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.