 

more beneficial than almost any of us expected. 

Although able to help with object-lesson roads, the OPRI is “not able to build roads, but 

only to assist, through such cooperation as we have here.” In view of the limited 

appropriations for the work, Dodge explained: 

It is said “The Lord helps them who help themselves.” Similarly the Government 

of the United States is endeavoring to help them who are willing to help 

themselves. 

He discussed a common concern: 

There is a feeling in some quarters that the Government might be led to do too 

much, that it might spend too much money, and that it might do things which the 

State itself had better do. 

In response, he pointed out that the low rates of transportation possible by water and rail 

were supplemented by millions of government dollars. “We have in fact made less 

progress in improving our highways than in any other direction, and yet there is more 

need for improvement along this particular line than in any other.” He favored the 

principle of State aid, which tended to equalize the burden of taxation among rural and 

city residents. [p. 16-21] 

The next speaker, Colonel Moore, spoke on the “Work of the Good Roads Train,” 

praising Fish for initially being “the only railroad president having the true conception of 

the great road problem and the beneficent results that would follow such educational 

work.” In Moore’s view, “The road question is the biggest proposition before the 

people.” It would, he thought, be included in the party platforms during the presidential 

year of 1904 and “when you get these things in the platforms in a short time you will get 

the best men of the community to take up this road cause and get better results out of the 

money you are spending.” 

As for the road to Monticello, Moore said that, ‘When we came here we found the road to 

Monticello in the same fix as it was when Thomas Jefferson used it.” The work to 

improve this road would inspire memorial roads to the homes of James Monroe and 

James Madison—encouraging Americans to travel to Virginia rather than spend $50 

million a year in Europe: 

I believe that you can make it pay, because you will bring thousands of pilgrims 

here that will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in your midst. [p. 21-23] 

After Colonel Moore’s presentation, Dodge took to the podium for an introduction: 
84

I now have the pleasure of introducing to you my predecessor in the Office of 

Public Road Inquiries, Gen. Roy Stone. He was virtually the founder of that 

Office, and is a gentleman of great experience in all lines of road building and 

perfectly in sympathy with your cause. [p. 23] 

Speaking on “The Necessity of Congressional Action in Road Improvement,” General 

Stone explained: 

This occasion . . . has a peculiar interest for me, for it carries me back through ten 

years of my life—years which have been devoted almost entirely to the one object 

for which we are assembled here to-day—and brings to my mind the hope and 

fear with which I called the first national convention for good roads ever held in 

the United States, staking my reputation upon its success and risking, out of a 

slender purse, the entire cost of the venture. 

That convention, held in Chicago in October 1892, resulted in formation of the National 

League for Good Roads, which helped convince Congress to appropriate $10,000 for the 

start of the road inquiry in March 1893. Since then, partly because of the agency’s work, 

the movement had grown with the support of commercial, financial, and manufacturing 

interests “and in late years the National Good Roads Association has come out of the 

West to push the movement all over the land.” He cited the users and makers of 

automobiles as another powerful interest that would promote good roads: 

And not only is every material interest in the land concerned in road 

improvement, but important moral and social interests are deeply involved as 

well, and even our national pride has begun to take fire at the national shame of 

our highways. 

As for national funding, General Stone cited several ideas he had promoted while serving 

in the ORI: 

The simplest and most obvious one is that of a direct contribution of a certain 

share of the cost in cases where suitable State and county aid is given to lighten 

the local burden. This would involve a National and State supervision of location 

and construction of roads and disbursement of funds which would secure 

intelligent work, and would stimulate progress. 

Another option was a Federal guarantee of county road bonds “upon condition that the 

State give to the United States the right to take tolls on the roads to pay interest on the 

bonds in case of default by the county.” Default would be rare because the government 

backing would result in low interest rates. In addition, he had long favored postal savings 

banks, an idea that would allow people who did not trust banks to give their spare money 

to postal banks, which would invest the funds in county road bonds. “Estimating the 

deposits in the postal savings banks in the United States on the basis of those of Great 

Britain, we should in ten years have enough to build 1,000,000 miles of stone or gravel 

roads.” 
85

He also recalled his idea of a great national highway—with one branch along the East 

Coast and another along the West Coast, with the two connected by a transcontinental 

road connecting at Washington and San Francisco: 

It is often easier to do great things than small ones, of the same kind, and this 

would be something big enough to excite the imagination and stir the pride and 

patriotism of the country. The time is ripe for it. The old century went out with 

the triumphs of war and expansion. Let the new one bring in a triumph of peace 

and internal development. 

He concluded: 

But whatever form National aid shall take, whether that of direct contribution, a 

guaranty of bonds, the postal savings plan, a National object-lesson road, or some 

other form yet to be devised, the day that sees the Government of the United 

States fully committed to the improvement of the common roads of the country 

will mark an era in the progress of the Nation and the prosperity and happiness of 

the whole people. [p. 23-27] 

The next day, April 3, Lt. Shaw gave a talk on “The Jefferson Memorial Road.” After 

noting that some “fourteen months ago a casual word of Director Dodge . . . started this 

ball rolling,” Lt. Shaw described the evolution of the project. To determine the need, Lt. 

Shaw recorded traffic on the existing road—90 vehicles a day, or 45 making the round 

trip. He then calculated the waste: 

The cost of hauling to this point from Monticello is certainly $1 a load—no man 

could do it for less than that. That represents an expenditure of $45 for the teams, 

wear and tear, time of the drivers, etc., of which sum at least three-fourths are 

unnecessarily spent or thrown away, because if that road were improved onefourth the number of trips of the same vehicles would do an equal amount of 

hauling. That places us in the position of wasting every day nearly $34, or in the 

whole year a gross sum of more than $10,000. 

Lt. Shaw had tied his work to the need for better roads throughout Albemarle County and 

Virginia. Convict labor was a key to his concept. With some 1,000 able-bodied men in 

the State’s jails, “we ought to produce about 120 miles of good stone roads every year.” 

If State laws were approved “to give us the benefit of the tramps and vagrants, another 

thousand laborers would be put on our roads.” He was not optimistic: 

I do not think this state of affairs is very creditable to our legislature, and I hope 

that men will be elected who will recognize the interest of the people at large and 

give us laws by which we can avail ourselves of this great force, which is 

misdirected or, worse still, is used for the benefit of a foreign corporation. 
86

He mentioned the “recent act which came so near [to] passing” the State legislature and 

endorsed its provision “to send all short-term convicts to the public roads.” He lamented 

the legislature’s failure to approve the bill: 

Out of the 540 convicts sent to the penitentiary in 1901, 425 had terms of five 

years or less, so that one simple amendment to our laws would at once relieve the 

congestion and would give us a working force. This is a very simple thing to ask 

of the legislature, and we are going to keep on asking it; and as this movement 

grows we will demand it [Applause.] The people have rights, and when they rise 

in their strength and demand them they are going to have them recognized. We 

are going to fight this out to a finish. This road movement is growing like an 

avalanche, and will sweep those people out of power who fail to see the people’s 

rights. [Applause.] 

In closing, Lt. Shaw explained the significance of the Jefferson Memorial Road as an 

object-lesson road: 

The road was selected for these reasons: At the end of that road, in that shady 

spot on the mountain side, lie the mortal remains of the greatest statesman 

Virginia ever produced. I say that without fear or contradiction. Washington was 

a hero, a soldier, a statesman; Jefferson was without a peer. Now we can get the 

means to build the road that leads to the grave of such a man as that. His name is 

revered throughout the length and breadth of this land. Just at this time, when that 

great exposition is being prepared for in St. Louis in order to celebrate the famous 

Louisiana purchase, his name is heard everywhere, for his name is associated 

indelibly with that movement, and thousands of people wish to come here to pay 

homage to his genius. They come here to visit that tomb; and do they wish to go 

at the risk of their lives up that wretched gully that we call a road? [Applause.] I 

went up there a short time ago with some gentlemen through the snow, and it 

really seemed like risking our lives. Fortunately our horses were sure-footed, and 

it kept us in the track. We want to improve this. Strangers come here and say: 

“These people in Albemarle County appear to be satisfied; they surely are not 

very progressive.” We want to remove the stigma of having it carried through the 

country that we are satisfied to call that a road. We must have a beautiful smooth 

road, and then people will say that we are progressive. Every day these real-estate 

men will tell you that customers are driven away because the roads are so bad. 

We propose to remedy this; that is the object of this work. That road may be the 

best road leading up to Monticello, but at the same time it is so very bad that it 

works to serious disadvantage of this vicinity. Jefferson was a great believer in 

the cause of good roads; he advocated it, he worked for it. If he could see us now 

working on this road I believe it would be an especially gratifying sight for him, 

and I want to be one of those to carry to a successful end a reform that he worked 

for, but which he did not live long enough to see. [Great applause.] [p. 27-30] 
87

Following Lt. Shaw, Professor W. M. Patton, Chair of Civil Engineering at Virginia 

Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg, presented a technical address on “Location and 

Construction of Roads.” He began: 

This subject of good roads is the most important and far-reaching one before the 

people of this country to-day. We hear a great deal about money to build these 

roads. We have already raised the money to build them in the last thirty years. At 

a low, conservative estimate, we have raised and spent on the roads of Virginia 

over $10,000,000, and the roads now are no better than they were thirty years ago. 

Now the question will be asked, Why is that the case? There has been no 

corruption, no stealing of that money. It has simply been the want of any uniform 

system, the want of any directing head, and no great and important development 

can be made on any such basis as that. And if we go on for another thirty years 

we shall spend another $10,000,000 and have no better roads than we have now. 

The whole point, then, is the proper expenditure of our money. We have waited 

thirty years for good roads and yet we haven’t them. We do not want to wait 

another thirty years. 

He thought the counties must begin the effort, with the States and national aid to follow. 

“It takes time to bring about these things, but, in my humble opinion, they will come in 

time.” [p. 30-31] 

After Professor Patton discussed road location and grade, the proper surfacing material, 

and the techniques for building them, the morning session concluded. 

Good Roads Magazine reported that around this time: 

On April 3, a special passenger train of seven coaches arrived from Washington. 

Among those who made the journey were Gen. Nelson A Miles, Assistant 

Secretary Brigham, of the Department of Agriculture; M. O. Eldredge [sic], 

assistant director of the Office of Public Road Inquiries; Willis L. Moore, chief of 

the Weather Bureau; Congressmen Livingston, Maddox, Rixey, Caldwell, 

Thomas, Latimer, Sibley, Kern and Smith, and many officers of the agricultural 

and other departments of the government. The delegation arrived at the armory at 

noon and filled the platform. [May 1902, p. 19] 

The Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, Colonel Joseph H. Brigham, was the first speaker 

in the afternoon. Secretary Wilson had intended to deliver the address on “Government 

Aid in Highway Improvement,” but the Assistant Secretary explained that “owing to 

sickness in his family,” the Secretary could not attend. A native of Lode, Ohio, Brigham 

was a farmer, State Senator, and master of the National Grange. President McKinley 

considered him for Secretary of Agriculture, but having appointed Ohio’s John Sherman 

to the post of Secretary of State, he did not want to limit the geographic breadth of his 

Cabinet by appointing another Ohioan. (Sherman was a former U.S. Representative, 

Senator, sponsor of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, and Secretary of the Treasury.) Instead, 
88

Brigham became Assistant Secretary, a post he held from March 1897 until his death on 

June 29, 1904. [Century of Service, p. 442] 

Col. Brigham began by explaining that agriculture “must ever be the most important 

industry in the United States of America.” He said that, “We might survive the loss of 

some of the professions . . . but if the farmer should refuse to till the soil for a few short 

months in the year the world would be brought to the verge of starvation.” 

He briefly explained how the Department of Agriculture was helping the farmer before 

turning to the subject of good roads, a topic “that ought to come near to the heart of every 

farmer especially.” The lack of good roads to get produce to town at a reasonable cost 

was one of the reasons people were leaving the farms. He knew the cost of bad roads 

from personal experience: 

When a boy I settled in northwestern Ohio. We traveled along that magnificent 

road built by the United States Government, through the black swamp; on either 

side the water was from 18 inches to 2 feet deep on the level. There were a few 

log cabins built out there in the water, and the people had to lay logs from the 

roadway out to their cabins in order to get back and forth. Now there is the best 

country in the world right along that pike, and that is saying a great deal in 

addressing people here from the Shenandoah Valley and the fertile plains and 

valleys of other States. But that soil is rich, and they can work it in the springtime 

before they can work the gravelly soil or the sandy soil . . . But they had a time 

with the road question. It is easy to drain the surface water, but not so easy to 

build good roads where the material is lacking. I know after we left that 

Government road, we were frequently stuck in the mud, and had to unhitch to get 

through. And just before I landed at my little cabin where my home was to be for 

a few years, we got onto one of those “corduroy roads.” There was no chinking, 

no dirt thrown upon it, and to travel over a mile or two of that kind of road would 

settle the best dinner you can find in the State of Virginia. It was a rough road to 

travel.” 

(A corduroy road consists of logs placed perpendicular to the roadway, providing a 

bumpy but reliable riding surface.) 

Col. Brigham continued, “For years we lived in that country contending with the mud and 

these rough roads, but now we are improving the roads.” The farmers were unsure: 

You will learn something as you go along, and you will be surprised to see how 

the work will extend and expand. I think that is the history of every attempt to 

improve the public highway. Now the farmers—I do not blame them; I am a 

farmer myself, lived on a farm in Ohio until I moved to Washington—are 

opposed to heavy taxation; they are strenuously opposed to it, and indeed, can not 

afford heavy taxation. That was one of the objections they had to improving the 

roads when it was advocated by Gen. Roy Stone, and the bicycle men, who 
89

wanted good roads so they could glide along on their wheels without any trouble 

at any season of the year. 

At this point, the text of the speech noted that Col. Brigham was interrupted “by the 

entrance of several distinguished visitors, one of whom was General Miles, U.S.A.,” the 

hero of the Spanish-American War and the Commanding General of the U.S. Army. 

Brigham acknowledged their arrival, particularly General Miles, to applause, noting that 

he hoped the country never went to war again, but if it did, “we do not want them to 

travel over the roads where they drown the mules that haul the wagons, as I have known 

it to happen more than once in war times.” 

Returning to his speech, Col. Brigham argued that farmers are “unfairly burdened” by 

taxation, with highways as an example. “I believe that as every man who uses the 

highway is benefited by the improvement, the general public should share largely in the 

burden of expense in constructing these highways.” 

Turning to the role of the Federal Government, he believed that “it is always right for the 

strong arm of the Government to be extended to help her people in every section of this 

country.” Still, “we can not appropriate money without a limit, without due 

consideration.” As a result, he supported a government appropriation for roads, to be 

supplemented with funds from State, county, and the locality where the road is 

constructed. He also thought a reasonable appropriation should be made for the OPRI 

“for the purpose of leading on in this work. 

Brigham, who was 6 feet, 5 inches tall, concluded his speech by saying, “I want to 

demonstrate the fact that a tolerably long man can make a pretty short speech when it is 

necessary.” He ended: 

I want to say in conclusion that we are willing, as a Department, through our 

Office of Public Road Inquiries, backed up by and sustained by the Secretary of 

Agriculture, to render you any assistance in our power in the effort to improve the 

highways of the grand old State of Virginia. [Great applause.] [p. 33-36] 

General Lee indicated that he was asking the remaining speakers to keep their speeches 

short “because we want to get [the distinguished gentlemen] up to Monticello this 

afternoon to see the former home of Mr. Jefferson, and to witness the progress that is 

being made on this memorial road.” At the same time, he did not want to be disrespectful 

to the presidents of the two railways that crossed in Charlottesville, both of whom were 

present: 

And I want all of you people here in this vicinity to know Mr. Spencer and Mr. 

Stevens better, because we are going after them pretty soon for a great big union 

depot here in your town of Charlottesville . . . We want a big central station, and I 

think, if you treat these presidents properly and listen to what they have to say, 

that the station will be the next move after we get the good-roads idea firmly 

established. [p. 36] 
90

(Samuel Spencer, president of the Southern Railway Company, would address the 

convention that afternoon, and George W. Stevens was president of the Chesapeake and 

Ohio Railroad Company.) 

Lee’s remarks were greeted with “applause and laughter” by those who had traveled to 

the city by rail, only to disembark at stations “way down there, and another over yonder 

in the opposite direction,” as Lee put it. [p. 36] 

Governor Montague was the next speaker, addressing the convention on “How to Secure 

Good Roads.” He explained that, “The people, and the people alone, can secure good 

roads.” The people must convince the legislature to “pass proper and efficient laws. 

[Applause.]” He would yield to no executive in the country “in my purpose and desire to 

attach my signature of approval to a good-roads bill of some character.” He described the 

desired bill: 

What we need to do in Virginia is to start the enterprise. Build a few miles of 

good roads in every county in the Commonwealth and then the roads question 

will take care of itself by its own momentum. I know of no country on either side 

of the Atlantic that has ever abandoned the improvement of the public highways 

after once enjoying the benefits and profits of good roads. 

He described Virginia’s current efforts: 

We are expending something over $500,000 per annum for our public roads. In 

the past few days I have approved, as executive of the State, a number of bills in 

which counties have been given the right to bond themselves for road construction 

and improvement. I beg to accentuate the statement that though we raise a sum 

for our roads equal to that derived by taxation in New York, yet unless this sum is 

expended in pursuance of some intelligent design and scientific supervision, we 

have wasted it. Such design and such supervision has been lacking in this State. 

To this end, he favored appointing “a road engineer or a road commission, or both, with 

sufficient authority.” Keep the commission and engineer “out of politics and never let 

them get into politics.” Perhaps the college professors could “select a man or a 

commission who can build a highway cheaply, honestly, and expeditiously.” 

Funds could be raised several ways, including bonds and State aid. “I affirm that no 

county has ever expended its money in the construction of public highways, if 

intelligently and honestly supervised, that had to increase the rate of taxation either to 

meet the interest or to pay the principal on the maturity of bonds. [Applause.]” He added 

that, “We should not, however, overlook National aid.” He was confident it would come 

“in time.” The idea that the Constitution prohibited the aid “must fall to the ground.” 

After endorsing convict labor for good roads, he spoke of Jefferson, quoting a letter he 

wrote to James Ross: 
91

I experience great satisfaction at seeing my country proceed to facilitate 

intercommunications of several parts by opening rivers, canals, and roads. How 

much more rational is this disposition of public money than that of waging war. 

(Jefferson wrote this letter on May 8, 1786, while serving as Ambassador to France to 

James Ross of Pennsylvania, a lawyer who became a United States Senator in 1794. 

When Jefferson became President in March 1801, Ross, who had worked against 

Jefferson’s election in Pennsylvania, opposed many of Jefferson’s initiatives until leaving 

office in March 1803.) 

Governor Montague continued: 

Again, he says in a letter to Humboldt that it is more remunerative, splendid, and 

noble for people to spend money in canals and roads that will build and promote 

social intercourse and commercial facilities than to expend it in armies and 

navies. 

(This was a reference to the Prussian explorer, Baron Alexander von Humboldt, who had 

met President Jefferson during a short stay in Washington in 1803 and corresponded with 

him in later years.) 

Therefore, no place and no name can be secured, more properly suggesting the 

needs and benefits of good roads, than that of Mr. Jefferson. 

Governor Montague concluded his presentation with a charge for the delegates: 

The people of Virginia should consider this road question, and . . . they should 

instruct every man who is a candidate for a seat in the general assembly to support 

a good roads measure. The instant the people show the legislator that their vote is 

needed to elect him he will be responsive to their demands. Public enterprises of 

this sort must move slowly but in this Commonwealth they have been moving 

slowly long enough. I beg you to cooperate with your neighbors and friends to 

the end of securing the influence and the aid of him who represents you in the 

general assembly in the passage of such laws as will give this State the 

unspeakable aid and blessing of good public highways. [Great applause.] [p. 36-

39] 

General Lee, in introducing the next speaker, General Miles, commented on the need for 

good roads to move soldiers and artillery. Lee said that: 

General Miles has had great experience in all that work. He knows how to build 

an Indian path; he knows how to make a wigwam; and he knows how to build 

roads on which to move troops and supplies. I know I represent the sentiment of 

the people here to-day when I bid him welcome to Charlottesville and to the 

county of Albemarle. [Great applause.] [p. 39] 
92

Good Roads Magazine stated that “when General Miles rose to address the assemblage it 

was several minutes before he could be heard” because of the “storm of enthusiastic 

applause.” [May 1902, p. 19] 

General Miles, speaking on the “Importance of Good Roads in War and Peace,” began by 

expressing his pleasure in coming “into this beautiful country, to breathe again the pure 

air of Virginia.” He recalled his last visit to the State, during the Civil War as part of the 

Union army in such campaigns as Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Appomattox: 

I remember a long time ago, myself and some companions struggled for four long 

years to see more of your country. We tried to get down here in this part of the 

country, but we encountered two almost insurmountable obstacles. One was the 

wretched condition of your roads, especially at a certain season of the year. I 

remember they were almost impassable for horses, mules, or wagons, or for those 

of us who were walking. It was almost impossible to make any progress, for the 

oftener we put down our feet the more of your real estate we took up. 

And then we encountered another obstacle. There seems to be a certain prejudice 

against strangers [laughter], especially those coming from the section from which 

we came. I thought the people of Virginia at that time were the most exclusive 

people I ever saw. 

General Miles praised Thomas Jefferson, the great statesman whose work included 

launching the 1803 Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery that “paved the way of 

civilization across the continent.” With the continent explored, the Nation built its lines 

of communication, culminating in “our wonderful system of railways [that] probably 

almost equals those of all other countries combined.” He said: 

Capital, genius, and enterprise have been devoted to building these great lines of 

communication. Now it is important to turn the attention of our people to 

improving the roads that are feeders of these great trunk lines. It is estimated that 

at least 95 per cent of products have to be moved over the common roads before 

they reach the railroads or the lines of steamboat communication. 

In view of the appropriations for rivers and harbors, General Miles thought that it was 

time to “draw the attention” of State and Federal legislators to the need to improve 

country roads, “one of the projects that is bound to contribute to your welfare and 

happiness.” He said: 

If there is one thing that indicates the intelligence and civilization of a people it is 

their means of communication. We find in the ancient cities of the old countries, 

such as Greece and Rome, the roads there indicate the high intelligence of those 

people. 
93

After deferring to other speakers on the topic of road making, he concluded his brief 

remarks: 

The safety, the welfare, and the perpetuity of our Republic of eighty millions of 

people depend largely upon the intelligence of its citizens, and there is no one 

thing that contributes more to the intelligence and patriotism of a nation than the 

communication and dissemination of intelligence through the postal department 

of our Government . . . . Now it is believed that some measure can be adopted by 

which to promote the construction of better public roads, and thus postal 

communication and commerce may be still more and more improved. 

[Applause.] [p. 39-40 

The final speaker of the day was Sam Spencer, president of the Southern Railway 

Company. In introducing him, Chairman Lee pointed out that “the railroads of our 

country are very intimately connected with our public highways.” Spencer, a Georgia 

native who had attended the University of Virginia after serving in the Civil War, spoke 

on “The Roads and the Railroads.” 

He began, “I did not know until our distinguished chairman this morning made his 

opening remarks why I was invited to be present. I now know that it was a union station 

at Charlottesville. [Laughter and applause.]” He wasn’t prepared to discuss that topic, 

but was glad to be back in Charlottesville for one of the few times since he had attended 

the university. His work had given him many opportunities to think about “what is 

desirable and necessary for the development of the section of country to which I owe my 

birth as well as my education, and my thoughts have naturally turned to the question of 

her highways.” If the railways “are its arteries,” the roads were “its veins.” The 

relationship was apparent to anyone who “devotes his time and attention, as I have, to the 

building up or the management of those arteries.” 

He explained that the convention grew out of “an invitation extended by me last July to 

the National Good Roads Association to inaugurate a movement by means of a goodroads train that should furnish an object lesson to everyone in the Southern States of 

good-road building.” He discussed the work of the train: 

The movement of that train I hope has done some good. At all events, so far as 

my observation goes, it has attracted some attention, and in some cases aroused 

enthusiasm for an improvement which I regard as the most important one now 

before us in the development of the South and of the whole country. The work of 

this train is now in its last stage. It has completed 4,000 miles of an itinerary 

through 6 States; has built, or been the means of building, 14 or 15 sample or 

specimen highways, adapted to particular sections in which the work was done, 

and therefore of the highest value to that section as an object lesson of what could 

be done by the people. Nothing could be more appropriate than that the last work 

of this venture should be the construction of a highway from the University of 

Virginia to the historic home of Jefferson at Monticello. [Applause.] 
94

Highways were, he said, “an adjunct to the civilization, the progress, and the wealth of 

any country.” The good roads issue was “an economic question; it is not a question of 

sentiment; it is a question of real benefit and progress; and, while there is abundant 

explanation for the fact, it is none the less true that in the improvement of the highways 

alone America has lagged behind in the progress of civilization.” He briefly described 

the role of railroads in advancing the country, but said that now the attention was focused 

on highways: 

It has come late, but we may rest assured that the American people will address 

themselves to that subject with the same force, the same vigor, the same liberality, 

and the same resource and ingenuity which have characterized them in everything 

they have done. [Great applause.] 

One of the “leading necessities” was to “let people at large [know] what can be done and 

what has been done, to show them not only by literature, by addresses, and by arguments, 

but by practical lessons, actual demonstrations, what is necessary to make a highway, 

how to do it, and what its benefits will be.” The goal was to show the farmer that his 

transportation costs could be reduced by good roads: 

And the chief purpose of the recent tour on the Southern Railway has been to 

show that cheaper transportation was available and ought to be utilized between 

every farmer’s door and his nearest station or market. I know of no better way to 

bring that question home, and I hope in a measure it has been done. 

He discussed the cost of transporting over roads and railways, the latter being much 

cheaper. “The science of transportation is developed in one case; it is totally 

undeveloped in the other.” After this example, he concluded: 

I thank you for your attention, and I hope that the enterprise upon which you are 

now engaged will meet with all the success which it ought to have and which you 

expect. [Applause and cheers.] [p. 41-43] 

Chairman Lee introduced George W. Stevens of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad 

Company, who had not prepared remarks, but assured the delegates that “I am heartily in 

favor of the good-roads movements.” [p. 43] 

The second day of the convention concluded a few minutes later, so guests could visit 

Monticello “upon invitation of the present owner, Jefferson M. Levy.” [Good Roads 

Magazine, May 1902, p. 19] 

Good Roads Magazine reported that a another “special train from Washington arrived on 

the third and last day of the convention. It brought 75 persons, among whom were U.S. 

Senator Mark Hanna of Ohio, ex-Secretary of the Interior Cornelius N. Bliss, and many 

members of Congress.” The afternoon session “was so well attended, despite a rain 

storm, that the armory was crowded to its doors.” [p. 19-20] 
95

W. L. Dickinson, president of the Connecticut Valley Highway Association in 

Springfield, Massachusetts, addressed the convention on Friday, April 4, on “The 

Improvement of Our Highways.” The technical address discussed the construction of 

macadam, bituminous macadam, and gravel roads, as well as the importance of 

maintenance. He concluded, “We should take advantage of the experience of men skilled 

in this work . . . we shall have in a few years in this progressive and enterprising country 

the finest system of roads in the world.” [p. 47] 

Following Dickinson’s address, the convention adopted a series of resolutions endorsing 

the work of the OPRI and NGRA and thanking the Southern Railway for its contribution. 

Other resolutions thanked Governor Montague for his support of the good roads cause, 

while expressing deep regret that the State legislature had not passed a good-roads law. 

Resolutions urged the State to provide instruction in road building at all State-aided 

institutions; encouraged citizens to ask their representatives in the U.S. Congress to 

support “an amendment to the interstate commerce act” prohibiting State-to-State 

shipment of prison-made goods in conflict with free labor; endorsed the use of convicts 

on road projects; suggested that local communities begin the work of improving their 

roads “and not defer action in the hope of Federal aid”; and thanking the railroad 

companies for their contributions. 

Binger Hermann, Commission of the General Land Office, presented an historical paper 

on pioneer road building. After discussing the crude roads of his youth west of the 

Rocky Mountains, he noted that the government for many years had used its resources to 

help waterways and railways, while roads fell into disuse. He recalled the National Road, 

which President Jefferson had approved in 1806 and lived to see it achieve its goals: 

He lived to see it a success, and saw conveyed upon its well-planned grades and 

over its smooth and hard surface hundreds of thousands of people and millions of 

wealth . . . . It was indeed one vast and continuous caravan . . . . Of Jefferson’s 

historic National road it may be said that, while it has gone out of existence and is 

largely but a memory, yet the benefits which it achieved in its day in aid of the 

mighty growth and expansion of our beloved country have left an impress which 

will continue to the end of time. 

He discussed the great Virginians who had contributed to the Nation “whose habitations 

and associations were all within a radius of not many miles from this spot.” He hoped 

that the Jefferson Memorial Road would lead to similar roads to the homes of the other 

great Virginians, such as Presidents George Washington, James Madison, and James 

Monroe. He hoped that Americans today would be inspired by “the exalted spirit which 

animated these patriotic forefathers, pioneers, roadmakers, and American empire 

builders.” 

The text noted that Hermann’s speech was followed by “Prolonged applause.” [p. 48-53] 

General Lee introduced the next speaker, Senator Hanna of Ohio, by noting, “I was 

wondering how Mr. Hanna happened to be such a fine good fellow, and I have 
96

ascertained the reason: His grandfather came from Virginia.” Hanna, a native of Lisbon, 

Ohio, who was raised in Cleveland, had made a fortune as an industrialist. He became a 

chief advisor to McKinley, helping him become Governor and President. When the new 

President appointed Senator Sherman to be Secretary of State, the State Legislature 

selected Hanna to fill the remainder of Sherman’s term. Although he was easily returned 

for a full term in 1900, his influence was reduced following the assassination of President 

McKinley. 

Senator Hanna began his speech on “Southern Development” by explaining why he was 

there: 

I came here at the very earnest solicitation of Hon. Martin Dodge, who is one of 

my constituents at home; in fact, I may say that it was not an invitation, but a 

command—I had to come and that was all there was about it. When I told Mr. 

Dodge that I did not know a thing about roads, he said, “Well, you see, you don’t 

need to. I have a lot of hayseed fellows here that don’t know anything else.” 

[Great laughter.] “All we want of you is to come and show yourself and convince 

the good people of Virginia that you have not got any horns.” [Laughter.] I was 

going to tell the story that your chairman has just told. My grandfather was born 

in Virginia, within 50 miles of your city; so if I have any horns they were 

sprouted in Virginia. 

In a country as large as the United States, he said, “The question of transportation . . . has 

been a serious one, and especially so on account of the rapid development and the great 

expense of territory, people going from the East to the West, and the enormous 

production of cereal products, of which the surplus must find a market.” The goal has 

been reducing the cost of transportation for “the enormous surplus which we had to send 

to market in our populous cities and in foreign lands.” This “engrossing subject” diverted 

attention from the “important question of home transportation—the transportation to the 

city, to the railroad station.” 

He was interested in the development of the South because every business “has known 

for years the great natural resources in the South.” Although “the subject of roads may 

seem small in comparison, the interest manifested in this is a demonstration of the fact 

that the people of the South are awakening to the importance of their own interests.” 

When he assured the delegates that they would have “my hearty sympathy and 

cooperation,” his speech concluded to “Prolonged applause.” [p. 53-54] 

The next two speakers, U.S. Representatives R. W. Davis of Florida and Charles E. 

Littlefield of Maine, gave brief addresses. Davis acknowledged he was one of the 

“hayseeds” Senator Hanna referred to but admitted that while he was interested in the 

subject of good roads, “I plead not guilty to the charge of knowing anything about it.” 

He, too, had a Dodge story to tell: 

It was my good fortune three or four years ago to induce my friend, the Hon. 

Martin Dodge, Director of the Office of Public Road Inquiries, to visit my State, 
97

and to talk to my people upon the subject of good roads. I promised him that if he 

would go there, a convention of people would meet him; and I so arranged it that 

they did, and he talked to them on the subject of good roads. Down in Florida, 

although we have a God-given climate, all who have visited us know that we have 

little or no soil, that sand prevails all over our State, and that good roads are a 

difficult thing to be secured there, but the visit of Director Dodge put our people 

to talking. Communities began to discuss this question of good roads among 

themselves. They began to subscribe, and county commissioners began to vote 

public moneys in this direction, and to-day Florida with her sandy soil is coming 

to the front upon the subject of good roads. [Applause.] If we can do it there, 

what ought you to accomplish upon these historic old red hills in the grand old 

Dominion? [p. 54-55] 

Representative Littlefield cited the example of his town of Rutland, Maine, where a few 

years ago, people could not cross the street after a rain “without having on rubber boots, 

and sometimes the mud could get in the tops of the boots.” Rutland decided to pave the 

streets, despite the concerns of those who objected to the expense. Now, the town has “as 

fine a lot of streets as you can find in any city or town . . . and there is not a man, woman, 

or child—because now even the children see the advantages of good roads—that will 

even harbor the thought of a change back to what existed before.” [p. 55-56] 

General Lee introduced U.S. Representative Thomas H. Tongue of Oregon, a lawyer and 

farmer who had been born in England. After serving as Mayor of Hillsboro and in the 

State Senate, Tongue had been elected to the House in 1896. Lee informed the delegates 

that Representative Tongue “has just been renominated and, I hear, is going to be 

reelected.” (Tongue was reelected, but died on January 11, 1903, in Washington at the 

age of 58.) Lee explained that, “We have heard from the North and the South, and now 

we will hear from the Pacific coast.” 

Tongue’s speech was on “Beneficial Influences of Good Roads.” He began: 

The movement for good roads . . . concerns not only the pockets, but the health, 

the tastes, and even the morals of the people. 

All Nations, he said, considered the problems of transportation to be “of pressing and 

exceptional importance.” This was reflected in the U.S. Congress, which appropriated 

millions of dollars for rivers and harbors and aided in development of the Nation’s 

railroad network. The contrast with roads was stark: 

While the government has dealt so liberally, expending hundreds of millions of 

dollars, and granting a wealth of land for the improvement of water and railroad 

transportation, it has been painfully parsimonious in its appropriation for the 

improvement of common highways . . . . It is believed that the tonnage of freight 

and the number of persons carried over common highways equal, if they do not 

exceed, the tonnage and passengers carried by every railroad train and steamboat 

in the land. Yet during the last forty years the Federal Government has expended 
98

for the improvement of these roads the small sum of $100,000. What has been 

the result? Just such as might have been expected. 

With the encouragement of “the liberal aid extended by the Federal Government,” private 

corporations had expended funds for rail and water transportation: 

In railroad and water transportation we excel all competitors. In the condition of 

our common roads we are behind the least civilized nations of the Old World. 

After discussing the cost of freight shipments, which had declined for the subsidized 

means of transportation, he said that this decline was essential. “The struggle with 

foreign competitors in order to preserve our markets and maintain our trade and 

commerce, has forced us to rapid and unusual improvements in this class of 

transportation.” At the same time, the cost of wagon transportation had increased: 

The most important problems that now concern the great West from which I 

come, and which produces in such abundance the healthful, nourishing, and 

luscious foods needed to feed the workmen in your factories and the crowded 

inhabitants of your cities, are problems of transportation. 

That was why “fruits of unsurpassed flavor and healthfulness, so needed in the East, rot 

under the trees of Western orchards.” Similarly, “timber of unexcelled quality” was “cut 

down and destroyed.” 

To achieve the full benefit of the dollars expended for rail and water transportation, 

“there should be a corresponding improvement of our common roads.” Representative 

Tongue explained: 

The common road leads to the railroad station and to the wharf upon the bank of 

lake or river. The stream can not rise higher than the fountain. Without the 

common highways and the farm wagon, iron rails would rust upon the track and 

steamboats rot at the wharf. 

The source of capital was key: 

While great combinations of capital are seeking to monopolize and control the 

water and railroad routes, for the improvement of which the Government has 

expended so much, the common highways belong to all of the people of the 

United States. No combination of capital can monopolize or control them. The 

benefits, like the dews of heaven, descend alike upon the just and the unjust, the 

millionaire and the pauper, the child of the poor, as well as the child of the rich. 

The people’s money expended for the improvement of them will bless all the 

people. There will be no percentage deducted to increase the full coffers of those 

already rich . . . . A saving for transportation of persons and property over the 

common roads would be more widely diffused, would inure to the benefit of more 

people, and to more people who need it, than a decrease on any other expenditure. 
99

Representative Tongue emphasized that, “Good roads do not concern our pockets only.” 

They would be “instrumentalities for improved health, increased happiness and pleasure, 

for refining tastes, strengthening, broadening, and elevating character.” For the “toiler in 

the city,” the “old and young,” good roads would help “sweeten the daily labor with some 

pleasure.” He added: 

They are as essential to purity of mind and soul as to healthfulness of body. Out 

beyond the confines of the city, with its dust and dirt and filth, morally and 

physically, these are to be found, and good roads help to find them . . . . How the 

mountains pointing heavenward, yesterday battling with storms, to-day bathed 

with sunshine, bid you stand firm, walk erect, look upward, cherish hope, and for 

light and guidance to call upon the Creator of all light and of all wisdom. How 

such scenes as these kindle the imagination of the poet, quicken and enlarge the 

conception of the artist, fire the soul of the orator, purify and elevate us all . . . . 

What poor city scenes can so inspire poetic feeling, can so increase the love of the 

beautiful, can so elevate and broaden and strengthen the character, and so inspire 

us with reverence for the great Father of us all? But for the full enjoyment of 

such pleasures good roads are indispensable. 

The roads would help reverse the “present tendency of population to rush into the great 

cities.” After a lengthy list of the benefits of farm life free of the corruptions of the city, 

he said: 

The typical American to-day is the American farmer. The city life, with its bustle 

and stir, its hurry and rush, its feverish anxiety for wealth, position, and rank in 

society, its fretting over ceremonies and precedents, is breaking down the health 

and intellect and the morals of its inhabitants. These must be replenished from 

the rural home . . . . Nothing will contribute more to this than the improvement of 

our common roads, to facilitate the means of communication between one section 

of the country and the other, and between all and the city. 

Representative Tongue complimented Martin Dodge. “In proportion to the expenditure 

of public money, no work is now being carried on by the General Government that will 

bring so much good to so many people, and particularly to so many of those whom we 

call the common people . . . .” He invited Dodge and Secretary Wallace to visit Oregon 

where they would be “surrounded by a wholesome, happy, and prosperous people, while 

the mountains, like armed sentinels in the night, keep watch and guard over your peaceful 

slumbers.” [p. 56-50] 

That was the final speech, as presented in Bulletin No. 25. Chairman Lee stated: 

I want to say a word for the purpose of testifying our great appreciation of the 

interest manifested in this very important subject by the large audiences that have 

attended the meetings in the armory, and I now declare this convention adjourned 

sine die. [p. 60] 
100

Results of the Southern Railway Good Roads Train

The introduction to OPRI Bulletin No. 23 summarized the 5-month tour: 

Sample roads were constructed and conventions held at eighteen places. The total 

length of completed road made was from 12 to 15 miles, and included samples 

made of earth, gravel, sand and clay, chert, shell, and macadam. The conventions 

lasted from one to three days each, and were participated in by large numbers of 

people. Of these conventions five were State conventions, two were general, and 

the rest district conventions. Five State and five district good roads associations 

were organized to carry on active work in creating sentiment for highway 

improvement . . . . General interest was displayed in the progress of the train and 

in the conventions held, and a great sentiment was created throughout the South in 

favor of road improvement. [p. 10] 

Perhaps, the introduction said, “no more noteworthy industrial movement has taken place 

in the United States in recent years and none which will have more effect on the 

development of one of the great sections of the country.” 

Good Roads Magazine shared that view. A retrospective in the June 1902 issue called 

the Southern Railway Good Roads Train “one of the most remarkable and instructive 

enterprises ever undertaken.” It summarized its two primary purposes: 

[To] arouse the South to take an enthusiastic interest in the subject of highway 

improvement, and at the same time to show in the most practical and spectacular 

way just how good roads should be made. The secondary objects, of course, 

included the desire of the machinery makers to promote the good roads 

movement, and create a larger market for their respective products, and the 

ambition of the railroad to increase the population and promote the general 

welfare of the section through which it passes, which will eventually repay the 

railroad company by increased traffic for the heavy expense to which it was put in 

hauling the train over its line and permitting the use of its cars and sidetracks 

during several months. 

There can be no doubt whatever that the first primary object was accomplished 

immediately by each convention. Seldom has the Sunny South been aroused to so 

high a pitch of enthusiasm over so prosaic a subject as it has been during the past 

winter over the need of better roads. Every convention held had the sanction and 

hearty personal co-operation of the Governor of the state and of the mayor of the 

city in which it was held, and each one was well attended by 200 to 500 or 1,000 

delegates and spectators who took a profound interest in the proceedings. All of 

the newspapers devoted columns daily to the work of the train crew and to 

reporting the sessions of the convention . . . . In a dozen other ways was made 

manifest the degree to which our Southern brethren’s common sense and pride 

were touched. [p. 2-3] 
101

After describing the activities of the train at each stop, the retrospective said that “the 

immense value of the enterprise will be readily appreciated, but it cannot be 

overestimated.” It continued: 

The double value of combining the theoretical and abstract side of the great 

question of road improvement with the practical and concrete demonstration as an 

object lesson will be readily recognized. Long after the enthusiasm stirred up by 

the addresses in the convention has abated, the memory of the invasion of the 

Good Roads Train and the dispatch and ease with which the experienced crew 

constructed the sample stretches of improved roadway will linger, and the 

improved pieces of road themselves will, by contrast with the old and 

unimproved, be the strongest argument and most persistent reminder of the 

necessity of putting all of the main thoroughfares in the immediate vicinity in 

equally good condition. [p. 8] 

The fact that these samples are widely distributed in leading cities of the South 

will also have the effect of promoting the good roads cause throughout a wide 

territory, and the discussion of the subject in these principal centers will tend to 

keep it alive in all. 

In OPRI’s 1902 annual report, Dodge printed several accounts from local participants in 

the expedition. Henry Fonde, President of the Southern Alabama Good Roads 

Association in Mobile, reported that while enthusiasm “has somewhat subsided, there is 

still a very healthy interest” in good roads in the State. His association had encouraged 

each county to create its own good roads association in time for a statewide meeting in 

Montgomery during the fall before the next meeting of the State legislature. 

In Lynchburg, Dr. Charles Minor Blackford, Jr., said that he had consulted residents in 

the vicinity of the model road. “The traffic varies from the passage of a light buggy or 

wagon to the heaviest hauling, and I find no dissatisfaction expressed with the road by 

any class of users.” Although the object-lesson road had not yet inspired additional road 

construction, “I think the example will tell when new construction is begun.” 

S. L. Patterson, North Carolina’s Commissioner of Agriculture and Immigration, also 

found that “little actual work” had been accomplished since the Southern Railway Good 

Roads Train passed through the State, but “the increased interest in building and 

maintaining good roads has been very marked in North Carolina . . . .” Numerous 

inquiries had come from around the State “for information and for copies of the recent 

road laws passed by our legislature, the adoption of which is optional with the county 

commissioners.” Overall, he reported an “awakening of our people to the great necessity 

of road improvement.” 

P. H. Hanes, president of the North Carolina Good Roads Association in Winston-Salem, 

requested a second visit of the train in the fall. “It would do more, in my opinion, to 

promote the good roads movement than anything that can be done.” The road built north 
102

of the city “is an excellent piece of work, and is standing the travel beyond my 

expectation; in fact, it is almost a perfect piece of work.” The road and the visit by the 

Good Roads Train inspired the good roads movement in every part of the State, he said, 

“and within twelve months, in my judgment, its friends will be organized and ready for 

work.” 

The annual report also quoted State Geologist Earle Sloane of South Carolina as saying 

that the “short bit of road constructed at Charleston by the good roads train . . . [has] well 

withstood the test to which it has been subjected” although traffic “has not been of a 

heavy order.” The interest in good roads promoted by the Southern Railway Good Roads 

Train “is continually extending, and is worthy of the highest commendation.” Sloane 

anticipated that, “The greatest benefits are to come to us through ready transportation 

from the farms to the common carriers.” He added that, “One of the foremost tenets 

proclaimed in the present gubernatorial campaign is ‘good roads.’” [p. 311-312] 

For the 1903 annual report, Dodge again reported on the effects of the Southern Railway 

Good Roads Train. After summarizing the train’s agenda, Dodge quoted extensively 

from Senator Daniel’s “itinerant college” speech in Lynchburg, Virginia. He then cited a 

few of the many “gratifying reports” received “showing the beneficial results following 

this great good-roads expedition.” He reprinted several comments cited in the 1902 

report, but added excerpts from two letters from W. L. Spoon, the road expert employed 

in the OPRI’s southern division under Professor Holmes. The first was written from 

Goldsboro, North Carolina, on October 6, 1902: 

I was at Winston, N.C., last week and went up to see the first piece of work done 

by the good roads train, and I am delighted with its excellent condition. It is as 

fine as any road in North Carolina to-day. It has been extended for nearly 1 mile. 

I have no doubt you will be delighted to know this. 

Spoon also inspected the object-lesson road built at Raleigh. His letter of December 16, 

1902, reported that the road “is in excellent condition.” Although the work “was 

seriously interrupted by the severity of the weather, and had to be left partially 

incomplete . . . it shows excellent construction in the foundation . . .” This characteristic 

was “evidenced by the fact that the very heavy traffic it daily bears does not wear the 

surface into holes or uneven places.” He explained that aside from its traffic service, the 

road had performed its “greatest value” by exposing visiting delegates, many of whom 

had never seen a macadam road, to “the actual work of constructing a macadam road 

upon sound, scientific principles.” Spoon continued: 

Aside from the local benefit derived from the good road built as a road of service, 

by far the greater value to the State was the educational feature, which has a scope 

of influence commensurate with the size of the visiting delegation, and, since that 

was very large, it is easy to see how the value of the visit of the good roads train 

to Raleigh is of incalculable benefit as an educator. Indeed, I may say truthfully 

that the three stops of the good roads train in North Carolina did more to arouse 

good roads sentiment throughout the State than any and all agencies heretofore 
103

employed combined. North Carolina will give a good account of herself at no 

very distant date. [p. 337-338] 

The Great Northern Good Roads Train

At the start of FY 1903 on July 1, 1902, Dodge used an increased appropriation to expand 

the number of OPRI divisions. He appointed Colonel Richardson of the NGRA to be the 

special agent for the Middle Western division. Jay F. Brown of Cleveland, mentioned 

earlier as the engineer on the Wooster Pike project, became the special agent for the 

Central division. (Brown appears to have confined his work as special agent to northern 

Ohio, where he was aided by Joseph H. Dodge, an OPRI road expert who was also 

Martin Dodge’s brother.) 

The Southern Railway Good Roads Train was the most extensive of the good roads 

trains, but the OPRI and NGRA jointly sponsored one more expedition. With the support 

of the rail company’s President, J. J. Hill, the Great Northern Railway Good Roads Train 

began on September 1, 1902, at the Minnesota State Fair between Minneapolis and St. 

Paul. Dodge supervised the train, while Colonel Richardson and OPRI Special Agent 

Abbott were in charge of promotional work. The train was scheduled to conclude its 

demonstration in Portland, Oregon, on October 20. 

The road machinery had been shipped from Chicago to St. Paul over the Burlington route 

free of charge, according to OPRI’s 1903 annual report: 

The machinery companies conceded everything asked for and gave the best and 

most improved machinery for every variety of work necessary, and also traction 

engines to haul the earth-handling machinery, so for the first time animal power 

was dispensed with for such service. [p. 339] 

The train consisted of nine cars of machinery, plus a dining car and a sleeping car. The 

annual report called it “the best equipped good roads train ever sent out.” The Great 

Northern Good Roads Train followed the pattern of the previous trains, featuring 

construction of an object-lesson road and a good roads convention at each stop, with a 

goal of organizing good roads associations to promote road improvement. 

On the State Fair grounds, the crew built 2,000 feet of macadam road using local 

materials. The road was considered permanent because “the road leading from St. Paul to 

Minneapolis will pass through these grounds and over this road.” 

After a 3-day convention at Institute Hall on the fairgrounds, the train moved to St. 

Cloud, Minnesota, then a city of about 10,000 residents, for a 2-day convention in the 

city’s Davidson Opera House. The object-lesson team built a macadam roadway on St. 

Germain Street, the first macadam road to be built in this part of the country, according to 

the OPRI’s annual report for 1903. As was customary for object-lesson roads, the experts 

used local material, in this case granite from area quarries. The annual report stated: 
104

[It] was thought by many that this material could never be used successfully for 

the purpose because of the lack of cementing properties. By a slight admixture of 

powdered clay and gumbo, which operated as a binder, and under pressure of the 

heavy steam rollers there was presented a most excellent object lesson for that 

community and for all that section of the country. [p. 339] 

The report added that, “About 1 mile of road was prepared, but the macadam was placed 

on only about one-quarter of a mile.” Good Roads Magazine explained that the road 

began at the railroad and consisted of a 16-foot wide roadway, narrowing to 9 feet. In 

addition, a “portion of earth road was made with graders and packed by a steam roller.” 

With the weather perfect, “a great many people from town and the surrounding country . . 

. watched the work with much interest.” When the work was completed, it “was 

pronounced by Director Dodge the best object lesson road he had ever seen made in so 

short a time.” [Good Roads Magazine, October 1902, p. 1] 

(According to the annual report, special agent Abbott returned to St. Cloud 2 weeks later 

“to ascertain whether [the object-lesson road] had been injured by the wet weather and 

heavy traffic.” He reported that it was “preeminently satisfactory.”) [p. 339] 

The train arrived in Fargo, North Dakota, another city of 10,000, on September 14. The 

next day, the object-lesson team began construction of a macadam road on Eighth Street 

between Third and Fourth Avenues, a distance of about 450 feet. OPRI’s annual report 

stated that “the soil [is] so sticky when wet as to make the roads almost impassable.” The 

team faced two concerns. The annual report expressed one: 

No macadam road had ever been built in this valley, and it was the common 

opinion prevailing there that none could be because, as claimed, the earth was too 

yielding to support any superstructure of stone according to the macadam method; 

but here success was secured in a high degree by using the same kind of granite 

and by pursuing the same method of consolidation as at St. Cloud. The Great 

Northern road transported free 200 cubic yards of granite sprawls from the St. 

Cloud quarries. In addition to this macadam, an equal amount of gravel road was 

laid in Fargo. [p. 339] 

Good Roads Magazine expressed the other concern: 

It was feared that wet weather would interfere with the work, but after a few 

showers the skies cleared and fine weather prevailed. The dirt, in its wet state, 

gave the engineers an opportunity to study its peculiar characteristics to better 

advantage. The progress of the work was watched by a good number of interested 

spectators, but the attendance was not as large as had been anticipated, owing to 

the fact that it was at the season of year when the farmers were compelled to 

secure their crops. 
105

Similarly, attendance at the 2-day convention in the Opera House “was very fair, 

everything considered.” [Good Roads Magazine, November 1902. p. 2] 

The train moved to Grand Forks “an enterprising city of over seven thousand,” as 

explained in Good Roads Magazine. The “second city” of the State, an “important 

railroad center” and the State’s “chief manufacturing city,” Grand Forks, home of the 

State university, had “broad, well-paved streets, is well lighted, and has imposing 

business houses and handsome residences.” The magazine described the object-lesson 

road: 

The rock used for the macadam section was St. Cloud granite, which was brought 

for the purpose. Three distinct kinds of road were constructed: one of granite 

bound with clay and finished with fine granite, the second made of granite bedt 

with a four-inch gravel layer on top, the third a stretch of road built of gravel 

alone, no clay being used. Inclement weather, however, prevented the completion 

of the work until Monday, the 29th. The work was watched with interest by many 

visitors from the city and people from the northern part of the State and from the 

State of Minnesota. 

The 2-day convention was held in the Pioneer Club Rooms, but the magazine observed, 

“Could the convention have been held early in the summer when the harvest did not 

demand the attention of the farmers the attendance would have been much larger.” 

[Good Roads Magazine, November 1902, p. 3] 

Even before the Great Northern Railway Good Roads Train reached Great Forks, 

participants had decided to end the train after the convention in that city. The October 

1902 issue of Good Roads Magazine discussed the decision: 

The reason given for discontinuing the train is that it is at a time when the farmers 

are especially busy, and it has been impossible to secure the desired attendance. 

The railroad company, therefore, it is said, did not see its way clear to running the 

train further for the present. The Government officials, however, have arranged 

to carry out the programme as arranged so far as holding conventions at Seattle, 

Portland, and other points is concerned, and it is expected that very profitable 

results will follow the meetings, as every effort will be made to bring out a large 

attendance. [p. 18] 

The reduced team consisted of Dodge, Richardson, and Abbott; F. H. Hitchcock, chief of 

the Foreign Market Division of the Agriculture Department, and J. R. Taggart and B. S. 

Thorp. An OPRI photograph reprinted in the December 1902 issue of the magazine 

showed the “party at the time of leaving Grand Forks.” Dodge and three others are 

seated in a horse-drawn carriage, with the two other members of the team standing 

alongside it. [p. 23] 

On October 11, 1902, Dodge wrote to Secretary Wilson from Seattle. The letter, 

reprinted in the December 1902 issue of Good Roads Magazine, [p. 23-24] began: 
106

Dear Sir:--I take pleasure in sending you herewith a large number of newspaper 

clippings, which contain an abridged report of the work that we have done with 

the good roads train in the Northwest and of the manner in which it was received. 

After summarizing the activities of the Great Northern Railway Good Roads Train in 

language that would later appear in the annual report, Dodge continued: 

When I made application for the train, I requested that it should be sent entirely 

across the country to the Pacific coast. The request was not acceded to at first, 

and when the company decided to put on the train, they only agreed to run it 

through the prairie country, because they said the season would be too short to 

reach the Pacific slope before the rainy season would set in. I had hoped in the 

beginning that we should not be required to stop oftener than once in 500 miles, 

but the railway company insisted on stopping at the places I have named, all of 

them being within 250 miles of St. Paul. Bu this time a full month had passed, 

and the distance from Grand Forks to Seattle, our next stop, is fully 1,500 miles, 

so the railway company concluded that inasmuch as there could be but two or 

three more stands made at best this year, it would not be wise to run the train 

1,500 miles and return it within a short time, making 3,000 miles for not to exceed 

three exhibitions. 

Our main purpose now is to call the people together in conventions at different 

times and places, and discuss the road question with them, give them such 

information as we have, and ascertain from them what they desire. In this we 

have been eminently successful at this place, not only by reason of the great 

number of persons attending the convention and the remarkable interest 

manifested in the subject, but also on account of the formation of a permanent 

state organization for carrying on the work here in the future. Mr. Samuel Hill, 

who you know is the son-in-law of Mr. J. J. Hill, was chosen president of the new 

association, and tells me that he is very anxious to have his name identified with 

the movement in the state and with the permanent improvement of the 

highways—a thing greatly needed in this section the country. 

We go from here to Portland for a full week, and from there to the Inter-Mountain 

Fair at Boise, Idaho. 

 Very respectfully, 

 Martin Dodge, Director [p. 23-24] 

(Samuel Hill, who had married J. J. Hill’s daughter Mary in 1888, would become one of 

the great figures in the Northwest during the Good Roads Era, associated particularly 

with the Pacific Highway along the West Coast and the Columbia River Highway, now 

an All-American Road under the National Scenic Byway Program.) 

In this way, the final Good Roads Train with OPRI’s full support came to an end. 
107

James Abbott on the Great Northern Railway Good Roads Train

The December 1905 issue of Good Roads Magazine contained an article by former OPRI 

special agent Abbott, on “Some Object Lesson Road Lessons.” He explained that 

General Stone, “a civil engineer, a practical road builder, and a conscientious and 

enthusiastic official,” had initiated the object-lesson road plan of instruction about 10 

years earlier. He explained that General Stone developed a “four-sided scheme of cooperation” under which a community applied for an object-lesson road, manufacturers 

provided equipment, railroads provided transport, and the ORI provided experts. In 

practice, the emphasis was on education: 

During the building of this piece of road every newspaper published in the 

vicinity found it a prolific topic of news. Thousands of people came to view the 

process, many from considerable distances. To all of them the expert explained 

each process and the reason for it. It was a daily school in the whole theory and 

practice of road building. A convention was always held, lasting two or more 

days, at which the subject of highway construction discussed in all its phases—

historic, economic, social, legislative, administrative, and to its deliberations the 

press gave wide publicity. Numerous photographs were obtained illustrating 

every feature of the work in progress. These were published by the press and 

made into lantern slides. Widely separated localities were selected for these 

demonstrations. Professors and students from agricultural colleges and State 

universities went to them to see and learn and to attend the conventions. Many of 

them secured the photographs for lantern slides to illustrate lectures in their 

respective institutions. Mr. Eldridge, the assistant director, went from town to 

town, all over the United States, delivering instructive lectures, illustrated by 

views of these object lesson roads and processes. 

Abbott considered this original phase of object-lesson road construction a success: 

For years this object lesson road method was practiced by the office with 

unqualified benefit to the whole country. It was undoubtedly an important factor 

in educating public sentiment in several States, which later established highway 

commissions. 

The original practice of object lesson road plan was judicious and effective. It 

met the needs of the people and fulfilled the spirit of the law. 

The second era of the object-lesson road, Abbott said, was the period of the Good Roads 

Trains, particularly the trains operated by the Illinois Central and Southern Railway: 

They operated in the Southern States, where highway conditions were all very 

crude, in communities where the majority of the people had never seen a good 

road, knew nothing of up-to-date road building apparatus or methods—and to 

whom the spectacular particularly appealed. 
108

During the conventions at each stop, “staff immediately began giving a show entirely 

novel in those parts,” offering opportunity for “the little social functions which 

characterize the impulsive hospitality of that southern clime: 

It was all refreshingly novel and much good-road seed was planted. The 

moderate sums exacted from the communities for expenses were generally 

regarded as reasonable and cheerfully paid. 

He gave credit to Colonel Richardson, who according to Abbott had been appointed a 

special agent of the OPRI “in order that his peculiar talents might be utilized and to him 

was intrusted the conduct of the campaign.” Abbott added: 

If there exists in the United States another man as well fitted by nature and 

training for such a duty, the writer, in his somewhat extended experience of the 

good roads cause, has never met him. 

Richardson’s talents were especially useful in dealing with critics: 

The occasional roars of practical utilitarians, who failed to recognize in the visible 

results the wonderful stretches of perfected highway pictured in advance to their 

imagination, were mostly dissipated and rendered innocuous by the genial and 

tactful Richardson. But for his executive ability and peculiar genius for that 

work, the short comings, incongruities, and ludicrous features of the plan and its 

personnel would have usurped the limelight. 

Along the trail of the train, people would have laughed at the droll features and 

largely missed the beneficial lessons. 

The Great Northern Good Roads Train launched the third era of object-lesson roads. “It 

was an ill-advised attempt to transplant to an uncongenial clime and environment an 

exotic which had thrived in other regions and under very different conditions.” He did 

not fault the railroads, which “were generous in the extreme”: 

No such company of highly skilled, practical road experts was ever grouped 

together for work before or since . . . . All on the train were the railroad’s guests, 

and no restriction was placed on their numbers. Every comfort of the modern 

railroad was furnished, the best chef on the system was detailed for the train and 

an assistant furnished him. President James J. Hill’s especial train porter was one 

of the two provided. Every good thing to eat to be had in the market was served 

in abundance, cooked fit for a king’s table. There was even a conductor, gifted 

with talent for song and story, who endeared himself to all by his delightful 

personality. 
109

The train was the “star attraction” of the Minnesota State Fair at Hamline on the 

boundary between Minneapolis and St. Paul. The object-lesson road, however, did not 

go smoothly: 

After grading had been in progress for two days in accordance with stakes and 

instructions of the engineer designated by the fair management, it suddenly 

developed that the stakes and instructions were in error, and instead of a cut there 

should have been a fill. Activities were reversed and the dirt returned to the place 

from whence it had been abstracted. Just previous to the transposition act the 

plow of an elevating grader had severed in twain a water main. Frantic appeals to 

the fair management to repair the damage before it should be forever too late were 

responded to by a zeal of movement suggestive of the tortoise. 

It requires no heated imagination to conceive the sort of foundation for a 

macadam road which would be evolved from such complications. To augment 

the gaiety of the occasion every man, woman and child who visited the fair 

ground seemed to feel called on to distribute themselves over the right of way, 

and a constantly recurring tragedy was averted only by stopping the machines 

every few feet. 

Under these conditions, it was not surprising that on Saturday afternoon the 

general passenger traffic manager of the system, contemplating the 

accomplishment and measuring the value of the demonstration only by what was 

in sight, suggested the prompt relinquishment of the train and vigorously asserted 

that “such demonstrations would set back the cause of road improvement in a 

region for five years.” 

The demonstration at St. Cloud also had its share of problems that “illustrated how 

difficult it might be for a human being to recognize in such demonstrations any benefit 

beyond the actual value in dollars and cents of the short piece of road constructed.” 

Abbott described a member of the local committee that had arranged for the visit as the 

equipment was being moved from the railroad to the demonstration site: 

He saw the crusher break through a rotten culvert, and noted with impatience that 

it required men and effort and time to put it on to terra firma again. He observed 

an unavoidable delay which occurred in erecting the bins and making certain 

needed changes. Noon of the second day had passed and not a pound of road had 

been crushed. At last the strain upon his feelings was too much, and they 

suddenly let go, and then and there Mr. Committeeman threw a fit, with most 

painful and aggravated spasms—such a woeful waste of money was a grievous 

matter indeed. In his view, the mountain had groaned and not so much as a 

ridiculous mouse even had yet been brought forth. 

At least the city was glad that the project would publicize the crushed granite that was 

available for projects elsewhere in the State. “This was fully recognized by the alert, 

practical citizens of the place, and St. Cloud had no kick coming if the short piece of 
110

object lesson made for them did cost a few cents per foot more than it would average in a 

large contract.” 

At Fargo, the experts encountered “several disagreeable rainy days” that “injured the 

work and greatly restricted accomplishment.” At Grand Forks, “the harvest season made 

such a demand for labor that the local committee were unable to procure the requisite 

help, and there also a bad storm intervened to retard progress.” 

Abbott summarized the tour: 

Four times the circus was unloaded; four different communities were variously 

edified, then a kindly disposed Providence induced the railroad company to take 

the train away, thus depriving the office of Public Roads Inquiries of opportunity 

for perpetrating in Oregon and Washington during the rainy season a most 

unfortunate record . . . . 

At the end of the fourth week it was quite clearly established in the minds of most 

on that train that the building of a good object lesson macadam road was not a 

circus proposition. 

 

Abbott had returned to St. Cloud and Grand Forks recently to see the object-lesson roads 

left behind. At St. Cloud, the road “has sustained the traffic of wagons bringing in 

enormous loads of granite from neighboring quarries.” The road had not received any 

maintenance in the 3 years since it was built: 

That part of the road which was macadamized for a width of sixteen feet has 

stood the test wonderfully. Not a weak spot has developed, not a rut appeared. 

That [part that was] nine feet in width has not been so fortunate; it has both ruts 

and holes and the edges in places have broken down. 

The macadam had not broken through, but “the heaving of frost has disturbed its shape, 

and made the surface somewhat irregular.” He continued: 

Still the portion made wholly of granite, sixteen feet wide and six inches thick, 

after rolling, has stood and is regarded by the farmers bringing in loads over it as 

a success. 

Fargo was a different story: 

At Fargo not a trace of macadam remains. Here and there, a careful search in the 

mud discloses a fragment of granite to identify the place where the macadam was. 

Experimental pieces were made in each place of all gravel, and of granite and 

gravel combined. 

Overall in the two cities, “Nothing stood the test excepting all-stone, sixteen feet wide 

and six inches thick, standard-made macadam.” 
111

One reason for the differences was the soil in the two places. The natural soil in St. 

Cloud “was largely a granite detritus, quite porous and readily drained.” At Grand Forks, 

“the soil was that black gumbo so characteristic of the Red River Valley of the North.” 

The surface is flat, making drainage difficult. “Every one said that no thickness of 

macadam road could be built on it that would survive one winter when the frost 

sometimes penetrates to a depth of eight feet.” The Fargo road “was on the same kind of 

soil and had no sub-drainage.” As a result, “It promptly collapsed the first spring,” as 

would “any similar road in that country undrained.” 

In this article, published after Martin Dodge had left office, Abbott did not mention by 

name the Director who had been in charge of the good roads train. [“Some Object 

Lesson Road Lessons,” Good Roads Magazine, December 1905, p. 819-823] 

Martin Dodge’s Other Initiatives 

From the start, Dodge had sought increased appropriations for the OPRI. His first annual 

report as Director, for 1900, recommended increasing the number of special agents from 

four to eight, along with four road experts and four scientific aides “so that there may be 

one of these to assist each special agent, and thereby enable us to greatly multiply the 

object-lesson work of this Office. He continued: 

We shall also need improved machinery of various kinds, and I request an 

appropriation of $18,000 for this purpose. 

The increased correspondence of the Office makes it necessary to have a skilled 

and experienced stenographer, for which I recommend an appropriation of 

$1,200. 

During the past years the usefulness of this Office has been somewhat impaired 

by insufficient appropriations. The sum of $10,000, which was formerly 

appropriated for this Office, is none too much for the ordinary work which 

presents itself in regular course. In addition to this sum there should be at least 

$2,000 appropriated for the purpose of making experiments and traction tests with 

wide-tire wagons and also to assist agricultural colleges in object-lesson work in 

the various States. 

I therefore recommend that the sum of $54,320 be appropriated for the use of this 

Office for the year 1902, as per estimate submitted. [p. 291] 

Dodge’s 1901 report continued the pursuit of increased appropriations, recommending an 

increase to $75,000 in 1902. He also recommended that the OPRI purchase its own road 

equipment instead of relying on equipment loans from manufacturers. Appropriations 

also would be needed for the salaries and traveling expenses of the engineers and experts 

as well as shipping costs for the equipment. [p. 252] 
112

In 1902, with the annual appropriation increased to $20,000, Dodge reported that the 

OPRI had received many requests for object-lesson roads but “we shall be able to comply 

with only a limited number of them—more, however, than in any previous year, because 

of the $10,000 increase in this year’s appropriation.” He explained that, “a minimum 

appropriation by the General Government is used to accomplish a maximum of good 

results.” He estimated that “for every dollar expended by the Government the local 

authorities have been stimulated to expend at least $10 in this object-lesson and 

experimental road work.” He recommended that the Department seek an appropriation of 

$75,000 for the next fiscal year. [p. 313] 

In response to Dodge’s plea, Congress increased OPRI funding to $30,000 for FY 1903. 

However, Dodge again sought an increase to $75,000 for 1904, in part to allow the OPRI 

to buy equipment. “During the present season . . . this Office has had considerable 

difficulty in securing sufficient machinery; the manufacturers have not been able to fill 

their regular orders, and have therefore been unwilling to fully supply the Department.” 

He added: 

The work of this Office appears to be no longer of tentative character. Year after 

year it has assumed increased importance and wider scope, and there is now a 

general demand coming up from all sections of the country that it be made a 

permanent feature of the work of this Department. It appears fitting, therefore, 

that it be given a more definite legal status, thereby adding dignity and stability to 

this branch of the Department’s work. I therefore respectfully recommend that 

the Office of Public Road Inquiries be transformed into the Division of Public 

Roads, with a statutory roll of officers and employees. [p. 346-347] 

Dodge also recommended establishment of a post-graduate school in Washington “where 

graduates in civil engineering from the land-grant colleges could secure a thorough 

course in theoretical and practical road building.” With the growing public sentiment in 

favor of good roads, States and counties were raising funds for roads, but “these funds are 

being injudiciously expended on account of a lack of intelligent and skilled supervision.” 

Although colleges were turning out civil engineers, “most of them know little or nothing 

about practical road building.” Dodge described how the school would operate: 

A similar school was established in Paris by the Government of France in the year 

1747, and the condition of French roads to-day attests the wisdom of such action. 

The American school of road building should include a series of lectures by 

experts of this Office, and some practical work in the road-material laboratory and 

in connection with the object-lesson road work of the Office in different parts of 

the country. [p. 332] 

Congress appropriated $35,000 for FY 1904, but took no action on Dodge’s proposal to 

establish a national school for road building. In the annual report for 1904, Dodge would 

repeat his appeal for the school, as well as his appeal for permanent status and an annual 

appropriation of $75,000. Congress continued the appropriation of $35,000 for FY 1905, 

Dodge’s final year as Director. 
113

National Road Inventory 

When Congress appropriated $10,000 to launch the road inquiry in 1893, one of the goals 

of the ORI was to gather information “in regard to the systems of road management 

throughout the United States,” as well as “the best methods of road-making.” Under 

General Stone and Martin Dodge, the small Office produced many reports on these 

topics. Dodge, however, would launch one of the Office’s most important and 

challenging information gathering initiatives by directing Eldridge to gather data on 

public road mileage, revenues, and expenditures in the United States in 1904. This was 

the first attempt to measure country road mileage across the continent. 

The results would not be compiled in a single bulletin until 1907. In Public-Road 

Mileage, Revenues, and Expenditures in the United States in 1904 (Office of Public 

Roads Bulletin No. 32), Eldridge made clear how challenging the task was: 

As no information of this kind has ever been collected before from all the States, 

the undertaking has been an exceedingly difficult one, and has taken much more 

time than was at first anticipated. The forms of road taxation and the methods of 

collecting and expending road funds differ so radically in the various States, and 

even in the counties and townships of the same State, that it was necessary to 

prepare and send out a great variety of blank forms, with many variations in the 

queries submitted, in order to secure the information desired. It was also 

necessary to send out a large number of type-written letters in order to obtain 

information which could not be secured by means of printed questions. In the 

States where road taxes are assessed and collected by county officials, the task 

was comparatively simple, but in the States where the town or township is the 

geographic unit for road taxation, it was necessary to correspond with the road 

officials of each, and some of the States have as many as 1,500 townships. To 

some of the townships from 15 to 20 letters had to be written before complete 

reports could be secured, this correspondence extending over a period of several 

months. The extent of the task may more fully be shown by the statement that 

about 60,000 communications (including both printed and typewritten letters) 

were sent out during this investigation, this being an average of about 20 for each 

county. 

As difficult as gathering the information had been, ensuring its accuracy was nearly as 

hard: 

The mileage of roads on the boundary lines of townships and counties may have 

been in some cases reported twice, and in others not at all. The roads in many 

counties and townships have never been measured, surveyed, or recorded, and in 

such cases it became necessary to secure an estimate of the mileage from persons 

best informed on this subject in the counties. In some instances no permanent 

records appear to have been kept of collections or expenditures of road funds, and 

in others the records are kept in such a manner as to confuse rather than enlighten 
114

one in search of information. In a few instances road officials refused to supply 

the information unless paid for their services, and as the Department had not 

sufficient funds available for this purpose, it became necessary in such cases to 

secure the information through postmasters, attorneys, physicians, or other private 

citizens. In some cases appeals were even made to the governors of States, 

Members of Congress, and to the Post-Office Department for assistance in 

securing correct information. [p. 6-7] 

Based on this extensive compilation of information, Eldridge reported: 

[In] 1904 there were 2,151,570 miles of [rural] public road in the United States. 

Of this mileage, 108,232.9 miles were surfaced with gravel, 38,621.7 miles with 

stone, and 6,809.7 miles with special materials, such as shells, sand-clay, oil, and 

brick, making in all 153,664.3 miles of improved road. From this it follows that 

7.14 per cent of all [rural] roads in this country have been improved . . . . A 

comparison of road mileage with population shows that there was 1 mile of road 

to every 35 inhabitants, and 1 mile of improved road to every 492 inhabitants. [p. 

7] 

(This mileage did not include streets or boulevards in incorporated cities or villages. It 

also did not include roads in Indian Territory (roughly, the eastern half of Oklahoma, 

with the distinction disappearing when Oklahoma became a State in 1907), or the 

Territories of Alaska, Guam, Hawaii, the Philippines, or Puerto Rico.) 

Only four States had more than 100,000 miles of roads: 

Texas: 121,409 miles 

Missouri: 108,133 miles 

Iowa: 102,448miles 

Kansas: 101,196 miles 

The fewest road miles were found in: 

Arizona: 5,987 miles 

Delaware: 3,000 miles 

Rhode Island: 2,361 miles 

The District of Columbia, the one city included in the 1904 survey, had only 191 miles of 

road. [p. 7—10] 

Eldridge had defined the term “improved road” to mean “a road which not only has been 

properly graded and drained, but which has been surfaced with a material or combination 

of materials, or to which some preparation has been applied resulting in a reasonably 

smooth, firm, and durable surface.” He added: 
115

Macadam or gravel roads may be cited as examples of hard materials applied to 

earth subgrades; a sand-clay road and tar macadam are good examples of the 

application of combinations of materials to effect the desired result; while the use 

of oil and tar, principally on macadam roads, though occasionally on earth roads, 

illustrated the improvement of a road by the application of preparations. [p. 6] 

By this measure, Eldridge listed the States with the most mileage of improved roads: 

Indiana: 23,877 miles 

Ohio: 23,460 miles 

Wisconsin: 10,633 miles 

Kentucky: 9,486 miles 

California: 8,803 miles 

Gravel was the principal surfacing material in about two-thirds of the States, including 

four of the top five States (excluding Kentucky, which had the largest mileage of stone 

surfacing at 8,000 miles), while macadam exceeded gravel in eight States. [p. 11-12] 

The report tabulated expenditures “by States, counties, townships, and districts, from 

property and poll taxes, bond issues, and State-aid funds, together with the valuation of 

the labor expended under the statute-labor law” (referring to the requirement in 25 States 

that citizens devote one or more days to road improvement each year). Total 

expenditures amounted to $79,771,417.87 [p. 15]: 

Of this amount $53,815,387.98 was expended from property and poll taxes 

payable in cash, $19,818,236.30 was the value of the labor taxes, $3,530,470.93 

came from bond issues, and $2,607,322.66 was expended from State-aid funds. 

[p.16] 

These figures worked out to $37.07 per mile of public road, or $1.05 per inhabitant. 

As for toll roads, Eldridge found that: 

The building of turnpike or toll roads by chartered companies was inaugurated in 

the last quarter of the eighteenth century with the advance of population to the 

West. In 1811 over 300 turnpikes had been chartered in New York and the New 

England States, with a combined capital of over $7,500,000. The turnpike system 

had proved unsuccessful, however, and with the exception of a few hundred miles 

of toll roads in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky, privately owned 

highways have been gradually abandoned. It is probable that within the next few 

years the toll road will have entirely disappeared. [p. 21] 

(Due to lack of profits, some toll road companies were going out of business, while the 

States were gradually purchasing the companies and converting the road to toll-free 

operation. Separately, Logan Page would say of toll roads: 
116

Of toll roads it is scarcely necessary to say anything. They are passing, and we 

may as well let them go without seeking to multiply reasons why they should go. 

At one time they undoubtedly were an advance over previous conditions and 

constituted a stage in the development [of] transportation facilities. A toll road is 

wrong in principle, as it places a public highway, which belongs to all people, in 

the hands of a private corporation. It is burdensome, for the toll levied upon the 

traveler, usually about three cents per mile, is as much as or more than is charged 

by the railroads for carrying passengers. It is ill-kept for two reasons—one, that 

the company expects the revenue derived from toll to pay dividends or officials; 

another, that the mileage of roads under the control of each toll company is not 

great enough to justify the employment of a skilled engineer or expert necessary 

to maintain the road in first-class condition. [Page, Logan, “County Road 

Administration,” Good Roads Magazine, November 1906, p. 866]) 

 

The report also compiled information on States that had enacted State-aid laws: 

At the close of 1904 some form of State aid had been adopted and was in actual 

operation in 13 States. In Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and 

the New England States the State paid from one-third to three-fourths the cost of 

the improvement of certain roads, while the balance was paid by the counties, 

townships, and property owners. In Colorado, Utah, and California the State paid 

the whole cost of certain roads. 

In addition, the report summarized the road laws in every State. For example, in Dodge’s 

home State of Ohio, the report indicated the following for State laws in 1904: 

The road laws of Ohio are so voluminous and complicated that it would take 

several pages to explain the various provisions related to taxation. Briefly stated, 

the taxes for the construction, repair, and maintenance of county roads are 

assessed by the county commissioners, while the revenues for township roads are 

raised by the township trustees. The county commissioners and township trustees 

are authorized, under certain restrictions, to borrow money or issue bonds for road 

purposes. 

Every able-bodied male person between the ages of 21 and 55 years, unless by 

law exempt, is required to perform two days’ labor on the public roads, or in lieu 

thereof to pay $3 to the road supervisor. 

There are special provisions relating to the formation of from two to four 

townships into road districts for the purpose of improving and maintaining roads; 

and to the building of roads by local assessment under the 1-mile assessment and 

the 2-mile assessment plans, under which plans a large portion of the gravel roads 

have been built. [This is a reference to the practice of assessing taxes on the basis 

of proximity to the road and the benefits that would result from access.] 
117

The State-aid law, passed April 18, 1904, provides that the State pay 25 per cent 

of the cost of improved roads; the counties, 50 per cent; the townships 15 per 

cent, and the local property owners 10 per cent. No roads were constructed, 

however, under this law in 1904. 

Although the Department could not vouch for the “absolute accuracy” of the figures in 

Bulletin No. 32, “it is believed that, taken as a whole, they can be accepted as fairly 

correct, and that they will form a valuable basis for comparison and for future work of 

this kind.” The data would be collected periodically over the years, leading to the start of 

the annual Highway Statistics series launched in 1945 and still published by the Federal 

Highway Administration. 

Fighting for Federal-Aid 

As reflected in recommendations contained in the OPRI annual reports, Dodge wanted a 

new, permanent role and an increased budget for the OPRI. At the same time, Dodge 

recognized that some political leaders were afraid of where increased funding would lead. 

In the OPRI’s annual report for 1901, Dodge began his concluding section on 

“Recommendations and Estimates for 1902-1903,” by addressing this concern: 

It is proper just here to call attention to a misconception which appears to exist in 

the minds of some to the effect that increased appropriations for this work may 

lead to National aid. It should be distinctly understood that the work of this 

Office, like that of many other Divisions of the Department, is purely educational. 

In requesting an increased appropriation it was not the intention to shift the 

burden and responsibility of constructing improved roads from the States and 

counties to the General Government. Such a plan is not feasible, and even if it 

were, it would not be desirable, for there could be no surer way of postponing the 

building of good roads than by making them dependent upon National aid. Under 

such a system States and counties would wait for National aid and little or nothing 

would be done. 

Just such a plan of National aid was soon in the works in what is generally considered the 

first Federal-aid legislation proposed in Congress. And it cost Eldridge and eventually 

Dodge their jobs. 

Maurice Owen Eldridge, born in 1873 on a farm near Lenoir, Tennessee, became the 

third employee of the ORI (after General Stone and his stenographer) when he was hired 

as a draftsman in 1894 at a salary of $60 a month. Known as M.O., he quickly 

established a national reputation as a road expert and gifted speaker and writer on the 

subject. 

In a 1911 speech during the Appalachian Exposition in Knoxville, Tennessee, Eldridge 

described his earliest experience of road improvement during the era when country 

residents were required to devote several days a year to road work or avoid the labor by 

paying a road tax: 
118

I used to work on the public roads of this state, as a substitute, when I was a boy, 

for which service I received a man’s wages. We used to turn out in the fall of the 

year, in September or October, when the roads were hard and dry, and pile up 

clods, sods and vegetable mold in the middle of the road. If there were any 

mudholes we would usually haul large stones from adjacent fields and fill them, 

and that would usually make two mudholes, which were filled in the same way 

the following year. 

One day in November 1902, he was returning to Washington by train when he struck up a 

conversation with a fellow Tennessean, Congressman Walter P. Brownlow. Brownlow 

had been a telegraph messenger boy, an apprentice in the tinning business at age 14, a 

locomotive engineer, and a newspaper reporter. In 1896, he was elected to the U.S. 

House of Representatives, where he would serve until his death on July 8, 1910. 

On that train ride in November 1902, when the subject turned to the deplorable condition 

of the Nation's roads, Brownlow asked what could be done. Eldridge suggested a Federal 

program modeled on New Jersey's State-aid plan, under which the State appropriated 

funds to help counties improve roads on a cost sharing basis (one-tenth to property 

holders along the road, one-third to the State, and the balance to the county). Brownlow 

asked Eldridge to draft a bill to that effect, which he did after securing Dodge's approval. 

(Dodge later claimed he drafted the bill.) 

On December 1, 1902, Brownlow introduced the bill, which would create a "Bureau of 

Public Roads" to administer $20 million a year in Federal-aid. Grants would be made to 

any State or county for the improvement of post roads outside cities and incorporated 

villages, with each State limited to a share of the funding equal to its percentage of the 

Nation's population. (The term “post roads” was used to make clear to anyone who 

doubted the constitutionality of such a program that it was permitted by Section 7 of the 

Constitution, which gave Congress the power “To establish Post Offices and post 

Roads.”) The State or county would pay 50 percent of the cost. The Federal Government 

would prepare the plans and specifications for the roads, but the State or county would 

administer and supervise the contracts. 

Neither President Roosevelt and his Administration nor congressional leaders endorsed 

the plan, as were congressional leaders. But Dodge and Eldridge aggressively promoted 

it. Dodge agreed to cosponsor, with the NGRA, a good roads convention the last week of 

April 1903 in St. Louis, Missouri, to coincide with dedication ceremonies for the 

Louisiana Purchase Exposition. The World’s Fair was to be held in 1904 from April 30 

to December 1 (with over 20 million visitors, the 1904 convention turned a considerable 

profit). 

Seely described the convention: 

Moore prepared the program, which included addresses by William Jennings 

Bryan and [President] Theodore Roosevelt, while Dodge added a cover letter to 

Moore’s invitation, provided 25,000 franked envelopes (Moore wanted 50,000 
119

more), and hired a stenographer to transcribe the speeches into an OPRI bulletin. 

Afterward, Eldridge exulted that “the idea of National Aid is sweeping over the 

West like a tidal wave.” [Seely, book, p. 19] 

The convention took place in Odeon Hall on April 27. After introductory remarks by St. 

Louis Mayor Rolla Wells, Governor Alexander M. Dockery, and the president of the 

exposition, Mr. D. R. Francis, Colonel Moore in his capacity as chairman of the 

convention announced that the next scheduled speaker, Secretary Wilson, had been 

detained in Pittsburgh. Therefore, Moore delivered an address on the “History and 

Purposes of the Good Roads Movement.” He recalled, as he had in North Carolina, the 

early convention in 1892 (“That was the starter”) and the November 1900 convention 

during which delegates from 38 States organized the NGRA: 

As a result of that convention a committee of 17 was selected to go to 

Washington, present this subject to President McKinley, and have him present it 

to the Fifty-sixth Congress. He considered the matter and said to the committee, 

“I am very glad to tell you now, without going further, that I will include this 

subject in my message to congress.” That was the result of the Chicago 

convention and others previously held up to that time. President McKinley did 

place this matter before Congress. 

Moore did not elaborate, but in a State of the Union message delivered on December 3, 

1900, that was focused largely on international affairs, President McKinley included the 

following statement in a section near the end on the work of the Department of 

Agriculture: “Inquiry into methods of improving our roads has been active during the 

year; help has been given to many localities, and scientific investigation of material in the 

States and Territories has been inaugurated.” Moore put the President’s statement in 

historical perspective: 

[President McKinley] was not the first President to present the road question to 

Congress, as Jefferson, Monroe, and others had wrestled with this subject back in 

the early part of the century, long before steam railroads were thought of. But Mr. 

McKinley was the first President of modern days to take up this matter. 

After praising Colonel Richardson for his “level-headed management and earnest work” 

on behalf of the NGRA, Moore discussed the organization’s cooperation with the OPRI: 

We [Moore and Richardson] have cooperated with the Government, through its 

able representatives, Hon. Martin Dodge, the present Director of the Office of 

Public Road Inquiries, and Gen. Roy Stone, his predecessor, who organized that 

branch of the public service. When these gentlemen found our organization in the 

field trying to do something, they said, “What can the Government do to assist 

you?” 

He added that they made this offer despite the OPRI’s limited finances. 
120

The Chicago convention had organized the NGRA and selected Moore and Richardson as 

its leaders, but had not made arrangements for financing: 

Mr. Richardson and I wondered what we could do to bring this matter before the 

public in such a way as to command attention. You can not pass the hat in local 

communities and get results sufficient to cope with this question of mud. They 

have troubles of their own and do not feel like throwing money into a hat to 

exploit general road organization. So we went to the railroads. Now, I have 

heard a great many people say that the railroads do not care anything about these 

common roads. There never was a more mistaken idea than that. 

He described the generosity of the railroads in sponsoring Good Roads Trains, with the 

Illinois Central expending between $40,000 and $50,000, and the Southern Railway 

committing $80,000. He recalled how the Southern Railway held a special train of 

Pullman coaches at the NGRA’s disposal to bring Washington leaders, such as General 

Miles, to Charlottesville: 

Without the cooperation of the railroads we could not have accomplished the 

work which has been done. We also feel that the earnest cooperation of the press 

is responsible for much of the good accomplished. 

(At the mention of the General, who was in attendance, a delegate asked that he be 

escorted to the front of the stage and introduced, which was done as “the delegates rose to 

their feet and greeted him with prolonged and enthusiastic cheering.”) 

Moore said he had three plans for securing good roads: 

First.—If you expect to proceed along the old lines, raising 2 to 5 mills on the $1 

valuation, it will be another century before you have any considerable road 

improvement in your community. This method will not do. 

He estimated that the country had about 60,000 road officials and they “do not give their 

time for nothing” so “a large part of the money collected goes for expenses.” He 

recommended a direct assessment of at least 7 to 10 mills, “thus securing a comparatively 

large fund to work with.” 

Second.—If this can not be done, if it seems too oppressive on the farms, I would 

suggest another plan, which is being adopted mostly in Eastern States. 

He described the State-aid concept, which “brings into cooperation all parties interested, 

from the State down to the individual.” He said that, “many States will adopt this plan,” 

but he thought that all should adopt it. 

Third.—The third proposition I want to speak of is “Government aid.” I have 

heard it said all over the country that this convention is to be devoted almost 

entirely to Government aid. This is a mistake. Unless you show in the different 
121

States and in the smaller rural communities that you are willing to take hold of 

these matters vigorously and earnestly; unless you raise local funds and organize 

the machinery with which to start this work, you can not expect the Federal 

Government to come and dump a lot of money into your coffers. 

If the States showed “a disposition to help yourselves, then I think the Federal Government 

will come to your aid.” 

Next, Colonel Moore turned to convict labor, which he thought all States should 

consider: 

If we do not devise some plan in the several States and Territories to utilize their 

labor in public improvements, we must continue to let them compete with the 

honest labor of the country [in other types of work]. We want to throw around 

this class all the uplifting influences. We want no dark dungeons. God’s 

sunshine and pure air will benefit them. 

Although the economy was booming, good times are typically followed by great crises 

that result in “more men out of employment than ever before.” He urged the State 

legislatures to have a plan in place to use this excess labor for public improvements. 

“The State must provide some means and provide the machinery for putting these men to 

work. [Great applause.]” [Proceedings of the National Good Roads Convention, OPRI 

Bulletin No. 26, 1903, p. 10-14] 

Dodge was the first speaker during the afternoon session. In a speech on “Our National 

Policy,” he described the Federal Government’s road building activities during the 19th

century and the origins of his office in the 1890’s. He emphasized that his office did not 

initiate road projects or give instructions, “but does so only upon invitation, and for the 

purpose of cooperating with those who have sufficient enterprise, ability, revenue, 

material, and labor to do something and who mean to do something.” He added: 

Many friends of the good roads movement, including a good many members of 

Congress, think it would be a wise thing for the Government to pay a proportion 

of the cost of building the roads in addition to what it is now doing. I want to say 

that in the discussions in Congress and before its committees, we have discovered 

a good many gentlemen in both Houses of Congress who have expressed an 

unusual and abiding interest in this matter. 

After describing the State-aid plans in New Jersey and other States, he continued: 

This leads us to consider the wisdom of extending the principle involved in State 

aid so as to include the United States Government. As already stated, the United 

States began by building certain roads and paying the total cost, devoting a large 

proportion of the total revenues of the Government to this purpose. Later this 

policy was reversed and the Government did nothing. Now, I believe under the 

early policy the Government did too much and too little under the later policy. So 
122

I think a policy should be adopted under which the Government will supplement 

the funds raised by State and local taxation. In States which have adopted State 

aid, the funds raised locally are supplemented by the State funds. Now, let us on 

the same principle supplement the funds raised by State and local taxation by a 

fund contributed by the General Government. I feel more free to recommend this, 

because I believe that in the distribution of the great revenues of the United States 

Government, those living in agricultural regions have shared but little in these 

great appropriations . . . . I am saying that the time has come when justice 

demands that a larger proportion of these revenues be spent for the benefit of 

those who live in rural communities. And I know of no better way to do this than 

by helping the agricultural classes to improve their common roads. 

He discussed the success of rural free delivery before returning to the concept of national 

aid: 

I think we are in the same position in regard to the question which we are now 

considering. There is no real reason that I know of, either in constitutional 

limitations or wise policy, why the Government should not extend beneficial aid 

in the improvement of highways, or why it should not have done so forty years 

ago . . . . But I feel confident that, should the people request their Representatives 

in Congress to make the same effort to secure National aid to road improvement 

as was made to secure the rural delivery of mails they will speedily find a 

satisfactory way to do it. 

I desire to have it understood that I am simply suggesting to you plans which 

seem to me feasible, and I offer them to this convention for consideration . . . . I 

believe if you have suffered any lack of the things you were entitled to, it is 

merely because you have been too conservative and backward about asking for 

what you want. [Applause.] 

With the conclusion of the speech, a Mr. Isenmeyer of Illinois asked Dodge “what can we 

ask from Congress-what part of the cost.” Dodge replied that Representative Brownlow 

was scheduled to attend the convention but “he may not be able to get here,” so Dodge 

offered to answer the question. He described the proposed 50-50 aid program, 

emphasizing a key point: 

The bill does not provide that the United States shall go forward and say a road 

shall be built here or a road shall be built there. The United States shall hold itself 

in readiness, when requested to do so, to cooperate with those who have selected a 

road they desire to build, provided they are ready and willing to pay one-half the 

cost . . . . It is no part of the essential principle involved in this National aid plan 

that the exact proportion should be 50 per cent on each side. Any other figure can 

be adopted . . . . The one idea that seems to be generally accepted is that the 

Government should do something. 

Dodge cited the satisfactory cooperative work of the OPRI: 
123

I know of no adverse criticism upon the work done. So I am led to believe that it 

is a true principle that the Government can do something, and I certainly believe it 

can do something more than it is doing at present. And whether the Government 

will pay 25 or 50 per cent is not essential to the principle here involved. It might 

be well to begin with a small proportion, and if it works well increase that. I am 

sure Mr. Brownlow is in favor of paying 50 per cent. He thinks that is the proper 

thing. [Bulletin 26, p. 15-21] 

The next speaker was U.S. Senator Asbury C. Latimer of South Carolina, a farmer who 

had served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1893-1903) prior to his election to the 

United States Senate in November 1902. He was a member of the Committee on 

Agriculture and Forestry from March 1903 until his death on February 20, 1908. The 

unidentified chairman, presumably Moore, introduced Senator Latimer as “a 

distinguished statesman who has been doing good service for our cause in the National 

House of Representatives, and whom the people of his State have seen fit to promote to a 

place in the United States Senate.” The chairman added, “He probably owes his 

promotion more to his advocacy of road improvement than to any other cause.” 

Senator Latimer began: 

We have met here to-day to consider one of the most important subjects affecting 

the American people. A great many of the old men I have come in contact with 

tell me that the dirt roads are but little better now than they were seventy-five 

years ago. 

Despite progress in manufacturing and other industries, particularly railroads, “we people 

who live in the rural districts still travel over the same muddy roads.” Now, he said, “it 

lies in your power to say whether we shall have good roads in the next five, ten, or twenty 

years, or whether we and our children shall continue to travel through mud during the rest 

of our lives.” He added: 

Hundreds of millions are taken from the Treasury of the United States and spent 

in the Philippine Islands, while we go on traveling the same muddy roads. 

Congress has just appropriated $3,000,000 to be used on the public roads in the 

Philippine Islands to give these people over there employment. 

He suggested that when candidates came before them every 2 years seeking election to 

the Congress, “ask him if he will vote for a $20,000,000 appropriation by the 

Government to improve the roads throughout the country so that your mail can be 

brought to you by the rural free delivery.” He explained how “a few farmers in 

Congress” had convinced their colleagues to initiate rural free delivery despite concerns 

that it would bankrupt the country. “And yet to-day we find the rural free delivery almost 

self-sustaining.” 

Senator Latimer supported national aid for good roads on a cost-sharing basis: 
124

What you want now is to have the principle of National aid recognized. You want 

the Government to appropriate a fixed part of the money necessary to improve the 

roads in rural districts. Go to your Representative in Congress and tell him he can 

not get your vote unless he stands by that principle . . . . We have surplus in the 

United States Treasury, and yet the poor farmers in the rural districts can not get 

good roads. 

He acknowledged that while city dwellers did not object to being taxed for road 

improvement, “the hide-bound farmer living out in the country has been protesting.” He 

had debated the farmers, who felt they could not afford to be taxed any more than they 

already were. And yet, he said, the increased cost would be minimal, and when the work 

is done, “It is your road,” and would increase the value of the farmer’s property. 

He endorsed the OPRI’s object-lesson road program so the farmers can “drive out of the 

mud onto a hard good road.” He considered that, “There is more practical common sense 

in that method than in speech making.” 

He concluded: 

All we need is the money. What we want is to get down to practical results . . . . 

And how are you going to get the money? Whether you want the Brownlow bill 

or not, I am in the Senate, and I intend to make it a part of my mission to build up 

good roads throughout this country. [Loud applause.] My people live in the rural 

districts and I want to help them get out of the mud. I intend to work as long as I 

am in that body, and I want your help. I want you to say to your Representative 

when he comes home that he must vote in favor of the platform which we adopt in 

this convention. 

A delegate informed Senator Latimer that, “I am living in the country, but have no 

influence; I live in Arkansas.” The Senator responded that, “Every man who lives in this 

country has influence.” He recommended that people organize in support of good roads 

legislation: 

First let us get the National Government to set aside $10,000,000, $20,000,000, or 

$50,000,000 to be used as a good roads fund. Then you will say to your 

representative in the State legislature, “Here, we want $500,000 or $2,000,000 set 

aside by the State as a road fund.” Then you must talk it around home. You can 

not get a dollar of this money until your township is willing to raise $5,000 or 

$10,000. Next go to the State and ask it to pay $5,000 to $10,000 more. Then, 

the Government gives $10,000 or $20,000 more. You must work it out in your 

local community. [Loud applause.] 

He concluded his response to the delegate by saying: 
125

Let me tell you, gentlemen, how you will help me wonderfully and help Mr. 

Brownlow. There are about twenty-five or thirty of us in Congress now working 

for good roads along this line. You must help us at home. Organize in the 

school-house and adopt resolutions and say to the candidates, “If you want our 

votes, you must help us.” Make it an issue in the campaign. 

If all the people who want good roads will go to work and pull together, Congress 

will pass the necessary legislation. Then get your legislature to pass the same and 

organize in your township and the whole thing is done. [Bulletin 26, p. 21-34] 

General Miles opened the convention on April 28 with a speech on “Good Roads and 

Civilization.” As usual, the delegates greeted him with “Loud applause.” Calling the 

promotion of good roads a “noble enterprise,” he said: 

I know of no one element of civilization in our country that has been more 

neglected than the improvement of our roads; yet this is the element that marks 

the line between barbarism and civilization in any country. The remains of the 

ancient highways still found in India and Egypt, as well as in the Roman Empire 

and Peru, indicate the enlightenment that characterized the peoples of those 

countries centuries ago. In some instances those great avenues were built for war 

purposes, and yet were of immense industrial and commercial value to the people 

living in the countries where they were constructed. 

These great internal improvements were largely responsible for “the strength, progress, 

and enlightenment of these nations.” 

He discussed how America’s early leaders understood this relationship. He pointed out 

that George Washington was the president of a transportation company (the Patowmack 

Company, which built the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal), while Thomas Jefferson had 

praised expenditures for roads in letters to Ross and Humboldt (quoted earlier). St. Louis 

was an excellent site for the convention because in the 19th century it had been the hub of 

western expansion made possible by the U.S. Army Corps of Discovery led by Lewis and 

Clark, the pioneers crossing the continent in their prairie schooners to Oregon and 

California, and by the railroads that brought the continent together. 

With the Federal Government having expended $440 million for harbors and waters, 

General Miles asked if it was not “now most appropriate that the improvement of our 

roads should receive National attention and government aid?” He contrasted the United 

States with what he saw during a recent international trip: 

Recently I have journeyed over the great Chinese Empire, embracing the largest 

population of any country on the globe, yet it is in some respects the weakest, as it 

has neglected one of the most important elements of national strength. The 

people of one section of that great country are totally uninformed and indifferent 

as to what is occurring in another part of their own land. Without means of 

communication and intercourse there can be but little public spirit and patriotism; 
126

as a result of this the flags of all great military and naval powers are now flying in 

the most important districts of that ancient empire. 

In the United States, conditions were the reverse because the Republic depended “on the 

patriotism and intelligence of the masses.” Anything that brought the daily news of the 

world to citizens “benefits the entire country, and gives strength and character to the 

Nation.” He said: 

Therefore every measure, whether by the National Government, the State, county, 

or municipal authorities, that can promote the welfare of the people should be 

most earnestly advocated. Any road that can be made useful for industrial and 

peaceful pursuits can be utilized for military purposes. This is not an empire or a 

military despotism and therefore it is not necessary to construct roads for purely 

military purposes. 

He concluded: 

Our greatest strength and strongest safeguards are in the character of our 

institutions and the sovereignty of our people, and every measure that benefits 

them and preserves the character and the integrity of our institutions promotes, 

perpetuates, and magnifies the prosperity and glory of our common country. 

[Bulletin 26, p. 30-31] 

Addressing the convention later in the day, Governor James Hogg of Texas was skeptical 

about the Federal Government’s possible role. Constitutional obstacles could be 

removed, “But as this is a movement in favor of the farmer and not of the trusts they may 

not do it.” He favored using the treasury surplus, with its temptation to corruption, in the 

United States. “If our Government would confine the expenditures from the public 

treasury to the United States of North America, and not to the United States of the 

Philippines, we would have plenty of money to build roads and macadamize them all 

over the United States.” He added: 

It is inconceivable to me that we should have the United States spending millions 

on Porto Rico [sic], Guam, and the Philippines, while we at home must do 

without good roads because we are too poor to build them. It is a piece of 

blundering foolishness that the American people will have to repudiate some day. 

Wait till we get into a foreign war and it will cost for every gun you fire enough to 

build several miles of good roads at home. [Applause.] And this is something 

you had better be thinking of. We have the means if we will only confine the 

expenditure of them to the United States of America. 

Governor Hogg concluded his brief address by saying: 

Let us build up the old United States, and build them up in grandeur, and show to 

the world that we may all be free, leave our children free, and enjoy the blessing 

of good government. [Applause.] [Bulletin 26, p. 35] 
127

The first speaker in the afternoon session was William Jennings Bryan, a lawyer, 

statesman, and politician who had represented Nebraska in the U.S. House of 

Representatives (1891-1895), and been the Democratic Party’s nominee for President in 

1896 and 1900, losing to McKinley both times. Bryan, one of the great orators of his 

time, was known as “The Great Commoner” because of his faith in the common people. 

(He would again be the party’s nominee in 1908, losing to William Howard Taft, and 

would serve as President Woodrow Wilson’s first Secretary of State (1913-1915).) 

Bryan began by acknowledging a debt to Colonel Moore: 

He came out to Nebraska some three or four weeks ago and urged upon me the 

importance of attending this meeting. I have learned more about good roads from 

him and from the literature that he has brought to my attention than I ever knew 

before. I want to thank him for the effort he made to turn my attention to this 

subject. 

Approaching this new subject, he made a decision: 

I find there is a new field here, and I have advanced so far that I have made up my 

mind to build a little sample road near my farm; and not only that, but to do what 

I can to get my county and my State to do something in the matter of roads. 

[Applause.] 

The use of public funds for road improvements, he said, could be justified 

(1) as a matter of justice to the people who live in the country, (2) as a matter of 

advantage to the people who do not live in the country, and (3) on the ground that 

the welfare of the Nation demands that the comforts of country life shall, as far as 

possible, keep pace with the comforts of city life. 

However, country people received only the general benefits of their tax revenue, while 

city dwellers “have the advantage arising from the expenditure of public moneys in their 

midst.” The difference was even greater at the Federal level, where the Department of 

Agriculture’s $5.9 million budget “was insignificant when compared with the total 

appropriations—less than 1 per cent” of the $753 million total: 

The point is that the farmer not only pays his share of the taxes, but more than his 

share, yet very little of what he pays gets back to him . . . . The farmer has a right 

to insist upon roads that will enable him to go to town, to church, to the 

schoolhouse, and to the homes of his neighbors, as occasion may require; and, 

with the extension of rural mail delivery, he has additional need for good roads in 

order that he may be kept in communication with the outside world for the mail 

routes follow the good roads. 
128

Bryan agreed with the idea that good roads influenced education. Here, again, cities had 

the advantage of public libraries and graded schools easily reached on city streets. “What 

can be of more interest to us that the schooling of our children?” Anything that 

“contributes to the general diffusion of knowledge,” should be “a matter of intense 

interest to every citizen,” as was access to church. He favored steps to reduce rural 

isolation: 

It is important . . . for the welfare of our Government and for the advancement of 

our civilization that we make life upon the farm as attractive as possible. 

Statistics have shown the constant increase in the urban population and the 

constant decrease in the rural population from decade to decade. Without 

treading upon controversial ground or considering whether this trend has been 

increased by legislation hostile to the farm, it will be admitted that the 

Government is in duty bound to jealously guard the interests of the rural 

population, and, as far as it can, make farm life inviting. In the employment of 

modern conveniences the city has considerably outstripped the country, and 

naturally so . . . . But it is evident that during the last few years much as been 

done to increase the comforts of the farm. 

He cited rural free delivery, which brought not only letters but the daily newspaper to the 

farmer’s door, as well as the telephone and extension of the electric-car lines. With these 

advantages, “The suburban home will bring light and hope to millions of children.” He 

continued: 

But after all this, there still remains a pressing need for better country roads. As 

long as mud placed an embargo upon city traffic the farmer could bear his mudmade isolation with less complaint, but with the improvement of city streets and 

with the establishment of parks and boulevards, the farmers’ just demands for 

better roads finds increasing expression. 

How much the Federal Government, the States, and the counties should contribute was a 

subject of discussion, “but that country roads should be constructed with a view to 

permanent and continuous use is scarcely open to debate.” When a disease is recognized, 

he said, people find the remedy. “The people now realize that bad roads are indefensible, 

and are prepared to consider the remedy.” He added: 

I have enough confidence in the patriotism and intelligence of the American 

people to believe that in the clash of ideas and conflict of views the best will 

always be triumphant. Under our form of government people not only have a 

right to sit in judgment upon every suggestion made, but have the right of 

suggestion, and it is in the multitude of this counsel that there is safety. 

After thanking the NGRA for “this opportunity, this necessity, I may say, of studying a 

question which had escaped my notice,” he said that he was convinced that the subject 

“seems to me not only a large one, but one that vitally affects all the people of our land.” 
129

At this conclusion of the great orator’s speech, the transcript noted: “[Loud applause.].” 

[Bulletin 26, p. 39-43] 

 

General Stone also addressed the convention on April 28, discussing “Good Roads and 

How to Get Them.” He described how much the Good Roads Movement had changed 

since he first took up the cause. Referring to the convention he had organized in 1892 in 

Chicago, General Stone said, “In that convention we dared not whisper ‘National aid to 

road building’ save in secret; now we can shout it on all the highways and byways.” He 

strongly supported the Brownlow bill. “The people are ready for a measure of this kind, 

and it will give us good fighting ground.” He urged the convention to endorse the bill, 

but cautioned them regarding the appropriation of $20 million, an amount that seemed so 

large, especially when equaled by the States, but “it will be totally inadequate to any 

prompt realization of good roads for the whole country.” He said: 

The youngest of you here will never see the work half done, and we veterans will 

scarce see a beginning. Indeed, such appropriations, liberal as they seem, will not 

much more than keep pace with the extension of roads in the newer sections of 

the country, and the great bulk of the undertaking will always be ahead of us, 

while the record of National and State taxation will pile up against road 

improvement and make a constantly growing argument for its opponents. 

His response was to cite the annual loss due to bad roads, which he had estimated at $600 

million during his years with the Office of Road Inquiry, a figure he believed was still 

accurate despite the fact that it had “been derided by many wiseacres who are perhaps not 

to blame for what they don’t know.” 

After discussing steel-track roads and the use of postal savings banks to finance road 

bonds, General Stone concluded that, “Federal aid is in the air; our young statesmen are 

eager to promote it, and our oldest no longer have the cold shivers when it is mentioned.” 

[Bulletin 26, p. 46-49] 

The following day, April 29, the convention adopted resolutions drafted by the 

Committee on Resolutions. The resolutions included provisions endorsing the work of 

OPRI and recommending that it be made a permanent bureau in the Department of 

Agriculture with sufficient appropriations to extend its work; indicating that delegates 

considered appropriations for railroads, canals, and the improvement of rivers and 

harbors to “have been wise and beneficent” but expressing the view that a Federal 

appropriation improving common highways “has now become necessary . . . as provided 

for in the Brownlow bill,” and directing the NGRA to arrange a meeting in Washington, 

with one delegate from each State along with representatives of “leading commercial and 

industrial organizations,” to present the resolution in support of national aid to the 

Congress. [Bulletin 26, p. 53-54] 

The afternoon session on Wednesday, April 29, was the concluding segment of the 

convention. The delegates listened to 5-minutes speeches from other delegates about 

good roads activities around the country as well as short speeches by Assistant Secretary 
130

Brigham, again filling in for Secretary Wilson, and Governor Albert B. Cummins of 

Iowa. Brigham said he wanted the cost of providing good roads distributed fairly, rather 

than on the farmer alone: 

I hope that this convention will be able to suggest some way of fairly distributing 

the tax imposed for road construction. What we need in the country districts now 

is good roads. We have electric lines; we have the telephone; we get the daily 

newspapers, and what we now want is good roads running by our homes. I think 

it is the duty of our people to build these roads, because the ideal home of the 

future will be in the country, where the air is pure and the associations elevating; 

but you can not have an ideal home when it is surrounded by bad roads a portion 

of the year . . . . I believe in distributing this burden, as I have said, and I see no 

reason why the General Government should not appropriate a certain sum of 

money to be expended in this great work. Of course, the States and the counties 

and communities would be expected to cooperate; but if the Federal Government 

will give something to help pay these expenses it will be encouraging to all the 

people. [Applause.] 

To stir up Congress, he said, “We must first educate the people.” When the people 

favored a national appropriation for good roads, “the Congressmen will be in favor of it, 

and not until then. [Applause.]” He concluded: 

I see no reason why the National Government should not reach out its strong arm 

and appropriate liberally for the purpose of giving the people of the whole country 

better means of communication . . . . When we undertake to do anything in the 

United States of America we do it well; and after a while we are going to have as 

good roads as can be found anywhere in the world. [Applause.] [Bulletin 26, p. 

76-77] 

The delegates were awaiting the arrival of President Roosevelt, so Governor Cummins 

began his presentation by stating that he had accompanied the President’s train across 

Iowa, but had turned him over “safe and sound into the keeping of the governor of 

Missouri,” Governor Dockery. The President, Governor Cummings said, “is coming here 

to you as rapidly as steam will bring him, detained only by the multitudes that gather to 

hear and applaud him.” 

The Governor explained that, “when God came to bestow His favors upon the coming 

Republic,” He bestowed Iowa with “splendid natural advantages, but it remains for the 

people of our State to supply themselves with good roads.” He described road 

conditions: 

In our State nine months in the year we have as good roads as can be found 

anywhere in the country, and the remaining three months we have the worst roads 

over which a human being can travel. 
131

He was ambivalent on national assistance for the cause. He said, “I do not oppose proper 

and reasonable aid” but “I fear a little for that magnificent surplus in our Treasury should 

it be finally determined to devote it to the improvement of our roads.” In any event, he 

did not think the Good Roads Movement should wait for it. “The outcome is 

problematical, and its propriety is doubtful . . . .” Therefore, “I believe that each State 

ought to take up and carry forward this question for itself without regard to National aid. 

[Loud applause.]” If, instead of waiting for national aid, the States took up the task, “in a 

decade this great Union will be blessed with good roads, over which the traffic of the 

country may move with economy and with regularity in every season of the year, and 

without respect to the character of the soil which lies adjacent to the highways. 

[Applause.] [Bulletin 26, p. 77-78] 

As Governor Cummins said, President Roosevelt was making his way to Odeon Hall. 

After stops during the day in Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri, he had come to St. Louis to 

participate in the dedication ceremony for the 1904 World’s Fair. To avoid the large 

crowds awaiting his arrival at Union Station, Roosevelt had left the presidential train at 

Forsythe Junction and after a brief reception, took a horse-drawn carriage straight to 

Odeon Hall. Roosevelt’s party was accompanied by throngs along the street. According 

to The New York Times: 

The military companies and a platoon of police had been waiting two blocks 

away, and as soon as the line of carriages appeared a slower march was taken up 

to cover the three miles to Odeon Hall. People were congregated along the streets 

and wildly cheered as the President passed. He continually doffed his hat in 

acknowledgment. The hall was packed with a crowd which had been waiting 

patiently for hours. [“President Roosevelt Reaches St. Louis,” The New York 

Times, April 30, 1903] 

The convention Chairman (unidentified, but most likely Colonel Moore) introduced the 

President by saying, “It is most fortunate that we can say here to-day that we have a Chief 

Executive, who is able and willing to visit all sections of this country in order to find out 

what the people need.” 

President Roosevelt made the final presentation of the convention, a speech on “Good 

Roads as an Element in National Greatness.” He began by saying: 

When we wish to use descriptive adjectives fit to characterize great empires, and 

the men who made those empires great, invariably one of the adjectives used is to 

signify that they built good roads. [Applause.] 

After citing Rome and other historical examples, he said that for a country such as the 

United States that had spanned a continent “merely from historical analogy, I say, we 

should have a right to demand that such a nation build good roads. Much more have we 

the right to demand it from a practical standpoint.” 
132

Not long ago, he said, “it was a matter, I am tempted to say, of national humiliation, that 

there should be so little attention paid to our roads; that there should be a willingness, not 

merely to refrain from making good roads, but to let the roads that were in existence 

become worse.” To loud applause, he congratulated “our people upon the existence of a 

body such as this,” dedicated as it was to “the eminently practical work of making the 

conditions of life easier and better for the people . . .” 

One of the most important aspects of the movement was that good roads would reverse 

the tendency of young men to leave the farms and move to the industrial cities. Several 

movements were helping to reverse that trend, including electric trolley lines, the 

telephone, and rural free delivery. “But no one thing can do so much to offset the 

tendency toward an unhealthy drain from the country into the city as the making and 

keeping of good roads. [Loud applause.]” 

He concluded: 

It is for this reason, among many others, that I feel the work that you are doing to 

be so preeminently one for the interest of the Nation as a whole. I congratulate 

you upon the fact that you are doing it . . . . And among all the excellent objects 

for which men and women combine to work to-day, there are few, indeed, which 

have a better right to command the energies of those engaged in the movement, 

and the hearty sympathy and support of those outside, than this in which you are 

engaged. [Loud applause.] [Bulletin 26, p.79-80] 

On that note, the convention adjourned sine die. 

President Roosevelt’s speech was widely reprinted in good roads journals. However, the 

President had not explicitly endorsed national aid for good roads. 

(As writer and social commentator Michael L. Bromley has pointed out, “The President 

spoke stirringly of the benefits of roads . . . . Not automobiles.” President Roosevelt, as 

Bromley documented, used automobiles on rare occasions, but he preferred the horse as 

more befitting his hearty disposition and manly image. Although his predecessor, 

President McKinley, had been the first President to ride in an automobile in 1899 (a 

Locomobile steam-powered car) and his successor, the portly President William Howard 

Taft, would be the first to purchase automobiles for the White House, President 

Roosevelt avoided automobiles for the most part. [Bromley, Michael L., William 

Howard Taft and the First Motoring Presidency, McFarland and Company, Inc., 2003. 

Locomobile reference on page 13, speech reference on page 85] 

The Brownlow-Latimer Bill 

As 1904 began, good roads advocates were optimistic about the prospects for Federal 

legislation authorizing funds for highway improvement. The 59th Congress had begun its 

second session on December 7, 1903, running through April 28, 1904. A third session 
133

would run December 5, 1904 to March 3, 1905. Those were the key dates for the good 

roads legislation. 

E. L. Powers, the editor of Good Roads Magazine, published an editorial in the January 

1904 issue expressing his view that the Brownlow Bill was a “starting point.” Senator J. 

H. Gallinger of New Hampshire had introduced a similar bill, while Senator Latimer 

planned to introduce a bill with somewhat similar details. The editorial continued: 

Whatever may be the outcome of the bills the fact that they have been introduced 

and will be up for discussion will be educational and serve to still further bring 

the matter of national aid more thoroughly before the people in every part of the 

country. The fact Senator Gallinger is a republican and Senator Latimer a 

democrat puts the measure beyond the charge that the question is in any way 

partisan. This is as it should be for since the question is an industrial one the 

matter should be developed along non-partisan lines similar to the way in which 

the rural free delivery of mail has been developed. [“National Aid in the Senate,” 

p. 26] 

In a separate article the magazine listed the amount each State would receive from the 

$24 million provided for in the Brownlow Bill. New York would receive the largest 

amount ($2,108,000), while the minimum amount allowed ($250,000) went to 16 States 

with populations less than 700,000 inhabitants. [“The Brownlow Bill,” p. 28] 

Senator Latimer introduced his bill to establish a Bureau of Public Highways in the 

Department of Agriculture. The bill appropriated $24 million “out of any moneys in the 

treasury not otherwise appropriated,” at a rate of $8 million a year, with the funds 

apportioned among the States on a population basis. The bureau would consist of three 

commissioners, two of whom would be appointed by the President, with the advice and 

consent of the Senate, from the majority and largest minority party. The third 

commission would be an officer (Captain or above) of the U.S. Army Corps of 

Engineers. 

Under the Latimer Bill, States and territories would apply to the bureau for aid, on a 50-

50 matching basis, “in the improvement or construction of the public roads or sections 

thereof.” A State or territory may not request aid “until it shall have established, to the 

satisfaction of the said commissioners of highways” that the road “is of sufficient public 

importance,” the right-of-way has been secured, the road will be improved in accordance 

with the bureau’s rules and regulations and “will be maintained and kept in repair without 

recourse upon the United States,” and the State has provided for its share of the funding. 

In introducing the bill on January 14, Senator Latimer had delivered an address in the 

Senate. He cited five reasons why the Federal Government should aid in road building, 

summarized here: 

1. History demonstrated that a complete system of public roads had never been 

constructed without aid of the general government. 
134

2. Since taxes are raised from all people, and all people should pay to improve roads, 

only the Federal Government could accomplish this goal. The Federal 

Government had a responsibility to pay its just proportion for roads that were 

used for the delivery of the mail, for military purposes in time of war, and at all 

times for interstate commerce. 

3. Better roads are a national necessity that closely concerns the general welfare. 

4. And the surplus of $260 million “lying idle in the treasury” should be expended 

for the greatest good for the largest number, a goal that could be accomplished by 

Federal-aid. 

5. Good roads would contribute many benefits, including a reversal of the trend 

pulling rural folks to the cities. 

He concluded: 

I am convinced that it is only by federal aid that we will ever have good roads 

uniformly throughout the country. The government must stimulate and aid the 

people in the work. It is the history of road development in every country. Small 

sections of roads may be built in various sections, but we can never advance in 

this respect in proportion to the needs of the people unless we can secure 

government aid. [“Good Roads and Road Building,” Good Roads Magazine, 

April 1904, p, 172-174] 

Powers also quoted President Roosevelt’s annual message to Congress, dated December 

7, 1903, which included a passage in support of rural free delivery. “While a due regard 

to economy must be kept in mind,” the President had said, in establishing new routes, 

“yet the extension of the rural free delivery system must be continued for reasons of 

sound public policy.” He knew of no governmental movement that had such an 

immediate benefit for residents of the country districts: 

Rural free delivery, taken in connection with the telephone, the bicycle and the 

trolley, accomplishes much toward lessening the isolation of farm life and making 

it brighter and more attractive . . . . It is unhealthy and undesirable for the cities to 

grow at the expense of the country, and rural free delivery is not only a good thing 

in itself, but is good because it is one of the causes which check this unwholesome 

tendency toward the urban concentration of our population at the expense of the 

country districts. 

He added: 

It is for the same reason that we sympathize with and approve the policy of 

building good roads. The movement for good roads is one fraught with the 

greatest benefit to the country districts. [“The President on Good Roads,” Good 

Roads Magazine, January 1904, p. 29] 

Again, he endorsed good roads, but was silent on national aid. 
135

On January 23, the Automobile Club of America held a dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria 

hotel in New York City. Dodge, Eldridge, and Abbott of the OPRI were among the 

guests, along with Congressman Brownlow, Senators Latimer and Gallinger, General 

Miles, and Colonel Albert A. Pope, whose bicycles had launched the bicycle craze in the 

1870’s and who had long advocated Federal funding for good roads. 

W. E. Scarritt, the club’s president, offered a toast: 

The Automobile Club of America stands for three things—good roads, good law 

and good behavior. The automobile is the last word of engineering skill. 

Yesterday it was the plaything of a few, to-day it is a servant of the many, tomorrow it will be the necessity of humanity. 

Senator Gallinger recalled the funding for rivers and harbors, noting that, “Why, we have 

made appropriations for streams in the United States that ought to have been 

macadamized and made a playground for the automobiles.” His views came down to 

this: 

I am in favor of good roads, and I shall count it a great privilege to be permitted, 

as the representative of a generous and progressive people, to vote, if I have an 

opportunity, for a liberal appropriation from the public treasury for the purpose of 

aiding the towns, the cities and the states of this Union in procuring better roads 

than they have at the present time. 

The account of the meeting in Good Roads Magazine pointed out that, “Three rousing 

cheers were given Representative Brownlow, of Tennessee, author of the famous 

Brownlow bill,” as he rose to speak. He, too, cited the rivers and harbors money in 

addressing the constitutionality of funding for roads. “If they could appropriate this 

money under the constitution for the purpose of doing this, why may they not go into the 

interior and relieve the farmer?” 

Senator Latimer also addressed the gathering: 

The heaviest tax that the American people pay to-day is the mud tax. Why have 

we not changed this miserable condition that exists from one end of the country to 

the other? . . . . It takes the combined effort of the American people, just as it has 

taken in every civilized country; the combined effort of the government to 

accomplish the great results that we all long to see in this grand country of ours. 

[“Good Roads at the A.C.A. Banquet,” Good Roads Magazine, February 1904, p. 

67-68] 

A few days later, on January 26, the special committee appointed by the NGRA in St. 

Louis met at the Raleigh Hotel in Washington for what Good Roads Magazine called the 

“most enthusiastic gathering of good roads advocates that has ever assembled in the city 

of Washington, D.C.” Colonel Richardson of the NGRA led the discussion of the 

resolutions adopted in St. Louis. Dodge, who attended with Senator Latimer and 
136

Representative Brownlow, was appointed to the committee that would wait on President 

Roosevelt to arrange for a meeting. Other committees were appointed to call on Speaker 

of the House Joseph G. Cannon and the Agricultural Committees of the House and 

Senate, while another was dispatched to invite Secretary Wilson to address the meeting. 

Representative Brownlow said that although he had submitted a bill, “I stand primarily on 

the broad proposition that Congress should grant national aid, and I am not a partisan of 

even my own bill.” He would support the bills introduced by Senators Latimer or 

Gallinger or any measure that appropriates funds for good roads: 

I think it would be unwise for this committee, or for the National Good Roads 

Association, to advocate any particular bill. We all want the same thing, and will 

be satisfied with nothing less. Let us, therefore, all work to the common end, 

disregarding any particular bill that may come before Congress. 

Senator Latimer agreed. “I want this committee, when it goes before the committees of 

congress, to say nothing at all about the Latimer bill, the Brownlow bill, or any other bill, 

but to tell them you are here for the purpose of getting good roads, representing the 

farmers of this country.” He added that since he and Representative Brownlow 

represented different political parties, “we have thus cinched the elimination of politics at 

the outset,” joking: 

The democrats will say this is a rotten republican scheme, and the republicans will 

say it is a rotten democratic scheme, and there the political argument must end. 

He concluded: 

You are here with a solid constituency standing for aid to the common people. 

The man who stands in the way of this measure must be retired to private life. 

Warn him that the people are organized at home, and that if he refuses they 

propose to send somebody to congress that will represent the people in this 

country. 

At that point, the committee dispatched to invite Secretary Wilson arrived with the 

Secretary. After State Senator Thomas G. Harper, president of the Iowa State Good 

Roads Association, made a formal greeting, Secretary Wilson said, “I merely came over 

to bid you welcome to the Capitol City of our country, and to look you in the faces, to see 

how you size up with other conventions of farmers that come here to look after the 

interests of the farm.” If he hadn’t known better, “I would not have known the 

difference” between this group and a group of Senators of Representatives. 

Secretary Wilson mentioned the importance of farmers to the Nation, saying “they have 

to have good roads to go on.” He acknowledged that legislators have been “a little shy at 

the road problem,” but authorized an inquiry into the problem in the form of the OPRI: 
137

Great progress has been made in the work of this division in ascertaining and 

demonstrating how to build good roads, and in distributing literature to the people 

most interested in this subject. All this has tended to create a sentiment in favor 

of having better roads, and in keeping up with the march of progress in the United 

States . . . . 

He did not commit to support the pending legislation, but said: 

It is the special mission of the Department of Agriculture to do all in its power to 

aid the farmers of this country in every respect, and you may rest assured that 

whatever law may be enacted on the subject of good roads, if it is entrusted to that 

department to see to its execution, it will be ably and speedily carried out, I assure 

you. 

Representative Brownlow responded to Secretary Wilson that advocates in Congress 

“have endeavored to make it non-partisan as far as possible.” He noted that Congress 

appropriated funds for relief of the sufferers of Martinique and Ireland, to suppress the 

Spaniards in Cuba, “and now the people of this country are coming to congress with the 

determination that it shall do something to aid the farmer in shaking off the shackles of 

his investment in the way of bad and impassable roads.” 

The following day, January 24, the special NGRA committee testified before the 

Committee on Agriculture and Forestry of the U.S. Senate on “Roads and Road 

Building.” The hearing was formally designed to consider the Latimer, Gallinger, and 

Brownlow Bills. 

Committee Chairman Redfield Proctor of Vermont conducted the hearing. He was a 

lawyer who had fought in the Civil War, served in the State Senate and House of 

Representatives, as Lieutenant Governor (1876-1878) and Governor (1878-1880), and 

Secretary of War under President Benjamin Harrison before resigning to become a U.S. 

Senator in 1891 where he served until his death on March 4, 1908. Senator Proctor began 

the hearing by acknowledging that he had not examined the Latimer or Brownlow bill 

carefully, “but I see that $24,000,000 is the sum proposed to be appropriated in each. I 

suppose that is the main idea.” 

Senator Latimer began the hearing by introducing special committee chairman Harper, 

who presented the NGRA convention’s resolution in support of national aid. After 

explaining the value of good roads in war and peace, Harper said, “History but repeats 

itself. No country now enjoys improved roads without the General Government’s aid in 

their construction. We do not believe ours will prove an exception.” He introduced the 

other members of the committee who made statements in support of the cause. 

Chairman Proctor asked Harper for statistics on road methods in other countries. 

Although Harper did not have the statistics, he thought the OPRI could submit them to 

the committee. (The OPRI information was reprinted in the hearing report.) 
138

Senator Joseph V. Quarles of Iowa asked Harper, “What provision have you in your 

scheme for determining, for instance, in the State of Iowa, where the first road should be 

built?” When Harper said he had not worked out that detail, Senator Quarles informed 

him that it was a matter “of very great importance.” He asked if the scheme involved 

taxation. Harped replied that it did. Will not, the Senator asked, the people whose roads 

are not improved be dissatisfied? Senator Latimer replied that most States were 

considering appointment of a highway commission to cooperate with the Washington 

bureau: 

The location of the roads will be left entirely with that commission, as to where it 

shall be constructed and on what plan. 

Senator Quarles pointed out that the plan had three jurisdictions—the Federal 

Government, State government, and the local government. “How are you going to 

distribute those several jurisdictions so as to have no conflict or hostility?” A member of 

the NGRA committee, W. A. Walker of Racine, Wisconsin, responded: 

I will state that we are going to begin where and when the local community first 

begins and says it is ready to contribute its part. The local community can not 

participate either in State or National aid until it is ready to do its part. Then it 

can get its per capita portion of both State and National aid. 

With the hearing in its final moments, Harper told the committee, “We wanted you to see 

that we come from the people. We are of the people whom you represent.” Chairman 

Proctor assured Harper that the committee was “glad to see you and to hear from you, 

and your case has been presented very intelligently.” Senator Quarles added, “And very 

ably,” to which Chairman Proctor amended, “And effectively.” Harper concluded, “We 

leave the matter now in your hands, and we have a feeling that you will do what is right 

in the matter.” 

With the hearing concluded on page 24, the 115-page Senate hearing report reprinted the 

lengthy brief submitted by Harper’s committee, including statements and other 

documents in support of national aid. [58th Congress, 2d Session, Document No. 204] 

At 4 pm, the NGRA special committee went to the White House to see President 

Roosevelt. The President said: 

Mr. Chairman, I wish to greet you particularly, and I am sure I need not say how 

entirely I sympathize with the movement that you are championing for better 

means of communication. The road is the symbol of communication. The road is 

the symbol of civilization. Take our great provinces of Alaska; I doubt if there is 

anything more needed for the development of Alaska on permanent lines than the 

building up of a proper system of roads and, where it is impossible to make 

wagon roads, trails in Alaska. Throughout the country our citizens will have to 

turn their energies toward improving the means of intercourse—that is, the 
139

roads—between community and community, because we are a civilized people, 

and we cannot afford to have barbaric methods of communication.” 

Like Secretary Wilson, the President endorsed good roads, but again was silent on 

Federal legislation on the subject. Nevertheless, the special committee returned to the 

Raleigh Hotel after the reception and closed the meeting “in a general handshaking and 

congratulations among each other upon the great success with which their efforts had 

been crowned.” They all pledged to meet again at the NGRA’s May meeting in St. Louis 

and “in the meantime [to] give time and energy to the subject of national aid to good 

roads.” [“National Aid Committee Meeting,” Good Roads Magazine, February 1904, p 

60-65] 

In an editorial, Powers emphasized the diversity of the special committee, which 

represented nearly every State in the Union, with people from a wide range of trades. “It 

is seldom that representatives of so many important interests have assembled for the 

purpose of advancing a cause, and the results accomplished mark a milestone in the 

history of the movement for good roadways.” Advocates from around the country were 

“rejoicing over the cordial words of sympathy with the movement” by President 

Roosevelt: 

While the chief executive did not definitely commit himself to the policy of 

federal aid, yet his unqualified endorsement of the efforts of the men whom he 

was addressing, in the full knowledge that they were striving to the utmost to 

secure an adequate appropriation by congress, may fairly be construed to imply a 

promise of his assistance in this important phase of the problem of highway 

improvement . . . . 

We believe that the words uttered by President Roosevelt were entirely frank and 

ingenuous, and that he will put no obstacle in the way of the enactment of the 

national aid bills now before congress. He is, moreover, in a position to show just 

how deep his interest in the matter is; for if he should throw his influence into the 

scale in favor of those bills, it would greatly increase their chance of passage. 

May his deeds in this matter completely fulfil [sic] the promise of his words! 

Regardless, Powers said, if any of the bills made it to the House or Senate floor for 

discussion “the adoption of some measure will, we believe, hardly fail of passage.” In 

short, “Certainly, the outlook never looked so bright.” [“A Milestone” and “Words and 

Deeds,” Good Roads Magazine, February 1904, p. 78-79] 

On February 3, Representative Brownlow introduced a new version of his bill that 

conformed for the most part to the Latimer Bill. 

On February 10-11, 1904, Horatio Earle’s American Road Makers met in the Assembly 

Chamber of the State Capitol in Hartford, Connecticut, for its annual meeting. Senator 

Latimer addressed the convention during the first session. Upon his introduction, the 

attendees “heartily applauded” the Senator, who spoke in support of Federal-aid. He 
140

objected to politicians who opposed the measure because of the presidential election 

coming in November 1904. He expressed the view that since this was the only time 

farmers had ever asked for something from the United States Treasury, their plea should 

be heard. 

Earle pointed out the $400 million that had gone into rivers and harbors, and expressed 

the view that some of the tax revenue should go into the making of highways that belong 

to all the people. Because farmers paid taxes for a wide range of activities, he said, “Let 

the state practice reciprocity by aiding in improving the roads that all use.” The 

expenditure would be returned: 

Build a good road into the rural district, then daily papers will be bought, books, 

furniture, new house[s], new barns with silos and all kinds of labor-saving 

devices. 

Martin Dodge addressed the convention on lowering the cost of transportation. “It is for 

lack of cheap transportation primarily and mainly that the country people suffer.” He 

emphasized the broad nature of the Good Roads Movement: 

[But] now a voice is heard through chambers of commerce and boards of trade 

and executive offices of the great cities to the effect that they are willing to pay 

money into a general fund the same to be used in improving the highways of the 

country and no part of it to be used toward paving the streets of the cities. 

Concurrently with this we find the southern statesmen coming rapidly to the front 

with a proposition for national aid in road building, and, for the first time in two 

generations, we have the very remarkable spectacle of a distinguished southern 

statesman offering in the United States Senate a bill authorizing the United States 

government to co-operate with the different states or civil subdivisions thereof in 

the permanent improvement of the public roads. Senator Latimer of South 

Carolina is the author of this measure, and says that it is generally supported by 

the statesmen of the south. So we have now for the first time the northern 

farmers, the southern statesmen and the representatives of concentrated wealth in 

the great cities all favoring a new plan of co-operation in road building by which 

the people in the rural districts shall be relieved of a portion of the burden and the 

entire cost distributed so that all shall bear their just proportion. 

The convention concluded with the adoption of resolutions, including resolutions in favor 

of national, State, and local cooperation for the improvement of public highways. 

[“American Road Makers’ Convention,” Good Roads Magazine, March 1904, p. 105-

113] 

Participants in a wide range of good roads conventions discussed the pending legislation. 

Dodge, Senator Latimer, and Horatio Earle addressed the State good roads convenion in 

the hall of the House of Representatives in Columbus, Ohio, on February 15. Dodge 

contrasted his experience in 1893 on Ohio’s first State good roads commission with the 

present, and recommended creation of a permanent road commission. Earle, Latimer, 
141

and others supported Federal-aid. Leaders of the Minnesota Good Roads Association 

endorsed the legislation during the association’s convention on February 23. Colonel 

Richardson addressed the convention in support of Federal-aid. He also addressed the 

convention of the Iowa State Good Roads Association on February 24. 

Earle and Senator Latimer joined Colonel Pope at the first annual convention of the New 

York and Chicago Road Association, another of the early named trail associations 

(dedicated to establishing a continuous road between the two cities) on March 16 and 17. 

They and others endorsed Federal-aid, as did the convention as a whole. Similarly, the 

Southern Good Roads Convention, sponsored by the NGRA and the Progressive Union 

of New Orleans, adopted a resolution in favor of national aid on the final day of the New 

Orleans convention, April 18. 

The NGRA and OPRI attended, along with Senator Latimer, the Illinois State good roads 

convention in Springfield, May 3 and 4. Senator Latimer discussed his bill, citing 

statistics showing that from a purely business standpoint, Federal-aid was a good 

investment. “We are,” he said, “building the Panama Canal to cheapen the cost of 

transportation, and yet in transportation on our country roads we are paying an annual 

‘mud’ tax’ of over $500,000,000.” In the discussion that followed, Professor Ira O. 

Baker of the University of Illinois disputed the Senator’s statistics and attacked the 

Federal-aid bills. According to an account in Good Roads Magazine: 

Among those who took issue with the speaker in the discussion which followed 

were Senator Latimer, Col. R. W. Richardson and M. O. Eldridge, and the several 

arguments advanced by Professor Baker were convincingly answered by these 

gentlemen. 

The convention adopted resolutions in support of State and Federal-aid. [“The Illinois 

State Convention,” Good Roads Magazine, June 1904, p. 290] 

Despite this support, neither House of Congress took up the Federal-aid bills before the 

session adjourned on April 28. Looking on the bright side, Powers stated: 

There is little question, however, in the minds of the leaders of the movement . . . 

but that a bill granting national aid will be passed at the next session of congress. 

Given the broad support from people around the country, he said, “it goes without saying 

that the members of both branches of congress will follow the wishes of their 

constituents.” As further evidence, he cited an “important victory” when “the friends of 

the Office of Public Road Inquiries” in the Senate secured an appropriation of $45,000 

for the OPRI in the Department of Agriculture appropriations act, approved April 23, 

1904. Chairman James Wadsworth of the House Committee on Agriculture had 

threatened the increase in late January or early February, but had relented. [Seely, Ph.D., 

p. 97, footnote 54] 
142

The funds would allow the OPRI to continue its many activities, including construction 

of object-lesson roads: 

The work of the Office is virtually national aid on a small scale and is of great 

importance from an educational point of view. What is wanted, however, is a 

great many times larger appropriation in order to secure the best possible results 

in road improvement throughout the entire country. [“The Progress of National 

Aid,” Good Roads Magazine, April 1904, p. 176] 

58th Congress, 3rd Session 

Advocates of Federal-aid began to focus on the third session of the 58th Congress, which 

would begin December 5, 1904 and run through March 3, 1905. To that end, the May 

1904 issue of Good Roads Magazine contained articles by Senator Latimer and 

Representative Brownlow. Senator Latimer began by quoting Thomas Jefferson’s 1786 

letter to James Ross about the use of public funds for rivers, roads, and canals as an 

introduction to a discussion of the constitutional question involved in Federal-aid. 

Having addressed the constitutional authority, he asked, “Why is it that Congress does 

not pass this legislation?” His response: 

There is only one answer that can be given, and that is “Politics.” Many 

ingenious and refined arguments are advanced to shield those opposed to this 

measure, but not only is there nothing in the arguments themselves, but they are 

made for the sole purpose of avoiding the responsibility of meeting this question 

fairly. Some say it is unconstitutional, and when asked if they did not vote for 

this or that appropriation which was on all fours with this, they answer, “Yes, but 

one violation of the Constitution does not justify another.” The literal truth is that 

every one recognizes that Congress can pass this measure in such form as will be 

perfectly Constitutional, and the opposition to it is on political grounds entirely. 

The party in power [says] that a Presidential election is approaching, and that they 

cannot afford to take the chance of increasing the appropriations. And so it is that 

the men who are responsible for the administration of the Government are playing 

politics while the people drag their weary way through the mud at a loss of 

millions of dollars annually. 

What, he asked, is the best course to pursue? Fortunately, he said, “the people are the 

source of power.” If they have the facts, “they will see to it that consideration of the 

subject is had.” He continued: 

We should make the proposition of national aid one of the main issues of the 

campaign, and commit every man who offers himself for the suffrages of the 

people to work for the passage of this legislation. Let us have no equivocation. It 

is only in this way that we can ever win the fight . . . . 
143

[If] all the friends of the movement will unite in carrying on the campaign of 

education so auspiciously begun, we need not fear the ultimate result. [“The 

National Aid Cause,” Good Roads Magazine, May 1904, p. 212-215] 

Representative Brownlow used his article to respond to criticism of Federal-aid in the 

national press. Overall, the daily and weekly press “has been remarkably favorable to the 

national aid plan.” Nevertheless, one paper “of national reputation,” namely The 

Washington Post, “has persistently attacked all bills introduced into Congress, making 

appropriations for road improvement.” He said: 

The Post’s principal charge against the national aid plan is that it is “stupendous 

paternalism.” But I have watched in vain for any serious attempt to substantiate 

the charge. 

He explained that the term “paternalism” was hard to define; there was “no clear and 

recognized line between that which is paternalistic and that which is not.” He thought 

that as popularly used, the term meant: “Paternalism is a club with which public men try 

to kill off measures to which they are opposed.” If national aid for good roads was 

objectionable paternalism, critics should also kill off river and harbor funds, government 

aid to irrigation, and many other appropriations that are “unconstitutional, undemocratic, 

paternalistic, etc.” 

The Post had predicted, Brownlow said, “that the South will eventually oppose national 

aid to road improvement” as it had a few years earlier opposed Federal aid to education. 

He responded that the Post editors should know that the two forms of Federal-aid were 

not comparable since, in the case of education, “this opposition arose from the more or 

less definite connection between that bill and the race question.” Moreover, the South 

had not opposed Federal-aid for maintaining agricultural colleges. He asked: 

Has the South opposed this “federal aid to education?” Not that I ever heard. 

Brownlow welcomed criticism because it provided opportunities for discussion that 

would “lead to convictions and finally to definite action.” [“A Reply to Some 

Criticisms,” Good Roads Magazine, May 1904, p. 215-216] 

In June, Powers recommended that good roads advocates introduce Good Roads Planks 

at the national political conventions. He reasoned that, “the political party which ignores 

committing itself in favor of one of the greatest needs of the country will go into the 

campaign greatly handicapped.” 

On May 16, the NGRA called its annual convention to order at Music Hall in St. Louis, 

during the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, the World’s Fair held from April 30, to 

December 1, 1904. Speakers included Governor Dockery, Senator Latimer, General 

Miles, Colonel Moore, Colonel Richardson, Colonel Pope, Horatio Earle, Martin Dodge 

and Secretary Wilson. 
144

Secretary Wilson addressed the convention on May 19, which had been declared “Good 

Roads Day” at the exposition. Speaking in the Missouri Building on exposition grounds, 

Secretary Wilson said that the convention was called to discuss “one feature of 

agriculture, that which pertains to getting about.” He congratulated Colonel Moore and 

the NGRA for taking up “one of the great specialties pertaining to our future welfare, and 

. . . pushing it with such vigor and such success.” 

However, it was not the only science that pertained to “the man who works in the field 

with his coat off; he is my fellow, and I am his helper.” For the farmer, meteorology was 

vital, as it was for roads. Drainage was vital to both. “We need to know more about the 

atmosphere before we know enough to be road engineers.” Domestic animals were also 

important. “What is the value of a good road if you haven’t anything to run over it?” 

And, a better understanding of materials and soils, which varied around the country, was 

needed. The OPRI, through its experimental and demonstration work, was making 

progress, and Secretary Wilson said he was pushing the scientists in his department to 

find answers. He closed with praise of the American farmer and, according to Good 

Roads Magazine “was loudly applauded” and “given a vote of thanks by a rising vote of 

the convention.” As quoted in the magazine, he did not endorse or discuss the pending 

good roads bills in Congress. 

As might be expected, the NGRA adopted resolutions in support of Federal-aid for the 

construction of public roads, as well as an increase to $150,000 for the OPRI, which 

should be advanced to Bureau status. The NGRA also resolved that in the 1904 election 

all candidates should be asked to take a stand on the subject. 

A note in the August 1904 issue of Good Roads Magazine stated that “Senator Latimer’s 

roads bill will be among the first to engage Congress at the next sessions.” [p. 399] 

Meanwhile, the NGRA continued to promote the cause. It participated in the 

Southeastern Kansas Good Roads Association meeting at Iola, Kansas, on July 19. The 

association adopted resolutions similar to those approved in St. Louis. The NGRA also 

held a good roads institute in Shreveport, Louisiana, on September 6 and 7. Colonel 

Richardson addressed the attendees, as did Eldridge, who delivered his stereopticon 

lecture on the roads of the world. The meeting concluded with adoption of resolutions, 

including one supporting Federal-aid. 

Colonel Moore submitted proposed Good Roads Planks for the national political parties 

but they declined to adopt them. (According to Seely, Dodge probably submitted a plank 

to the Republican platform committee, but Moore claimed authorship of both planks. 

[Seely, Ph.D. footnote 57, p. 97]) In October, Powers acknowledged his disappointment: 

It is an encouraging sign and shows that the subject is constantly taking hold of 

the people who insist that their representatives shall be in favor of improved roads 

in order to secure their suffrage. It was a disappointment to many of the earnest 

advocates of good roads that the two great national parties did not declare 

themselves in favor of good roads at their late conventions. This failure is due no 

doubt to the fact that the question had not been before the people longer. A year 
145

or two hence we predict that the situation will be greatly changed. [“Good Roads 

Planks,” Good Roads Magazine, October 1904, p. 497] 

Powers also commented that “in some sections political capital has been made out of the 

Brownlow bill in the campaign for the election of congressional candidates.” He knew of 

one instance where a candidate, whom he did not name, claimed “the bill is a political 

clap-trap.” Powers said, “Such statements are of the sheerest folly, and are designed for 

political capital only.” He expected the candidate “will be literally snowed under when 

the votes are in and counted.” [“The Brownlow Bill,” p. 497] 

(The Republican Party had included a good roads plank in its 1900 platform: 

Public movements looking to a permanent improvement of the roads and 

highways of the country meet with our cordial approval, and we recommend this 

subject to the earnest consideration of the people and of the Legislatures of the 

several states. 

Although neither major political party adopted a good roads plank in 1904, both included 

a plank in the party platform for 1908. The Democratic Party adopted a “Post Roads” 

plank reading: 

We favor Federal aid to State and local authorities in the construction and 

maintenance of post roads. 

The Republican Party, in its plank on “The American Farmer” included this statement: 

We recognize the social and economical advantages of good country roads, 

maintained more and more largely at public expense, and less and less at the 

expense of the abutting owner. In this work we commend the growing practice of 

State aid, and we approve the efforts of the National Agricultural Department by 

experiments and otherwise to make clear to the public the best methods of road 

construction.) 

On October 1, Colonel Moore’s NGRA was along for another good roads train, this one 

sponsored by the Frisco Railway Company. It would leave St. Louis for stops planned in 

Alabama, Arkansas, the Indian Territory, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma 

Territory, Tennessee, and Texas. The train consisted of six carloads of road building 

machinery provided by the manufacturers, a work crew, two Pullman coaches, and OPRI 

experts, notably Charles T. Harrison, to supervise object-lesson roads. Goods Roads 

Magazine summarized the plan: 

It is planned to visit over sixty towns in the different states and territories through 

which the train will pass and build sample roads of macadam, telford, gravel, or 

dirt, in some places, and hold good roads conventions at all of them for the 

purposes of education and arousing enthusiasm to secure good roads legislation. 

[“Frisco Good Roads Train,” Goods Roads Magazine, October 1904, p. 498] 
146

Independent of the NGRA, other good roads associations endorsed the Federal 

legislation. On September 29, for example, the Washington Good Roads Association 

convened in Bellingham for its second annual convention. It adopted resolutions in 

support of “a liberal appropriation” for the OPRI and “passage of a federal law 

embodying the principles of the Brownlow bill (H.R. 15369), introduced in the National 

House of Representatives, December 15, 1902.” Joseph H. Dodge and James W. Abbott 

represented the OPRI, with Dodge speaking on “Good Roads to Farmers.” Abbott was to 

deliver Eldridge’s illustrated lecture on “The Roads of the World,” but had to cancel the 

speech when his lantern projector failed. [“The Washington State Convention,” Good 

Roads Magazine, November 1904, p. 552-553] 

As the Frisco good roads train hopped from city to city, different OPRI officials joined it 

for the series of conventions. Colonel Richardson was on hand, often in his capacity as a 

special agent of the OPRI. Eldridge was in DeKalb, Illinois, on September 16, Rolla, 

Missouri, on September 20, and Lebanon, Missouri, on September 21. Martin Dodge 

addressed the convention in Joplin, Missouri, on October 18; Fredonia, Kansas, on 

October 26; and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Territory, on October 28. 

In November, Powers published another editorial on “The National Aid Measure.” With 

the 58th Congress assembling for its third session on December 5, he expected the 

Latimer-Brownlow Bill to be brought up and debated in Congress and around the 

country: 

Interest in this measure is constantly growing, and in the good roads conventions 

and meetings that have been held throughout the country within the past few 

months the principle of national aid has been universally indorsed. There will, it 

is likely, [be] some opposition to the plan develop, but this will only serve to 

make its advocates more strenuous in their efforts to carry the day. So far as we 

know there is no organized opposition to the principle of government aid, but if 

there are valid reasons why congress should not adopt such a measure and thereby 

help every person in the United States, it is devoutly hoped that these arguments 

will be brought to light. We hope the matter will be presented fairly on its merits, 

and that those honestly opposed to the plan will not hesitate to let their reasons be 

known. In this, as in every other great public question involving the appropriation 

of the people’s money, the fullest and freest discussion should be given, and in the 

end there can be no doubt concerning the result. [p. 548-549] 

In the election of November 1904, President Roosevelt won his election bid. He defeated 

Alton Brooks Parker, who had resigned as Chief Judge of the New York Court of 

Appeals to run for President. Roosevelt secured 7,630,457 votes to Parker’s 5,083,880. 

(After losing the election, Parker returned to the practice of law in New York.) 

On December 5, the lame-duck Congress returned for the Third Session of the 58th

Congress, primarily to complete work on the appropriations acts for FY 1906 and a few 

other matters, such as tariff reciprocity with Cuba. An overriding concern was the 
147

budget, with expenditures for the upcoming year projected to exceed revenue. After the 

session ended on March 3, Congressman James A. Hemenway, Republican of Indiana 

and Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations, said: 

I am advised by those most competent to judge that the deficiency in the revenue 

of the Government for the current fiscal year will not exceed $18,000,000. This 

deficiency is brought about by unforeseen expenditures in two directions, namely, 

$13,000,000 on account of new ships for the navy, and also in the probable excess 

of $5,000,000 or $6,000,000 of expenditures for the postal service over the postal 

receipts for 1905. 

Hemenway acknowledged that the appropriation of $818,478,914 was more than in the 

previous year ($781,172,375), but he added: 

These figures represent indeed a large sum of money, but they likewise represent 

a great and rich Nation of people. The wisdom and the honesty of the 

appropriations are not challenged, and the absolute integrity of their expenditure 

is guaranteed by the presence of Theodore Roosevelt at the head of the 

Government. 

Representative Leonidas F. Livingston, of Georgia, the Ranking Democrat on the 

Committee, referred to the projected FY 1906 deficit of nearly $93 million as “a broad 

enough expanse between the buckle of expenditures and the tongue of revenues to startle 

the plain and common people, who bear the burden of taxation.” [“Defend and Assail the 

National Budget,” The New York Times, March 9, 1905] 

In the House, Representative Brownlow’s national aid bill was the first bill introduced. 

“The proposition,” he explained, “is to provide a method of co-operation between the 

Federal, the State, and the municipal Governments on the matter of road building. The 

money of the Government is to be spent only when an equal amount is put with it by the 

locality in which the road is to be built.” He added that he had modeled the bill on the 

New York State law. [“Bills in the House,” The New York Times, December 2, 1902] 

The Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry approved the Latimer-Brownlow Bill 

shortly after the session began. However, as Powers mentioned in his editorial in the 

January 1905 issue, the session was interested in “the question of economy.” He feared 

the bill would not pass. On December 10, 1904, The New York Times reported that 

Senator Latimer shared the concern: 

Senator Latimer has given up hope of the passage of his Good Roads bill at the 

present session of Congress. In every quarter where effort has been made to 

obtain support for the measure the question of legislative extravagance has been 

raised. [“Economy Order of the Day,” The New York Times, December 10, 1904] 

Powers was already thinking ahead: 
148

It is confidently expected, however, by the friends of the measure that either this 

bill, or some other embodying the principle of National aid will be introduced and 

carried to a successful issue at the next session of Congress. The sentiment of the 

press throughout the country is very generally in favor of the passage of such a 

measure, and under the circumstances the outlook is most encouraging. We are 

advised that other bills will be introduced at the next session differing 

considerably in detail but favoring the general principle of National aid. [“The 

National Aid Measure,” Good Roads Magazine, January 1905, p. 28] 

On January 19 through 21, Martin Dodge was in Jacksonville, Florida, for the NGRA’s 

midwinter meeting. He discussed rural free delivery and its dependence on the advance 

of good roads. He also discussed OPRI’s work in testing road materials to help 

communities identify the best material for road building. He acknowledged the division 

of opinion on the role of the national and State governments in regard to the improvement 

of the highways. This was, he said, a legislative issue, but that his Department would 

implement any law enacted. 

Senator Latimer was on hand as well. Good Roads Magazine summarized his speech, in 

which he discussed why he supported good roads and a Federal role in their construction. 

He cited the appropriations for rivers and harbors: 

He did not object to the appropriations because they all greatly helped the 

country, but he insisted that comfort and prosperity should first be given to the 

millions of people who are the producers of the nation. He asserted that the 

government had ample precedent in giving its aid to road building. He also 

explained the provisions of his bill now pending in Congress and said that the 

convicts in the various states ought to be put to work on the public roads. He 

declared that there is a majority in Congress which favors the bill and that the 

opposition comes from some of the leaders who claim that there is not money 

enough in the treasury. Senator Latimer, however, said he favored cutting other 

appropriations in order to give the people what they are justly entitled to. 

The convention adopted resolutions endorsing the OPRI’s work as well as Latimer Bill. 

[“Midwinter Convention of the N.G.R.A.,” Good Roads Magazine, February 1905, p. 78-

80] 

Despite the agitation by the NGRA, Dodge, Powers, and many others, Congress did not 

approve the Latimer-Brownlow Bill during the third session of the 58th Congress, which 

adjourned on March 3 just before President Roosevelt’s inauguration. The New York 

Times offered this assessment of the 58th Congress: 

The Fifty-eighth Congress, which adjourned the morning of the president’s 

inauguration, is notable for the large amount of important legislation proposed to 

it and the insignificant amount which it enacted. [“Congress and the President,” 

The New York Times, March 6, 1905] 
149

After the failure of the Latimer-Brownlow bill, dozens of bills would be introduced on 

roads through the mid-1910’s. Many bills proposed designation and construction of a 

specific road or an "interstate" highway system, with the routes specified in the bills and, 

in some cases, given names. Most of the bills, however, proposed a Federal-aid type of 

program. Several proposed to distribute the surplus in the Treasury of the United States 

to the States, Territories, and the District of Columbia to improve their roads. Several 

others proposed variations of the Federal-aid concept once championed by Brownlow, 

Dodge, Eldridge, and Moore. 

All would fail until 1916, when concerns about constitutionality, the view that the States 

should take responsibility for roads, and the fear that the program would grow too large 

were finally overcome in favor of a Federal-aid highway program that in many ways 

followed the Federal-aid plan outlined in the Brownlow Bill drafted by the OPRI. 

Meanwhile, the 58th Congress had one last surprise for Martin Dodge. 

Congressional Revenge on Martin Dodge 

Although Congress did not approve the Latimer-Brownlow Bill, key Members of 

Congress were aware of the OPRI’s role in advocating passage. As Seely pointed out, 

Congress “resented the intrusion of this executive office.” [Ph.d., p. 47] 

In the drive for national aid, Eldridge committed what Seely called "the worst 

indiscretion." At the request of A. R. Shattuck, who headed the Automobile Club of 

America, Eldridge agreed to work, outside his official duties, on a $10,000 campaign to 

promote the Brownlow Bill. His campaign, directed from a New York City office with 

the help of a publicity agent, included having copies of Brownlow's January 1903 speech 

on the bill printed at government expense and mailed by friendly congressmen in franked 

envelopes to 1 million people. 

On December 1, 1904, as Members assembled for the third session of the 58th Congress, 

Dodge wrote to Shattuck: 

[Many] members of Congress thought last winter that we went a step too far in 

the circulation of literature. The skyrocket which you fired made a greater 

commotion in the halls of Congress than, perhaps, you are aware of yourself. The 

effect of this reached the secretary in many ways and I am sorry to say annoyed 

him greatly. As a consequence of this, he thinks it best to be extremely 

conservative. [Seely, book, p. 20] 

Quoting this letter, Seely described Secretary Wilson's reaction differently: "The 

secretary of agriculture exploded at Dodge's disregard of directives to limit ties to the 

NGRA because it advocated a particular legislative proposal." [Seely, book, p. 19] 

Secretary Wilson instructed Dodge to limit OPRI assistance to conventions and good 

roads trains sponsored by the NGRA to avoid linking Federal employees to resolutions 

endorsing the Brownlow Bill or other similar measures. 
150

When Eldridge's role in the campaign was discovered, he was fired. He was soon 

reinstated, thanks to the intervention of friends in Congress such as Brownlow, but at a 

reduced salary and with loss of his rank as Assistant Director of the OPRI. He also lost 

his chance to succeed Dodge as Director. As noted in America's Highways 1776-1976, 

Eldridge ". . . had pushed a right idea before its time." [p. 216] 

The Secretary’s reprimand reflected a broader problem with the relationship between 

Dodge and Moore. Given the limited appropriations for the OPRI, Dodge had adopted 

the same approach as General Stone in reaching out to the private sector to supplement 

the work with funds and donations. However, Dodge, perhaps reflecting his background 

as a politician, had extended his work into legislative affairs without support from his 

Administration. Further, he had linked himself to a man, Colonel Moore, whose ethics 

were questionable. 

Seely described some of the problems with Colonel Moore: 

Dodge, and to a greater extent Moore, seemed to see the movement as an 

opportunity for personal gain. Moore attempted to collect organization dues and 

speakers’ fees from each town in which a Good Roads Train stopped, a move 

forbidden by the Agriculture Department. This led the secretary of agriculture to 

halt OPRI involvement in the trains after 1902, yet Dodge worked around this. 

Incredibly, in 1905 the OPRI chief aided Moore in a fraudulent scheme to collect 

fees for future object-lesson roads that both men knew would not be built. [Seely, 

book, p. 18] 

Although the OPRI no longer sponsored good roads trains, Moore continued to mount 

them with OPRI participation. For example, when the Frisco Good Roads Special began 

its 3-month run through the Southwest at St. Louis on September 20, 1904, Good Roads 

Magazine reported that in addition to NGRA officials, the train included OPRI officials 

who worked on the object-lesson roads built on the trip and gave speeches at the 

conventions held along the way. The magazine published a photograph of the train at 

Rolla, Missouri, and two photos of the object-lesson road built at DeKalb, Illinois, all 

provided by Eldridge. [November 1904, p. 531-532] 

Dodge maintained close ties with Moore’s group, apart from the Good Roads Trains: 

Dodge earlier had served as an advisory director of the NGRA, and he and other 

OPRI engineers aided its meetings by delivering talks. Dodge’s name appeared 

prominently on the association’s letterhead and surely conveyed an appearance of 

official sanction and approval. Finally, Moore had earned Dodge’s gratitude by 

unstinting support for the director’s plans to raise the OPRI budget. [Ph.D., p. 45] 

Seely explained: 
151

Moore’s efforts to help Dodge secure money began in 1900 and probably laid the 

groundwork for all future cooperation. His National Good Roads Association 

held a National Good Roads Convention in 1900, with OPRI help. That meeting 

endorsed the plan to raise the Road Inquiry’s budget to $150,000. Moore 

followed this by leading a delegation to President McKinley and the Secretary of 

Agriculture, testified on the bill’s behalf before Congress, and canvassed railroad 

presidents and commercial clubs for support. Their success was limited, but the 

link between Moore and Dodge was lasting, for when the 1904 appropriation 

increase was threatened by the chairman [Proctor] of the Senate Agriculture 

Committee, Dodge’s assistant [Eldridge] wrote to Moore’s secretary 

[Richardson], “Could you not at once write to ‘Dave’ Mercer and get him to use 

his influence with Mr. Wadsworth and the conferees?” [Ph.D., FN 54, p. 96-97] 

(Wadsworth, as noted earlier, was Chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture. 

Eldridge’s letter was dated February 3, 1903, while the Agriculture Department’s 

appropriations act for FY 1904 was under consideration.) 

Aside from his ties to Moore, Dodge “did not seem to appreciate the need to avoid 

endorsing private groups, products, or materials,” Seely observed: 

In at least three instances, Dodge became involved in schemes to recommend 

patented methods of road construction, a clear violation of department rules. 

The difficulties presented by Dodge’s close involvement with individual 

manufacturers became apparent when one remembers that the Office of Public 

Road Inquiry [sic] received so many inquiries on various methods of construction 

because people assumed the OPRI was neutral. A United States Army engineer 

considering use of a steel track roadway for a Potomac River bridge wrote that his 

superior “attaches considerably more importance to your unbiased opinion on the 

subject than to the naturally somewhat prejudiced views of the manufacturers.” 

Yet the manufacturers who Dodge helped were very pleased with the OPRI’s 

director, since “the public recognizes you as an advocate of a Steel Track 

System.” Certainly a fundamental conflict existed in the differing public views of 

Dodge’s position on this particular matter. Dodge did not aid the situation by his 

failure to avoid conflicts of interest. [Ph.D., p. 49-50] 

Seely offered several other examples: 

Dodge attempted to secure permission to publish a circular on a brick-track 

pavement that was patented by the author. Even when the Department of 

Agriculture refused, the inventor placed articles in newspapers misquoting Dodge, 

but conveying the endorsement of the director of the OPRI. Dodge had also 

approached the bounds of propriety in his eagerness to assist the Steel Highway 

Track Company secure publicity and trials with state highway departments. He 

even entertained overtures from another businessman who desired to start a 

company producing another steel track patent. [Ph.D., FN 63, p. 98] 
152

Still, the Good Roads Trains proved to be Dodge’s undoing. “The final straw,” Seely 

wrote, “may been a Good Roads Train run entirely by the National Good Roads 

Association during the early part of 1905.” The NGRA ran the Good Roads Train on the 

line of the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railroad System beginning on January 9, 1905. 

Seely continued: 

Dodge accompanied the train, improperly lending it an official air. Moreover, the 

director of the OPRI apparently aided W. H. Moore collect fees for the NGRA at 

each stop. The money was supposed to guarantee later construction of objectlesson roads that the NGRA never intended to build; instead, Moore pocketed the 

collections. 

Seely quoted from a letter dated November 11, 1905, that former special agent Abbott 

wrote to Dodge’s successor, Logan Page, describing the Moore-Dodge combination at 

work on that train: 

Moore . . . always conveyed the impression that this was a government 

commission, at large in the land to redeem the people from Bondage to the mud. 

As the countenance of Dodge always beamed ‘Amen’ to the most grotesque 

promises, pretenses, and phillipics of these confidence artists the communities 

were prone to accept them at face value . . . . Only the mighty Dodge, 

representing the majesty of this supreme government and its beneficent Dep’t of 

Agriculture, enabled this crafty gent to work his schemes upon honest people and 

avoid the jail. [Seely, book, p. 18] 

Seely added that, “The Secretary of Agriculture repeatedly tried to limit the ties between 

Dodge and W. H. Moore’s National Good Roads Association, without success.” [Ph.D., 

p. 93, FN 38] 

Congress would soon exact its revenge on Dodge, in bittersweet fashion, for his improper 

advocacy of the unsuccessful Federal-aid bill and his close ties to the NGRA. The 1906 

Agriculture Appropriation Act approved by President Roosevelt on March 3, 1905, 

fulfilled his hope by combining the OPRI and the Division of Tests of the Bureau of 

Chemistry under the name Office of Public Roads (OPR), giving the new agency the 

permanent status Dodge had sought by providing for a statutory roll, and increasing its 

annual budget to $50,000. It would now include a Chief of Records, an Instrument 

Maker, and six clerks. 

However, the legislation specified that the new OPR was to be headed by a Director 

"who shall be a scientist and have charge of all scientific and technical work." Congress 

had aimed this language at Dodge, who was a lawyer and, therefore, excluded from 

serving as Director of the new Agency he had fought to create. 

On March 21, 1905, Dodge was in Elmira, New York, for the second annual meeting of 

the New York and Chicago Road Association. By this time, Dodge knew that his days as 
153

Director soon would be coming to an end under the new appropriations act. As a result, 

his afternoon address to the association took on the feel of a summing up. He began: 

It has been my duty for the past six years to represent the United States 

Government in the public office having charge and jurisdiction of the inquiry 

authorized by Congress in reference to whatever may be thought best and proper 

for the government of the United States to do. In connection with the 

improvement of the public roads, we have no settled policy in that respect, but we 

are trying to ascertain if we can [do] what the people want. 

After discussing the possibility of a transcontinental road, and the role of the New York 

and Chicago Road Association, he said: 

The bills passed by Congress from time to time have never established a 

Department of Highways; but, from year to year, they have carried small 

appropriations of money authorizing the Secretary of Agriculture to make 

investigations, and he has turned the matter over to me, but without definite 

instructions, and, as I say, the nature of the bill was so indefinite that we have 

never known just exactly what we were authorized to do or what we were 

expected to do. I have always felt like encouraging all associations and all road 

officers to go forward and do the best they could. I have been authorized to give 

some little help, which I have done in the way of building object lesson roads. 

We have adopted a policy that “God helps them who helps themselves.” And the 

government will only help them who help themselves. Therefore, we have only 

gone where the citizens in the place were sufficiently advanced in their ideas to go 

ahead and so something. 

Speaking of the 83 object-lesson roads built in 30 States, he said: 

I have found that the people have joined heartily in this operation. I have found 

that the roads were instructive, encouraging the people in making extensions of 

these roads; and that it has done great good and has especially stimulated a very 

earnest feeling among the citizens to have more of it done. 

As for national aid, he said: 

If the state can do all the work alone, all right. As to what share the United States 

should bear, I am not particular what the proportion should be, except to say it 

should not be less than one-fourth. Bills have been introduced, but these mostly 

provide for the payment of one-half by the United States. I want to say in this 

connection as giving us encouragement and support is the thought that the good 

example set by the State Aid in the East has been followed until seventeen of the 

states of the Union have taken steps in imitation of these pioneer State Aid states. 

He point out that, “More than half of our people are concentrated in cities and villages, 

more than seven-eighths of the wealth is concentrated or controlled in these cities.” As a 
154

result, “all of that population, being more than half, escapes from any share in bearing the 

burden or expense of this necessary improvement.” And yet, improving country roads 

benefited not only the farmer, but “gives a great gain to the people living in the cities.” 

He concluded: 

Let all unite, and on the principle that many hands make light work, we shall 

accomplish what otherwise could not be accomplished and what never was 

accomplished in any civilized country of the world without the aid of the general 

government of that country. [Good Roads Magazine, April 1905, p. 211-212] 

On June 21, Director Dodge was at Festival Hall in Portland, Oregon, for the NGRA’s 

annual convention, which was held just a few days before he would leave office at the 

end of the month. He spoke the following day on “What the Government is doing for 

Good Roads.” He said, in part: 

[We] find that the people generally, throughout the entire country, are taking an 

unusual interest in this subject and they are assembling in great numbers and in 

many places to listen to their educators and statesmen in regard to this great 

question, and the time is soon coming when the people’s representatives in the 

legislatures of the various states and in congress will be instructed to give friendly 

aid in the solution of the question. Many methods have been tried, but none have 

fully succeeded . . . . We have all imitated the prisoner in the story of the “Forty 

Thieves,” who said, “open wheat, open barley” to the door that obeyed no sound 

but “open sesame.” The real open sesame to the good roads problem is cooperation. Instead of appealing to the petty officers, the county officers, the state 

officers or the general government of the United States singly to do this great 

work, we should appeal to them all at once, asking the property-owners to pay a 

portion of the cost, the county a portion of the cost, the state a portion of the cost, 

and the United States government a portion of the cost. Co-operation in this great 

work is the proper thing because [it is] the necessary thing which corresponds to 

the composite nature of our government. Co-operation is the sign by which we 

shall conquer. 

On the final day of the convention, delegates adopted resolutions in support of county, 

State, and national aid; favoring convict labor, and praising Martin Dodge. [“The 

National Good Roads Convention,” Good Roads Magazine, July 1905, p. 447-452] 

Seely discussed Dodge’s legacy. “Dodge’s carelessness, naivete, or connivance clearly 

created the difficulties, for many men would have limited their relations with the NGRA 

after its self-serving nature became evident in 1902.” [Ph.D., p. 49] At the same time, 

Seely takes a broader view: 

Despite this series of near-scandals, Martin Dodge did very little to harm the 

Roads Office. No serious public outcry followed the last Good Roads Train [in 

1905] or the federal-aid legislation episode. In fact, he left the Office stronger 

than before, with a larger budget, a more diverse set of activities, an enhanced 
155

reputation as a source of technical information, and an enlarged public visibility. 

Martin Dodge’s tenure at the Office of Public Roads [Inquiries] must be 

considered successful in the long run. [Ph.D., p. 52-53] 

Logan Page Takes Charge

Unlike Martin Dodge—the lawyer, developer, and politician—Logan Page considered 

himself a scientist. In this respect, he was the embodiment of the Progressive Era 

Dating to the 1890’s, the Progressive movement was a response to disparities of wealth, 

transformation to an urban, industrial society, and a time when, as historian H. W. Brands 

put it, the “United States produced more than its normal quota of demagogues and 

dedicated reformers, scoundrels and paragons of goodwill.” Brands explained that: 

The Progressives had a wide and varied agenda, including political reforms such 

as the initiative and referendum, social reforms such as child labor laws and 

prohibition, economic reforms such as utility regulation and trust busting, and 

consumer protection reforms such as pure food and drug laws. But what most of 

the items on the Progressive agenda embodied in common was a desire to remedy 

the ills consequent to the industrialization and urbanization that transformed 

American life during the last half of the nineteenth century. [Brands, H. W., The 

Reckless Decade: America in the 1890's, St. Martin’s Press, 1995, p. 98, “normal 

quota,” p. 5.] 

To achieve these goals, the Progressives placed their faith in scientific experts such as 

Page to solve society's problems. The experts, the Progressives believed, could apply 

judgment based on facts and data, free of political taint and corrupt influence. 

As Director of the renamed OPR, Page quickly reorganized the agency to carry out the 

provisions of its new charter. He divided the OPR’s work into four classifications: 

construction, tests, information, and instruction. In June 1905, Page appointed Eldridge 

to be Chief of Records on the statutory roll established by Congress. In addition, as 

explained in the FY 1905 annual report, the “former system of carrying on office work 

and administrative details was found to be inadequate to meet the broadened scope of the 

work involved in the plan of reorganization.” He selected J. E. Pennybacker, Jr., to be 

Chief Clerk to supervise the office force. Page explained: 

The Office force was accordingly reorganized . . . and such disposition was made 

of the force as to provide a larger number of stenographers and to specialize the 

duties of the various clerks in order that responsibility for work to be done might 

be fixed and greater efficiency secured. At the same time care was taken that no 

stenographer or clerk should be assigned exclusively to one official, but by having 

the entire clerical force of the Office a unit under the direction of the chief clerk 

the time of each clerk might be utilized to the fullest extent. [Annual report, FY 

1905, p. 430-431] 
156

In FY 1906, Page reported that this new arrangement had secured “a uniform distribution 

of the work, increases the efficiency of each individual stenographer, and makes it 

possible to dispose of a much greater amount of work than would otherwise result.” He 

also reported that replacing the old system of alphabetical filing with “modern vertical 

subject files” had brought filing to “a high state of efficiency.” The OPRI’s mailing list 

of 10,000 names had been pruned to about one-third that number, with the names 

arranged by subject “thereby avoiding the promiscuous distribution of all classes of 

publications.” 

Further, Page had moved the OPR into a new headquarters, constructed in accordance 

with OPR plans, on February 1, 1906. The OPRI/OPR main offices had been on the 

fourth floor of the Department’s main building, while the laboratory work was conducted 

in the basement of the Bureau of Chemistry building—an “absolutely inadequate” 

arrangement that “seriously embarrassed the work.” The new four-story building, leased 

at $2,000 a year, contained “a testing laboratory and machine shop on the ground floor, 

executive and clerical offices on the second floor, library, property room, chemical and 

petrographical laboratories on the third floor, and drafting room and assistant engineers’ 

office on the fourth floor. The library was a Page addition, with a wide range of material, 

including journals in English, French, and German, for reference. (When the Department 

of Transportation (DOT) went into operation on April 1, 1967, the collection Page had 

begun became one of the largest core components of the DOT Library.) [Annual Report, 

FY 1906, p. 19-20] 

Page continued some of the promotional activities initiated by his predecessors, General 

Stone and Martin Dodge. Page worked with the States, as Stone and Dodge had, to 

develop model State-aid legislation and to encourage its adoption by the State 

legislatures. Page, even more than his predecessors, launched the OPR on a scientific 

evaluation of road building and gathering the technical data—the lifeblood of the 

Progressives—on which sound conclusions could be drawn. The collection of data on 

national road conditions, taxation, sources of revenue, road laws, and total expenditures 

was part of the effort. 

The object-lesson road program was expanded, as was the experimental road program 

General Stone had initiated. However, Page put the process on a more formal basis that 

would exclude NGRA conventions from featuring object-lesson roads. He issued a 

circular letter containing instructions on securing advice from the OPR. It said, in part: 

Ín order to obtain the assistance of this office in supervising and demonstrating 

methods of construction it is necessary for the properly constituted local 

authorities who have legal control of the roads in their community to make 

application in the manner herein provided . . . . The regular form on which all 

applications for the detail of road engineers and experts are to be made gives the 

exact conditions that must be complied with on the part of the local authorities 

before this office can co-operate with them to the extent of taking charge of actual 

construction or making arrangements for supplying machinery. 
157

Before detailed estimates of the cost of any proposed improvement can be made it 

is desirable that plans, profiles, and cross sections of the road should be prepared 

in accordance with the regulations of this office. The cost of making the 

necessary surveys for these plans will in general have to be borne by the local 

communities, but all estimates of cost and specifications will be made by this 

office. [Quoted in “Expert Advice in Road Building,” Good Roads Magazine, 

November 1905, p. 766-767] 

As with other transformations as the agency shifted from the OPRI to the OPR, Page’s 

circular letter put the process of securing object-lesson road projects on a rational, 

efficient scientific basis. 

Page was a foe of all methods of road building and maintenance that could not be 

supported by scientific research. For example, to examine why macadam pavements 

deteriorated under automobile use, Page conducted scientific analyses that included 

filming automobile speed runs on macadam roads to document and analyze the impact of 

the tires on the surface. These tests spelled the end for macadam pavements by 

demonstrating that they could not survive under auto tires. 

Given his scientific frame of reference, Page was impatient with the county and township 

officials who had dominated road building for decades and who had wasted millions of 

dollars on old-fashioned, time-worn building techniques that did not work. In 1912, for 

example, when Governor Walter R. Stubbs of Kansas suggested to Page that a county 

surveyor could supervise road construction as well as a highway engineer, Page replied, 

"It would be just as sensible to appoint an astrologer to build the good roads." 

He also objected to the "nonscientists" in the road community who advocated patented 

products and techniques that he considered worthless. In the OPR's annual report for 

1910, Page's impatience was clear. After several pages describing his scientific testing 

and application of the results, he observed that: 

Many worthless road preparations have been and are at present being 

manufactured and sold to the public through ignorance on the part of both 

producer and consumer . . . . These materials are sold under trade names, and as a 

rule carry no valid guarantee of quality. Specifications for such materials are 

therefore needed for the protection of the public. [p. 785-786] 

Page worked with the scientific community to develop specifications that would spell out 

how best to build roads. While building the OPR into the national leader in the science of 

road building, he had no patience with those who failed to live up to his standards. 

Soon after taking office, Page began to separate the new OPR from Dodge’s questionable 

practices, particularly the link with Colonel Moore and the NGRA. He noted some of the 

changes in the annual report he prepared in September 1905, covering FY 1905, which 

ended on June 30, 1905, while Dodge was still in office. Assistance to road organizations 

“by encouraging road conventions and taking part in such meetings” was curtailed 
158

somewhat during Dodge’s last year “in order that the services of the experts and special 

agents might be utilized to a greater extent in supervising road-construction work.” Page 

did not mention Secretary Wilson’s admonitions to Dodge on this point, but added: 

The propriety and value of Government participation on a large scale in roadconvention proceedings has often been questioned. During my connection with 

the Office my observation and experience have led me to believe that such 

participation may be questioned when the main object of the convention or 

meeting is agitation for the purpose of influencing legislation. Moreover, the 

results achieved through speeches by Government employees at popular 

gatherings of this nature can scarcely be considered as having any marked 

influence upon the progress of road improvement in the United States. 

He acknowledged “a field of real usefulness” that OPR speakers and lecturers could 

provide, as well as the “useful purpose” that road organizations served. He added: 

The problems that are most serious to rural communities, and those which it 

should be the province of specially equipped employees to explain at meetings of 

local officers and taxpayers, are what they need, how to go about getting it, and 

what their roads will cost. These speakers should be so well equipped that they 

could give definite and concise information on which the local communities 

might act with safety. [Italics in original.] 

Page continued that, “Much of the work embraced in the scope of the Office is of a 

scientific and technical nature and involves original thought and investigation.” He 

expected “properly qualified members of the Office” to keep in touch with organizations 

“having under consideration matters bearing in any way upon the purposes for which the 

Office was established.” 

These veiled criticisms were directed at Dodge. Although Dodge had difficulty 

complying with Secretary Wilson’s restrictions, Page would have no such problems. 

OPRI Bulletin No. 26, covering the National Good Roads Convention sponsored by the 

NGRA in St. Louis, would be the last bulletin to publish convention proceedings. Future 

OPR bulletins under Page would be scientific, data-based, and directly related to “the 

purposes for which the Office was established.” [P. 429-430] 

Seely summarized: 

Reacting to Dodge’s loose ethical standards, blatant political lobbying, and lack 

of professionalism, Page placed limits on convention appearances by OPR 

representatives and frostily denied any interest in legislative promotion. He also 

severed all ties to the NGRA, the good roads group with which Dodge had 

worked closely, and even started a mail fraud case against its head, W. H. Moore, 

that reflected the moral outrage of a typical Progressive. Page later boasted, “I 

fought Colonel Moore in the public press and he finally dropped his road work . . 
159

. . As you well know, there are a lot of human vultures feasting on the road 

movement. [Seely, book, p. 26] 

As Page put it in November 1911: 

The entire movement for better roads should be so systematized and everywhere 

placed on so high a plane of honest and earnest effort that the cheap charlatanism 

of the professional promoter and the bungling efforts of the well-meaning but 

uninformed citizen should be no longer permitted. 

Logan Page and the Road Improvement Trains 

From June 1, 1909 to October 16, 1909, the OPR displayed an exhibit at the AlaskaYukon Pacific Exposition. The exposition, classified as a World’s Fair, was held in 

Seattle on the future grounds of the University of Washington to celebrate the Pacific 

Northwest. Congress authorized a government exhibit at the exposition and specifically 

provided for OPR representation, according to America’s Highways 1776-1976: 

For its part of the exhibit, the OPR prepared a series of scale models, complete 

with miniature machinery, showing every aspect of roadbuilding. They were 

supplemented with a handbook, a series of moving pictures and stereopticon 

slides and a lecture on roads. [p. 76] 

Page’s annual report for FY 1909 modestly stated that, “The exhibit attracted general 

attention and undoubtedly did much to stimulate interest in the subject of road building.” 

[p. 6] The exhibit proved so popular that OPR began shipping it to other expositions and 

fairs, as summarized in the annual report for FY 1910: 

An elaborate and thoroughly successful exhibit was installed at the AlaskaYukon-Pacific Exposition at Seattle, and the same exhibit was afterwards taken to 

Omaha, Nebr., to the Corn Show and the Omaha Exposition. From that point it 

was shipped to Washington, D.C., where the models were on exhibition at the 

Builders’ Exchange Exhibit Company; later, the exhibit was installed at the 

Appalachian Exposition, Knoxville, Tenn. 

By March 1913, when OPR published its Descriptive Catalogue of the Road Models of 

the Office of Public Roads (OPR Bulletin No. 47), the exhibit, augmented with new 

models, had been displayed at: 

• Chicago: National Land and Irrigation Exposition 

• New York City: Travel and Vacation Exposition 

• New York City: Domestic Science Exposition 

• Atlantic City, New Jersey: American Road Congress 

• Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada: International Dry-Land Congress 

• Buenes Aires, Argentina: International Agricultural Exposition 

• Turin, Italy: International Exposition 
160

• “and at various other expositions and fairs.”[p. 7] 

An OPR road expert accompanied the exhibit to show the slides and present lectures. 

The exhibit proved so popular, according to America’s Highways 1776-1976, that OPR 

“arranged to transfer a professional model maker from the Smithsonian Institution to 

augment the OPR’s effort.” [p. 76] OPR Bulletin No. 47 described the models used in 

the exhibits: 

The models illustrate standard types of road construction and represent the 

modern ideas of highway engineers. All of them are built on the scale of 1 inch to 

the foot, or one-twelfth of the full size. With the exception of the brick model, 

they represent roads with a hardened surface 16 feet wide and with earth 

shoulders on each side about 6 feet wide . . . . Among the [types of modern 

construction] are models showing brick, concrete, asphalt block, macadam, sandclay, gravel, and earth roads. There are other models showing the process of 

maintenance, resurfacing, and bituminous macadam construction by the mixing, 

penetration, and prepared-filler methods. One model shows the various methods 

of draining and strengthening unsuitable bases for road foundations, while another 

shows a typical method of treating gravel or macadam roads to make them 

dustless and to prevent their disintegration under automobile traffic. 

In addition, the exhibition included a historical displays illustrating Roman roads, French 

roads, and the road theories of Pierre-Marie-Jèrôme Trèsaguet, Thomas Telford, and John 

Loudon MacAdam. 

The success of the exhibits prompted the Pennsylvania Railroad Company to propose a 

Road Improvement Train in 1911. According to a contemporary article by Dean John 

Price Jackson of the College of Engineering at Pennsylvania State College, the purpose 

was two-fold: 

First to urge the progressive citizens of the Commonwealth to aid in promoting 

the adoption of more efficient methods of expending the local township road 

taxes; and, second, to gain support for more efficient and business like road 

legislation such as that contained in the admirable proposals of [State] Senator 

Sproul and his associates. [“The Good Roads Train,” Journal of the Engineers’ 

Society of Pennsylvania, March 1911, p. 107] 

(The Sproul Act, introduced by State Senator William C. Sproul, established 296 routes 

between county seats as the State Highway System. Under the law, which was enacted 

on May 11, 1911, the State Highway Department was responsible for maintaining and 

improving Legislative Routes, as they were called, totaling 8,835 miles. The act also 

bolstered the State Highway Department’s engineering force. Although amended many 

times, in part to increase the number of Legislative Routes, the Sproul Act would be the 

basic highway law in Pennsylvania for decades. Sproul, who would serve as Governor 
161

from January 21, 1919, to January 16, 1923, was known as “Father of Good Roads” in 

the State.) 

These were the types of goals Page endorsed—efficient construction techniques and 

focused State highway legislation. Despite his objections to the Good Roads Trains of 

the Dodge era, he agreed to cosponsor the Pennsylvania Road Improvement Train. The 

Engineering School of the Pennsylvania State College organized the educational work of 

the train. 

Page, in his annual report for FY 1911, described the train: 

The train consisted of an exhibit car, which contained not only the models . . . but 

also a large number of enlarged photographs, illustrating various features of the 

road subject, and a set of pictures furnished by the Pennsylvania highway 

department. 

A lecture car was provided in which stereopticon lectures were given during the 

day and evening at each stopping place by representatives of this office, of the 

State highway department, and of the State college. Two other cars were 

provided with exhibits consisting of full-size road-building machinery, including 

crushers, elevators and bins, and a number of homemade devices, such as split-log 

drags and concrete rollers. [p. 42] 

Page designated Donald H. Winslow, OPR’s Superintendent of Road Construction, as 

OPR’s representative to the train, which began in Harrisburg on January 25, 1911, and 

completed its run on March 28 at State College. Page boasted of the train’s success: 

During that time, it stopped at 165 places, where the exhibits were displayed and 

174 lectures were delivered. The success of this project is shown by the fact that 

approximately 53,000 people attended the lectures and examined the exhibits. In 

many places, the crowds were so large that the lectures were repeated. At other 

places, where the car would not accommodate the audiences, the meetings were 

held in courthouses, opera houses, etc. [p. 42] 

The success of the Pennsylvania Road Improvement Train prompted the OPR to 

cooperate with the Southern Railway on a similar venture, which ran from May 1, 1911 

in Mobile, Alabama, to October 28, 1911, in Richmond, Virginia. W. W. Finley, 

president of the Southern Railway, described the purpose of the train in a letter to Good 

Roads (formerly Good Roads Magazine): 

The purpose of the operation of this train is to arouse increased interest in the 

subject of improved roads in the territory traversed by the lines of the company; to 

teach farmers and road officials the fundamental principles of road building and 

maintenance, and to encourage the organization of local good road associations. 

[“A Good Roads Train in the South,” Good Roads, May 1911, p. 196] 
162

The railway company sponsored the train in cooperation with the OPR and the American 

Association for Highway Improvement. Page had formed the association in November 

1910 when he invited approximately 30 State and interstate organizations (highway 

agencies, railroads, and good roads associations encompassing all aspects of the Good 

Roads Movement) to meet in Washington. Page, who was elected president, intended the 

association to be an umbrella organization "to harmonize and correlate all efforts for the 

improvement of the public roads." The final stop of the Southern Railway Road 

Improvement Train was the association’s first annual American Road Congress in 

Richmond. 

(In 1912, the association shortened its name to the American Highway Association. 

Given the strength of groups such as the American Automobile Association, the 

American Association of State Highway Officials, and the American Road Builders 

Association after creation of the Federal-aid highway program in 1916, the Board of 

Directors of the American Highway Association voted to dissolve the group on October 

30, 1917.) 

Southern Good Roads magazine contrasted the road improvement train with previous 

trains, run since the original Southern Railway Good Roads Train, noting that considering 

the sponsors, “the tour will be no cheap advertising scheme, promoted and designed for 

the purpose of boosting the Southern.” The Southern Railway would, of course, receive 

valuable publicity, but in the magazine’s view: 

The Southern has come to the realization of the vast economic importance of the 

good roads movement and is ready and willing to spend many thousands of 

dollars to further it. 

The magazine also quoted the Atlanta Journal’s description of the contents of the train: 

In the coach provided with stereopticon equipment, will be views showing all the 

advantages of good roads and disadvantages of bad ones. There will be shown, 

for instance, the manner in which doctors are caught in the ruts of bad roads while 

on their way to patients; undertakers’ wagons delayed on the way to the 

cemeteries; automobilists thrown on the road by a boulder in a bad road; and two 

loads of cotton, one from a bad road territory, and the other from a good road 

territory, the difference in weight showing the profits and losses that come from 

good and bad roads. 

In the second car, there will be large photographs showing some of the finest 

roads in the world, including the well-nigh perfect roads of France. These 

photographs will illustrate nearly every phase of the good roads movement. For 

the farmers and experts, there will be working models in this car, showing 

materials that make the best roads; the way a soggy clay road can be improved by 

the mixing of sand; the way macadam and other hard roads are built; and practical 

suggestions which will be of benefit in the case of each individual. If the farmer 

has been at a loss how to improve his road, he can find out all about it by 
163

attending the train exhibit. Arrangements may even be made so that the persons 

in each town along the route to be traversed may send in specific questions before 

the train arrives, they being answered in the lectures that will be given. The aim 

of the Southern Railway company and the government is to aid each individual 

case as much as to stimulate general interest in the good roads movement. 

[“Good Roads Train for the South,” Southern Good Roads, May 1911, p. 15] 

According to Page’s annual report for FY 1912, the train “visited 210 counties, and 

stopped at 251 towns, where 288 lectures were delivered to 46,733 persons. [p. 38] 

In FY’s 1912 and 1913, the OPR participated in several road improvement trains 

covering all parts of the country. The final road improvement train identified in the 

OPR’s annual reports was operated by the St. Louis and San Francisco Railway from 

March 25, 1912, at Brownsville, Texas, through August 31, 1912, at Morocco, Indiana, 

although the reports continued to mention the travels of the OPR exhibits by other means. 

Good Roads trains were operating as late as 1916. On January 2, 1916, The New York 

Times reported that, “A number of the States are planning to send out good roads trains 

this Winter, to reach the farmer at a time when he is not busy with his crops.” The 

automobile was the “great missionary” for good roads, as evidenced by the fact that “50 

per cent of the machines disposed of last year were bought by farmers.” The article 

added: 

It is odd but true that the farmer when seated in his new automobile sees the need 

of better roads much more readily than when on the front seat of a four-horse 

wagon hauling a load to town. 

The Times continued: 

Railroads are co-operating with the State Highway Departments in sending out 

good road trains. One of the States that will operate a train of this kind is 

Tennessee. It will make the trip in January. Representatives of the Federal as 

well as the State Department will be on board. Miniature models of various kinds 

of roads will be exhibited. At all points of community importance along the route 

lectures, illustrated by moving pictures and lantern slides, will be given. [“‘Good 

Roads’ By Train Loads,” The New York Times, January 2, 1916] 

The decline of the Good Roads Trains/Road Improvement Trains occurred while the 

Good Roads Movement was succeeding in convincing the Federal Government to 

increase its role. The Post Office appropriations act of August 24, 1912, provided 

$500,000 for an experimental post-road construction program. The idea was for the 

United States Post Office and Department of Agriculture to experiment with the idea of 

Federal-aid for roads on which rural delivery was or might be established. The Federal 

share was one-third of the total cost, with State or county governments providing the 

balance. America’s Highways 1776-1976 pointed out: 
164

This was a very large assignment for both Departments and one that was to test 

their negotiating skills to the utmost. Unfortunately, Congress failed to provide 

either agency with administrative funds to carry out the Act, so they had to secure 

the necessary engineers and postal inspectors by cutting down on other activities. 

[p. 81] 

The experimental program was beset by difficulties, including lack of interest on the part 

of some States. America’s Highways 1776-1976 summarized the results: 

The first post road to be completed was opened to traffic in 1914. It was a direct 

road, extending 141⁄2 miles west from Florence, Alabama, to Waterloo. This 

program, with congressional extensions, dragged on for four more years, until the 

last post road, in Dubuque County, Iowa, was opened in 1918. From the start, this 

program was a very considerable burden on the Office of Public Roads, yet in 

carrying it out, the OPR learned valuable lessons which Director Page was able to 

pass on a few years later to the framers of the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916. The 

most important of these recommendations was that Federal aid should be 

dispensed only through the 48 States, avoiding the complexities of dealing with 

the Nation’s more than 3,000 counties. [p. 83] 

When President Woodrow Wilson approved the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916, he 

launched the Federal-aid highway program on a framework that, years earlier, Martin 

Dodge and M. O. Eldridge had imparted to Congressman Brownlow in his ill-fated bill. 

Martin Dodge’s Later Years

After leaving office, Dodge remained in the Washington area, living at 1513 O Street, 

NW. He had purchased land in Prince George’s County, Maryland, where he built a 

home in 1903, but the O Street address remained his primary residence. Naming his 

property Dodge Park, he reserved a portion for his family and developed homes on the 

remainder for sale. Dodge Park is still shown on State maps in the Glenarden area near 

the intersection of U.S. 50 and State Route 202 (Landover Road), not far from the Capital 

Beltway (I-95/I-495). According to the Geauga County Historical Society, Dodge “spent 

the remaining years in study and real estate operations in and around Washington.” 

While pursuing business activities, Dodge retained his interest in good roads, appearing 

for speeches and congressional testimony as late as the 1920’s, but initially in 

conjunction with the NGRA. On September 25 and 26, 1905, he was in Cincinnati for a 

convention sponsored by the Cincinnati Associated Organizations in conjunction with the 

NGRA. He was in Hamilton, Ohio, on September 27, 1905, for a convention sponsored 

by the NGRA, and in Springfield, Ohio, for another NGRA convention, this one in 

cooperation with the Commercial Club. Dodge addressed the convention on the 

“National Good Roads Movement.” The NGRA sponsored conventions in other Ohio 

cities with Dodge in attendance through October. 
165

On November 8 and 23, Colonel Moore wrote to Powers, the editor of Good Roads 

Magazine, regarding the organization’s future. The NGRA executive board had met on 

November 8, but the absence of a quorum prevented some unspecified business from 

being conducted. Nevertheless, the board decided not to hold the NGRA’s annual 

convention in St. Louis, where the organization was based in the Laclede Building: 

It was decided not to hold the National Convention in St. Louis this year, as the 

question of raising the funds to meet the necessary expenses is a most important 

one and it is believed the funds cannot be raised in St. Louis at this time. In the 

last two years St. Louis has raised $10,000 to meet the expenses of holding two 

great National and International Good Roads Conventions. It is not considered 

just that St. Louis should raise the funds to pay the expenses of all the National 

Conventions. 

Moore’s November 23 letter recounted the election of officers for the NGRA on 

November 15. Moore would remain president. Arthur C. Jackson of Damariscotta, 

Maine, was elected secretary in place of Colonel Richardson. Colonel Moore predicted 

that “in 1906, this association will enter upon the most extensive campaign of education 

for good roads that has ever been inaugurated in the United States. [“The National Good 

Roads Association,” Good Roads Magazine, December 1905, p. 844] 

Colonel Richardson submitted his resignation from the NGRA in a letter to NGRA 

members dated December 20, 1905. The letter began: 

Not feeling myself in harmony with the plans, methods and policies of President 

W. H. Moore in the management of the National Good Roads Association, I 

herewith, through the Good Roads Magazine, tender my resignation as secretary 

of said Association, to take effect January 1st, 1906. 

He indicated that he would continue to support the cause of good roads, emphasizing that 

he believed the Federal Government should play a growing role: 

It is a subject for the General Government, as well as for the States. The roads 

must be classified into National, State, and County, and their cost, construction 

and maintenance apportioned according to classification. 

We must break away from the common conclusion that the roads are solely for 

the agricultural districts. All interests, commercial, industrial and agricultural, 

must unite under the instrumentality of the general and state governments to 

secure such a system of public roads as this country demands. [“Resignation of 

R. W. Richardson,” Good Roads Magazine, January 1906, p. 40] 

Dodge was in Columbus, Ohio, on January 16-17, 1906, for the first convention of the 

Ohio State Good Roads Association, which he had helped organize in October 1905. He 

had established a committee of 100 members (one from each of Ohio’s 88 counties, plus 

12 at large), each of whom committed to asking at least 10 other people to attend, with a 
166

goal of at least 1,000 participations. Attendance was somewhat less, but several hundred 

participants adopted resolutions supporting State aid ($500,000 for the present year, and 

$1 million in 1907), recommending the use of convict labor in manufacturing road 

materials; and urging that tax revenue for roads be distributed equitably among the towns 

and agricultural areas. They also approved a permanent organization for the association, 

with Dodge as president. [“Ohio State Good Roads Convention,” Good Roads Magazine, 

January 1906, p. 41, and “The Ohio State Good Roads Association,” Good Roads 

Magazine, February 1906, p. 126] 

In mid-1908, Jackson replaced Colonel Moore as president of the NGRA. Martin Dodge 

was one of several vice-presidents of the organization, which continued to stage 

conventions, encourage the creation of local good roads associations, and promote direct 

Federal involvement in funding road projects. For example, the NGRA, during its 

National Good Roads Congress in Chicago on June 15, 1908, adopted a resolution 

stating, “That it is the sense of the congress that the general government of the United 

States should pay at least one-fourth of the cost of constructing and maintaining a 

permanent system of highways.” 

President Roosevelt, who was not running for reelection in November 1908, sent a letter 

to the convention that summarized themes from his 1903 speech in St. Louis. He 

explained that good roads were a hallmark of permanent greatness. By analogy, 

therefore, the United States, which had spread across the continent and will rise to 

“leadership such as no other nation has ever attained,” should “have a right to demand 

that such a nation should build good roads.” As he had said in 1903, he saw good roads 

as part of the effort to halt the flow of population to the cities: 

It is a good thing to encourage in every way any tendency which will serve to 

check an unhealthy flow from the country to the city, and the building of good 

roads will minimize the isolation of the country districts, the same as the trolley, 

telephone and electricity. [“The National Good Roads Congress,” Good Roads 

Magazine, July 1908, p. 243] 

The April 1910 issue of Southern Good Roads contained Dodge’s article on “State and 

National Aid in Good Roads Construction.” Recalling the longstanding practice of 

requiring the people along a road to bear the cost of its construction and maintenance, he 

said: 

It is a notable fact that there is no state or nation in the world that has ever 

produced a permanent system of highways so long as the burden of cost rested 

entirely on the local inhabitants. Accordingly new plans have been devised and 

introduced within the last ten years in many of the northern states, and a few 

southern states, whereby aid is brought to the local communities so as to lighten 

the burden . . . . This new plan which has superceded [sic] the old theory and 

practice to a greater or less extent in about half of the states of the Union, is 

known as the state aid plan, and has worked better than any other introduced up to 

the present time. 
167

After discussing the State aid programs in several States, Dodge turned to the idea of 

national aid: 

The improvement of our highways is a necessary and beneficial thing. It cannot 

be done by the local communities without aid. It would be unjust to call upon any 

state without great cities or concentrated wealth to give this necessary aid; and 

especially so when for every dollar of public money she has in her hand the 

general government is holding in trust, as it were ten times that amount which 

must be disbursed for public purposes, and will be disbursed by the 

representatives in congress as they are directed by their constituents. 

He quoted Senator Daniel’s comments in Lynchburg during the Southern Railway Good 

Roads Train regarding the “universal public benefaction” of good roads, adding: 

But there should be added to it this further fact, that the road is not alone for the 

use of those living in the locality. Any person coming from any part of the 

country or of the world, for that matter, has an equal right with every other to use 

the highway, and we find that there is an increasing tendency on account of the 

introduction of automobiles to put the public highways to a more extended use 

than ever before. 

He dismissed the constitutional argument against a Federal role as “a sort of tradition of 

the elders.” With millions of dollars authorized for internal improvements other than 

highways, “the whole thing has become an exploded tradition.” He was not talking about 

Federal construction: 

It is not proposed, however, to revive the policy which prevailed when the 

national road was built, because that involved a change of jurisdiction from the 

state and local authority to the national authority . . . . But the proposition is to 

extend the principle of state aid . . . so as to include national aid to the extent of 

one third or possibly one half of the cost of construction. 

He described how a national aid program would work: 

The aid given by the general government should be of a contributory nature 

only[,] available, however, on condition that the states or civil subdivisions 

therein should contribute their proportion. The local authorities should initiate all 

proceedings. The matter of construction and expenditure of the money should 

remain as now with the state or local authorities, and the supremacy of the state in 

its legal jurisdiction should be upheld and remain. 

He assured readers that there was “no difficulty and no mystery” about how the program 

would work. New York had “given a complete demonstration of how the matter works 

by co-operation of the state, and the county and the smaller sub-division adjacent to the 
168

road.” This principle could be applied “without difficulty” by the United States. He 

concluded: 

In a composite government like our own [,] concentration of authority is not 

desirable. Therefore the only feasible thing which is left us is cooperation and 

that should be our “cloud by day and our pillar of fire by night.” Let us follow 

this and we shall come safely out of the wilderness of mud where we have 

wandered for more than three times forty years. 

(The quoted phrase is from Exodus 13:21-22: 

By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their 

way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by 

day or night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left 

its place in front of the people.)

The article concluded on page 7, which reprinted “Praise from High Source,” namely Mr. 

Martin Dodge of Dodge Park, Maryland. On March 17, 1910, Dodge had written to the 

editor to praise the second issue of the magazine. Saying he was familiar with all the 

good roads magazines, “you have excelled the most excellent.” Acknowledging that 

“most of the good roads magazines have not succeeded,” he encouraged the editor by 

saying, “yours is so much superior that I feel sure its days will be ‘long in the land.’” 

On May 25, 1911, Dodge delivered a speech on similar themes to the Fourth National 

Good Roads Congress, held in Birmingham, Alabama. The Southern Railway Road 

Improvement Train operated in cooperation with the OPR had arranged to be in 

Birmingham for the congress. Better Roads described the train and its contents upon its 

arrival in the city: 

The train contains models of all kinds of roads, models of road machinery, the 

finest photographs of roads which have ever been taken, lantern slides showing all 

kinds of roads, and a lecture room where talks on road building are delivered. 

The train is in charge of W. J. Hurlbut, agent of the Land and Industrial 

Department from Washington, D.C., with D. H. Winslow and Mr. H. C. Wells, 

superintendents of road construction, United States Department of Agriculture, 

who are two of the best experienced experts in highway construction. 

Since the train started from Mobile on the first day of May, twenty-two towns 

were visited and some thirty lectures given by the government experts, followed 

in each case by demonstration lectures in the exhibit car, where the models 

showing roads constructed of different materials are explained, together with 

exact working models of the most modern road-working machinery. 

A fine series of stereopticon views showing many comparisons between good and 

bad roads, has been of great interest to the people in attendance. Thousands have 
169

attended the lectures and demonstrations during the tour of Alabama, and have 

expressed their determination to more strongly advocate the construction of 

permanent public highways in the future and to be built under the supervision of 

competent highway engineers. [June 1911, p. 77] 

Page delivered an address on the progress of the good roads movement in the Southern 

States. (The speech was widely reprinted in good roads journals.) However, the 

congress was cosponsored by the NGRA, which was still a target for Page even without 

Colonel Moore at its head. On October 1, 1911, the Washington Herald reported that: 

Declaring that his organization is not authorized, that his motives are actuated by 

his own interests, and that whatever funds he obtained would go into his own 

pockets, officials of the Office of Public Roads of the Department of Agriculture 

last night denounced President Arthur Jackson, of the National Good Roads 

Association, following the announcement from Chicago that the latter had started 

a campaign to raise $1,000,000. 

The charges made against President Jackson came like a bombshell to the 

automobilists of this city. It is stated that post-office inspectors are already on his 

trail and are making determined efforts to run him down. This action was brought 

against him by the complaint of the public roads bureau and other associations . . . 

. 

Director Logan Waller Page . . . stated last night that there was nothing in this 

plan that was not self-centered and purely in the interests of Mr. Jackson. “I have 

known of Mr. Jackson for some time,” said Mr. Pages, “and I know his motives 

perfectly. His plan is intended to benefit no one but himself, and the funds are to 

go to no one but himself. I can assert that Mr. Jackson’s plan of operation is not 

one that will meet with the approval of any law-abiding citizen.” 

Jackson’s plan, announced during the National Good Roads Congress in Chicago, was 

that he would seek subscriptions for a road improvement fund from railroads, farmers, 

automobile companies, and manufacturers. He would open a national office in Chicago 

and operate the fund “along ‘sane business’ lines, and that the fund would be held at the 

disposal of the society as a whole,” according to the newspaper article. 

Page was skeptical even of the Chicago convention: 

“We are reliably informed,” said a high official of the bureau last night, “that the . 

. . convention in Chicago was attended by about three persons, and that none of 

these had any say in the outlining of the campaign. The same scheme was tried in 

Baltimore about three years ago without success. This man Jackson has used the 

publicity given the good roads movement as a means to further his own ends. He 

is the kind of a man, from all we can learn, who would stop at nothing. Most 

remarkable is the fact that his organization, which is unauthorized and in cooperation with no recognized organization, could be allowed to continue this long. 
170

He visited Washington some time ago and reserved a room in the New Willard 

[hotel] to hold a meeting for the benefit of the good roads movement. As far as 

we have been able to learn, about three persons attended this meeting. This is 

about the caliber of all of his actions, and this is why complaint has been made 

against him.” [Reprinted in “Is the National Good Roads Association a Fraud?” 

Southern Good Roads, October 1911, p. 15] 

Dodge was at the Hotel Raleigh in Washington on December 11, 12, and 13, 1911, for 

formation of the United States Highway Association. The association was dedicated to 

promoting Federal-aid in highway construction through passage of legislation in the 

present session of Congress. A description of the meeting in Good Roads Magazine

stated: 

A bill providing for the appropriation of money by the federal government to be 

used in the construction of state and interstate roads was actually drawn up and 

was introduced in congress Dec. 12. It is stated that a request will also be made 

for the creation of a new federal department with a cabinet officer at its head, 

which will have under its direct supervision the highways, and electric and steam 

railroads of the country. 

The bill called for a 50-50 Federal-State partnership “for the construction of State and 

interstate trunk-line highways in or through said State.” Federal engineers were to 

survey, locate, and decide upon the trunk-line highways “cooperating with engineers of 

the State government.” Further, the trunk highways “shall be selected as to connect with 

surveys through other States to form transcontinental highways.” 

Dodge addressed the group and was elected fourth vice-president. General T. Coleman 

du Pont, the well-known wealthy road advocate from Delaware, was elected president. 

Also in December 1911, Better Roads carried a short article by Dodge titled “Senator 

Cullon’s $148,000,000 Bill for Federal Aid to Road Building.” Senator Shelby M. 

Cullom of Illinois was a former Governor of the State (1877-1883) who had served in the 

U.S. House of Representatives (1865-1871) and was elected to the Senate in 1882, 

serving in the position through March 1913. He was a long-time good roads enthusiast 

who had helped secure Senate passage of General Stone’s 1892 bill to create a temporary 

National Highway Commission to formulate plans for a national school to teach road and 

bridge building, study good road building techniques in the States and foreign countries, 

prepare a road exhibit for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois, 

and make recommendations for a permanent commission. (The bill failed in the House, 

but the $10,000 appropriation in 1893 set the ORI in motion.) 

Dodge explained that the saying “all roads lead to Rome” referred to the idea in ancient 

Rome that “all roads radiated from the golden mile post in the Roman Forum and in their 

conception and construction proceeded outward and not inward.” Senator Cullum, 

Dodge said, “has imitated the Roman plan by introducing a bill in the United States 
171

Senate which provides for seven great national roads to radiate from the city of 

Washington to the various parts of the country.” 

The bill spelled out the destinations and intervening cities to be connected via “the most 

direct route practicable.” It also gave each route a colorful name: 

 

• Washington National Interstate Highway to Portland, Maine 

• Roosevelt National Interstate Highway to Niagara Falls, New York 

• Lincoln National Interstate Highway to Seattle, Washington 

• Jefferson National Interstate Highway to San Francisco, California 

• Grant National Interstate Highway to San Diego, California 

• Monroe National Interstate Highway to Austin, Texas 

• Lee National Interstate Highway to Miami, Florida 

The proposal involved construction of macadam roads with a combined length of 12,000 

miles. This mileage would pass through all but six States (Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, 

Oregon, Vermont, and Wyoming), but backers thought that slight deviations in routing 

could bring these States into the network as well. At an estimate of $12,000 a mile, the 

plan would cost $148 million. Revenue was to be raised by issuing bonds, with tolls 

collected to repay their cost and cover maintenance. [“Vast Road System,” Better Roads, 

September 1911, p. 29-31] 

Dodge, in December 1911 article, considered the names an important feature of the plan: 

The rhetoricians speak of monuments more lasting than brass and more solid than 

marble, but there can be no more lasting monument than a great road built and 

used by a great people, that bears the name of any distinguished citizen. 

The bill’s features, he said, were even more remarkable because of who sponsored it, 

Senator Cullum: 

He is a stand-pat republican senator of great length of service in the Senate, and 

much greater length in the public service . . . . During all these years of public 

service he and those most closely associated with him have not looked with favor 

upon legislation of the kind now introduced, and the fact that a conservative 

stand-pat republican senator would introduce this bill shows in the highest degree 

the trend of public sentiment which most certainly is strongly in favor of federal 

aid to road building. [Better Roads, December 1911, p. 38-39] 

Senator Cullom introduced the plan at the request of former Representative J. Floyd King 

of Louisiana who said that he had the backing of prominent Members of Congress and 

businessmen “who are preparing to push the bill to passage as quickly as possible.” Mr. 

King expected opposition from some quarters, but was “confident of overcoming it.” 

[Better Roads, September 1911, p. 29-31] Nevertheless, Senator Cullom’s bill, like the 

bill conceived by the United States Highway Association, went to committee and never 

emerged. 
172

On January 16 and 17, 1912, the American Automobile Association sponsored the First 

Annual Federal Aid Good Roads Convention in Washington, D.C. Martin Dodge 

addressed the convention on January 17. He indicated that he had come to listen to the 

speakers, not to give a speech, but had asked for the opportunity after a delegate from 

Ohio had objected to adoption of a resolution in support of national aid. Governor 

Judson Harmon had appointed the delegate, Mr. O. C. Barber of Barberton, Ohio. Barber 

had said this was his first good roads convention and while he understood the value of 

good roads, he could not give advice as others have “because I do not know about many 

things they have discussed.” However, he had little confidence in Washington: 

I can’t say today whether I would approve of governmental aid, of Federal aid to 

good roads. I think we ought to be independent enough in our respective homes, 

to get up spirit enough to build our roads . . . . So when you go home, don’t trust 

too much on these fellows in Washington. They have kept us in trouble for many 

years and they will keep on. 

Barber also had speculated on what would happen if a bill made its way through 

Congress: 

I wouldn’t undertake to get a bill through Congress that would be any relief to us 

whatever . . . . Why pass this money through an agency that has a faculty of 

distributing, according to their judgment I suppose, and some of it drops by the 

side? Go home and get our own county thoroughly enthused with improving your 

roads; go to your state and get them thoroughly enthused with improving the state 

roads and helping you to that extent, and I think you will accomplish more than as 

though you stayed in Washington for a year or two all together. 

In response to these comments, Dodge said he had heard several speakers state that “the 

time for education in reference to public sentiment had passed away,” but that was “news 

to me” especially in view of Mr. Barber’s comments: 

[In] view of the fact that the gentleman from Ohio, certainly an enterprising man 

and coming a long distance to participate here, should arise and say there was no 

advantage in such a plan; which would indicate that there are many yet who will 

stand in need of information about this question. 

He reminded the delegates that he had been fighting for good roads for 20 years, 

beginning in his home State of Ohio, “and I entered into this vineyard when the harvest 

was great, but the laborers few.” He reminded them of the bill “I prepared as director of 

the Good Roads Office” and introduced by Congressman Brownlow. “All of the other 

bills” spoken of during the convention “have been copies of it with certain other features, 

many of which clearly should be eliminated.” 
173

The great shift of people to cities that had occurred within the last generation involved a 

redistribution of wealth as well as population. Relying, as States and counties did, on the 

“ancient policy” of expecting rural residents to pay for good roads was insufficient: 

Therefore, if we would secure the support and revenue of all of the people to build 

the roads for the use of all of the people, we must change our laws, as we have 

wisely done in many states, so as to raise a general fund, of money out of which 

we draw some, and possibly in some cases all of the revenue necessary to build up 

and maintain the roads. 

The same was true at the national level. Although wealth and population were not 

concentrated in Washington, “the great public money of our people is concentrated and is 

in the hands of your members of Congress here.” Where the States expend $1 per capita, 

Washington’s expenditures amounted to $10 per capita. With such an “abundance of this 

fund,” Dodge concluded, “we have the right to expect, and I think we have the necessity 

to demand that we should have a portion of this applied” to good roads. 

Testifying on the Townsend Bill 

On July 11, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson approved the Federal Aid Road Act 

establishing the Federal-aid highway program. As Dodge had advocated, it followed the 

State-aid pattern by providing Federal-aid funds to pay 50 percent of the cost of projects 

selected by the State highway agencies. In choosing the Federal-aid approach, Congress 

had rejected calls from many in the good roads movement for Federal construction of 

national highways. The agency he once headed was elevated to bureau status when it 

became the Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) on July 1, 1918. 

The Federal-aid highway program floundered in its early years, partly because entry into 

World War I in April 1917 limited the availability of engineers, workers, and materials 

for road construction projects. The biggest structural problem, however, was that the law 

allowed the States to use Federal-aid funds on any “rural post road,” defined as “any 

public road over which the United States mails now are or may hereafter be transported” 

in rural areas. With this broad definition, the States tended to spread the funds among 

their political subdivisions for short stretches of road rather than continuous cross-State 

roads connecting at the borders with roads in adjacent States. The definition also focused 

funds on farm roads—the limited network of interstate roads was rarely used for mail 

distribution; railroads carried the mail over interstate distances. 

The program’s difficulties gave renewed strength to advocates for Federal construction of 

national highways to support long-distance travel by automobile. However, with the 

1919 amendment and the stabilization of the economy in the post-war period, the States 

began to make increasing progress in developing Federal-aid highway projects. 

Senator Charles E. Townsend of Michigan, who had become Chairman of the Committee 

on Post Offices and Post Roads when Republicans gained control of both Houses of 

Congress in 1919, had introduced bills for Federal construction of interstate highways. 
174

He held hearings on the subject, but had not been able to build support for the measures 

in Congress. On April 29, 1921, Senator Townsend introduced S. 1355, which proposed 

establishment of a “post roads and federal highway commission” consisting of five 

members appointed by the President with Senate consent. The commission would 

establish an interstate system of highways following the most practicable routes. 

Agricultural, commercial, postal, and military needs would be considered in selecting the 

network. 

By this point, the Senator has abandoned the idea of Federal construction. His new bill 

authorized $200 million for a 2-year period, with the funds apportioned to the States, 

which would construct the system. (He later reduced the funding to $100 million for 1 

year, without the second year.) All contracts would be subject to a strengthened 

maintenance requirement. The Senator had added this provision in response to a call by 

new President Warren Harding. In a special address to Congress on April 12, 1921, just 

5 weeks after taking office on March 4, he had said: 

I know of nothing more shocking than the millions of public funds wasted in 

improved highways, wasted because there is no policy of maintenance. The 

neglect is not universal, but it is very near it. There is nothing the Congress can 

do more effectively to end this shocking waste than condition all Federal aid on 

provisions for maintenance. [Applause.] Highways, no matter how generous the 

outlay for construction, can not be maintained without patrol and constant repair. 

Such conditions insisted upon in the grant of Federal aid will safeguard the public 

which pays and guard the Federal Government against political abuses which tend 

to defeat the very purposes for which we authorize Federal expenditure. 

The 1916 Act had provided that the States were responsible for maintaining roads built or 

improved with Federal-aid highway funds. If OPR determined that a road was not being 

properly maintained, the State had 4 months to restore the road. If the State highway 

agency did not do so, the OPR would not approve further projects in the State until the 

road was restored to a condition of proper maintenance. Townsend strengthened the 

maintenance requirement by providing that if a State did not restore the road, the Federal 

commission would take measures to restore the road and deduct the cost from the State’s 

apportionment of Federal-aid highway funds. 

On May 13, 1921, Chairman Townsend held a hearing on S. 1355. Martin Dodge was 

one of the witnesses summoned for the hearing. Chairman Townsend, Senator Kenneth 

McKellar of Tennessee, and Senator J. Thomas Heflin of Alabama questioned Dodge. 

When the Chairman asked Dodge for his views on the proposed legislation. Dodge 

replied: 

I think one element or item has been overlooked or not fully considered, and that 

is that all the former legislation, both in the States and in the Nation, pertaining to 

this matter has always been based on the idea of giving aid and not on the idea of 

control. The idea of aid to road building did not originate in the Government 

here, but it originated in the different States, and it was after many years of 
175

experience that it was thought practicable to extend the same benefits in a general 

way to the States that the States, many of them, had already extended to the 

counties. The idea from first to last has been to bring aid to the counties, and it 

worked so well that we thought it was possible to extend that principle. 

After discussing the history of roads in the United States, Dodge continued: 

Twenty-three States adopted the State-aid plan under my jurisdiction, and nearly 

all of the principal States came in at that time. The others have been rather 

induced to come in later on account of the provision in the present law which 

requires them to have a State system by which they can participate. [The 1916 

Act required each State that wanted to participate in the Federal-aid highway 

program to have a State highway agency capable of carrying out the provisions of 

the program.] 

But what I want to say is that in all of these years I met all of the arguments—you 

speak of the arguments in Congress; I went into all of the States but three and held 

great conventions, built object-lesson roads and organized from the good-roads 

trains . . . . [In] those days we argued before conventions of taxpayers and not 

before conventions of tax eaters. Everybody that is now called upon to discuss 

the question, as far as I observe, is under pay. But we appealed to the God of 

Hosts, and the result of that appeal was as you expressed it; arguments were put 

forward in Congress, and finally the idea of giving aid prevailed, but not until it 

was abundantly assured that the aid given would not be coupled with control to be 

taken in the counties and in the State by national aid. I might say that I drew the 

original bill, the first ever introduced in the American Congress, introduced by 

Mr. Brownlow, of Tennessee, a Republican Member of Congress . . . . 

And all the other bills that have ever been introduced in the American Congress 

have been copies or slight amendments. In the first instance several years elapsed 

before there were any amendments at all; it was an actual reproduction of the 

same bill. But we did not have enough votes to pass it, and we did not get enough 

until this matter had been argued and these assurances given that whatever was 

done was an aid to be given and not a burden to be borne. We could never have 

succeeded at all in gaining consent to go into the States to build roads except as 

we were wanted, and should never expend any money except under the direction 

as well as the selection of the State officers. 

In response to a question from Senator McKeller, Dodge said that he considered the 

present system “a very wonderful success, and that its success rests upon the good will 

and cooperation of the people as a whole.” He considered that S. 1355 was not a bill to 

provide aid, as was the 1916 Act, but a bill for construction, with nothing about aid. In 

many respects, he said, “it seeks to put a burden on the State instead of taking one off.” 

He believed that “discontinuance of the present method would be very harmful in many 

respects.” 
176

Dodge was particularly concerned about the strengthened maintenance provision: 

It was brought out to-day that the oldest roads built under Federal aid are only 

three years of age and do not show much wear nor call for any immediate 

necessity of repair. Now, we should have failed entirely in all of our endeavor 

had we coupled that one feature that you now emphasize so much in the matter of 

repair. Our main effort was to get the thing, to get the road, believing that when 

the benefits of the road were shown by an object lesson, the benefits would be 

recognized as so very great that the people would be well satisfied to bear any 

reasonable and necessary expense to build, extend, maintain, and improve them. 

Had we coupled our propositions with the further proposition that in addition to 

the cost there would be another element of repair it would have defeated the 

purpose of our endeavor. 

He referred to an earlier witness who, in Dodge’s words, said “it is just as wasteful to 

build too expensive roads as to build those that are less expensive.” Noting that “we are 

not assured of any immunity against waste,” he cited two large States: 

[When] representatives of great States like New York and Pennsylvania plan for 

building roads that cost more than $60,000 a mile, planning to accommodate 

trucks 8 feet in width, with a proportional width of 30 feet for three to pass, it 

becomes very wasteful indeed. All these gentlemen are impressed—including the 

chairman, I presume—with the idea that the more money that is spent in such 

enterprises the less liability there is of waste, but that is by no means true. 

He pointed out that the country abandoned the National Road “almost in the day of its 

glory” when railroads took its place for long-distance transportation. Dodge continued: 

Now, I think that we are on the eve of other discoveries and the introduction of 

other means of transportation which would render these expensive roads a great 

loss—a much greater loss than is anticipated by those who are discussing this bill, 

who think the loss will be greater by reason of the fact that too perishable roads 

are liable to absorb money. We can not be certainly assured about this; but there 

is a fundamental error which has not been considered by the committee, I believe, 

in the whole system, and that is that the vehicle, which is put upon these roads 

weighs as much or more than it can carry. 

This fundamental error was behind “this mistaken idea of building such heavy and such 

lasting roads with a view of carrying such heavy burdens over them.” The fallacy was 

that “even with this great expenditure of money the cost of transportation over these 

roads, being built at Government expense, is not much lower than it was.” He recalled 

his service in Ohio: 

The first report that I made to the governor of Ohio was devoted partly to the 

consideration of the cost of transportation over the various means of 

transportation. Now, if we can not produce means of transportation that will 
177

cheapen the cost, then our labor is in vain; and there is such a very slight 

reduction in the cost at best, under prevailing conditions, that if you add to the 

tonnage the cost of construction—which, of course, nobody does add, but 

economically speaking we should—if you add those two items together, you find 

you have made a very small progress. 

Although everyone assumed that if “we are going faster we are going cheaper,” this was a 

“harmful error.” He said: 

I am perfectly confident that such roads as are recommended by the 

commissioners of the great States, and provided for by this bill . . . are being 

determined more with a view of through traffic and of high speed than of cheap 

traffic and the concentration of food to feed the already concentrated people . . . . 

It is said that this automobile truck will make a cheaper means. It will in some 

respects, but not at all for long distances . . . . We are now considering more or 

less the introduction of the air service, and many people think that the air service 

will furnish an even cheaper means of transportation for freight. I do not myself 

see how that is possible, but I do not deny its possibility. 

He did have a suggestion on how to reduce freight costs to a lower construction cost than 

“any existent means”—steel track roads. He displayed photographs of his demonstration 

at the Omaha exposition. He had seen similar demonstrations “many times, but I have 

not seen it applied practically as I would like to see it, and as it ought to be applied.” 

Senator Townsend asked if Dodge had an interest in the system. Dodge replied: 

I am not interested in the method, and there is no patent on it, but it is a patent fact 

that we are not utilizing the powers that God and nature have put within our reach 

for the benefit of our people. We are not providing the cheap means of 

transportation for food products—and I do not want to be misunderstood; it is for 

food products and for short distances that I am contending. 

He considered discussion of long-distance road transportation to be a waste because 

“long-distance transportation is well taken care of,” namely by railroads. He explained: 

But the long-distance transportation is a marvelous success, and it is the short 

distance, as I told you before, in which we have made practically no progress, and 

the reason why we have made no progress is partly the fact that we neglected it 

for more than 50 years, thinking that the other method would be sufficient and 

ample. But we have found out finally that it is not, and we have undertaken, and 

very beneficially, to introduce another means, and it is a marvelous success also; 

but that success is based upon the improvement of the roadbed in such a way as to 

bring it to the door of the farmer, or near, and so as to cover that short distance . . . 

. I think it is idle to talk about long-distance transportation with automobiles, 

because the very fact that we can not cheapen the cost, but are constantly 

increasing the cost, is the very thing which ought to deter us, if nothing more. But 

I say again that it would not be possible for any system that anybody is interested 
178

in to successfully introduce vehicles on costly roads that can only carry a burden 

equal to their own weight . . . . I say that all of your experts, Mr. Chairman, are 

not able to show any vehicle that is put on these roads for the transportation of 

freight that will carry much if anything more than its own weight. 

When Senator Townsend asked Dodge to confirm whether he was opposed to the 

building of highways for long-distance traffic, Dodge did so. He said it “would be very 

injurious, and not only because they would not serve the purpose, but would be a very 

wasteful expenditure; but most of all, it would shut off all improvements by other 

means.” 

At the request of Senator McKellar, Dodge confirmed: “I favor the present law.” 

Senator Townsend asked, then, if Dodge favored “turning this money, the Federal money, 

over to the States without any control by the Federal Government . . . and letting them 

spend it as they please?” Dodge replied: 

I would limit it as it is now limited, and probably with greater safeguards; but you 

have heard it testified here to-day that the three-year limit of the roads already 

built does not require any repair. 

Dodge did not explain what additional safeguards he favored, but debated with Senator 

Townsend whether the roads built thus far under the Federal-aid program needed 

maintenance. The oldest roads, Dodge repeated, were only 3 years old. “Any good road 

that is substantially built does not require any repairs for the first three years.” Dodge 

quoted a witness from Pennsylvania who said “the roads they are building would not 

require much [maintenance] for 20 years.” 

Townsend disputed the summary, saying, the witness testified “that the road should 

endure as long as the bonds [issued to finance construction], but it should be maintained 

to do it.” When the Senator observed that, “I do not think anybody has maintained that 

you could build a road and go off and leave it without keeping it in repair,” Dodge 

replied, “Time makes the test. That is the only test we need—time.” 

Senator Townsend asked if Dodge had any other objections to S. 1355 (“please be as 

brief as you can”). Dodge reiterated his primary concern: 

. . . that it does not provide for the necessary and proper cooperation between the 

State and the nation, and in view of that fact it takes away from the State its 

sovereign and necessary rights, and would likely result in a burden upon the State 

instead of a benefit to the State, whereas the entire theory and the entire practice 

in the past has been to come with aid and not with burdens, and leave control with 

the people and not take it away . . . . 

I certainly hope that nothing will be done by the committee or by the Congress 

that will cut off the wonderful and beneficial results that have come, and 
179

especially I hope that nothing will be done that will cut off that enterprise which 

has made it possible to bring about what we have already done. 

He also was concerned that “the committee seems to be dominated by the idea that 

everything is going to remain, and that they must build for the present existing 

circumstances, believing that they will be permanent”: 

My own idea is that that would be like making provision always to maintain 

wooden ships when iron ships have demonstrated their utility; and I am very sure 

that if we do not leave the door open so that enterprising individuals and States 

can introduce beneficial means, more suitable and cheaper, and possibly of 

greater extension, we would commit a great error. 

He did not indicate which beneficial means might be introduced. 

Senator Heflin asked Dodge how much would be accomplished if the present Federal-aid 

law remained in effect for 12 years. Dodge replied that he had not “figured that, but it 

would be a very great addition to the present system.” He added that “would be only a 

small proportion of the mileage of the entire country.” Heflin asked what percentage of 

roads would be improved in 12 years, which would be 16 years since enactment of the 

1916 Act. Dodge estimated that it would be less than 25 percent of all roads. When 

Heflin asked if that would not be a “great deal for a big country” like the United States, 

Dodge agreed: 

Yes; I think so. Gen. Sherman said that he had seen in 40 years more 

improvement in California than they had made in a thousand years in England. 

We are going at that rate in very many respects. That is what I contend for, and I 

do not want to cut it off. 

He reiterated his concern about reducing transportation costs: 

I am not at all in accord with the idea that seems to be prevailing that because 

wages go up transportation must go up. I say that you can keep wages high and 

transportation low, provided you introduce the proper means; but it is not a proper 

means to introduce vehicles that can only carry a burden equal to their own 

weight. You will never make any progress in that manner. 

Senator Heflin asked if Dodge thought that progress “under the old road law, the present 

law” has been pretty satisfactory to the people in the States. Dodge replied: 

Well, I was greatly satisfied. I am the author of the bill [the Brownlow Bill] 

under which the whole thing is brought about, and under my jurisdiction 23 States 

adopted the State aid plan, and, of course, it is gratifying to me and I would be 

very sorry to see it abandoned. I have fought a good fight, but I have not finished 

the course entirely yet. 
180

So, Senator Heflin asked, “you feel . . . that it would be a mistake to change it now?” 

Dodge thought so. “If it should prove to be so beneficial as gentlemen think, it would be 

time enough to do it later on, I think.” The Senator followed up by asking if Dodge 

agreed that letting the States build “these intercounty roads, serving the needs of the 

people in the State first” was better than “abandoning this cooperative work along that 

line and devoting the funds to building interstate roads?” Dodge replied: 

I think this: That if the great States should abandon it, as they might—and both of 

the commissioners of the great States have testified to the fact that it is of no 

benefit to them; that they put into the fund more than they take out—if they 

should decide to abandon it on that account, and the other States, the smaller 

States, should decide to withdraw their influence because they are not consulted, 

the whole idea will fail. I would be sorry to see that. Now, it is not at all 

necessary to make these changes at once, and unless, as I have suggested, you 

could agree so as to divide this fund and keep the two going, you might lose both 

very easily . . . . 

Now, of course, you all assume that you will always have that support and that 

vote for this appropriation. That may be so or may not be. I have seen the time, 

most of my life, when it was not so, and I would see it now if we had not pursued 

the policy which I have explained to you, by assuring the people that we would 

give aid and not take away control. 

Senator Townsend did not prevail. In 1919, Congress had adopted a compromise 

suggested by BPR Chief Thomas H. MacDonald, who had been appointed following the 

death of Logan Page on December 8, 1918. The amendment, included in the Post Office 

Appropriations Act for 1920 (February 28, 1919), refined Federal-aid eligibility by 

incorporating interstate roads into the definition of “rural post road”, which now read: 

. . . any public road a major portion of which is now used, or can be used, or 

forms a connecting link not to exceed ten miles in length of any road or roads now 

or hereafter used for the transportation of the United States mail. 

Under the Federal Highway Act of 1921, which President Harding approved on 

November 9, 1921, Congress limited Federal-aid funds to a designated system of up to 7 

percent of all rural public roads in each States, with three-sevenths of the system 

consisting of roads that were “interstate in character.” Each State could spend not more 

than 60 percent of its Federal-aid funds on the interstate routes. This compromise 

satisfied advocates of long-distance roads (“interstate in character”) and farm-to-market 

roads, while retaining the Federal-State partnership that was at the heart of the 1916 Act. 

As President Harding had requested, the 1921 Act strengthened the maintenance 

requirement of the 1916 Act. BPR would give the State highway agency 90 days to 

repair a Federal-aid highway. If the State did not do so, BPR would proceed immediately 

to place the road in a proper condition of maintenance. Further, BPR would not approve 
181

any other Federal-aid projects in the State until the State had reimbursed the Federal 

highway funds for the amount expended. 

President Harding signed the Act on November 9, 1921. It settled the dispute between 

those who wanted Federal construction of long-distance roads and those, including 

Martin Dodge, who favored Federal-aid. Moreover, the system basis of the revised 

program has remained a feature of the Federal-aid highway program ever since. Thus, 

the ideas that Dodge and Eldridge had proposed in the Brownlow Bill are still elements 

of the program. 

Looking Back

On October 21, 1929, President Herbert Hoover was in Cincinnati, Ohio, to dedicate a 

monument commemorating completion of a $125 million lock-and-dam system on the 

Ohio River. In the October 1929 issue of National Magazine, Governor Myers Y. 

Cooper wrote about the construction project, emphasizing that enterprise always went 

hand in hand with Ohio. (Three days after the President dedicated the monument, the 

stock market crashed, followed by the catastrophic crash on October 29 that launched the 

country into the Depression.) 

Governor Cooper’s article prompted Dodge to write a followup article in National 

Magazine (Vol. 18, No. 8) titled “McKinley—Pioneer of Roads.” In it, Dodge looked 

back on his long fight for good roads. After summarizing the lock-and-dam program, he 

said: 

Concurrently with this great enterprise in aid of water transportation, there has 

been developed in our state a system of overland transportation of much greater 

importance than river transportation. I refer to the substitution of inanimate 

power for animal power for the purposes of transportation on the highways. This 

is a new and wonderful means of transportation which Ohio was the first to 

introduce. 

He recalled how Governor McKinley’s first annual message in January 1892 had called 

attention to the need for better roads. Following a reiteration of the message in 1893, the 

State legislature had approved a resolution that established the Ohio State Highway 

Commission, which Dodge would chair. 

Dodge summarized the resulting report , which “was followed by such extraordinary 

results as to work what has finally appeared to be a revolution as to the means of 

overland transportation on our public highways, by substituting inanimate power for the 

animal power which had theretofore been in universal use.” This “new and wonderful 

means of transportation” for passengers and freight could “carry and deliver all persons, 

and all things, to all places.” 

This progress, he said, had “taken its beginning from the recommendations of the great 

governor and President, William McKinley.” Dodge added: 
182

It was my good fortune to have a part in planning and a hand in executing this 

new method of transportation now so universally in use. This was not easily done 

but required many years of labor and experiment to make a complete and final 

demonstration. This was commenced ten years before Henry Ford put out his first 

model “T” [1908] which proved to be so successful. Discovery had to be 

supplemented by invention and invention by construction. 

Dodge recounted Governor McKinley’s promise to bring his highway commissioner to 

Washington, which he did after Dodge completed his term as State Senator. 

Dodge turned to 1898 and the Omaha exposition where he demonstrated that a single 

horse could pull weight on a steel track road that would require 20 horses on an ordinary 

road. He reprinted photos of the event. After noting his similar demonstration in Paris in 

1900, he described his work as Director of OPRI: 

In pursuance of my duties I visited every state in the Union but three, making 

addresses before good roads conventions, legislatures, chambers of commerce and 

agricultural associations. I contended for the introduction of state and national aid 

whereby we could secure a general fund out of which smooth, hard and durable 

roads could be built and maintained. In connection with this crusade I introduced 

the good roads trains carrying machinery, experts and engineers, and built many 

object lesson roads of a mile or so in length during the progress of the three day 

conventions which were held concurrently with the event. 

I call these object lesson roads “Silent sermons in stone preaching the gospel of 

good roads free.” It worked like a charm for everybody was really charmed by 

the beneficial results that came from this demonstration, and in every case the 

object lesson roads were extended to greater lengths. 

Dodge observed that a change had taken place in society “whereby the government, or 

the public, furnishes the right-of-way and ‘the track’ while the individual furnishes the 

vehicle and the power.” This was “the natural and original division of labor between the 

state and the individual,” but this division had been interrupted by the railroad: 

“For] the first time in the history of civilization, the right-of-way, track, the 

vehicle and the power were all furnished in their entirety by the carrier. Before 

the advent of the railroads no state or government undertook to do more than 

furnish the right-of-way and the track or pavement . . . . 

It seems to be natural and beneficial for now after a lapse of practically one 

hundred years we are returning to the original principle by which the state 

furnishes right-of-way, builds and maintains the pavement, and the individual 

furnishes the vehicle and the power. This is so natural and so just that it is certain 

to be continued with the most beneficial results. 
183

He wanted to clarify the relationship between the road and the automobile. “Remember 

that the automobile has but little value without the good road over which it can run.” 

Although many people “think the automobile made the good roads system,” he believed 

that “the good road is the mother of the automobile.” He added: 

During my administration of the United States Road Office, twenty-three states 

passed legislation providing for state aid, and this all happened before the good 

roads trains were operated over the Illinois Central Railroad, the Southern 

Railroad, the New York Central Railroad and the Great Northern Railroad 

reaching the North and the South, the East and the West. 

To illustrate, he pointed out that “Henry Ford has lately offered to build at his own 

expense, both in Egypt and in India, 150 miles of improved road.” The mileage would be 

“an object lesson, supposing and believing that when the advantages of the improved 

roads are demonstrated that the people would insist upon introducing the new method as 

a universal means of transportation.” 

Dodge concluded the article by pointing out that while cheap water transportation “has 

existed since Solomon,” cheap overland transportation “is a thing of our own day and our 

own generation.” While most of the human race was still dependent on animal power for 

overland transportation, “I speak of this that we may more fully appreciate that enterprise 

to which Governor Cooper refers and which has been manifested so largely in the state of 

Ohio, and in our other great commonwealths.” 

Martin Dodge died on April 23, 1931, at his O Street residence. He was 79 years old. 

Hal P. Denton, in his November 1931 Cleveland Plain-Dealer article, observed that 

Dodge “passed away in Washington a couple of months ago, and with no one to sing his 

praise.” Denton reviewed Dodge’s career—real estate operator, newspaper owner, State 

Senator, good roads advocate, Director of the OPRI, and builder of object-lesson roads. 

Denton referred to good roads trains, Dodge’s advocacy of State and Federal aid, and the 

1898 demonstration at the Omaha exposition, saying, “He had photographs made of this 

demonstration and these were published generally in reports and newspapers.” The 

article concluded: 

On his last visit to his birthplace, a few years ago, he was rewarded by sitting on 

the front porch of the old homestead and seeing automobiles and trucks and 

busses [sic] flitting back and forth on the main market road between Cleveland 

and Youngstown, which in his boyhood days was nothing but a lane of mushy and 

viscuous clay. 

This nation should rear a shaft in memory of Martin Dodge. What he 

accomplished for his fellow men and women is priceless. 

Colonel William H. Moore, who had worked closely with Dodge, for good or ill, in the 

early 1900’s died on September 15, 1937, at the age of 81 in Ontario. According to a 
184

Canadian Press account published in The New York Times the following day, Moore “was 

fatally injured tonight when struck by a motor car almost in front of his home.” Gordon 

Dill, a 20-year old from Embro, was charged with reckless driving. The brief article 

mentioned that Colonel Moore, who it said spent more than 40 years in the United States, 

“devoted nearly all of his life to development of better and safer highways.”