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HIGHWAYS
AND
HIGHWAY TRANSPORTATION

© Major Hamilton Maxwell
© Underwood and Underwood

STORM KING HIGHWAY

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

HIGHWAYS
AND
HIGHWAY TRANSPORTATION

BY
GEORGE R. CHATBURN, A.M., C.E.
Professor of Applied Mechanics and Machine Design
Lecturer on Highway Engineering
The University of Nebraska

NEW YORK
THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

Copyright 1923, by
THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY

Printed in the United States of America

PREFACE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

George Richard Chatburn.

Lincoln, Nebraska
March 9, 1923.

CONTENTS

LIST OF INSERTS

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

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

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

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

HIGHWAYS AND HIGHWAY TRANSPORTATION

CHAPTER I
TRANSPORTATION A MEASURE OF CIVILIZATION

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

Stages in Civilization.

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

Stage of Direct Appropriation.

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

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

The Pastoral Stage.

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

The Agricultural Stage.

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

The Manorial and Feudal Systems.

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

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

The Handicraft Stage.

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

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

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

Craft-guilds.

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

Effect upon Trade.

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

The Domestic System.

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

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

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

[The land] was divided into small inclosures from two acres to six or seven each, seldom more; every three or four pieces of land had a house belonging to them ... hardly an house standing out of a speaking distance from another.... We could see at every house a tenter, and on almost every tenter a piece of cloth or kersie or shaloon.... At every considerable house was a manufactury.... Every clothier keeps one horse, at least, to carry his manufactures to the market, and everyone generally keeps a cow or two or more for his family. By this means the small pieces of inclosed land about each house are occupied, for they scarce sow corn enough to feed their poultry.... The houses are full of lusty fellows, some at the dye-vat, some at the looms, others dressing the cloths, the women or children carding or spinning, being all employed, from the youngest to the oldest.

Governmental Control.

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

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

There was not then the intercourse which now exists between the two classes. [The Londoner and the rustic Englishman.] Only very great men were in the habit of dividing the year between town and country. Few esquires came to the capital thrice in their lives. [And again], The chief cause which made the fusion of the different elements of society so imperfect was the extreme difficulty found in passing from place to place. Of all inventions, the alphabet and the printing press alone excepted, those inventions which abridge distance have done most for the civilization of our species. Every improvement of the means of locomotion benefits mankind morally and intellectually as well as materially, and not only facilitates the interchange of the various productions of nature and art, but tends to remove national and provincial antipathies, and to bind together all the branches of the great human family.

[Further on], It was by the highways that both travellers and goods generally passed from place to place; and those highways appear to have been far worse than might have been expected from the degree of wealth and civilization which the nation had even then attained.

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

One chief cause of the badness of the roads seems to have been the defective state of the law. Every parish was bound to repair the highways which passed through it. The peasantry were forced to give their gratuitous labor six days in the year.... That a route connecting two great towns, which have a large and thriving trade with each other, should be maintained at the cost of the rural population scattered between them, is obviously unjust.

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

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

It was vehemently argued that this mode of conveyance would be fatal to the breed of horses and to the noble art of horsemanship; that the Thames, which had long been an important nursery of seamen, would cease to be the chief thoroughfare from London up to Windsor and down to Gravesend; that saddlers and spurriers would be ruined by hundreds; that numerous inns, at which mounted travelers had been in the habit of stopping, would be deserted, and would no longer pay any rent; that the new carriages were too hot in summer and too cold in winter; that the passengers were grievously annoyed by invalids and crying children; that the coach sometimes reached the inn so late that it was impossible to get supper, and sometimes started so early that it was impossible to get breakfast.

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

Agriculture.

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

Now every husband hath sixe severall closes whereof iii. be for corne, the fourthe for his leyse, the fyfthe for his commen pastures, and the sixte for his haye; and in wynter time there is but one occupied with corne, and then hath the husbande other fyue to occupy tyll lent come, and then he that hath his falowe felde, his ley felde, and his pasture felde al sommer, and when he hath mowen his medowe then he hath his medowe grounde, soo that if he hath any weyke catel that wold be amended, or dyvers maner of catel, he may put them in any close he wyll, the which is a great advantage; and if all should lye commen, then wolde the edyche of the corne feldes and the aftermath of all the medowes be eaten in X or XII dayes. And the rych men that hath moche catel wold have the advantage, and the poore man can have no helpe nor relefe in wynter when he hath most nede; ... and if any of his thre closes that he hath for his corne be worn or ware bare, then he may breke and plowe up his close that he had for his layse, or the close that he had for his commen pasture, or bothe, and sowe them with corne and let the other lye for a time, and so shall he have always reist grounds, the which will bear moche corne, with lytel donge; and also he shall have a great profyte of the wod in the hedges when it is growen; and not only these profytes and advantages aforesaid but he shall save moche more than al these, for by reason of these closes he shall save meate drinke, and wages of a shepherde, the wages of the heerdmen, and the wages of the swineherde, the which may fortune to be as chargeable as all his holle rent; and also his corne shall be better saved from eatings or destroying with catel.

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

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

the greater clottes (clods) the better wheate, for the clottes kepe the wheate warm all wynter; and at march they will melte and breake and fae in many small peces, the which is a new donynge and refreshynge of the corne.

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

The Industrial Stage.

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

To English trade the canal opened up the richest of all markets, the market of England itself. Every part of the country was practically thrown open to the manufacturer; and the impulse which was given by this facility of carriage was at once felt in a vast development of production. But such a development would have been impossible had not the discovery of this new mode of distribution been accompanied by the discovery of a new productive force. In the coal which lay beneath her soil England possessed a store of force which had hitherto remained almost useless.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Railways Developed.

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

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

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

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

Some Historic Roads and Their Influence.

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

Early Highways.

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

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

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

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

Roman Roads.

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

© Underwood and Underwood

THE APPIAN WAY

Showing the original Paving Stones laid 300 B.C.

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

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

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

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

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

MAP OF ROMAN ROADS IN ENGLAND

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

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

Pre-historic American Roads.

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

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

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

Those who may distrust the accounts of Peruvian industry will find their doubts removed on a visit to the country. The traveler still meets, especially in the central regions of the tableland, with memorials of the past, remains of temples, palaces, fortresses, terraced mountains, great military roads, aqueducts, and other public works, which, whatever degree of science they may display in their execution, astonish him by their number, the massive character of the materials, and the grandeur of the design. Among them, perhaps the most remarkable are the great roads, the broken remains of which are still in sufficient preservation to attest their former magnificence. There were many of these roads, traversing different parts of the kingdom: but the most considerable were the two which extended from Quito to Cuzco, and, again diverging from the capital, continued in a southerly direction toward Chili.

One of these roads passed over the great plateau, and the other along the lowlands on the borders of the ocean. The former was much the more difficult achievement, from the character of the country. It was conducted over pathless sierras buried in snow; galleries were cut for leagues through the living rock; rivers were crossed by means of bridges that swung suspended in the air; precipices were scaled by stairways hewn out of the native bed; ravines of hideous depths were filled up with solid masonry; in short, all the difficulties that beset a wild and mountainous region, and which might appall the most courageous engineer of modern times, were encountered and successfully overcome. The length of the road, of which scattered fragments only remain, is variously estimated at from fifteen hundred to two thousand miles; and stone pillars, in the manner of European milestones, were erected at stated intervals of somewhat more than a league, all along the route. Its breadth scarcely exceeded twenty feet. It was built of heavy flags of freestone, and, in some parts at least, covered with a bituminous cement, which time has made harder than the stone itself. In some places where the ravines had been filled up with masonry, the mountain torrents, wearing on it for ages, have gradually eaten away through the base, and left the superincumbent mass—such is the cohesion of the materials—still spanning the valley like an arch.

Over some of the boldest streams it was necessary to construct suspension bridges, as they are termed, made of the tough fibers of the maguey, or of the osier of the country, which has an extraordinary degree of tenacity and strength. These osiers were woven into cables of the thickness of a man’s body. The huge ropes, then stretched across the water, were conducted through rings or holes cut in immense buttresses of stone raised on the opposite banks of the river and then secured to heavy pieces of timber. Several of these enormous cables bound together formed a bridge which, covered with planks, well secured and defended by a railing of the same osier materials on the sides, afforded a safe passage for the traveler. The length of this aerial bridge, sometimes exceeding two hundred feet, caused it, confined as it was only at the extremities, to dip with an alarming inclination towards the center, while the motion given to it by the passenger occasioned an oscillation still more frightful, as his eye wandered over the dark abyss of waters that foamed and tumbled many fathoms beneath. Yet these light and fragile fabrics were crossed without fear by the Peruvians, and are still retained by the Spaniards over those streams which, from the depth or impetuosity of the current, would seem impracticable for the usual modes of conveyance. The wider and more tranquil waters were crossed on balsas—a kind of raft still much used by the natives—to which sails were attached, furnishing the only instance of this higher kind of navigation among the American Indians.

The other great road of the Incas lay through the level country between the Andes and the ocean. It was constructed in a different manner, as demanded by the nature of the ground, which was for the most part low, and much of it sandy. The causeway was raised on a high embankment of earth, and defended on either side by a parapet or wall of clay; and trees and odoriferous shrubs were planted along the margin, regaling the senses of the traveler with their perfumes, and refreshing him by their shades, so grateful under the burning sky of the tropics. In the strips of sandy waste which occasionally intervened, where the light and volatile soil was incapable of sustaining a road, huge piles, many of them to be seen at this day, were driven into the ground to indicate the route to the traveler.

All along these highways, caravansaries, or tambos, as they were called, were erected, at the distance of ten or twelve miles from each other, for the accommodation, more particularly of the Inca and his suite and those who journeyed on the public business. There were few other travelers in Peru. Some of these buildings were on an extensive scale, consisting of a fortress, barracks, and other military works, surrounded by a parapet of stone and covering a large tract of ground. These were evidently destined for the accommodation of the imperial armies when on their march across the country. The care of the great roads was committed to the districts through which they passed, and under the Incas a large number of hands was constantly employed to keep them in repair. This was the more easily done in the country where the mode of traveling was altogether on foot; though the roads are said to be so nicely constructed that a carriage might have rolled over them as securely as on any of the great roads of Europe. Still in a region where the elements of fire and water are both actively at work in the business of destruction, they must, without constant supervision, have gradually gone to decay. Such has been their fate under the Spanish conquerors, who took no care to enforce the admirable system for their preservation adopted by the Incas. Yet the broken portions that still survive here and there, like the fragments of the great Roman roads scattered over Europe, bear evidence to their primitive grandeur, and have drawn forth the eulogium from a discriminating traveler, usually not too profuse in his panegyric, that “the roads of the Incas were among the most useful and stupendous works ever executed by man.”

The system of communication through their dominions was still further improved by the Peruvian sovereigns by the introduction of posts, in the same manner as was done by the Aztecs. The Peruvian posts, however, established on all the great routes that conducted to the capital, were on a much more extended plan than those in Mexico. All along these routes, small buildings were erected, at the distance of less than five miles asunder, in each of which a number of runners, or chasquis, as they were called, were stationed to carry forward the dispatches of government. These dispatches were either verbal, or conveyed by means of quipus, and sometimes accompanied by a thread of the crimson fringe worn round the temples of the Inca, which was regarded with the same implicit deference as the signet-ring of an Oriental despot.

The chasquis were dressed in a peculiar livery, intimating their profession. They were all trained to the employment and selected for their speed and fidelity. As the distance each courier had to perform was small, and as he had ample time to refresh himself at the stations, they ran over the ground with great swiftness, and messages were carried through the whole extent of the long routes, at the rate of one hundred and fifty miles a day. The office of the chasquis was not limited to carrying dispatches. They frequently brought various articles for the use of the court and in this way fish from the distant ocean, fruits, game, and different commodities from the hot regions on the coast, were taken to the capital in good condition, and served fresh at the royal table. It is remarkable that this important institution should have been known to both the Mexicans and the Peruvians without any correspondence with one another and that it should have been found among two barbarian nations of the New World long before it was introduced among the civilized nations of Europe.

By these wise contrivances of the Incas, the most distant parts of the long extended empire of Peru were brought into intimate relations with each other. The while the capitals of Christendom, but a few hundred miles apart, remained as far asunder as if seas had rolled between them, the great capitals Cuzco and Quito were placed by the high roads of the Incas in immediate correspondence. Intelligence from the numerous provinces was transmitted on the wings of the wind to the Peruvian metropolis, the great focus to which all the lines of communication converged. Not an insurrectionary movement could occur, not an invasion on the remotest frontier, before the tidings were conveyed to the capital and the imperial armies were on their march across the magnificent roads of the country to suppress it. So admirable was the machinery contrived by the American despots for maintaining tranquillity throughout their dominions! It may remind us of the similar institutions of ancient Rome, when, under the Caesars, she was mistress of half the world.

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

Conclusion.

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

SELECTED REFERENCES

Davis, William Stearns, “The Influence of Wealth on Imperial Rome,” pp. 85-105. The Macmillan Company, New York.

Ely, Richard T., “Outlines of Economics,” The Macmillan Co., New York. Chapter III.

Encyclopaedia Britannica. Articles on the “Steam Engine,” “Yarn,” “Weaving,” and “Railway.”

Green, John Richard, “History of the English People,” Book IX, Chapter III.

Havell, H. L., “Republican Rome,” p. 112, Harrap & Co., London, 1914.

Heitland, W. E., “The Roman Republic,” University Press, Cambridge.

Livy, Titus, “History of Rome,” Translated by William A. M’Devitte, Book IX, Chap. 29; XXII, 15; XXIV, 8; George Bell & Sons, London, 1890.

Macaulay, Thomas Babington, “The History of England,” Vol. I, Chapter III.

Mommsen, Professor Theodor, “The History of the Roman Republic,” Abridgment by Bryans and Hendy, pp. 95, 97, 98, 108, 175, 219, 251, 318, 319, 320. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1893.

Morley, S. T., “Excavations at Quirigua, Guatemala,” The National Geographic Magazine, March, 1913.

Account of explorations made in Peru by a joint expedition of Yale University and The National Geographic Society in The National Geographic Magazine, April, 1913, February, 1915, and May, 1916.

Niebuhr, B. G., “Lectures on Ancient History,” Vol. III, p. 156; “Lectures on the History of Rome,” Vol. III, p. 229. Taylor, Walton & Maberly, London, 1852.

Osborn, Henry F., “Men of the Old Stone Age.” C. Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1915.

Prescott, William H., “Conquest of Peru,” 2 Vol., Vol. I, pp. 62-67, J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia, 1869.

Sands, W. F., “Mysterious Temples of the Jungle,” in The National Geographic Magazine, March, 1913.

Selfridge, H. Gordon, “The Romance of Commerce,” John Lane, London.

Stanley, Henry M., “In Darkest Africa” (two volumes). C. Scribner’s Sons, New York.

FOOTNOTES

[ [1] “Outlines of Economics,” by Richard T. Ely. The Macmillan Co., N. Y.

[ [2] See “The Man of the Stone Age,” by H. F. Osborne.

[ [3] “In Darkest Africa” (two volumes), by Henry M. Stanley. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York.

[ [4] “The Romance of Commerce,” by H. Gordon Selfridge. John Lane, London.

[ [5] Quoted by Ely in “Outlines of Economics.” Macmillan, New York.

[ [6] “The History of England,” by Thomas Babington Macaulay, Chapter III.

[ [7] “History of the English People,” by John Richard Green, Paragraph 1527.

[ [8] It is well to note that Watt in his application for a patent on steam engines granted in 1769 also laid claim for a rotary engine. The rotary engine has been lately developed into the steam turbine.

[ [9] “Germany and Austria-Hungary were increasingly convinced that in the further disintegration of the old Turkish Empire they must be recognized in an exceptional way and must be allowed ... to acquire an undisputed influence from the Adriatic to the Black Sea and the Persian Gulf.”—Albert Shaw in the introduction to Simonds’ “History of the World War.” Also see map Vol. II, p. 346.

[10] From the report of a lecture at Shreveport, La., 1905, by B. H. Carroll, Professor of History, Baylor University, Waco, Texas.

[11] Lecture delivered at Shreveport, La., by B. H. Carroll, Ph.D., Professor of History, Baylor University, Waco, Texas, later U. S. Consul at Naples.

[12] “The Influence of Wealth in Imperial Rome,” by William Stearns Davis, The Macmillan Company, N. Y., pp. 95-105.

[13] See “Mysterious Temples of the Jungle,” by W. F. Sands, and “Excavations at Quirigua, Guatemala” by S. T. Morley. The National Geographic Magazine, March, 1913.

[14] See several excellent articles with illustrations on the explorations made in Peru by a joint expedition of Yale University and The National Geographic Society in The National Geographic Magazine, April, 1913, February, 1915, and May, 1916.

[15] Geographic Magazine, May, 1916.

CHAPTER II
TRANSPORTATION DEVELOPMENT IN THE UNITED STATES; EARLY TRAILS AND ROADS

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

The Birch Bark Canoe.

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

With his knife the tree he girdled;

Just beneath its lowest branches,

Just above the roots he cut it,

Till the sap came oozing outward;

Down the trunk from top to bottom,

Sheer he cleft the bark asunder,

With a wooden wedge he raised it

Stripped it from the trunk unbroken.

Then he explains how the framework is made of cedar:

Like two bows he framed and shaped them,

Like two bended bows together.

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

Took the resin of the fir tree

Smeared therewith each seam and fissure,

Made each crevice safe from water.

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

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

Meagerness of Early Roads.

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

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

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

Settlement Follows Waterways; Portages.

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

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

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

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

Lines of Travel.

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

Trails from the North.

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

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

Boone’s Trace, or The Wilderness Road.

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

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

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

After the conclusion of which (a campaign against the Shawanese Indians which Boone commanded by order of Governor Dunmore), the militia was discharged from each garrison, and I, being relieved from my post, was solicited by a number of North Carolina gentlemen, that were about purchasing the lands lying on the north side of Kentucky River, from the Cherokee Indians, to attend their treaty at Wataga, in March, 1755, to negotiate with them, and mention the boundaries of the purchase. This I accepted; and, at the request of the same gentlemen, undertook to mark out a road in the best passage from the settlement through the wilderness to Kentucky, with such assistance as I thought necessary to employ for such an important undertaking.

I soon began this work, having collected a number of enterprising men, well armed. We proceeded with all possible expedition until we came within fifteen miles of where Boonesborough now stands, and where we were fired upon by a party of Indians, that killed two, and wounded two of our number; yet, although surprised and taken at a disadvantage, we stood our ground. This was the 20th of March, 1775. Three days after, we were fired upon again, and had two men killed and three wounded. Afterwards we proceeded on to Kentucky River without opposition; and on the 1st of April began to erect the fort of Boonesborough at a salt lick, about sixty yards from the river on the south side.

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

Dear Colonel: After my compliments to you, I shall acquaint you with our misfortune. On March the 25th a party of Indians fired on my company about half an hour before day, and killed Mr. Twitty and his negro, and wounded Mr. Walker very deeply but I hope he will recover.

On March the 28th, as we were hunting for provisions, we found Samuel Tate’s son, who gave us an account that the Indians fired on their camp on the 27th day. My brother and I went down and found two men killed and scalped, Thomas McDowell and Jeremiah McPeters. I have sent a man down to all the lower companies in order to gather them all to the mouth of Otter Creek. My advice to you, sir, is to come or send as soon as possible. Your company is desired greatly, for the people are very uneasy, but are willing to stay and venture their lives with you; and now is the time to flusterate their (the Indians) intentions, and keep the country whilst we are in it. If we give way to them now, it will ever be the case. This day we start from the battle-ground for the mouth of Otter Creek, where we will immediately erect a fort, which will be done before you can come or send; then we can send ten men to meet you if you send for them.

I am sir, your most obedient,
Daniel Boone.

N. B.—We stood on the ground and guarded our baggage till day, and lost nothing. We have about fifteen miles to Cantuck at Otter Creek.

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

MAP SHOWING MAIN HIGHWAYS AND WATERWAYS IN UNITED STATES ABOUT 1830

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

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

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

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

Calk’s Diary.

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

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

1775, Mon. 13th—I set out from prince wm. to travel to Caintuck on tursday Night our company all got together at Mr. Priges on rapadon which was Abraham hanks phipip Drake Eanock Smith Robert Whitledge and myself thiar Abrahms Dogs leg got broke by Drakes Dog.

Wednesday, 15th—We started early from priges made a good days travel and lodge this night at Mr. Cars on North fork James River.

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

Wedns 22nd—We start early and git to foart Chissel whear we git some good loaf bread and good whiskey.

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

Thusd 30th—We set out again and went down to Elk gardin and there suplid our Selves With Seed Corn and irish tators then we went on a little way I turned my hors to drive before me and he got scard ran away threw Down the Saddle Bags and broke three of our powder goards and Abrams beast Burst open a walet of corn and lost a good Deal and made a turrable flustration amongst the Reast of the Horses Drakes mair run against a sapling and nocht it down we cacht them all again and went on and loged at John Duncans.

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

Saturday 8th—We all pack up and started crost Cumberland gap about one oclock this Day. Met a good many peopel turned back for fear of the indians but our Company goes on Still with good courage.

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

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

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

Wednesday 26th—We Begin Building us a house and a plaise of Defense to Keep the indians off this day we begin to live without bread.

Satterday 29th—We git our house Kivered with Bark and move our things into it at Night and Bigin houseKeeping Eanock Smith Robert Whitledge and myself.

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

Marquette’s Explorations.

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

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

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

The Lewis and Clark Expedition.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Transcontinental Trails.

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

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

TRANSCONTINENTAL TRAILS IN THE UNITED STATES

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

Origin of the Oregon Trail.

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

Commemorative of the Astorian Expedition organized June 23, 1810, by John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company. This Expedition discovered the Oregon Trail which spread knowledge of the Nebraska country leading to its occupancy by white people.

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

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

The Missouri Fur Company sent an expedition of 150 men to the upper waters of the Missouri in 1809. The powerful and ferocious Black Feet Indians, who were the providence of the Oregon Trail, discouraged the attempts of these men to gain permanent foothold there. Part of them retreated and another part, headed by the intrepid Henry, crossed the mountain divide in the fall of 1810 and established Fort Henry on Henry’s Fork of the Snake River. This was the beginning of the southern movement. In 1821 Pilcher, who succeeded Lisa as head of the Missouri Fur Company, made another attempt at a foothold in the Black Feet country, but was forced back. Ashley, leader of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, organized in 1822, was also beaten back in 1823. By this time Henry was discouraged about holding on to the upper Missouri and turned his attention to permanent exploitation of the Green River valley. In that year Provost made the important discovery of South Pass. In 1824, Ashley conducted an expedition to the lower fields along the regular trail except that he went to Council Bluff and from there west up the Platte Valley. In 1830, his great lieutenants, Smith, Jackson and Sublette, went west with a train of fourteen wagons—the first to go to the mountains over the cut-off; that is, up the Little Blue valley to its head, across to the Platte, following the river to the mountains. In 1832 Bonneville also went over the cut-off and took a wagon train over the South Pass, the first wagons to cross the mountains. In 1832 Nathaniel Wyeth went over the cut-off to Oregon, but did not take wagons over the mountainous part of the course. In 1836 Marcus Whitman, one of the intrepid winners and founders of Oregon, went almost through to the Columbia with a wagon, thus demonstrating and illustrating the practicability of a transcontinental road for all purposes. The Oregon Trail was now clearly outlined. It was thoroughly established in 1842 by the aggressive Oregon emigration.

The Final Trail.

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

Salt Lake Trail.

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

Later California Trail.

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

Santa Fé Trail.

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

Gila and Spanish Trails.

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

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

Era of Turnpiking.

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

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

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

Turnpike Roads.

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

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

Wagon Road Desuetude.

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

National Participation.

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

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

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

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

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

Extension of the Cumberland Highway.

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

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

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

... from the parlor of the inn

A pleasant murmur smote the ear,

Like water rushing through a weir;

Oft interrupted by the din

Of laughter and of loud applause;

And, in each intervening pause,

The music of a violin.

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

Courtesy of Prof. P. K. Slaymaker

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

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

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

SELECTED REFERENCES

Adams, Henry, “Life of Albert Gallatin,” Edited by Henry Adams, Vol. I, pp. 78, 79, 305, 309, 370, 395. J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia.

Boone, Daniel, “Autobiography,” dictated to John Filson, 1784, is given also as an appendix to Hartley’s “Life of Daniel Boone.”

Calk, William, “Diary of” in Filson Club publications.

Doddridge, Joseph, “Notes on the Settlement of Indian Wars.” Chaps. I, XIII, XVIII, XXIV; First publication, 1824, Third—Rittenour & Linsey, Pittsburgh, 1912.

Dunbar, Seymour, “A History of Travel in America,” 4 volumes, 1915, Bobbs-Merrill Co., Indianapolis.

Early, Alice Morse, “Stage Coach and Tavern Days.”

Channing, Edward, “The Jefferson System,” Vol. XII, The American Nation Series, Harper & Brothers, New York.

Farrand, L., “Bases of American History,” Vol. II of the American Nation Series, Harper & Brothers, New York.

Hartley, Cecil B., “Life of Daniel Boone,” 1865, Porter & Coates, Philadelphia.

Howard, George E., “Preliminaries of the Revolution,” Vol. VIII of the American Nation Series, Harper & Brothers, New York.

Howe, Henry, “History of the West.”

Hurlbert, A. B., “Historic Highways of America,” 16 volumes, 1902-05, A. H. Clark Company, Cleveland, O.

Hurlbert, A. B., “The Paths of Inland Commerce,” Chronicles of America Series, Vol. 21, New Haven, 1920.

Irving, Washington, “Astoria,” Irving’s Works, Vol. I, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York.

Longfellow, Henry W., “Poetical Works,” Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.

McMaster, John Bach, “History of the United States,” Vol. V, Chap. XLIV, D. Appleton & Company, New York.

Monette, John W., “History of the Valley of the Mississippi,” Vol. II, Chap. II, pp. 52-58, Harper & Brothers, New York, 1846.

“Register of Debates in Congress,” Vol. VI, pp. 433-435, 806, and 820. Published by order of Congress, 13 Vol. Washington, 1825-37.

Richardson, James D., “Messages and Papers of the Presidents.” 8 volumes, Government Print, Washington.

Roosevelt, Theodore, “Winning of the West,” Vols. I, II and IV. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1889.

Speed, Thomas, “The Wilderness Road,” No. 2 of the Filson Club publications, Louisville, 1886.

Turner, Frederick J., “Rise of the New West,” Vol. XIV of the American Nation Series, Harper & Brothers, New York.

Tyler, L. G., “England in America,” Vol. IV of the American Nation Series, Harper & Brothers, New York.

U. S. Census review of “Agencies of Transportation,” 1880.

Watkins, Albert, “The Oregon Trail,” Nebraska State Historical Society Collections, Vol. XVI, p. 26 et seq.

FOOTNOTES

[16] “A History of Travel,” by Seymour Dunbar.

[17] “The American Nation,” “England in America,” by L. G. Tyler. Vol. IV, p. 322.

[18] “American Nation,” Vol. VIII, p. 15.

[19] Cf. “Historic Highways of America,” by A. B. Hurlbert, and “Basis of American History” (Vol. II of “The American Nation”), by L. Farrand.

[20] Ramsey’s “Annals of Tennessee.”

[21] “Historic Highways of America,” by A. B. Hurlbert, 16 volumes, 1902-05, A. H. Clark Company, Cleveland. A series of annotated reprints of some of the best contemporary volumes of travel in America, compiled by Reuben Gold Thwaites, 1904-07, 32 volumes, A. H. Clark Co., Cleveland.

“A History of Travel in America,” by Seymour Dunbar, 4 volumes, 1915, Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, Ind.

“Basis of American History,” Chapter II, “Routes of Travel,” Vol. II of the American Nation Series, by Livingston Farrand, 1907, Harper & Brothers, New York. There is good bibliography in this volume.

[22] Cecil B. Hartley in his “Life of Daniel Boone,” gives the name of the head of this company as Colonel Richard Henderson.

[23] “The Winning of the West,” Vol. II, by Theodore Roosevelt.

[24] Dunbar’s “History of Travel,” Vol. I. Roosevelt’s “Winning of the West,” Vol. II.

[25] “The Wilderness Road.”

[26] “A History of Travel in America.”

[27] “Winning of the West.”

[28] Henry Howe.

[29] A pirogue proper is a canoe dug out of a single log. These may have been and probably were keel boats built of timber and the name pirogue extended to them colloquially.

[30] “The Winning of the West,” Vol. VI, by Theodore Roosevelt.

[31] Cf. “Winning of the West,” Vol. VI, p. 259; and “The American Nation,” Vol. XII, p. 94.

[32]

[33] Reports for 1920 show that New York has exceeded St. Louis in manufactured furs but St. Louis seems still to be the largest market for raw furs.

[34] Albert Watkins in “Collections of the Nebraska State Historical Society.” Vol. XVI, p. 22.

[35] Washington Irving’s “Astoria.”

[36] Cf. p. 230, Ibid.

[37] Dunbar’s “History of Travel.”

[38] Doddridge’s “Notes on the Settlement of Indian Wars.” Monette’s “History of the Valley of the Mississippi.”

[39] Cf. Gallatin’s report for a scheme of national roads and pavements (Adams’ Gallatin, p. 350 et seq.).

[40] Richardson, “Messages and Papers.”

[41] Hurlbert, “Cumberland Road.”

[42] Hulbert, “The Paths of Inland Commerce.”

[43] “American Nation,” Vol. XIV, p. 100.

[44] Hurlbert, “The Paths of Inland Commerce,” p. 121.

[45] Searight, quoted by Hurlbert.

[46] Debates of Congress VI, 433-435, 806, 820.

CHAPTER III
WATER WAYS AND CANALS

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

Canals.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Canal Prosperity and Desuetude.

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

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

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

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

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

© Underwood and Underwood

THE SAULT ST. MARIE CANAL

Ship Canals.

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

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

The Panama Canal.

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

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

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

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

French Participation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

River Transportation.

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

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

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

The New Orleans levee is one continuous landing-place, or quay, 4 miles in extent, and of an average width of 100 feet. It is 15 feet above low water mark, and 6 feet above the level of the city, to which it is graduated by an easy descent. During the business season, from November to July, the river front of the levee is crowded with vessels, of all sizes and from all quarters of the world, with hundreds of large and splendid steamboats, barges, flat-boats, etc. The levee presents a most busy and animated prospect. Here are seen piles of cotton bales, vast numbers of barrels of pork, flour and liquors of various kinds, bales of foreign and domestic manufactures, hogsheads of sugar, crates of ware, etc., draymen with their carts, buyers, sellers, laborers, etc. Valuable products from the head waters of the Missouri, 3000 miles distant, center here. The Illinois, the Ohio, the Arkansas and Red Rivers, with the Mississippi, are all tributaries to this commercial depot.

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

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

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

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

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

These have been termed “flying palaces,” and many of them are fitted up in style of great magnificence. But the comfort of traveling by them is confined to cabin passengers, state rooms, accommodating two persons each, in separate berths, are appropriated for retirement by day and for rest at night; ladies and gentlemen have separate cabins, but dine at the same table, which is set out in the “social hall,” and stocked with a variety of luxuries.... The deck passengers are immediately under the cabin, and in the hinder part of the boat.

A few berths are fitted up for their reception without bedding. Provisions must be provided at their own expense, and also a mode of preparing them. Sometimes numbers are huddled together on board without having room to move, or stretch themselves out for rest; the inconvenience of this mode of traveling can hardly be appreciated without being experienced.

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

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

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

Steamboat Fares

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

The Government’s Attitude Toward River Improvement.

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

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

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

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

SELECTED REFERENCES

Arthur, President Chester A., Veto of river and harbor bill, Richardson’s “Messages and Papers,” VIII, pp. 120-122.

Barnard, Charles, “Inland Navigation of the United States,” The Century Magazine, Vol. XXXVIII, pp. 353-372.

Calhoun, John C., “Works of.” Edited by Richard K. Cralle, 6 volumes, 1853-1855. Vol. II, p. 190. D. Appleton & Company, New York.

Canals.—“Report of the Committee on Roads and Canals (of the House of Representatives) in reply to memorials of Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and inhabitants of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, asking additional subscriptions by the United States to the capital stock of the Canal.” Report No. 414, H. of R. 23d Cong. 1st Sess., pp. 378 et seq.

Dunbar, Seymour, “History of Travel in America,” 4 volumes, Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis.

Greeley, Horace, “Recollections of a Busy Life.” J. B. Ford & Co., New York, 1869.

Hazard, George S., “The Erie Canal. Its National Character.” Published by order of Board of Trade, Buffalo, N. Y., 1873.

Howe, Henry, “Historical Sketch of the West.”

“Isthmian Canal Commission Report,” Sen. Doc., 57th Congress, 1st session, No. 54.

Johnson’s Cyclopaedia. Article on Canals.

MacDonald, William, “Jacksonian Democracy,” Vol. XV of the American Nation Series, Chapter VIII, “Internal Improvements.” Harper & Brothers, New York.

McMaster, John Bach, “History of the United States,” Vol. V, Chap. XLIV. D. Appleton & Company, New York, 1911.

O’Hanlon, Rev. J., “Irish Emigrant’s Guide of the United States,” Boston, 1851.

Panama Canal.—Financial Statement to June 30, 1919, The American Year Book for the year 1919, p. 364, D. Appleton & Co., New York.

Richardson, James D., “Messages and Papers,” Vol. I, 584, President Madison’s Veto of Calhoun’s Bonus Bill. Published by order of Congress, 8 Vols., Washington, 1896-1899.

Roosevelt, President Theodore, “Messages to Congress,” January 4, 1904, Sen. Doc. 58th Sess., No. 53, pp. 5-26.

Smith, Theodore C., “Parties and Slavery,” Vol. XVIII, of the American Nation Series, Harper & Brothers, New York.

Sparks, Edwin E., “National Development,” Vol. XXIII of the American Nation Series, Chapters IV and XIII, Harper & Brothers, New York.

Thayer, Wm. R., “Theodore Roosevelt,” p. 178 et seq. Grosset & Dunlap, New York.

Thayer, Wm. R., “John Hay,” Vol. II, pp. 339-41. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1915.

Turner, Frederick J., “Rise of the New West,” Vol. XIV of the American Nation Series, Chapter VIII, “Western Trade and Ideals,” Harper & Brothers, New York.

Twain, Mark (Clemens, S. L.), “Life on the Mississippi,” Harper & Brothers, New York.

U. S. Census review of “Agencies of Transportation,” 1880.

Warner, I. W., “Immigrant’s Guide and Citizen’s Manual.” New York, 1848.

FOOTNOTES

[47] “American Nation,” Vol. XIV, p. 32.

[48] McMaster, “United States,” Vol. V.

[49]

—Dunbar’s “History of Travel in America”.

[50]

“Annual Report of the Trustees of the Wabash and Erie Canal,” 1849.

[51] U. S. Census review of “Agencies of Transportation,” 1880.

[52] Johnson’s Cyclopaedia.

[53] “Recollections of a Busy Life,” by Horace Greeley.

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

[55] Smith: “Parties and Slavery,” (“American Nation,” Vol. XVIII).

[56] Democratic Platform, 1856.

[57] North American Review, Vol. CXXXII, p. 107.

[58] “American Nation,” Vol. XXIII.

[59] “Theodore Roosevelt,” by W. R. Thayer, 180. “John Hay,” by W. R. Thayer, II, 339-41.

[60] Isthmian Canal Commission Report, Sen. Doc. 57th Congress., 1st session, No. 54.

[61] Message of January 4, 1904, Sen. Doc., 58th Cong. 2nd Sess. No. 53, pp. 5-26.

[62] “Theodore Roosevelt,” by William Roscoe Thayer, p. 184 et seq.

[63] Letter to Albert Shaw by President Theodore Roosevelt. Literary Digest, October 29, 1904.

[64] “Theodore Roosevelt,” by W. R. Thayer, p. 190.

[65] “Theodore Roosevelt,” by W. R. Thayer, p. 186.

[66] “The American Year Book,” 1919. Appleton, N. Y.

[67] Panama Canal Record.

[68] For a long list of steamboats built in America, and operated under their own power prior to Fulton’s Clermont, see “A History of Travel in America,” by Seymour Dunbar.

[69] “American Nation,” Vol. XIV.

[70] “American Nation,” Vol. XIV, p. 105.

[71] Henry Howe, “Historical Sketch of the West.”

[72] Statistical Atlas 1900. 12th Census of the U. S.

[73] Charles Barnard in The Century Magazine, Vol. XXXVIII, from which also is derived information relative to dimensions and decorations of steam vessels, pp. 353-372.

[74] See “Life on the Mississippi,” by Mark Twain, p. 117.

[75] “Life on the Mississippi,” by Mark Twain, Chapter XX.

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

[77] Warner’s “Immigrant’s Guide and Citizen’s Manual.”

[78] March 18, 1786, John Fitch was granted by New Jersey “the sole and exclusive right of constructing making using and employing or navigating, all and every species or kind of boats, impelled by the force of fire or steam” within the limits of that state. Delaware gave him similar rights in 1787 and New York, likewise, the same year. In 1798 Fitch’s grant in New York, which was to have run fourteen years, was canceled and Livingston given a monopoly for twenty years providing within a year he run a steamboat at four miles an hour. This he failed to do, but got his grant renewed in 1803, and again extended until the successful operation of the Clermont in 1807.

[79] “Messages and Papers,” Richardson, I, 584.

[80] Calhoun: “Works II,” 190. “American Nation” XIII, 253.

[81] “American Nation,” XIV, 231.

[82] “Laws of the United States,” VI., 120.

[83] MacDonald, “American Nation” Vol. XV, 134.

[84] “American Nation,” Vol. XV, pp. 136-137.

[85] Richardson, “Messages and Papers,” VIII, 120-122.

[86] “The American Year Book,” 208.

CHAPTER IV
RAILROADS

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

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

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

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

The Evolution of the Railway Train

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pacific Roads.

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

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

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

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

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

Construction of Pacific Roads.

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

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

The Crédit Mobilier.

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

Railroad Consolidation.

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

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

For a more extended discussion see “National Consolidation of Railroads,” by George H. Lewis.

Mechanical Development.

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

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

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

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

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

© Underwood and Underwood

MODERN LOCOMOTIVES

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

The Evolution of the Sleeping Car.

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

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

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

Street Car Service.

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

Electric Traction.

—There are reports of attempts to obtain magnetic traction by the use of batteries, but not until the electric dynamo and motor had become practical working machines was anything like a successful working electrically propelled car developed. The ordinary method is to generate the electricity at a central station, carry it along the track by means of a wire, from which it is taken by a trolley or some form of conductor to a motor on the car completing the circuit through the track and ground. Such a car was practically demonstrated at the Berlin Exposition of 1879, by Werner Siemens, with a line 219 yards long.[117] This was the first practical electric railway. But long before this time in America experiments had been made with electric traction. Dever exhibited a model at Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1835.[118] In 1879, the year of Siemens’ exhibition, another model railway having a “third rail” to carry the current was exhibited at Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Edison had a car in operation at Menlo Park, New Jersey, in 1882, and the following year a small road carried passengers at an exhibit in Chicago. Miniature roads were exhibited at Philadelphia, Denver, Cleveland, New Orleans, and possibly elsewhere. The first electric railway built and operated for profit in American streets was at Richmond, Virginia, in 1885 on 2¹⁄₂ miles of track. During the same year 2 miles between Baltimore and Hampton were put in operation.[119] By 1890 the number of cities having trolley cars had increased to forty-nine.[120] From that time on the change from horse-drawn cars was very rapid. Trolley lines were even extended throughout the country districts. At one time it looked as though they might replace steam cars for passenger traffic, especially short-haul traffic. There was a complete network of interurban trolley lines in the Eastern and Central Western states by 1910.[121] The trolley is also being used upon hard-surfaced roads without tracks by buses and trucks. Steam railroads running into New York City through the tubes use electric locomotives to draw the trains, thus avoiding the smoke nuisance and the danger therewith connected. The Milwaukee Railroad is using electric locomotives on its mountain division in Montana and Idaho. Electricity is generated by water power; also the trains going down grade are run against a dynamo and storage battery thus acting as a brake as well as renewing the batteries.

SELECTED REFERENCES

Brown, William H., “History of the First Locomotive in America.” D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1871.

Burch, Edward P., “Electric Traction for Railway Trains,” Chap. I (Historical). McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, 1911.

Callender, Guy S., “The Economic History of the United States,” Chapter VIII, “Transportation,” Ginn & Co., New York.

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

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

Davis, John P., “Union Pacific Railway.” S. C. Griggs & Co., Chicago.

Donaldson, Thomas, “History of the Public Domain,” Published by order of an act of Congress, 1884.

Dunbar, Seymour, “A History of Travel in America,” 4 volumes. Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis.

Ericsson, John, “Life of” by William C. Church, Chap. IV. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York.

Husband, Joseph, “The Story of the Pullman Car.” A. C. McClurg & Company, Chicago, 1917.

Johnson, Emory R., “Elements of Transportation,” 1909. D. Appleton & Company, New York.

Larrabee, Wm., “The Railroad Question,” Shulte Publishing Company, Chicago, 1893.

Le Rossignol, J. E., “Monopolies Past and Present.” T. Y. Crowell Company, New York.

Lewis, George H., “National Consolidation of Railroads.” Dodd, Mead & Co., New York.

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

Martin, E. W., “History of the Grange Movement, or The Farmer’s War against Monopoly.” A subscription book published in 1874. National Publishing Company, Chicago.

Poore, Henry V., “History of Railroads and Canals of the United States,” Vol. I, p. 377. New York, 1860.

Sanborn, John B., “Congressional Grants of Land in Aid of Railways.” University of Wisconsin Bulletin, Vol. II, No. 3, Econ. pol. Sci. and Hist. Series.

Selfridge, H. Gordon, “The Romance of Commerce.” John Lane, London.

Sparks, E. E., “National Development,” Vol. XXIII, The American Nation Series, Chapter III and IV. Harper & Brothers, New York.

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

U. S. Statutes, 41st Congress, 1st Session, Chap. DCXLVII, Sherman Anti-Trust Law.

U. S. Statutes, Railroad Bills, 1850-1880 House Report 42d Cong., 3d Session, No. 77.

FOOTNOTES

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

[ [88] Stevens’ pamphlet published in 1812.

[ [89] Stephenson’s first locomotive was put out in 1814. His Rocket and Ericsson’s Novelty had their famous contest resulting in favor of the Rocket in 1829.

[ [90] Brown’s “History of the First Locomotive,” letter from Cooper, 1869.

[ [91] The coning of wheels is an invention of Jonathan Knight, Engineer of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company.

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

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

[ [94] The Albany Argus, August 11, 1831.

[ [95] “History of the Railroads and Canals of the United States,” 1860, Vol. I, p. 377.

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

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

[ [98] Potter’s American Monthly, July, 1879.

[ [99] T. C. Smith, American Nation, Vol. XVIII, p. 60.

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

[101] Donaldson, “History of the Public Domain.” University of Wisconsin Bulletin: “Congressional Grants of Land in Aid of Railways,” by J. B. Sanborn, Pol. Sci. and History Series, Vol. II, No. 3.

[102] The “History of the Grange Movement,” a subscription book by Edward Winslow Martin, published in 1874, but which can hardly be taken as wholly reliable, says: “The lands granted by the Government to various railway corporations make up a total area of 198,165,794 acres, or about 300,000 square miles—an area larger than the State of Texas, which contains 237,504 square miles ... and the railway subsidies comprise nearly one-tenth of the entire Union.”

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

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

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

[106] By subsequent provision the right of way was cut to two hundred feet, although the company still holds four hundred feet through parts of Nebraska.

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

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

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

[110] Digest U. S. Supreme Court Reports, Vol. IV, “Monopoly,” pp. 4043-4052, The Lawyers Co-operative Publishing Company, Rochester, N. Y., 1908.

[111] Funk and Wagnalls’ Encyclopedia.

[112] Jointly with Gould Interests.

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

[114] Jointly with Standard Oil interests.

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

[116] “The Story of the Pullman Car,” by Joseph Husband. A. C. McClurg & Company, Chicago, 1917. Cf. Literary Digest, February 10, 1923, p. 25.

[117] Funk and Wagnalls’ Encyclop.

[118] “Special Reports, Streets and Electric Railways,” U. S. Census Bureau (1902). This, of course, was not a practical machine.

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

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

[121] See Maps in Century Dictionary.

CHAPTER V
THE MODERN WAGON ROAD

Gone are the long picturesque lines of emigrant and freight wagons, with their conestogas, their stage coaches, their oxen, their mules and horses; gone are the hospitable inns with their gay and social crowds of happy travelers; gone are the nightly wagon-formed corrals into which the freighter was wont to drive his animals to prevent their stampeding by the wily red-skin; gone are the complacent but slow-going canal barges so plentiful and popular that at the cry of “low bridge,” everybody ducked by reflex action; gone are the floating palaces on the vacillating and changeable waters of the interior river systems; these yesteryear implements of transportation have been all but superseded by more powerful or more speedy instruments. The canals are very frequently but weed-grown scum-covered channels through the soil, while many of the wagon roads are similarly weed-grown or dust-covered lanes on top of the soil. Perhaps a rejuvenation will come. Already the public road shows signs of a more vigorous growth than the world has ever witnessed even in the heyday of road building under the Roman Caesars.

© Underwood and Underwood

TRANSPORTATION ACROSS DEATH VALLEY

A Picturesque Method of Earlier Days.

Public highways began their desuetude (partial at least) about 1830, at the advent of the steam railway. To be sure, arrangements were made for the laying out and care of roads. There were, also, usually poll and property taxes levied for road and bridge purposes. But generally the old English custom of allowing such taxes to be worked out prevailed. In Iowa, for instance,[122] the county court was given “general supervision over the highways” which must be 66 feet wide unless otherwise specially directed. The manner of establishing roads is set forth and the county judge may if he wishes call in a competent surveyor and “cause the line of the road to be accurately surveyed and plainly marked out.” “Where crops have been sowed or planted before the road is finally established the opening thereof shall be delayed until the crop is harvested.” The county supervisor must appoint a deputy in each township, but the deputy “must regard himself as an actual laboring hand” and his compensation “shall not exceed one dollar and fifty cents for each day actually employed.” It is the duty of the supervisor “to place and preserve the roads in as good a condition as the funds at his disposal will permit, and to place guide boards at such points as he may think expedient or as the court may direct.” In the Eastern states and in the hilly districts the method of locating each individual road to follow a trail or stream or ridge usually prevailed, but in many of the prairie states roads were located by law on each section line and in some states on each half-section line as well. This made every man’s farm adjacent to a road, although it was certainly a waste of land. In nearly all the prairie states the legal right of way is now 66 feet,[123] in other states it is made 49¹⁄₂ and 33 feet. Massachusetts state-aid roads have a minimum of 50 feet. Texas divided her roads into three classes with widths of 60, 30 and 20 feet. New Jersey has some state roads 33 feet wide. On the whole 66 feet seems to be favored. This, if roads are made on every half-section mile, appropriates almost 5 per cent of the land, a quantity that by proper selection and location might be materially reduced. The section line method is liked by farmers because it leaves the fields rectangular, a convenient form for efficiency in cultivation.

The Influence of the Bicycle on Roads.

—Road construction remained in a lackadaisical state with here and there a spurt, with now and then an intelligent supervisor who appreciated the need of better wagon roads, until the coming of the bicycle. That machine may be considered a descendant of the old celeripede, which consisted of two wheels connected by a horizontal bar on which the rider sat and propelled himself by pushing with his feet alternately on the ground, through the velocipede, which had the front wheel pivoted to the framework for easy steering. The attachment of pedals is credited to a Scotchman, Kirkpatrick Macmillan, about 1840, who applied them to the rear wheel. In 1886 Lallement in the United States and Michaux in France, placed the pedals on the front wheels. The front wheel was gradually increased in diameter until in the ’eighties it sometimes measured as much as 60 inches. The rear wheel decreased as the front increased. The stability of the wheel was not very great; headers were common, and mounting was difficult. To overcome these defects of the “ordinary” there was developed, 1885, the “safety,” approximately the present bicycle, in which the pedals are carried on a separate shaft and the power transmitted by chain and sprocket to the rear wheel. With the invention of the Dunlop[124] pneumatic tire, and consequent overcoming of much of the jolting so objectionable in more solid tires, the adoption of the bicycle as a means of pleasure and business locomotion was extremely rapid. The cycling boom reached its height about 1896 or 1897, by which time a great many large manufactories of bicycles had been established over the country. A frenzy seized upon the people and men and women of all stations were riding wheels; ardent cyclists were found in every city, village, and hamlet.

As a result of the cycling craze there were organized numerous “wheel clubs” and finally a national one known as the League of American Wheelmen, organized about 1887. Its object partly social and partly to popularize the new sport of cycling, became a few years later almost wholly a form of propaganda for “better roads.” Newspaper space was freely utilized; many papers making special and regular features of “good roads”; pamphlets were published and distributed broadly, and a magazine was established.[125]

At first the wheelmen were met by the cry of selfishness, with the argument that the city folk wanted the farmers to build good roads for their pleasure; but men of foresight, men of affairs, saw the benefits accruing to all kinds of business and added their influence. Mr. Potter, a lawyer of New York City, who had graduated in civil engineering at Cornell University before turning to the law, became interested in the good roads movement, studied and made himself one of the best posted men on roads in the United States. When the League of American Wheelmen decided to start a magazine he was selected for its editor and manager. Under his direction the subscription list of Good Roads soon reached more than 30,000.[126] “The articles strive to show the value of roads in a commercial sense and by a comparison with other countries demonstrate how far behind America is in this respect.” Pictures of good and bad roads were used freely, thus holding the attention where reading matter alone would have failed. European roads, the French especially, were described and played up through newspapers generally. Scarcely a journal that did not run leaders and other articles on the benefits of good roads and methods of building and maintaining the same. Our ordinary roads were decried on every hand. A lady voices her opinion thus:[127]

I came to this country with the best prejudices, having enjoyed the privilege of meeting with some of its noblest representatives in my fatherland. I admired much the individual independence, the high standing of women, the gentle sway of the church, the liberal education of the children, and the unsurpassed charity that extends even to distant countries. I must confess that I was struck with the bad roads everywhere, in cities as well as in the country, and at the same time, amused at the compensation one gets when one meets with an accident. Why not spend the money in the improvements of the roads—make these roads perfect, and then let everybody look out for himself.

In summer the worst road is good; but in winter schools have to be closed, the children are stopped in their regular pursuits, learning becomes desultory, and the strong feeling of duty that has to be developed from the very beginning of life by strict good habits gets slackened and slighted; and so also the attendance of the churches—for many people the only comfort in the struggle for existence—becomes an impossibility. And especially the painstaking farmer must find it hard to drive his team through the muddy, clayey road, in bringing the fruits of his labor to the market. I hear him, with many a suppressed oath on everything under the sun, dragging his cartload through the mud and standing pools, and in snowstorms he is sometimes totally lost. All communication stops.

And so on for a column or more. She inserts by way of anecdote which shows that two of the greatest Germans who ever lived did not think the lowly road too insignificant to discuss:

When Heinrich Heine for the first time met with the royal poet, Goethe, he was so impressed with the majesty of his personality that he could speak of nothing less than the plum trees on the chaussée, between Jena and Weimar.

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

Our wagon roads throughout the country are generally a disgrace to civilization and before we undertake to supply Jaeger underwear and sealskin covered bibles with flexible backs to the African it might be well to put a few dollars into the relief of galled and broken down horses that have lost their breath on our miserable highways.

The country system, as I recall it, was in my boyhood about as poor and inefficient as it could well be. Each township was divided up into road districts, and each road district was presided over by an overseer of highways, whose duty it is to collect so many days’ work or so many dollars from each taxpayer in the district. Of course no taxpayer would pay a dollar when he could come and make mud pies on the road all day and visit and gossip with the neighbors and save his dollar too.

The result seemed to be that the work was misdirected and generally an injury to the road. With all our respect to the farmer, I will state right here that he does not know how to make roads. An all wise Providence never intended that he should know. The professional roadbuilder, with the money used by the ignorant sapheads and self-made road architects, would in a few years make roads in the United States over which two or three times the present sized load could be easily drawn, and the dumb beasts of the Republic would rise up and call us blessed for doing it.

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

They May Be Sinking Yet

Old farmer John drove off to town

All on a rainy day.

The glistening highway up and down,

With mire shone all the way.

The gentle weeping raindrops fell

And had fallen all the night;

The bottom of that highway—well;

’Twas literally out of sight.

But John had hitched his sturdy steeds.

His sturdy steeds and true

That often ’mid such urgent needs.

Had boldly struggled through.

And John had sworn a big round oath

With deep and bated breath,

He’d rather brave the deep, forsooth,

Thrice o’er than starve to death.

For visions of the flour bin,

’Twas empty he could see,

And for a week no sugar in

His coffee cup had he.

And so amid the sea of mire.

Those steeds right valiant reel,

While turbid waves creep higher, higher,

Upon the wagon wheel.

Oh! help ye powers that rule the wave,

Wherever ye may be;

Reach down and this poor mortal save

From out the turbid sea.

They sink, now just the horses’ ears

Still struggling through the flood;

Now nothing but John’s hat appears

Above that sea of mud.

The rich black loam of Illinois

Above that outfit met;

And since our roads are bottomless,

They may be sinking yet.

Thus was the propaganda for better roads spread during the last decade of the nineteenth century. And this is not all the country owes to the enthusiastic wheelman of that period. Their efforts had resulted in a stirring of the whole populace. True, some were opposed to spending money for highfalutin highways, but many of the best thinkers of the country caught the true spirit of the wave and did all they could to continue the good work. In many states organizations were formed and good roads meetings called. In Des Moines, August 16, 1892,[129] more than 300 delegates representing boards of trade, boards of supervisors, county road conventions, 88 counties and 130 cities met in an enthusiastic convention of two days’ duration with Judge E. H. Thayer of Clinton as presiding officer. On the programme were such men as Horace Boies, Governor of the state, Judge Peter A. Day, Railway Commissioner, and Charles A. Schaeffer, President of the State University. The resolutions adopted among other things recommend that, until further legislation can be had, the following steps by county associations be taken: “(1) To set on foot a movement in every township in the respective counties looking to the consolidation of road districts...; (2) to impress on boards of supervisors the duty of levying the county fund tax...; (3) where it is apparent that the public interests will be best subserved by a larger immediate expenditure ... to urge ... the propriety of submitting to the people the voting of a higher levy or the issuance of bonds ... to agitate in cities and towns the question of the propriety of expending money beyond their limits in improving highways leading thereto....”

© Underwood and Underwood

GOOD ROADS DAY IN JACKSON CO., MO.

While this convention was in session a similar one was meeting in Missouri; in fact practically all the states in the Union were getting “in the band wagon.”

The League stopped not here, but were interesting the political men of the country in the issue. They visited the president of the United States, Benjamin Harrison, at Washington in July,[130] at which time he turned to Colonel Charles L. Burdet, head of the League, and said: “One thing; if wheelmen secure us good roads for which they are so zealously working, your body deserves a medal in recognition of its philanthropy.”

The great World’s Fair was coming off at Chicago in 1893, and “good roads boosters” were extremely anxious that a suitable exhibition be made there. General Roy Stone framed a bill which was favorably reported by the Senate Committee July 23, 1892. It was a bill to create a National Highway Commission and prescribe its duties, “composed of two Senators and five members of the House of Representatives, and five citizens appointed by the president” for the purpose of a general inquiry into the condition of highways in the United States and means for their improvement, and especially the best method of securing a proper exhibit at the World’s Columbian Exhibition of approved appliances for road making, and of providing for public instruction in the art during the exhibition.[131]

Colonel Albert A. Pope, of Boston, a zealous road worker, secured the opinions of hundreds of prominent men, which he presented to the members of congress. Only a few extracts can be made here.[132]

A want of understanding and system has resulted in a nearly useless expenditure of enough labor and money to have furnished the settled portions of our country with good substantial roads. —President Benjamin Harrison.

Looking at it from a postal standpoint enlarged free delivery or anything like universal free delivery will have to be postponed until there are better facilities of communication through the rural and sparsely settled districts. The experiments that we have made in the smaller towns and villages have proved the practicability of greater extended free delivery, but without good roads it must necessarily be limited to the small towns. —John Wanamaker, Postmaster General.

There is no doubt that the diffusion of knowledge in regard to the good construction of roads will be of immense benefit to all the people. —John A. Noble, Secretary of the Interior.

I think the people of the United States are taking more interest in the improvement of good roads than in any other non-political matter. —O. H. Platt, Senator from Connecticut.

I have often thought that the people, speaking of them generally, have never yet understood the value of good roads. They are not only matters of convenience, but they are really matters of great economy in every community. The farmer with one team of two horses is able to move on a good road more than he could move with four horses and a wagon of much greater strength on a poor road. This I have tested personally many times. Farmers are constantly in need of the use of highways to transport their property and to move themselves from place to place. The average farmer is five miles distant from the nearest railway station and his surplus produce must be moved that distance year after year. If he were to compute the saving that he and his neighbors would have by reason of first-class roadways, they would discover that it would amount to more than the expense of putting the roads in good condition and keeping them so. Our road system is miserably deficient. —William A. Peffer, Senator from Kansas (Populist).

Aside from the benefits that good roads bring to the people in times of peace I do not know of a great city in this country that is provided with such highways as would admit of the expeditions marching of a great army in times of war. Washington City is a fair example in this regard. The highways leading to this city through Maryland and Virginia are both narrow and crooked. There is not a single public outlet or inlet that can be called a great national highway. —H. C. Hansbrough, Senator from North Dakota.

In the old Roman days all roads led to Rome, and they were good roads. They built roads for military and commercial purposes, and the wisdom of their enterprise was apparent even in that early day. European nations to-day regard road-making as one of their economic questions, and it does seem that our Government in its honest endeavor to benefit the agricultural classes, should have thought of good roads long ago. We want and must have splendid highways, owned not by corporations but by the people. They will be an economical investment, and an untold comfort to the traveler. —James H. Kyle, Senator from South Dakota.

The country could spend no money so economically and enlist no genius so usefully as in making better roads for communications between one neighborhood and another. —John W. Daniel, Senator from Virginia.

I esteem good roads throughout the country to be as necessary as railroads. —Francis E. Warren, Senator from Wyoming.

The prosperity of our country depends so largely on the prosperity of our farmers that everything possible should be done to render life in the rural districts agreeable as well as profitable and nothing could conduce more to the comfort and happiness of our people than the improvement of the roads. —Joseph Wheeler, Representative from Alabama.

That good roads in good condition are always of great value in a military point of view is plain enough; for any section of active operations the prompt transportation of material and the moving of an army would demand it. —Major General Oliver O. Howard, United States Army.

The importance of good roads has been brought to my attention most forcibly on many occasions when my wagon trains have been forced to move at a snail’s pace over almost impassable roads, and when every hour’s delay might mean untold disaster. The expenditure of animal force on such occasions was fearful. In times of peace good roads are no less important; the general condition of country roads is a very good index of the civilization and prosperity of the community. It is not difficult to show by mathematical deduction that money expended in constructing good roads is economy from a financial standpoint, while from a social standpoint the benefits are incalculable.

We have splendid railroads traversing the whole country in every direction and we have in most cities very creditable means of rapid transit, but the country roads in most parts of the United States are really deplorable. This condition of affairs is something like putting a boy at work on Latin and Greek before he has mastered the alphabet of his own language. —Brig. Gen. D. K. Stanley, United States Army.

The above are only a small portion of the letters from which they were extracted, but they serve to show that the League of American Wheelmen and such men as Colonel Pope were very active in spreading the gospel of good roads. The arguments in these and hundreds of other letters, from men of all classes and professions, of all political parties from all parts of the nation, cover a very wide range and the effect has been lasting.

About this time, also, Senator Charles F. Manderson, of Nebraska, introduced a concurrent resolution in the Senate to print a lot of consular reports relating to streets and highways in foreign countries and distribute them in bulletin form. The edition consisted of 30,000 and served to show how the United States was lagging behind other countries in the matter of road building.[133]

Office of Public Roads Inquiry.

—A very few lines of the Congressional Record serves to introduce the beginning of a great instrumentality for good roads in America. On January 26, 1893, Representative Deborow introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives, “instructing the committee on agriculture to incorporate in the agricultural appropriation the sum of $15,000 to be expended for the purpose of making investigations for a better system of roads.”[134] On the same day Representative Lewis presented a similar resolution “instructing the committee on agriculture to incorporate in the bill making appropriations for the Agricultural Department a clause authorizing the Secretary to make inquiry regarding public roads.”[135] Both resolutions were referred to the committee on agriculture. As a final result a statute carrying an appropriation of $10,000 was approved March 3, 1893. Under this statute the Office of Public Roads Inquiries was instituted, October 3, 1893, with “General Roy Stone, of New York, recognized as a superior civil engineer, and thoroughly identified with the popular movement toward the improvement of the highways in the several states, in charge.”[136]

The Letter of Instructions of the Secretary of Agriculture to General Stone upon his appointment summarizes the statute and defines the object and scope of the inquiry to be made. The last paragraph of the instructions shows that the old theory of “state sovereignty,” still had a place in the mind of the Secretary, and it was not for several years that this office did more than the mere collection of information relative to roads. The letter follows:[137]

U. S. Department of Agriculture,
Office of the Secretary,
Washington, D. C., October 3, 1893.

Sir: You have been this day appointed to supervise and carry out the investigations pursuant to the statute approved March 3, 1893, which has four branches:

(1) To make inquiries in regard to the systems of road management throughout the United States.

(2) To make investigations in regard to the best method of road-making.

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

(4) To assist the agricultural colleges and experiment stations in disseminating information on this subject.

It will not be profitable to enter upon all of these points at first. The work under the appropriation will need to be of gradual growth, conducted at all times economically. Therefore, it is not expected that there will be any considerable force of clerical help, and aside from your salary, no considerable expenditure for the present. It is understood that you have at your command the data for a compilation of the laws of several of the states, upon which their road systems are based. It should be your first duty, therefore, to make such collection complete, and prepare a bulletin on that subject.

Incidentally, while preparing this bulletin, you should charge yourself with collecting data relating to the different methods of road making, which, in the first instance, should be generic in their character; including—

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

(2) Gravel highways.

(3) Macadam and other stone roads.

(4) Data upon which to base suggestions for the transportation of material within reasonable access, for the proper surfacing of the roadbed. These data should form the foundation for the second bulletin, or second series of bulletins.

There are certain restrictions I wish specifically to bring to your attention. It must be borne in mind that the actual expense in the construction of these highways is to be borne by the localities and states in which they lie. Moreover, it is not the province of this Department to seek to control or influence said action, except in so far as advice and wise suggestion shall contribute toward it. This Department is to form no part of any plan, scheme, or organization, or to be a party to it in any way, which has for its object the concerted effort to secure and furnish labor to the unemployed persons or to convicts. These are matters to be carried on by states, localities, or charities. The Department is to furnish information, not to direct and formulate any system of organization, however efficient or desirable it may be. Any such effort on its part would soon make it subject to hostile criticism. You will publish this letter in the preface to your first bulletin.

Yours truly,
J. Sterling Morton,
Secretary.

Mr. Roy Stone,
Special Agent and Civil Engineer in charge of
Good Roads Investigations.

The Office followed these instructions pretty closely for several years. General Stone and his successor General Dodge encouraged the formation of good roads organizations. In fact General Stone prior to the institution of the Office of Road Inquiries was instrumental in organizing at Chicago in connection with the dedication of the World’s Fair in 1893, the National League for Good Roads. General Stone himself attributed to the influence of this League the organization of the Office of Public Roads and the great work which it has since accomplished.[138]

Other good roads organizations were springing up. The Office of Public Road Inquiries encouraged these to the extent of publishing addresses given at their conventions as bulletins upon the theory that the information relative to road improvements throughout the United States was in line with the object and scope of the Office.

The organization known as the National Good Roads Association, with W. H. Moore of St. Louis, Missouri, as president, and R. W. Richardson, of Omaha, Nebraska, as secretary, seems to have been especially active. Colonel Moore was a man of impressive manner, suave and affable, and was able to interest and associate with him many very influential people. He was a born “good roads booster.” He always worked with the men in power. Directors Stone and Dodge not only had prominent places on his convention programmes, but recommended to the Secretary of Agriculture that the proceedings be printed as Departmental Bulletins. This was for a time helpful to the cause of good roads, for the conventions were addressed by able and influential men. Director Dodge in his letter of transmittal of the proceedings of the convention held at St. Louis, Missouri, April 27 to 29, 1903, to Hon. James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture, says:[139]

Among the distinguished speakers who delivered addresses were Hon. Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States; Hon. William J. Bryan, of Nebraska; General Miles, of the United States Army; Governor Dockery, of Missouri; Governor Cummins, of Iowa; Hon. A. C. Latimer, United States Senator from South Carolina; Hon. W. D. Vandiver, member of Congress from Missouri; Hon. D. R. Frances, president of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Committee; Hon. J. H. Brigham, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture; General Roy Stone, of New York; and Mr. Samuel Hill, of Washington. Addresses were also delivered by prominent men engaged in agriculture, railway transportation, commercial pursuits, and newspaper work.

This organization, like many state good-roads organizations, had no permanent membership list. Any city that would “finance” a convention could get one. Invitations were sent to governors, mayors, county officers, city officers, commercial clubs urging them to appoint delegates to the conventions. As a result large conventions were promoted and held at Chicago, St. Louis, Buffalo, Portland, and elsewhere, usually in connection with some exposition or fair.

There being no permanent membership the only way to finance such undertakings was by popular subscriptions and donations from social, commercial and political bodies. Colonel Moore[140] went to New York and talked to the president of the Illinois Central railroad, Mr. Stuyvesant Fish, and asked for a special “train of fifteen cars to carry modern road machinery.” “How much will this project cost?” asked Mr. Fish. Moore replied, “As near as we can figure it out, to furnish and operate this train for three months will cost you $40,000 to $50,000.” President Fish replied, “That is a large amount to throw in the mud, but we will consider it.” The train was granted. In the language of Colonel Moore, the “railroad company shouldered the burden.” The government through the Office of Public Roads furnished two expert engineers, other engineers and necessary employees were hired. This train made the trip from Chicago to New Orleans. Advance-agents were sent along the way to secure the coöperation of the various communities. They were asked to raise a sufficient amount of money to defray the local expenses. Moore states, “we did not visit a single city in the South where we laid the matter before the mayor, the city council, and the supervisors that they did not promptly respond in the affirmative.” Road machinery carried on the train was explained by men frequently sent along for this purpose by the manufacturers who had donated its use or by engineers and others in charge. Short sections of road were graded and stoned—“object lesson roads were built.” Similar trains were run over the Lake Shore Road, and later over the Southern Railway. The latter at a cost of about $80,000; the road equipped the train, fed the men and furnished Pullman cars for sleeping accommodations. The last such train was over the Northern Pacific. This particular organization (there were others) and its work has been thus fully mentioned to show how thoroughly the propaganda was carried on which resulted later in the greatest road-building campaign in the history of the world. The National Good Roads Association came to grief at the Portland Exposition in 1905, where strenuous opposition developed to the financing methods of Mr. Moore and an unsuccessful effort was made to oust him from the presidency of the association. James W. Abbott, Pacific Coast Agent for the Office of Public Roads in a newspaper interview among other things said:[141]

“We feel that the wild, reckless and impossible things which Colonel Moore promises to do for communities must later produce a reaction positively disastrous. He has already promised that the construction train of the National Good Roads Association will do an amount of work gratuitously for communities, which, allowing for unavoidable delays, climatic and otherwise, would take more than ten years. The three good roads trains which have heretofore done object-lesson road work have been under the direct operation and executive management of Colonel Richardson. They were wonderfully well-equipped trains, but they demonstrated that the building of suitable object-lesson roads efficiently and economically was not and could not be made a circus proposition.”

In addition to good roads associations, the agitation for better roads was taken up by governors who devoted a not inconsiderable portion of their messages to the legislatures to a discussion of the subject. Even presidents of the United States paid it attention in their messages to Congress. With the coming of the automobile the need of better highways and hard pavements was greatly emphasized. With lots of money for propaganda, with nearly everyone becoming a disciple of good roads, is it any wonder that Congress finally voted for federal aid?

Participation in road conventions and coöperation with more or less spurious organizations was greatly curtailed when Logan Walter Page was promoted to the Directorship of the office. Still, speakers and experts were freely sent to address meetings for the purpose of educating the citizenry to the need of better roads, and how they should go about to obtain them and what such roads will cost. Speakers were, therefore, supposed to give definite and specific information on which local committees might act intelligently. Propaganda for the purpose of influencing legislation in any state or city was tabooed and bulletins took on a more scientific nature relating more to quality, availability, and cost of materials; methods and costs of construction; and efficiency of types of roads.

Road associations have continued to increase and many have and are doing praiseworthy work for the cause of better roads. The Good Roads Year Book, 1914, published by the American Highway Association, of which Director Page was president, listed, giving the names of the principal officers, 1 international, 38 national and 617 state and county associations.

Object-Lesson Roads.

—The Office of Public Roads inquiry beginning, as has been shown, very simply, has by devoted service and extreme economy been able to do a remarkable amount of good for the public highways of this country. The men at its head and employed by it deserve much praise. Their salaries were small, yet they worked with missionary zeal. They were able to coöperate with scientific and professional organizations, such as the American Society for Testing Materials, The American Society of Civil Engineers, The Bureau of Standards, and a number of organizations employing reputable high-class scientific men in research work pertaining to road construction and road materials. The government’s appropriation beginning at $10,000 or excluding the Director’s salary $8000, was increased from time to time until it was in 1896, $37,660 and in 1911, $135,000. Since the adoption of the system of Federal Aid, there has naturally been greatly increased operation. The total appropriations for the Bureau of Public Roads are now approximately three quarters of a million dollars.

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

[Text version of chart]

The duties and scope of the Office of Public Roads Inquiry was gradually widened and its name changed to the Office of Public Roads. In 1915 by reorganization of the Department of Agriculture it became the Office of Public Roads and Rural Engineering and took charge of all the Department’s work which partook in any way of an engineering nature. In 1916 the Secretary of Agriculture directed the Office to act for him in the routine administration of the Federal Roads Act. The work of the Office or Bureau of Public Roads, as it is now designated, was in 1916, carried on along three general lines:[142] (1) Educational; (2) Research, and (3) Administration of the Federal Road Act. By its educational or extension work the Office was endeavoring to reach the people by means of lectures, addresses, the publication of bulletins and the exhibit of models. Emphasizing the economic value of improved roads and the efficiency of various types. Special advice and assistance to communities was given by furnishing engineers and experts to confer with municipal officers on their particular problems. Actual demonstration by the construction of object-lesson roads was freely carried on. The community furnished the material and labor; the Office sent its engineers and experts to design and superintend the construction. These “seed miles” resulted in the construction of many other miles by the community itself. The Office tried to impress also the need of proper maintenance from the beginning.

Fully as important as its educational work was the research or investigational work carried on. The Office was able to secure the services of several young men of scientific attainment and the bulletins put out by L. W. Page, Prévost Hubbard, A. S. Cushman and their successors have commanded world-wide recognition. Laboratories were erected to test road materials, and experimental roads were built to demonstrate the actual use of the same according to various methods. In this manner careful studies were made of a vast number of materials, including oils, asphalts, tars, concrete, brick, crushed stone and gravel. In connection with practical road men and research committees of such organizations as the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the American Society for Testing Materials many useful standards have been adopted for road materials and road construction. The effect of traffic on various types of roads has also been a profitable subject for study. The organization of the Bureau may be best shown by the [chart].

Rural Free Delivery.

—A brief mention of this agency for better roads should not be omitted. Postmaster-General Wanamaker, in 1890, recommended the extension of free delivery to villages of less than 10,000 population and he inaugurated an experimental “village delivery.” After an existence of about two years this was ordered discontinued. However, free delivery on a broader basis was demanded by State Granges of the Patrons of Husbandry and other farmers. Congress made small appropriations for rural free delivery, but the Postmaster-General, W. S. Bissell, declined to make any use of them. When Hon. W. L. Wilson became Postmaster-General (1895) he agreed with his predecessor in believing the project impractical, but if Congress would make the money available he was willing to try it out. An appropriation of $40,000 was placed at his disposal.[143]

The first Rural Free Delivery routes were established on October 1, 1896, at Halltown, Uvilla, and Charlestown, West Virginia. Others immediately followed. President McKinley in a message to Congress December 3, 1900, states that “by the close of the current fiscal year about 4000 routes will have been established, providing for the daily delivery of mails at the scattered homes of about three and a half million of rural population.”[144] So successful did it prove that it soon displaced nearly all the star routes and was well established in practically all rural districts of the United States. In 1919 out of a total expenditure by the Post Office Department of over $362,000,000, a little less than $51,000,000 was distributed to the rural delivery service.[145]

The Department having adopted a rule to the effect that the rural delivery service would only be established along reasonably good roads, and that a carrier need not go out unless the roads were in fit condition spurred the inhabitants up to better attention of the roads for after a man once got in the habit of receiving his mail daily he wanted it regularly.

“When a heavy snow blocks the way of the rural carrier it is customary for the farmers to turn out and break the roads, and this is done several days earlier than would be the case ordinarily. In this way communication throughout neighborhoods and with the outside world is opened up promptly. In consequence the farmer is able to take advantage of good markets and the townspeople are not cut off from the supply of fresh country produce, as often has happened in severe storms. Also cases of distress in isolated farm homes are sooner reached and relieved.”[146]

The Department finding the rural delivery popular determined to make it not only more so but to make it pay also. So they took precautions to protect the mail in the farmer’s boxes by regulating the kind of boxes to be used and promptly prosecuting cases of thievery and molestation of mail; they established registration by rural carriers and allowed carriers to receipt for applications for money orders; carriers were also authorized to receive and deliver “drop” letters on their routes without passing them through the terminal post office. A little later when the parcel post was instituted the popularity of rural delivery was greatly enhanced. Like many other conveniences the rural inhabitants cannot now realize how they could get along without free delivery of the mails. Postmaster-General Charles Emory Smith in his report of 1900[147] says of the then quite new system:

Rural delivery has now been sufficiently tried to measure its effects.... It stimulates social and business correspondence, and so swells the postal receipts. Its introduction is invariably followed by a large increase in the circulation of the press and of periodic literature. The farm is thus brought into direct daily contact with the currents and movements of the business world. A more accurate knowledge of ruling markets and varying prices is diffused, and the producer, with his quicker communication and larger information, is placed on a surer footing. The value of farms, as has been shown in many cases, is enhanced. Good roads become indispensable, and their improvement is the essential condition of the service. The material and measurable benefits are signal and unmistakable.

But the movement exercises a wider and deeper influence. It becomes a factor in the social and economic tendencies of American life. The disposition to leave the farm for the town is a familiar effect of our past conditions. But this tendency is checked, and may be materially changed by an advance which conveys many of the advantages of the town to the farm. Rural free delivery brings the farm within the daily range of the intellectual and commercial activities of the world, and the isolation and monotony which have been the bane of agricultural life are sensibly mitigated. It proves to be one of the most effective and powerful of educational agencies. Wherever it is extended the schools improve and the civil spirit of the community feels a new pulsation; the standard of intelligence is raised, enlightened interest in public affairs is quickened, and better citizenship follows.

With all these results clearly indicated by the experiment as thus far tried, rural free delivery is plainly here to stay. It cannot be abandoned where it has been established, and cannot be maintained without being extended.

© Underwood and Underwood

HARD SURFACE HIGHWAY IN OREGON

© Underwood and Underwood

A FARMER’S WIFE MEETING THE POSTAL TRUCK

The law for federal aid is based upon the clause in the Constitution giving Congress power “to establish post offices and post roads.”[148] and the money made available may only be expended on post roads outside of towns “having a population of two thousand five hundred or more, except that portion of any such street or road along which the houses average more than two hundred feet apart.”[149] Thus may be seen the very great importance to better public highways of the “rural free delivery.”

State Aid.

—While the bicyclist and voluntary road organizations were creating sentiment favorable to improved highways, the states were not idle. It will not be possible to follow the progress in each of the states, but since some form of state aid has been adopted by all of them the development of that idea will be sketched. By state aid is meant a plan whereby a part of the expense of constructing roads is borne by the state and a part by the locality in which the road lies.

New Jersey,[150] like many of the other Eastern states, had a few turnpike roads constructed and maintained by private corporations. These roads were much better than the public roads on which there were no toll gates. The public roads were administered under ordinary laws of overseers of highway districts. Charges of partiality had led to amendments, then other amendments until the laws were a maze of intricacies. To eliminate these, the state board of agriculture in 1887 called a mass meeting of farmers and others interested in good roads. The result of the conference, which was well attended, was the appointment of a committee, consisting of one member for each of the Congressional districts in the State, to examine the laws of New Jersey, of other states and of foreign countries and report methods for bettering the New Jersey system. After careful consideration they drafted a law abolishing the overseers and conferring the powers and duties of caring for the public highways on the township committee. This was presented to the State Board of Agriculture and received unanimous approval. But when it came before the State Legislature, of 1888, for adoption the opposition of the road overseers succeeded in defeating it. In 1889 it was again presented and defeated; and met a similar fate in 1890. But in 1891 with the coöperation of the governor its passage was secured.

Mr. Clayton Conrow of New Jersey[151] claims the honor of proposing the first state aid road law in the United States. He asserts that he learned from actual observation of the travelers on a section of highway that it was used not only by “teams of the local township but also from the adjoining township and the township beyond, and so on and on they came until a score of townships were represented on this section of the road.” He therefore concluded that the county and the state by rights should assist in building the main traveled roads, and that “every citizen of the state is entitled to the free use thereof.” This, he says, was in 1890, just the time the state board of agriculture was pushing its law to discontinue the overseers. Conrow says he consulted with Hon. Edward Burrough, president of the state board of agriculture, and outlined his plan for a State Aid Road Law. Burrough was highly pleased, but there was an obstacle in the way, namely the turnpike corporations. They were creatures of the law and had rights that should be respected. Mr. Burrough advocated the adoption of the law having faith that the people would buy the turnpike roads so that no citizen would be the loser. Judge William M. Lanning put the draft of the bill in legal form. It was then submitted to Governor Abbett for his approval as they did not care to encounter a veto if a slight change of form would reconcile him to its provisions. Mr. Conrow claims his original draft was changed only slightly by the board and again by the governor, then submitted to the legislature by a Mr. Davidson of Gloucester county. This is the act that was passed in 1891.

Salient Features of the State Aid Law.

—The essential points of the law are set forth in the following extract being the preamble and parts of the seventh and fourth sections:

An Act to provide for the more permanent improvement of the public roads of this State.

Whereas public roads in this State have heretofore been built and maintained solely at the expense of the respective townships in which they are located; and

Whereas such roads are for the convenience of the citizens of the counties in which they are located, and of the entire State as well as of said townships; and

Whereas the expense of constructing permanently improved roads may be reasonably imposed in due proportions, upon the State and upon the counties in which they are located: Therefore, ...

And be it enacted, That whenever there shall be presented to the board of chosen freeholders of any county a petition signed by the owners of at least two-thirds of the lands and real estate fronting or bordering on any public road ... praying the board to cause such road ... to be improved under this act, and setting forth that they are willing that the peculiar benefits conferred on the lands fronting or bordering on said road ... shall be assessed thereon, in amount not exceeding ten per centum of the entire cost of the improvement, it shall be the duty of the board to cause such improvements to be made: Provided, that the estimated cost of all improvements ... in any county in any one year shall not exceed one-half of one per centum of the ratables of such county for the last preceding year....

And be it enacted, That one-third of the cost of all roads constructed ... shall be paid for out of the State treasury: Provided, That the amount so paid shall not in any one year exceed the sum of seventy-five thousand dollars....

It will be seen that under this law the property owners pay one-tenth, the State one-third and the county the remaining 56²⁄₃ per cent. Except for the 10 per cent paid by the abutting property holders the burden borne by all citizens of the county is the same.

The friends of the movement demanded its enforcement; the opponents were equally determined which resulted in an appeal to the courts and the mandatory features were sustained. As it was first enacted the total expenditure was $20,000 and a Commissioner of Agriculture was to supervise its disbursement. But as there was no such officer the next legislature, at the suggestion of the governor, authorized the president of the State Board of Agriculture to perform these duties; this he did until the office of the Commissioner of Public Roads was created. The first money paid out under the act was December 27, 1892, $20,661.85, and this was the first money paid in the United States for state aid for the construction of roads. With slight amendments the law remains to the present and has been emulated by nearly all the states in the Union.

In Massachusetts advocates of better roads attempted legislation looking toward a system of state highways in 1887 and annually thereafter until 1892.[152] In 1892 the demand became so great that the legislature enacted a law providing for a commission of three to inquire into the entire subject and report to the legislature of 1893, with suitable appropriation for the purpose. The commission made a thorough investigation, held public hearings, and made inquiries among all classes. Their findings were brought before the legislature and a general road law was enacted providing for a commission of three competent persons who should give advice to those having charge of the public highways; it further contemplated the building and care for by this commission of a system of state highways connecting the several municipalities. At first the counties were supposed to grade the roads and the Commonwealth to surface them but the law was changed (1894) so that the Commonwealth through the highway commission does the entire work of construction and maintenance then charges back to the counties 25 per cent of the cost, so that finally the State pays 75 per cent and the county 25 per cent. In 1913 an amendment was made to relieve small communities from the payment of the entire amount thus the State, in reality, pays more than 75 per cent of the expense.

The state aid principle has been adopted by all states in the union; many before federal aid came, the remainder since. Connecticut was third in 1895 and New York fourth in 1898.

In order to raise money to meet the demands for state aid roads many of the states bonded themselves for large amounts. New York voted a bond issue of $50,000,000 in 1906 and another of the same amount in 1912. California voted bonds of $18,000,000 in 1910 and $15,000,000 in 1916. Illinois voted $60,000,000 in 1920 eventually to be paid from automobile licenses. Maryland authorized a bond issue of $5,000,000 for trunkline roads; additional issues were made in 1910, $1,000,000; in 1912, $3,170,000; in 1914, $6,600,000; and in 1916, $2,700,000. Missouri authorized a $60,000,000 bond issue in 1921 and so on for other states. On January 1, 1914[153] there were outstanding highway and bridge bonds in the United States to the amount of $445,147,073; of which $158,590,000 had been voted by the States and $286,557,073 by counties and townships. After the war increased interest in road building became manifest. Between November 1, 1918, and December 31, 1919,[154] state highway bonds amounting to $234,000,000 were voted: Illinois, $60,000,000; Pennsylvania $50,000,000; Michigan, $50,000,000; Missouri, $60,000,000 and many other states smaller amounts. There is pending legislation for nearly $300,000,000 additional bonds, among which are Minnesota, $75,000,000; Texas, $75,000,000; West Virginia, $40,000,000; Washington, $30,000,000; Alabama, $25,000,000. Funds are otherwise raised by direct taxation, property and special, by appropriations from the general fund, by automobile licenses, and from court fines. The grand total for road construction expended in the United States from 1910 to 1920 is over $2,500,000,000.

Federal Aid.

—The real road building age in the United States was ushered in by the enactment of the law providing that “the Secretary of Agriculture shall on behalf of the United States in certain cases aid the States in the construction and maintenance of rural post roads.” From the time Representative Brownlow startled the country in 1904 by introducing a bill to appropriate $24,000,000 for road building, not a session of Congress passed without several such bills being introduced. Most of these took the form of creating a commission to administer any fund for national aid that might be appropriated, and many feared such large appropriations would result in “pork barrels” all over the country. In 1915 one such bill passed the House but did not become a law. However, the leaven continued to work. The influence of the automobile was making thousands of new road enthusiasts every day. Many petitions were being rained upon Congress and scores of bills introduced for national aid both for specific roads and of a general nature. During the 63d Congress, forty-nine bills were introduced, 10 in the Senate and 39 in the House. A report had been submitted by a joint congressional committee on January 21, 1915[155] embodying data from foreign countries showing systems in effect, the mileage and cost of roads constructed; similar data from the several states; extracts from state constitutions showing limitations of state debts; statistics on tonnage transported over rural roads; statistics on length, character and condition of rural routes; transportation rates on road materials by rail; comparative statistics embodying possible factors in apportionment of Federal aid; statistics of wealth, debt, and highway expenditures; comparative statistics on the cost of road construction, historical sketches of national roads, work of the Office of Public Roads; and a synopsis on congressional action on Federal aid to road improvement.

The report speaks of the economic importance of good roads, the constitutionality of Federal aid and gives data to show the public sentiment in favor of Federal aid. Of 10,000 replies to inquiries received from every state in the Union, 97 per cent favored Federal aid and 3 per cent opposed.

On January 6, 1916, Representative Shackleford of Missouri, chairman of the committee on roads, introduced the bill which later became a law. The bill ran the usual course and created a great deal of interest and was freely debated in both House and Senate. The discussion on it comprises more than 300 pages of the Congressional Record[156] and cover practically every reason for and objection to the betterment of highways and the use thereon of national money. The bill finally passed the house January 25, 1916, by a vote of 283 Yeas, 81 Nays and 70 not voting; and the Senate as amended, May 8, 1916, by a unanimous vote. The bill went to conference, the Senate agreed to the conference report June 27, and the House June 28, 1916. President Wilson approved the bill July 11, 1916, and it became Public Law, No. 156, 64th Congress.

The title of the bill as amended is “An Act to provide that the United States shall aid the States in the Construction of rural post roads, and for other purposes.” In brief it authorizes the Secretary of Agriculture to coöperate with the states through their respective highway departments in the construction of rural post roads. In order to keep state sovereignty intact no money apportioned under the act could be expended in any state until the legislature of that state shall have assented to the provisions of the Act. The Secretary of Agriculture and the State Highway department agree upon the roads to be constructed therein and the character and method of construction. By providing that all roads constructed under the provisions of the act shall be free from tolls of all kinds Congress avoided the objection raised by President Monroe in his veto of the National Road bill in 1822. A most liberal definition of Post Roads is also given in the bill, namely, “the term ‘rural post road’ shall be construed to mean any public road over which the United States mails now are or may hereafter be transported, excluding every street and road in a place having a population, as shown by the latest available federal census, of two thousand five hundred or more, except that portion of any such street or road along which the houses average more than two hundred feet apart.”

For the purpose of carrying out the provisions of the act there was appropriated for the fiscal years ending June 30, 1917, the sum of $5,000,000; 1918, $10,000,000; 1919, $15,000,000; 1920, $20,000,000; 1921, $25,000,000. After deducting the amount necessary for administration not exceeding 3 per cent, the remaining amount available was to be distributed as follows: “One-third in the ratio which the area of each State bears to the total area of all the States; one-third in the ratio which the population of each State bears to the total population of all the States as shown by the latest available Federal census; one-third in the ratio which the mileage of rural delivery routes and star routes in each State bears to the total mileage of rural delivery routes and star routes in all the states.” The Secretary of Agriculture is to approve only projects which are substantial in character. Items of engineering, inspection and unforeseen contingencies may not exceed 10 per cent of the estimated cost. The share paid by the Government shall not exceed 50 per cent of the total cost.

The same act appropriated $10,000,000 for the survey, construction and maintenance of roads and trails within the national forests when necessary to develop the resources upon which communities within and adjacent to the national forests are dependent.

The Secretary of Agriculture issued September 1, 1916, a set of rules and regulations for carrying out the Federal-Aid Road Act.[157] These are quite detailed and require a close supervision by the Office of Public Roads and Rural Engineering, the Director of which or other officers and employees designated by him, was officially appointed to represent the Secretary of Agriculture in its administration. These rules explain and relate specifically to definitions of terms; information to be furnished the Secretary; project statements; surveys, plans, specifications and estimates; project agreements; contracts; construction work and labor; records and cost keeping; payments; submission of documents to the Office of Public Roads.

A State, County or District making application for aid must present a Project Statement “to enable the Secretary to ascertain (a) whether the project conforms to the requirements of the act; (b) whether adequate funds, or their equivalent, are or will be available by or on behalf of the State for construction; (c) what purpose the project will serve and how it correlates with other highway work of the State; (d) the administrative control of, and responsibility for, the project; (e) the practicability and economy of the project from an engineering and construction standpoint; (f) the adequacy of the plans and provisions for proper maintenance of roads; and (g) the approximate amount of Federal aid desired.” Also there must be submitted for approval forms of contract, with documents referred to in them, and the contractor’s bond. Likewise maps of surveys, plans, specifications and estimates, showing quantity and cost shall have the approval of the Secretary. The state shall provide the rights of way and railroad grade crossings shall be avoided where practicable. A project agreement between the State Highway Department and the Secretary is executed. It must also be shown that adequate means either by advertising or other devices were employed, prior to the beginning of construction, to insure economical and practical expenditures, and rules for submitting and tabulating bids are given. Samples of the materials to be used must be submitted for approval whenever requested, and all materials, unless otherwise stipulated, must be tested prior to use by the standard methods of the Office of Public Roads. Supervision shall include adequate inspection. Reports of progress, records and cost accounts must be kept in approved manner.

Many states in order to take advantage of the Federal aid within the time stipulated by the Act have, as has been shown, issued long-time bonds. Others have relied on increased taxation, and many require abutting property to pay a special tax for improvements.

The success of the Act was extremely marked. So much so that the Post Office Appropriation act of February 28, 1919,[158] carried an amendment to the original Federal Aid Act providing an additional appropriation of $200,000,000 for post roads and $9,000,000 for forest roads. Fifty million dollars of the post road fund was made immediately available and $75,000,000 was made available for each of the fiscal years of 1920 and 1921. Of the forest road fund $3,000,000 was made available for each of the fiscal years 1919, 1920 and 1921. This bill transferred to the Secretary of Agriculture all available war material and equipment suitable for use in the improvement of highways for distribution to the several states on a value basis the same as provided in the Federal Aid Act of 1916. Under this provision trucks, road equipment, and road materials having when new a value of over $100,000,000 had been distributed by November 1, 1919.

SELECTED REFERENCES

Anderson, Andrew P., “Highways,” American Year Book, 1918, pp. 317-321; 1919, pp. 308-311. D. Appleton & Company, New York.

“Bonds for Highway Improvement,” Office of Public Roads Bulletin No. 136, U. S. Dept of Agr.

Boston Transcript, Letter by a foreign visitor giving her opinion of American Roads. Aug. 10, 1892.

Burrough, Edward, “State Aid to Road Building in New Jersey,” Office of Public Road Inquiry Bulletin No. 9, 1894. Dept. of Agriculture, Washington.

Chatburn, George R., “Highway Engineering,” pp. 125-126, John Wiley & Sons, New York.

Congressional Record.—Good Roads Resolution introduced in the Senate by Senator Manderson, Vol. XXIV, pp. 157, 261, 300. Introduced in the House by Representative Lewis, Vol. XXIV, p. 883.

Conrow, Clayton, “Inside History of the State Aid Law,” Report of the New Jersey Commissioner of Public Roads, 1900, p. 81.

Department of Agriculture Year Book, 1900, p. 522.

Federal Aid Road Law, History of, Congressional Record, Vol. LIII, 1916. The Federal Aid road bill, the one that was finally passed and became the most effective road law the world has ever known, had a history in Congress that would make a large volume in itself. The pages of the Congressional Record where it may be found follow: House Roll 7617—To provide that the United States shall aid the States in the construction of rural post roads, and for other purposes—was introduced by Mr. Dorsey W. Shackleford, of Missouri, January 6, 1916 and referred to the Committee on Roads, 637.—Reported back (H. Rept. 26), 746.—Debated, 1131, 1165, 1234, 1269, 1285, 1353-1368, 1373-1408, 1451-1480, 1516-1537 (Appendix, 21, 36, 141, 157, 160, 162, 172, 177, 178, 188, 203, 207, 208, 209, 211, 213, 214, 216, 218, 593, 1273, 2247).—Amended and passed house January 25, 1916, Ayes 283, Noes 81, Present 3, not voting 67, 1536, 1547.—Referred to Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, 1551.—Motion for change of reference debated, 2049-2057, 2329-2335.—Reference changed to Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, 2334, 2335.—Reported with amendments (S. Rept. 250), 3460, 3881.—Debated, 6425-6433, 6494-6504, 6532-6549, 6565-6585, 6731, 6782-6785, 6840-6849, 6897-6899, 7119-7127, 7225-7228, 7291-7300, 7414, 7451, 7456-7465, 7499-7518, 7560-7571.—Amended and passed Senate unanimously, May 8, 1916, 7571.—Referred to House Committee on Roads—Reported back (H. Rept. 732), 8357.—House disagrees to Senate amendments and asks for a conference, 8749.—Senate insists on its amendments and agrees to a conference, 8783.—Conference appointed, 8749, 8783.—Conference report (S. Doc. No. 474) made in Senate, 9964.—Conference report unanimously agreed to in Senate June 27, 1916, 10086.—Conference report (No. 856) made in House. 10171.—Conference report debated in House, 10162-10173 (Appendix, 1316, 1318, 1334, 1340, 1360, 1361, 1647, 1719, 1724, 1793, 1860, 2082).—Conference report agreed to in House, June 28, 1916, by a vote of 181 ayes to 53 noes, 10173.—Examined and signed, 10348, 10371.—Presented to the President, 10446.—Approved (Public Statutes No. 156, July 11, 1916), 10836.

“Federal Aid Road Act, Regulations for carrying out,” Office of Public Roads Circular No. 65. U. S. Dept. of Agriculture.

Free Delivery of Mail. Agricultural Year Book, 1917; Postmaster General’s Reports, 1892-1899; Ex. Doc. 1, Pt. 4, 52d Cong., 2d Sess., p. 11; Ex. Doc. 1, Pt. 4, 53d Cong., 2d Sess., pp. ix, 55; Ex. Doc. 1, Pt. 1, 54th Cong., 3d Sess., pp. 11, 120; H. Doc. 4, 54th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 8, 116; H. Doc. 4, 54th Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 25, 129; H. Doc. 4, 55th Cong., 3d Sess., pp. 12, 104; American Year Book, 1919, p. 556. D. Appleton & Company.

Funk and Wagnalls’ Encyclopaedia, Article “Cycling.”

Good Roads Year Book, 1917, “State Highway Department Legislation,” pp. 37-218.

Good Roads Meetings.—“Iowa Highway Meeting,” Engineering Record, August 27, 1892; National Highway Association at Portland, Oregon, The Morning Oregonian, June 22, 1905; Office of the Public Roads Bulletins, Nos. 15, 17, 19, 21-26.

Greathouse, Charles H., “The Delivery of Rural Mails,” Year Book, 1917. U. S. Dept. of Agriculture.

“Highway Bonds,” The American Year Book, 1919, 1920. D. Appleton & Co., New York.

House Document No. 1510, “Federal Aid to Good Roads,” being Vol. 99 of the House Documents.

Iowa Code of 1851, “Road Laws.”

Office of Public Roads Established, Bulletin No. 1, 1894, Report of Secretary of Agriculture, 1893, p. 36. U. S. Dept. of Agriculture.

New York Times, Good Roads Department, Sept. 11, 1892.

Nye, Bill, “On Good Roads,” Good Roads, September, 1892.

Perkins, George A., “State Highways of Massachusetts,” U. S. Dept. of Agri. Year Book, 1894, p. 505.

Post Roads.—The Constitution of the United States on, Section 8.

Potter, I. B., “The Gospel of Good Roads,” League of American Wheelmen.

Smith, Charles Emory, “Rural Mail Delivery,” Agricultural Year Book, 1900, p. 522. U. S. Dept of Agriculture.

FOOTNOTES

[122] Code of 1851.

[123] “Highway Engineering,” by G. R. Chatburn, pp. 125-126.

[124] J. B. Dunlop, a surgeon of Dublin, invented the pneumatic tire in 1888.

[125] One of the early books was entitled “The Gospel of Good Roads,” by I. B. Potter, and appealed directly to the farming interests.

[126] New York Times, September 11, 1892.

[127] Adolphine Hingst, under the heading “Surprised at America. A European’s Shock on Seeing its Roads and Highways,” Boston Transcript, August 10, 1892.

[128] Good Roads, September, 1892.

[129] Engineering Record, August 27, 1892.

[130] New York Times, Sept. 11, 1892.

[131] Ibid.

[132] Printed as a Senate Document.

[133] Cong. Record, Vol. 24: Dec. 15, 1892, p. 157; Dec. 21, p. 261; Dec. 22, p. 300. Senate Documents.

[134] Congressional Record, Vol. 24, Jan. 26, 1893, p. 883.

[135] Ibid.

[136] Report of the Secretary of Agriculture, 1893, p. 36.

[137] Bulletin No. 1, Office of Road Inquiry, p. 5.

[138] Bulletin No. 26, Office of Public Road Inquiries, p. 46.

[139] Bulletin No. 26, Office of Public Road Inquiries.

[140] Address on the “History and Purposes of the Good Roads Movement,” by William H. Moore, president National Good Roads Association, Bulletin No. 26, Office of Public Road Inquiries, p. 10.

[141] The Morning Oregonian (Portland), June 22, 1905.

[142] “Goods Roads Year Book,” 1917, p. 29.

[143] “The Delivery of Rural Mails,” by Charles H. Greathouse. Department of Agriculture Year Book, 1890.

[144] Cong. Record, Dec. 3, 1900, p. 12.

[145] “The American Year Book,” 1919, p. 556.

[146] Dept. of Agri. Year Book, 1900, p. 522.

[147] Year Book, 1900. Department of Agriculture, Washington.

[148] “The Constitution of the United States,” Section 8.

[149] Public Law No. 156, 64th Congress.

[150] “State Aid to Road Building in New Jersey,” by Edward Burrough, Chairman of the New Jersey State Board of Agriculture, Office of Road Inquiry Bulletin No. 9, 1894.

[151] “Inside History of the State Aid Road Law,” by Clayton Conrow, President of the New Jersey State Road Improvement Association, Report of the New Jersey Commissioner of Public Roads, 1900, p. 81.

[152] “State Highways in Massachusetts,” by George A. Perkins, Chairman Massachusetts State Highway Commission, U. S. Department of Agriculture Year Book, 1894, p. 505.

[153] Office of Public Roads Bulletin No. 136.

[154] “The American Year Book,” D. Appleton Co., New York, 1919, 1920.

[155] House Document No. 1510, “Federal Aid to Good Roads,” being Vol. 99, of the House Documents.

[156] Vol. LIII, 1916. See [page references] at end of chapter.

[157] Circular No. 65, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Public Roads.

[158] “American Year Book,” 1920, p. 308. D. Appleton & Company, New York.

CHAPTER VI
INTERRELATION BETWEEN HIGHWAY AND OTHER KINDS OF TRANSPORTATION

Transportation has been classified as primary and secondary. Transportation on the public highway, whether of raw products to the market or finished products to the consumer, is denominated primary; transportation by railroads, canals, and ships as secondary. Practically all secondary transportation is of products which were first or last or both subjects of primary transportation.[159] There should, therefore, be a natural harmonious relation between them. Suppose the foot should say to the hand, “You are useless, it is I who support the body”; and the hand should retort, “Think you’re smart, don’t you? I’ll let you know it is I who collect and prepare the food which nourishes it; a log of wood could easily replace you”: would that make either one of them independent of the other?

Too true that the great railroad corporations have not always acted in a manner suitable to the man in the street, that they have often taken too much toll, that they have become rich and arrogant, that they have frequently manipulated the political machinery of government in their own favor, that they have exploited where they should not, that they have shown favoritism to prominent shippers, and that they have often borne down heavily on the laboring man; but, this country would never have been developed to its present state of civilization and prosperity without some powerful and efficacious method of transportation. The railroads, proving themselves to be more efficient than either the public highways or the waterways, without perhaps intending any maliciousness, put them practically out of business. Now that improved roads and automobiles and motor trucks are giving the railroads a race for their life some unthinking persons are gloating over the fact and shouting “to the victor belongs the spoils.” The evolutionary law that the “fittest will survive” does not necessarily mean that what is best for the world, for government, for society, for business will always survive. Weeds will often choke out the corn unless prevented by outside influence. A beautiful elm stands on the corner. Every spring it sheds an abundance of seeds; soon these germinate and there springs up throughout the lawn, flower and vegetable gardens, myriads of young elm trees. Now elm trees in their proper place are desirable, are useful, are ornamental and furnish pleasure, but when they become weeds they should be rooted up that the lawn, the vegetables, and the flowers may persist. Here the fittest for society survives only because of artificial regulation. The railroads, steam and electric, the waterways and the highways all have spheres of usefulness; let each perform its function and there need be no incongruity or discord.

Experience has proved time and again that any machine has a particular capacity at which it can be most efficiently operated. A simple stone crusher kept half full is running at a loss; if crowded and speeded up it will wear and break unduly. It would be foolish to run continually a 50 horse-power engine to serve a 2 horse-power motor. An electric light plant is most economical when operated at its “capacity.” Horse and wagons, motor trucks, railways, canals, and ships, are but machines, and the law holds with all of them that they are most efficient when operated at their proper capacity.

Another economic truth is that the unit cost of production is usually lowest when the output is great. Quantity production is the goal of practically all successful manufacturing enterprises. Automatic and near-automatic machines replace the human hand. One person by the aid of mechanical and electrical devices produces as much in the same time as could a score or even a hundred without such help formerly. The chief reason why quantity production is cheaper than individual production is that it allows for a division of labor, a separation of the preparing processes into several operations or occupations. Growing the grain, transporting it to market, grinding it into flour, baking it into bread, and selling the bread, indicate some of the several occupations, that arise in the simple preparation of “our daily bread.” The meat-packing industry affords an excellent example of the principle: The animal is surveyed and “laid off like a map”; and each workman as the carcass passes him has one operation to perform. One man sticks the pig, another scalds it, another pulls the hair from a particular portion of the body, one cuts the slits for the gambols, another inserts the sticks, still others hoist the body to the hanger, and so on as it proceeds along its course scores of persons are each doing a very limited portion of the work until the entire animal is prepared and packed for shipment. The workmen are classified and the highest paid are put to the most delicate or important parts while for the less delicate and less important duties the pay is very much lower. But each workman having only a small variety of work to perform soon becomes adept and can do a much greater amount than if he attempted the entire round of labor. The building of automobiles wherein materials start from different places and eventually coalesce as they proceed on their journey through the shops by each workman as they pass adding one thing or performing one operation until the whole emerges a complete machine ready to run away under its own power, is another case in point.

Mr. James J. Hill, when president of the Great Northern, Northern Pacific and Chicago Burlington & Quincy railroad companies, applied the principle of quantity production to railroad transportation. Under his supervision locomotives and cars increased in size; this necessitated heavier rails and more substantial track; trains were not allowed to leave the terminals until a full load had been accumulated; regular schedules were of course done away with except for passenger and a few local freight trains. Other trains were to be run only at the full capacity of the locomotive. This was not conducive to speed, but the unit cost of hauling a ton of freight one mile was very materially reduced. The same crew with comparatively small increase in costs may operate a train of many cars about as easily as one of few cars.

The same principle underlies the efforts of motor transport companies. They are increasing the size of trucks and loads to decrease cost. They have not used discretion, however, in this and their heavy trucks have ground to powder high-cost roadways with the result that public sentiment is reacting against them and regulatory laws are being passed by many legislatures.

Increasing the size of the plant, train, or truck will not bring economies unless it can be run at its capacity load, consequently when the trade or traffic will not utilize full loading a smaller plant should be adopted. To run a 12 horse-power gasoline engine to turn a 1¹⁄₄ horse-power washing machine motor is no more foolish than to run 100-car locomotives to pull 2-car trains, or 7-ton trucks where the load never exceeds 2 tons, or 7-passenger automobiles with 1 or 2 passengers. The contention is well founded that western railroad methods are futile on New England railroads[160] and that if prosperity is ever to come to New England roads they must reduce their rates and rates can only be reduced by making the size and number of cars commensurate with the character and amount of traffic. In England where shipping distances are comparatively short the small van or car and quick deliveries have been evolved. In well-settled portions of this country, as in New England, similar practices might well be adopted that the railways may not be entirely eliminated and the public forced eventually to resort to more expensive transportation methods when both direct and indirect costs are considered over the public highways.

The railroads are also complaining that the automobile is cutting into their passenger earnings. This is no doubt true. What else can be expected with approximately 11,000,000 machines now in operation? Thousands of tourists are daily traversing the country. They find the outing pleasant and when several occupy one car it is cheaper than railroad travel. Free camping along the way avoids hotel bills which have grown inordinately during the past few years. If these rates continue, simple inns as in the olden days may grow up and cut into the business of the high-priced hotels. Lower charges for both railroads and hotels will mitigate but not entirely eliminate the automobile competition. The motor car is here to stay and automobile travel will continue to increase. It is no longer a theory but a condition which exists, and the railroads and hotels should adopt the policy of the wily politician,—who said, “If you can’t lick ’em, jine ’em,”—meet the automobile half way and make the most of it.

If predictions of those in close touch with the automobile business be any criterion the railroads will feel the influence of the motor car more and more. H. F. Blanchard, writing in Popular Science Monthly, January, 1923, p. 26, claims that the $150 passenger car is in sight, and that the “saturation point” which has been a worry for years has not yet arrived and will not if the lowering of prices keeps pace with increased production. It is pointed out that the production of automobiles and trucks is still increasing. The 1922 output (2,577,220 machines) is more than the 1920 output (2,276,000) and these are bought by the public as fast as made. Mr. Durant, a prominent manufacturer, is quoted as saying that: “The development of a cheaper car than we now believe possible is only a question of the development of the highways. Millions more of automobiles would be in use in America to-day if the conditions of our highways permitted. When our automobiles can be built to run on highways that are on the average as good as our city streets—and this is bound to come sooner or later—we shall have lighter, better and far cheaper cars. And the time is not far distant.”

In Roger W. Babson’s weekly comment dated September 30, 1922, we read:

Railroads have already felt the effects of pleasure automobiles, but they have not really begun yet to feel the effects of auto trucking. The trucking of goods within a radii of 50 or 100 miles has only begun and this radius may readily be extended to cover 200 or 250 miles. Transcontinental systems ... have nothing to fear from trucks. In fact the trucks may help them. Other roads [those intermediate in length] can survive and perhaps profit under this competition. With roads such as [short-line roads] this is not true. These roads are bound to suffer far more from the truck than they now think possible.

We shall live to see great highways built by the state exclusively for truck use. Railroads are destined ultimately to lose all of their short haul business and hence the roads which are in comparatively small and compact territories are sure to suffer. The only hope for some roads ... is to sell certain of their rights of way to the state in order that the tracks may be removed and concrete highways laid in their place. Many roads have parallel lines to-day under their control. The wise railroad company will develop one of these for itself and will sell the other at a good price to the state for a concrete truck highway.

If the steam railroads are feeling the competition of the motor, the interurban trolley lines and the street-car companies are harder hit. The interurban lines are most of them short and depend upon local traffic. Their cars stopped at any cross-road along the way to pick up passengers and freight. But the motor transport is going them one better; it picks up its load at the front gate, saving the trouble of even a short walk, or in the case of freight, of loading and unloading and a short haul to the track.

The case of street-car lines is slightly different. So many persons are purchasing and daily using automobiles to go to and from business that the street-car people have complained bitterly. Many lines are running behind and one at least, Des Moines, Iowa, entirely stopped operation (August, 1917). The moment they found their revenues decreasing they ran to the railway commissions and city councils with requests for permits to increase rates of fare. The increase when allowed not only failed to alleviate but aggravated the trouble. Even old-fashioned persons who formerly traveled home for luncheon and back afterward began patronizing cafeterias and clubs. The habit of eating noon luncheon down town was soon formed. Others emulated their example, resulting in the loss of hundreds and even thousands of fares per week. Riding to and from work in an automobile has a fascination for most men, and every one in a street car who sees his neighbor whizzing along by the side vows that he, too, will drive a car as soon as he can save enough money to make the first payment. Useless for the street car managers to try to prove to him that the expenses of a car—gas, oil, tires, repairs and depreciation—are vastly greater than street car fares; everybody knows that, but he must be in the style. Farmers, as the implement dealers have found to their sorrow, will do without or tinker up old harvesters and plows in order to enjoy the pleasure of owning an automobile. The mechanic may change his seven-passenger for a light-four as wages go down but he still insists on riding his own car. The merchant while complaining that others should give up their machines and pay their bills, hangs on to his own with the grip of death. Women, even, are willing to give up pretty dresses and wear khaki overalls at least half the time. It looks as though many will hereafter live a nomadic life using their cars and garages more than their one- and two-room apartments. Stop the people from using motors and force them back to the street cars? Never, until the hardships of living reach the state of starvation and nakedness.

In addition to the owners of automobiles there are the taxicabs, “jitneys,” and buses. If the street car system is the logical plant it is desired to maintain for the good of the community then these others are weeds if allowed free rein. If, when the street-car companies go bankrupt and quit business, the motor cars could give a better service, outside of the fact that property had been destroyed without compensation, no particular damage would be noticeable to the community as a whole. But the experience of Des Moines shows that while special efforts were made to transport every one; buses were brought in from distant cities and owners of cars most freely picked up the pedestrians, nevertheless, there was much inconvenience and discontent. Private cars cannot long be depended on to carry free the throng; taxicabs are too expensive, insufficient in number and have no regular schedule; jitneys are unreliable sporadic cars, and half of them go out of business on days of bad weather. There is left then the buses. These may be made of such size and be run with such regularity as to be really valuable for local transportation service. No doubt they will survive and always be a strong competitor of the electric surface street car. Not being confined to a track they load and unload at the curb thus eliminating an element of danger from passing vehicles much feared by timid people. Not having to keep up a track, trolley lines, or a plant for generating electricity the expenses are not particularly great per bus, from $25 to $35 per day will cover them, it is estimated,[161] which puts the bus on a par in this respect with the small street car.

© Underwood and Underwood

TRACKLESS TROLLEY OPERATED ON STATEN ISLAND, N. Y.

© Underwood and Underwood

GASOLINE LOCOMOTIVE AND TRAILER

Operated by the Chicago & Great Western R. R.

There is a legitimate field for these buses in the smaller cities and on streets in large cities not easily reached by, or upon which it is desirable not to have street-car tracks. But they should not be free lances—they should be under regulations as street cars are under regulations, they should make scheduled trips, they should be backed by capital or insurance sufficient to pay indemnities in cases of accident and upon payment of license fees are entitled to protection and possibly monopoly in their prescribed territory.

A cheap form of transportation, either electric trolley, with or without track, or buses, is absolutely necessary. Buses and individual jitneys cannot, where the business is heavy, carry passengers as cheaply as the electric street car, but for a more limited traffic the buses may take their place, and for still less traffic jitneys can find a useful occupation. If buses and jitneys are allowed absolute freedom without restrictions as to schedule or route they will skim the cream from the street transportation business and so reduce the revenues of the street cars that they will have to discontinue operation. A thing so undesirable that the public will have to subsidize the street cars and guarantee a certain percentage of earnings or take over their ownership, run them at a nominal fare and let the taxpayer take care of the deficit. By these means those persons who ride their own automobiles, the heavier taxpayers, who are, or should be, most vitally interested in maintaining cheap transportation for the unfortunate residue who cannot possibly afford automobiles, yet whose labor is absolutely essential to the industrial and commercial prosperity of the city, will be required to pay a portion of the upkeep of street-car transportation. If a subsidy be adopted it would be better that it should not be a direct guaranty of a fixed percentage of earnings for in that manner there is no premium on efficiency as our Government found to its cost in dealing with the railroads during the recent war. It would be better if some sort of a sliding scale could be worked out whereby the lines should be relieved of occupational taxes or license fees in proportion as they lowered fares, and such that the lower the fares the greater the percentage of profit they might earn.

The contract or charter might provide that all earnings above a specified percentage, due allowance having been made for operation, repairs, and upkeep, on bona fide capital invested should be turned over to the city as a license for the use of the streets. For example with a fare of three cents the city might guarantee a 5 per cent income, but allow, by reduction of taxes and all payments to the city an earning of 10 per cent; on a five cent fare guarantee 3 per cent and allow earnings of 8 per cent; and so on as shown by the accompanying table the figures of which are merely illustrative:

To make a workable contract of this sort there would first have to be an agreement as to the corporation capital upon which earning percentages are to be based. If this could be made equal to the real investment it would be absolutely just to both the public and the corporation. However, the so-called unearned increment would in some cases have to be considered. Publicity in accounting, capitalization, bonded indebtedness and earnings, and the feeling engendered that the public is in a sense a co-partner with the corporation would add to more harmonious relations between the two.

Similar contracts might be arranged between bus lines and the city, or between bus lines and the state where rural roads are used, and between railroad and other transportation corporations and the Federal Government for interstate lines.

Objection may be raised to this plan on the ground that it violates usury laws. Nearly every state in the Union provides by law for a maximum rate of interest. Laws of this kind have existed almost since the beginning of history and are so imbedded in the minds of the people that they believe 6 or 7 per cent is all a public service corporation should be allowed to make on its investment, when as a matter of fact all sorts of private businesses are making profits many times that amount without hindrance by law or public sentiment. People who risk money in adventures which are in general for the good of the public should be allowed returns fully as high as those suggested, even though they do go beyond the customary 7 percent. Whatever the right figures are careful accounting and publicity will have a tendency to establish, and once established they ought to be as stable and permanent as life insurance rates and thus encourage the investment of funds in such enterprises.

Legitimate Fields of Transportation Agencies.

—Agreeing, then, that the present systems of transportation should not be put out of business by less efficient ones, what seems to be the most feasible interrelations that will allow all of them to live and let live?

There seems to be no doubt but what the railroads can and do transport large quantities long distances quicker, better, and more efficiently than can be done on the highways. Highways may be considered as feeders of the railways. With good roads the zone from which the railway can profitably draw products for long distance or quantity transportation is widened, and again widened very materially when better roads allow the use of motors in place of horses. This, if no other railway interferes, means a larger grand total of traffic hauled. Again the character of the farming along the zone served by a railroad will depend upon the facilities for marketing as well as soil and climate. Those products ordinarily called perishable may be raised if the roads are good so that they may be marketed quickly and cheap enough to compete with other localities. Such produce yield a larger net return per acre than the staple grain products. Intensive farming is usually necessary in such cases so that a smaller farm will support a family allowing an increase in rural population, a thing most highly desirable in this country. The railroad benefits again, then, because of the increased produce raised by intensive farming brought about by quick marketing facilities, and by increased freight and passenger traffic necessary to supply the greater population.

Furthermore, if roads were good throughout the year marketing would be spread over the entire period and there would not at times be a glut with corresponding scarcity of cars, and other facilities for handling. If cars, warehouses and elevators were sufficient to care for these periods there would be an over supply of facilities at other times and capital would be unnecessarily tied up producing larger overhead charges. With good roads there would likewise be less need for large quantities of money at particular periods of the year as uniform marketing would allow a smaller capital to be turned oftener. Moreover, unproductive branch lines would by the increased traffic brought to them by the improved highways be either made productive or they could be dispensed with altogether. The unproductive short-haul traffic would then be cared for by electric railways, motor trucks or even by horse wagons.

Intra City Traffic.

—Mr. J. C. Thirlwall, of the railway and tractive engineering department of the General Electric Company (General Electric Review, Vol. XXIV, pp. 974-985), discussing the fields of the rail car, trolley bus and gasoline bus, tabulates the respective costs of these types on a comparative basis for a variety of conditions. In general the calculations indicate that:

(a) Where rush hour headways of 3 min. or less are required with safety cars, rail cars are the most economical and up to 6 min. headways offer successful competition to the other types where the road is a going concern.

(b) On longer headways the trolley bus appears to have the advantage due to the lower fixed charges.

(c) The gasoline bus on account of higher operating expense does not offer competition to the rail car until minimum headways of 10 min. are reached on new routes and 20 min. on existing lines.

(d) The trolley bus is more economical than the gasoline bus up to headways of 60 min. or longer.

A tabulation of the respective fields is as follows:

Minimum headways, 3 min. or less; rail cars.

Minimum headways, 3 to 6 min.; rail cars or trolley bus.

Minimum headways, 6 to 60 min.; trolley bus.

Minimum headways, 60 min. or more; gasoline bus.

This does not mean that existing lines with headways of 7¹⁄₂ to 10 minutes should be scrapped and replaced with the newer forms of transportation. It would not pay to do this until a headway greater than 15 or 20 minutes has been reached.

Length of Haul for Economical Trucking.

—The railroads would not be alone in the benefits due to better roads. Truck lines could be established to care for freight and passenger traffic between farm and station. Here the truck and railroads would coöperate, there would be no competition, for each would be performing a function incapable (or unprofitable) of performance by the other; the net result would be a benefit to the entire community. But most transport lines that are being established come into actual competition with existing railroad lines. Just how far a motor truck may profitably compete with the railway depends, of course, on the relative costs of transportation. Mr. Cabot[162] calculates that twelve miles is the dividing line between motor truck transport and rail transport. He figures the cost of delivery and removal from the railway station at 15 cents per hundred weight, or $3 per ton at each end for terminal charges and that the cost of motor truck haul is at least 50 cents per ton mile. A ton may be hauled, therefore, on truck, 12 miles to balance the railway terminal expense or charge.

A formula might be worked out this way.

Thus motor charge for x miles is mx and railroad charge for same distance is rx + t, equating these,

mx = rx + t.

Solving for the distance traveled,

x = tm - r.

With Mr. Cabot’s figures this formula gives

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

Using the cost 25 cents per ton mile made up by actual averages compiled by the Motor Truck Association of America and 5.5 cents used by Mr. Cabot as the railroad cost charge, there results

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

It will be noticed that this formula contemplates no terminal charge for the motor truck as it is expected to pick up and deliver the freight at the doors of the consignor and consignee and that the cost of doing this is absorbed in the cost per mile. The dividing distance between profitable rail and freight transportation, x, is seen by the formula to vary directly with the terminal charge and indirectly with the difference between motor and rail cost per mile. To lessen this distance is in the interest of the railroads and can be accomplished by decreasing the terminal charges and the cost of transportation per ton-mile. Express companies have for years accomplished this by employing the system of free collection and delivery, and railways in England do likewise. The motor transport companies will have to decrease their cost per ton-mile in order to increase the distance that it is profitable for the shipper to utilize motor trucks. If the difference in cost per ton-mile could be reduced to twelve cents with terminal costs at $6 per ton, and doubtless this may be done under favorable circumstances, the distance would be lengthened to 50 miles. This is probably the maximum motor truck haul which can in general profitably compete with rail transportation. With better roads, larger trucks, trailers, or, in special cases, with certain classes of goods and commodities, longer hauls will be profitable.

The distances which it seems profitable to do trucking are continually being lengthened. Forrest Crissey, writing in the Saturday Evening Post of December 16, 1922, relates a case in which household goods were hauled from Boston to Cleveland at a saving over rail rates and expenses incurred by delays of $417.50 on the shipment.

His figures summarized are as follows:

It should be remembered that certain kinds of goods, such as household, lend themselves readily to truck shipments. With this class of goods expensive packing and several handlings are eliminated. Such is true of much merchandise which can be delivered directly from the store of the seller to the door of the buyer; to many varieties of manufactured goods which are sold within comparatively short distances of the factory. Each case should be worked out for itself and all the various kinds of transportation used that prove to be practical and economical. Where large concerns like packing houses are supplied with railway tracks right to their doors, shipping in car load and train load lots is not only more economical but absolutely necessary where such large quantities are transported in refrigerator cars. But for distribution to towns near-by the truck is much more convenient and economical. It is impossible to say for so-many-miles it is cheaper to ship by truck, because each commodity must be considered individually in connection with the character of the roads, the conditions of weather and climate, and the time of delivery. While the case of shipping household goods alluded to above proved very successful the next one might meet inclement weather, the truck might have to remain out in the rain and some of the goods become damaged, as was the case of one such shipment that came under the writer’s observation. A single swallow does not make a summer, but the trend is no doubt toward much longer truck trips. And as the roads and vehicles become stabilized and standardized this will be even more evident. For example, milk collected at stations 50 and 60 miles from the large cities can be hauled in to market in large tank cars which are built somewhat on the thermos or vacuum bottle principle, the milk arriving at its destination cooler and in every way better than if hauled in small containers. The truck has a large field open for its especial qualities. Let it confine its operations to these and rail competition will not injure it.

Short-Haul Roads Reduce Express Rates.

—The Boston & Maine Railroad is reducing express rates between Boston and towns within a radius of 50 miles in an effort to win back short-haul traffic lost to motor trucks.[163] The average reduction is given as about 40 per cent on less than carload lots. The old rail service rate between Lynn and Boston was $1.50 per ton, 7¹⁄₂ cents per hundred, with a minimum loading of 20,000 pounds per car, while the truck service charge is about $3 per ton, yet it is estimated that 80 to 90 per cent of the business was by truck. The reduced rail rate is 5 cents per hundred, $1 per ton with the minimum loading eliminated. It remains to be seen whether people are willing to pay a higher rate to ship by truck, or whether the trucks will meet the express rates. The railroads may still lower costs by one or two other devices: They may use lighter weight cars and locomotives; they may use gasoline motor cars such as the McKeen used on several branch line runs by the Union Pacific, or a motor car now being tried out capable of running on rails or on the pavements at will. Such a car would take advantage of the light traction on the rails between stations but could go through the main streets to pick up its load. A rail-motor bus following the main features of the street bus and embodying “the same elements of simplicity in construction, reliability in performance, flexibility in operation, light weight, and low first cost,”[164] has been built and operated at an average of 14 miles to the gallon of gasoline, a sufficient indication that it can save in operating expenses. The car weighs 11,000 pounds and has a maximum speed of 30 miles per hour, and when required trailers may be used without materially decreasing the speed.

Avoiding Waste.

—Such methods of cheapening and bettering railroad transportation together with a lowering of rates generally to a point that the traffic can bear, and the adoption of managerial methods that will lessen avoidable wastes, which the railroad unions estimate at one billion dollars per year,[165] may eventuate in a rehabilitation and stabilization of the railway industry. The taking over by motor trucks of short-haul freight and passenger traffic, even though it cause the discontinuation of unprofitable branch lines may prove to roads but a pruning which will be beneficial and inure to the growth of the main trunk and remaining healthy branches.

William H. Manse, a member of the Congressional Joint Commission of Agricultural Inquiry,[166] has called attention to another economic waste. He states that “city freight houses were established when team hauling was the only hauling.” These now are the cause of much congestion because of the delivery there of tremendous amounts of less-than-carload freight. The loading and unloading tracks being limited much of the freight must pass through the depot necessitating double handling. Again, in the large cities a considerable percentage of land in the business section, stated to be from 25 to 30 in Chicago, is occupied by the railroads for tracks, road and station purposes. This land is worth from $10 to $50 a square foot, and if freight cars stand upon it intermittently for the receipt and discharge of l.c.l. freight, it is not earning continuously but, on the other hand, it is spending every minute in interest, taxes and maintenance. With demountable containers, which are described in [Chapter VII], and the motor truck, and with concerted action of the railroads, much of this high-value land could be given over to other business and cheaper land farther out purchased for trackage.

Enough has been said to intimate a firm belief that the railways as purveyors of secondary transportation will persist. On economic grounds if for no other reason, for no cheaper method of transportation, except by water, has been devised; and secondary transportation over canals and rivers ought, for the good of the country, to be revived. There is a large class of freight that could with proper management travel at a slow rate of speed without any detriment or inconvenience whatsoever to the public.

Carve Out New Fields of Usefulness.

—It is quite likely that the newer systems of transportation, by inter-urban electric railways, by automobile and motor-truck, and by air-plane and dirigible, will all carve out for themselves new grooves of usefulness, thus opening up for labor and capital new fields of endeavor. The telephone did not, as many believed it would, replace the telegraph; neither, yet, has “wireless” put “wires” out of use. The telephone, rural free delivery of mail, and the automobile have already put new life into agriculture. Farming has rapidly reached the enchanted plane of professionalism and men are as proud now of being farmers as they were formerly of being lawyers or ministers. And of the three instrumentalities named, the motor car, including the improved roads it makes necessary, has probably been most influential. In return the farmers have supplied themselves with motor vehicles most generously. These will result in the marketing of increased quantities of food and products that prior to improved roads and the introduction of the motor car it was unprofitable to raise because of the cost of transportation, or the time consumed in transportation, or the condition in which they reached the consumer. This, then, is one of the ways in which the motor car may be beneficial to both producer and consumer, that is to the entire public. In the more thickly populated districts the dairy interests practically depend upon the motor truck; milk reaches its destination in better condition than when hauled by horses and wagons or when delivered to the railway station, shipped by train, and hauled again to the distributing agency. Also in regions near the large cities vegetable gardeners and orchardists are becoming more and more dependent upon the motor truck for the rapid transit of their perishable products to the jobber, retailer, or even consumer. During the railway congestion in the period of the war, not only the dairymen, gardeners, and orchardists that supplied the large eastern cities were saved from ruin but the consumers themselves were saved from food shortage and hunger by the motor car.

This condition is not peculiar to the Eastern states, but applies to the grower of perishable products near every large market; it also applies to the raiser of live stock. During the congested period mentioned there was difficulty to get stock cars in which to ship hogs, sheep, and cattle. Motor trucks were seized upon and last year there came to the Omaha stock yards in them more than 200,000 head of live stock, St. Joseph, Missouri, yards are said to be receiving 2500 head of live stock per day by motor truck. Sioux City, St. Paul and other markets report similar receipts. The record day at Indianapolis is given as 6800 head of live stock delivered to the stock yards in 500 motor trucks from a radius of 50 miles. Hogs delivered by truck to the early market at Omaha are said to be in much better condition than those received by train.

In some sorts of transportation light automobile delivery wagons will give best service; this is especially true where the distance between stops is such that considerable time may be saved by rapid transit. In still other lines a horse and wagon may be most efficient; this is especially true where the stops are continuous or nearly continuous along a street like a milk or ice route, and where a trained team can be started and stopped by the attendant from the street by word of mouth.

It seems then that there is room in this country for various kinds of transportation. The horse and wagon; the light motor and the heavy motor; the waterways; the electric railroad and the steam railroad. All should work together in harmony for the good of the Nation. The little handwheel that opens and closes the throttle valve is of as much importance to the big Corliss engine as the large and more spectacular flywheel; the black iron foundation, grimy with grease, as the bright highly polished brass band around the cylinder lagging darting and reflecting beams of light into the eyes of the beholder. Each has its own work to perform and if done well is deserving of equal honor.

SELECTED REFERENCES

Agricultural Inquiry, Report of Joint Commission on, Published by order of Congress, 1922, Washington, D. C.

Babson, Roger W., “Weekly Comment” of September 30, 1922, Syndicated.

Banham, W. J. L., “Motor Truck and Railroad Freighting,” Address delivered at Highway Transport Conference, 1920, published as a bulletin by the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce, New York.

Blanchard, Harold F., “Is the Day of the $150 Car in Sight,” Popular Science Monthly, January, 1923, p. 26.

Brosseau, A. J., “Is Highway Transport an Aid to Railroads?” Commercial Vehicle, Jan. 15, 1922. Also published in bulletin form by the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce.

Cabot, Philip, “Root, Hog or Die: The New Englander and His Railroads.” Atlantic Monthly, August, 1921, p. 258.

Chatburn, G. R., “Highway Engineering,” p. 5. John Wiley & Sons, New York.

Crissey, Forrest, “Our New Transportation System,” Saturday Evening Post, December 16, 1922.

Graham, George M., “Highway Transportation,” Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Meeting of the United States Chamber of Commerce. “The Motor Vehicle—Competitor or Ally?” National Automobile Chamber of Commerce.

Green, G. A., “Motor Bus Transportation,” Society of Automotive Engineers, Journal, 1920.

Johnson, Emery R., “Elements of Transportation,” D. Appleton & Company, New York.

MacDonald, Thomas H., “Federal Aid Highways,” Proceedings of the 8th Annual Meeting of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States.

Norton, S. V., “The Motor Truck as an Aid to Business,” Part I. A. W. Shaw Company, Chicago.

Riggs, Henry E., “Report of the Committee on Interrelation of Highway, Railway, and Waterway Transport,” National Traffic Association of Chicago, N. A. C. C., 1920.

Thirlwall, J. C., “Fields of the Rail Car, Trolley Bus and Gasoline Bus,” General Electric Review, Vol. XXIV, pp. 974-985.

White, Windsor T., “Benefits of War Experience,” Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Meeting of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States.

FOOTNOTES

[159] Chatburn’s “Highway Engineering,” Wiley & Sons, N. Y.

[160] Cf. “Root, Hog or Die,” by Philip Cabot, Atlantic Monthly, August, 1921.

[161] This estimate includes the following items:

[162] “Root, Hog, or Die: The New Englander and His Railroads,” by Philip Cabot, in Atlantic Monthly, August, 1921, p. 258.

[163] Wall Street Journal, August 26, 1921.

[164] The Railway Review, Chicago, July 30, 1921.

[165] W. Jett Lauck, a union-labor economist, in a report laid before the Railroad Labor Board, specifies the avoidable wastes as follows:

1. Modernizing locomotives.—Gross reparable deficiencies are pointed out which it is claimed might be avoided by the applications of improvements such as superheaters, brick arches, mechanical stokers, feed-water heaters, there would result an annual saving of at least $272,500,000.

2. Locomotive operation.—The magnitude of the railways’ coal bill is considered and certain of the larger wastes calculated, and it is concluded that by use of better methods of coal purchase, coal inspection, careful receipt, and efficient firing of the locomotives, an annual saving could be effected of at least $50,000,000.

3. Shop organization improvements.—The sad and almost incredible inadequacy and out-of-date equipment of the railway shops is reviewed, and defenseless wastes considered, and it is conservatively estimated that by a proper shop organization an annual saving could be effected of at least $17,000,000.

4. Power-plant fuel savings.—The obsolete and wasteful condition of the power plants in the railway shops is considered, and it is estimated that in this field the possible saving of fuel would by itself amount to an annual total of $10,000,000.

5. Water-consumption savings.—The railroads’ expenditure in maintenance of way and structure is reviewed, necessary wastes noted, and it is estimated that easily attainable savings in the consumption of water alone would amount annually to $12,600,000.

6. Service of supply savings.—The expenditure of the railways for supplies has been inquired into and the avoidable losses surveyed, and it is estimated that the wastes and abuses amount annually to not less than $75,000,000.

7. Shop accounting savings.—Attention has been given to the matter of uniform railroad statistics and the use of efficient methods of cost accounting. An annual saving would be feasible to the amount of $10,900,000.

8. Labor turn-over savings.—The industrial losses due to unnecessary labor turn-over and to inadequate training of personnel have been reviewed, and it is estimated that the avoidable wastes incident to labor turn-over alone amount to more than $40,000,000.

9. Loss and damage savings.—Inquiry has been made into the amount of the annual damage account of the railways and into preventable causes of such losses, and it is estimated that an annual saving might be effected to the amount of $90,000,000.

Other alleged losses, he says, would bring the total waste to over a billion.

[166] Report of the Joint Commission on Agricultural Inquiry.

CHAPTER VII
AUTOMOTIVE TRANSPORTATION

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

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

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

The Evolution of the Steam Automobile

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

Business Passenger Traffic.

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

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

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

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

A MODERN RURAL PASSENGER BUS

© Underwood and Underwood

A NEW YORK CITY “STEPLESS BUS”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pleasure Passenger Traffic.

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

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

The Evolution of the Gasoline Motor Car

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

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

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

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