George R. Chatburn

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

“ The automobile, by inducing people to get more into the open air, may be considered to be a prophylactic, and something that will bring them into that universally good condition. The forgetting of business, the obliteration of household cares, the unstringing of high-tensioned nerves by a swift run like a swallow in its flight over smooth and undulating roads brings rest with relaxation, and cure with comfort. ”

“ The indifferent person does not look both ways before crossing a railroad track. He starts to walk across a street without noticing whether or not automobiles are coming. He pays no attention to signs and danger signals along the way. He takes dangers as nonchalantly as though driving in the lonely desert. He knows that accidents do happen and imagines that some day or other he will “get his” but thinks that day is always a long time in the future. ”

“ Now the beautification of the highway, discussed in the last chapter, while primarily for pleasure, has been found to increase the use of the road and bring money in new ways to the pockets of many. The beautiful and the scenic are truly economic assets of great worth. California will realize many times over from the tourist traffic alone the cost of her wonderful roads. The famous Columbia River Highway will return to Oregon again and again its cost through tourists and other pleasure riders attracted to it as bees to sweets by the lure of its scenic vistas. ”

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

“ Too many persons try to operate a car without knowing anything whatsoever about it except to put on the gas, shift gears, and turn the steering wheel to the right or the left. They frequently lack decision, will power and imagination, or they go to the opposite extreme forget to be courteous and hog the whole road. The driver of a car is like the soldier going into battle, thinks the other man may be hit but not he. The driver, too often, believes himself to be immune. He knows there are bound to be accidents to some but he continues to take chances. ”

“ A road is a strip of land set apart or appropriated for travel, public or private. When a road has been dedicated to the public or has been used so long that the public has a legal right of easement therein, it becomes a highway. [173]
The object of a road is to provide a way for transportation. It goes without saying, therefore, that its situation should be such that it can perform this function most efficiently, and a system of highways should perform the same function for the public in the same manner. Efficiency here includes the ideas of economy and satisfaction combined. ”

“ While there are many persons of means, the owners of expensive cars, pitching their tents in shady nooks, enjoying the sociability of glowing camp fires, and sleeping to the music of gurgling trout streams, there are also those who drive cheaper cars who are enjoying the same starry nights, the hum of bees and the flash of birds, who take the gamy trout to help out their daily rations, who stop to regale themselves with wild berries and chokecherries, who relish the chuck-chuck of the red squirrel, and the flirt of the saucy chipmunk’s tail as he scurries to a hiding place. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Then away from the mad’ning crowd, away from close poorly ventilated rooms, away from foul-smelling germ-laden cars, to the roads, to the hills, to the country with their varied shades of living carpets, with freshening winds and glad’ning brooks, with bees, and birds, and flowers into nature’s great laboratory where are brewed nectars and panaceas for the ills which infest mankind. ”

“ The rural home need no longer be a place where there is nothing but ten hours’ work and six hours’ chores. The farmer of to-day, with his daily paper, his market reports, his books and magazines, his furnace-heated and electric-lighted house, his automobile ready at hand, is better off, more independent, and should be more happy and contented than those who dwell in the murky city. ”

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

“ If the necessity of care could be instilled into the mind of every person, if each could be made to realize that the next accident might be his, that accidents are not only painful and disagreeable but always result in the destruction of property, in personal injury or the loss of life, the sum total of savings in money and humanity would be tremendous. All the devices of human ingenuity, all the laws of the sages, and the education of all agencies will not bring absolute safety. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Can the principles of esthetic construction be applied to the humble road? Most assuredly, everyone recognizes that the first two elements, stability and utility, are very essential qualifications, but the public fails to get the greatest possible satisfaction from the road because it neglects the element of beauty. Until the profession of Road Aesthete has been evolved, therefore, it might be well, in at least a crude way, to apply to the highway some of the principles of architecture and landscape gardening. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It looks now as if half the population will have deserted houses and flats for their automobile tent within another year or two.
In winter time a corner of the garage will do well enough for a living room during the few minutes at a time we are at home. If we insist on a separate house, then the tendency is toward a very small one. What is the sense in maintaining a big house not to live in? That is the way our minds run now. This will help the lumber men to understand why building doesn’t pick up as it should. And that is how we manage to keep the car while incomes fail. ”

“ There is the man who believes Detroit is destined to be the largest city in the world, and the man who is certain nothing can compare with Los Angeles. Truly the man who lives beside the road may have, if he is endowed with gumption, a joyful time as the perennial reel runs on. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Even then there is a loss to the public when outlaws seize a loaded truck and drive it into wilds whence its contents can be disposed of at leisure. Shall truckers, like the ancient caravans of the deserts maintain guards with long guns to fight off marauding Bedouins? The western stages of some years ago furnished employment as guards to the quickest shots in the world. Is it the duty of the community to make its highways safe for transportation or must the shipper take the risk and employ guards and machine guns? ”