Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-08-31
CONTRACT FOR PAVING
DESIRE OF AUTHORITIES TO TEST
NEW COMPOSITION.
Local Companies Object to Specification
of Certain Material-Have Some
thing Equally Good.

ers tn experiment with new paving ma
terial in the national capital seems to be
meeting with opposition on the part of
two of the paving companies which have
already become established here The OPP
position has arisen in connection with the
awarding of a contract for paving 10000
square yards of street with bitulithic'
pavement, a patented material laid only
by the Warren Brothers Company of Bos-
ton.
The bids for this particular paving con-
tract were opened at the District build
ing late yesterday afternoon. The specl-
fications called for "bitui1thic' pavement.
and since the Warren Brothers Company
is the only company laying this patented
material This concern was the only bid
der for .bitulithic' pavement. The Bar
Der Asphalt Paving Company of Philadel-
phia and the Crawford IaNlng Company
of this city. however, altered the speclh-
cations and entered the competition.
| These latter companies submitted bids to
Law a pavement claimed to be somewhat
similar to bitulithic and declared by them
to he lust as good" as the specified ma
terial. Both these companies also sub
mitted letters explaining their respective
bids.
The Specifications.
The bid of the Warren Brothers Com
pany on the contract was " per square
yard; the Crawford company bid S1.S7 per
square yard and the Barber Company
SIS5 In describing the pavements de-
sired the specifications read in part.
'"rhe base of crushed stone prepared as
specified will be coated with Warren's
No. ! Puritan brand semi-liquid compost
ton. On top of this No composition
shall be spread a heavy coating of War
ren's No. "a Puritan brand hard bitumi-
nous cement. One gallon of bituminous
| at will he used each
square yard of surface.
The Barber Asphalt Company subsG
tuted "semi-liquid asphaltic composition
hard asphaltic cement and "aSphaltic
cement instead of the Warren product
In every place where the word btu
lithic" was used in the specifications the
Barber Asphalt Company inserted btu
mnOus' The letter of the Barber Paving
Company ntimated that the Commission
erS had attempted to make competition i'm
possible by specifying the patented article.
One paragraph of the Barber company's
letter read follows:
complying with clause 10 page = I'M
der instructions to bidders we desire to
represent that we have made certain al
terations and interlineatiOns. inasmuch
certain alleged trade names claimed to be
the exclusive property of the Warren
Brothers Company are Incorporated bodily
in the specifications thus making competi-
ton impossible without the alterations re-
ferred to-
L i
Paving Company said. in part:
I'VE take the liberty to strike out the
word bitulithic and to substitute therefor
the word bituminous the word bitulithic
being a copyrighted name for the pavement
specified. We have substituted the word
bituminous before the various COMPOST
lions and cements mentioned throughout
the specifications where they refer to War
renS various brands of bitulithic or btu
minOuS cement
Both companies in their letters to the
Commissioners suggested that asphalt be
used, but they offered to construct a btu
mlnouS pavement
Col. Biddle's Statement.
Col John Biddle, Engineer Commissioner
in speaking of the reasons of the Commits
sioners for specifying bitulithic pavement
in the specifications stated that 1t is the
desire of the Commissioners to test the
new patented material in the national can
ital. He stated that the Warren company
has had this new paving material on the
market only about four or five years ac-
cording to his information, and that it has
been used in many cities all over the coun-
try. Colonel Bddle said that he has per-
sonally inspected this particular kind of
pavement in Boston. Portland Me- and
Nashville, Tenn. and he deemed it advs-
able that the District authorities expert
ment with the material since it gave indi-
cations of being a very desirable paving
material
While it is stated the Warren company's
pavement costs more than asphalt, yet it
is claimed that the bitulithic pavement
lasts considerably longer than asphalt 1t
Is said to be especially satisfactory on
streets with steep grades
Purpose of Commissioners.
Commissioner Biddle said it was the pur-
pose of the Commissioners to lay about
five blocks in all of the btulthic material
in various parts of the city, so that it could
be tested under different conditions of traf-
nc. 1t is considered by the Commission
ers that successful test of the material
could not be made with smaller area than
10000 square yards.
The representatives of the Barber AS
Piat company and of the Crawford Paving