MONOGRAPHS
OF EFFICIENCY
Number

Published

Three

Quarterly

Price

$1.00

a

Year

National Highways
and Country Roads
By

Henry B Joy
President

The Lincoln

Highway

April 1917
Published at
119 West Fortieth St. New York.
by the

National Institute of Efficiency
NewYorkand Washington

U.S.A.

COPYRIGHT

1917
B Y THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE
OF EFFICIENCY

National Highways and
Country Roads
By
H E N R Y B. J O Y

President of the Lincoln Highway

A

Association

M E M B E R of the Canadian Parliament wrote
me the other day on the subject of roads. He remarked in his letter that Canada was a generation
behind the United States in the matter of road improvement, and regretted that it was impossible for
a Canadian citizen to start from Halifax, for example,
and drive to Vancouver, B. C , as it is possible for an
American citizen to start out from New York City
and drive to San Francisco.
I replied that while it might be true that Canada
was a generation behind the United States in the matter of road improvement, it was no less true that the
United States was a generation or more behind Western Europe.
Efficiency in roads is a new subject in the curriculum of the average American citizen. I believe that I
am not exaggerating when I say that it is entirely
probable that not thirty per cent of the population of
the United States have ever seen a road.
Webster defines a road as "a public way for traveling upon." T h a t a road is not merely a public right of
way upon which people have the right to travel in going from one place to another is only just beginning
to dawn upon the consciousness of the American public.
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Transportation is the second most important economic need of man. Facilities for transportation of
both passengers and freight by other means than rail
are the result of necessity. Facilities for efficient transportation are the result of education. We in America
are uneducated in transportation efficiency. As a nation, we have not gone to school long enough.
The countries of Western Europe have long considered their efficient road systems as public utilities,
necessary, not only to the civilized life of their communities, but essential from the standpoint of national defense. What the average prosperous American farmer or business man calls a road would be
looked upon as a crime by a European peasant. In
roads as in other things, old Europe's poverty has
taught her efficiency. Young America's affluence has
made for waste. The economic waste in our primary
transportation—farm to railroad—can be estimated
yearly in the hundred millions, all chargeable to inefficient roads.
The question which has interested the American
farmer is not the cost per ton mile of hauling his crops
and how it could be lowered to his profit, but whether
the road from his farm to the railroad station was
passable or not. Efficiency? I doubt if one farmer in
ten could tell you within two hundred per cent of accuracy what his cost of hauling is.
Today in the rich State of Iowa, not a wheel turns
outside the paved streets of her cities during, or for
some days after, the frequent heavy rains. Every farm
is isolated. Social intercourse ceases. School attend2

AND C O U N T R Y ROADS

ance is impossible. Transportation is at a standstill.
Millions of dollars' worth of wheeled vehicles become
for the time being worthless. Much the same conditions
obtain in nine-tenths of the states of the richest nation
the world has ever seen. Efficiency?
When it rains, hundreds of thousands of square
miles of the United States not only lack efficient roads,
they lack—roads. All they have is the right of way.
A public right of way over which travel is impossible
is not a road. I t is not an efficient road unless traffic
is not only possible but thoroughly practical 365 days
a year.
Ten years ago, the position of the United States in
regard to roads, or lack of them, was not to be wondered at. Then it need not have led a patriotic citizen
to blush for his country. The energies of our master
builders, the visions of our constructive dreamers and
the muscular force of our laborers had been devoted to
the great problem of interconnecting the widely scattered population of our nation by the first and primarily necessary means of communication—our railroads. The past age has been a railroad-building age.
But the twentieth century saw us entering what
should have been the second stage in the development
of our national transportation system. I t has grievously lagged. We must accomplish in the next decade
what it has taken the nations of Europe centuries to
perfect—a national road system—efficient.
The roads of Europe have, from the time of Caesar,
been the first tentacles in the advance of civilization.
France owes her lead in road building to the first

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Napoleon, who with absolute power and unlimited resources was enabled to build truly efficient roads. His
roads, like those of Rome, were the shortest possible
distance between two definite points.
If we consider the road system of France before the
war as representing the possible one hundred per cent
of efficiency, the efficiency of our American road system would necessarily be represented by a zero, for we
have had no road "system." Our road building has
been a prize example of lack of system, lack of proper
cooperation and coordination between the different geographical and political divisions of the country, and
a consequent lack of efficiency.
The Napoleon highways made Europe. The highway systems of France are saving France today. We
Americans have, in our blind stupidity, sat back
dumbly, letting well enough alone, because we are rich
and fat and lazy and inefficient and incompetent, taking no thought of the future; leaving future generations to dig themselves out of the mire as past generations have done, instead of wisely and intelligently, as
a people, planning and acting for the benefit and welfare of future generations, and the amelioration of
their conditions.
The real start of the present efficient French system of roads was in the seventeenth century, when in
1661 a start was made upon a system of 15,000 miles
of hard road constructed by enforced peasant labor.
In 1915, France had 355,000 miles of permanent
hard-surfaced road; 23,820 miles were classed as national roads and were the property of the Government.

4

AND COUNTRY ROADS

Some conception of the problem which faces American road builders in the achievement of an efficient
national road system in this country can be gained
by consideration of the fact that, as compared with
Prance with a system of 355,000 miles of improved
roads, which was the development of nearly four hundred years of constructive endeavor and constant
maintenance, we have about 2,000,000 miles of unimproved roads yet to be constructed and brought into
a general national system which can be called truly
efficient.
In the total of over 2,000,000 miles of public right
of way, or so-called roads in the United States, there
are at present but little over 30,000 miles of what can
b^ technically referred to as ^improved" roads. Our
task is indeed a tremendous one, and one which will
require, and is now securing, the best constructive
ability of the nation.
To start in upon an endeavor to improve or construct as a system America's 2,000,000 miles of socalled road in one vast enterprise would be the typically American and wholly inefficient way of securing
results, and would lead only to the expenditure of millions upon millions of the people's money in disconnected miles of road useless until the completion of the
whole project and serving no national need. Yet this
is the way our road building has been handled—not
as a national unit capable of constructive growth, completing first those main lines of transportation most
necessary before proceeding in an orderly and systematic way to the construction of our next requirements,
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and so on down to the most remote feeder lines, the
capillaries of our transportation system.
We have started to build the capillaries first.
The arteries and veins have been neglected. This is
natural when our road construction is in the hands
of a thousand minor local units, each without definite
knowledge of the plans being formulated by the others,
each expending such funds as may be available in accordance with its local needs and without reference to
the convenience of its neighbors.
How can we expect the completion of our main
through arteries of traffic when frequent gaps must
necessarily remain open, due to the inability of a local
unit to do its share? Roads are, or should be, a national problem, yet how can they serve a national need
when their collective status of usefulness is subjected
to the limitations of local conditions?
Our whole plan of road construction is inefficient. I t
is the maximum of inefficiency.
To construct a railroad system which would eventually serve the interests of the entire people, no matter
how great the necessity for its immediate establishment, and no matter how great the available capital to complete the improvement, the company undertaking the task would not begin simultaneously upon
the construction of the complete system with all of
its branch lines, connecting links, terminals and farreaching feeder lines. Still less would it construct a
disconnected mile or ten miles here and there, beginning nowhere and leading nowhere, and of no use until
the completion of the whole.

6

AND COUNTRY EOADS

On the contrary, the effort of the organization
would be devoted first to the establishment of the main
line between the two most important points, which
would serve the greatest proportion of the population,
and in the construction of which the greatest amount
of immediate good could be accomplished. T h a t would
be efficiency. But that is not the way in which we have
started out to achieve a national road system.
Let us first get to the heart of the matter and endeavor to define accurately what is meant by an efficient road.
An efficient road is a free public thoroughfare between two points approximating a straight line as
closely as is possible in consideration of the topographical formation of the country and is practical
in consideration of the arrangement of the population.
I t is wide enough to accommodate, without congestion, the greatest traffic to which its location will, even
in the future, subject it. Its grades are no greater
than the minimum to which they can be confined by
the expenditure of a sum as large as is practical in
consideration of the value and volume of the material
transported. I t is constructed of a material which will
allow the fullest and freest use of the road in all seasons and under all conditions of temperature and climate, and which will last the longest with the minimum
yearly expenditure for maintenance.
In addition to all this, the truly efficient road must
be so laid out as to serve not only the interests of the
localities through which it passes, but to form a link
in an interstate and national system of such roads and
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do its p a r t in allowing the freest possible movement
of passenger and freight transportation throughout
the nation.
T h a t a system of such roads can ever be secured
under our present methods of road construction in
this country is a matter of grave doubt. The results
which have been achieved under our system of considering roads as a local problem for administration
can be appreciated by a glance at a road map of almost any state in the Union.
Look at a road map of our State of Michigan, for
example. The lines representing improved roads suggest almost anything but a river of transportation
flowing through the state and fed by innumerable
streams of traffic. W h a t you see is a series of dotted
lines, arranged about the state in the utmost confusion and suggesting nothing more than the erratic
wanderings of a busy hen.
But we are making some progress, both in method
and results.
Ten years ago public attention was beginning to
be diverted to the subject of roads by the increasing
popularity and the widespread use of the motor vehicle, which brought this question, for so long an abstract one, home to that tremendous urban portion of
our population. Previous to the advent of the motor
car the city man had no direct interest in roads.
The desire for better road conditions began to make
itself manifest in the organization in many parts of
the country of good-roads clubs, or automobile clubs,
whose main purpose was road improvement in the interest of its members.
8

AND COUNTRY ROADS

Hundreds of these little local organizations began
to urge upon their county officials or their state officials the improvement of the local roads. Such action
was inevitable, for driving an automobile about the
city streets soon lost its novelty, and when motor-car
owners found that they could not leave their home city
for a trip to any other city near or far with any assurance of getting there, a loud cry went up for road
improvement—immediate road improvement.
The sovereign American citizen had been touched in
one of his most vital spots—his constitutional right
* to the unlimited pursuit of happiness.
These local organizations began to accomplish local
results, particularly after the farmer became a motorist; legislation, varying widely and drawn for local
needs, was secured; bond issues were voted upon and
passed, tax levies increased, funds secured by subscription, and a fever of road construction possessed
the country.
What was accomplished? Roads are unfortunately
a political consideration. In most instances road officials are political appointees. Different communities,
sections of counties and states worked against one
another in an endeavor to secure as large a portion of
the available funds for the improvement in their own
locality as possible, with the result that the money was
spent under compromise.
Road construction cannot be compromised.
If sufficient money is available in a county to construct ten miles of road in a given year and there are
five different localities in t h a t county, all clamoring
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for the ten miles, it might satisfy them all and be to
the political interest of the responsible officials to
spend one-fifth of the money in each locality and build
two miles of road; but it accomplishes nothing.
I t became evident that if anything was to be accomplished towards a national system of American
roads, the public interest and attention must be focused and crystallized upon the accomplishment of
one main object first.
The first and most important route in the interests
of the entire people must be selected and the force of
the nation's road-building activities concentrated so
far as possible upon that road's completion.
I t will be said that this is a function of the Federal
Government, as indeed it i s ; but when no machinery is
provided by the Federal Government for taking care
of such national problems as this it devolves upon private organizations. Like all pioneers, we must take the
law in our own hands.
This leads me to a consideration of national highways and to the first and most important of our national highways—the Lincoln Highway.
The Lincoln Highway Association was organized in
1913 by a number of business men interested in the
progress of American roads who longed to bring order
out of chaos and in some way inaugurate a national
movement which would be productive of real results.
These men appreciated the inefficiency of our present road system, the inefficiency of our present methods for undertaking the construction of a road system, and knowing that the problem was an educational
10

AND COUNTRY ROADS

one, they hoped in some way to start a national movement which would secure the attention of the general
public in every p a r t of the United States and gain its
cooperation by forcefully bringing self-evident facts
to the attention of the public in a way which would be
calculated to secure and hold that attention.
Preaching good roads as an abstract proposition
would accomplish nothing. I t is a dry subject.
advocating the construction of a national road syste: 4 would create no enthusiasm. I t is too indefinite. I t s
ac iomplishment would be too far in the distant future
to interest practical, everyday American citizens.
What was needed was some definite accomplishment
which would crystallize the growing interest in road
improvement, manifesting itself in every p a r t of the
country, upon some undertaking which would appeal
to the imagination of the American people, which
would be big enough to challenge their interest and
secure their support, and which would be the first step
—the most necessary step—in the evolution of our
transportation system.
The Lincoln Highway, the most logical transcontinental route connecting the two coasts, was the result.
Its dedication to the name of our martyred President
as a most appropriate and enduring memorial was a
later thought, and one which has added a touch of
sentiment which has done much to interest the thousands of Lincoln Highway supporters.
The men who laid out with painstaking care the
route of the Lincoln Highway and who announced it
to the public and asked for a nation-wide cooperation
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in accomplishing its improvement, possessed no authority other than the wisdom of the plan; but with
the universal cooperation of the patriotic press, the
Lincoln Highway has for three years held the attention of the public and received a volume of support
which has equaled, if it has not surpassed, the anticipations of those who inaugurated the idea.
I t is now three years since the Lincoln Highway was
announced to the public. Each year has seen an increasing amount of constructive work accomplished.
In the aggregate, the amount of work which has been
accomplished on the Lincoln Highway passes the
bounds of exact statement. Carefully compiled figures
indicate that the expenditure in 1916 on the route was
over six millions of dollars.
The road is continually being made more efficient.
Detours are being eliminated, curves cut down, and
hard-surface construction in accordance with the recommendations of the Association is constantly going
on, with the result that it has become entirely possible
and practicable to start out from New York and drive
to San Francisco, and in fair weather, driving leisurely, the trip can be easily made in less than a month.
Thousands of tourists yearly drive the Lincoln
Highway from one coast to the other. Estimates from
the main points along the route indicate that the traffic in 1916 increased one-half over 1915, and the traffic in 1915 doubled over 1914.
What this means can be appreciated by considering the fact that in 1912 a transcontinental automobile tour was an unpleasant and possibly hazardous
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N A T I O N A L HIGHWAYS

A N D C O U N T R Y BOADS

the local. The patriotic instead of the selfish. It is not
so difficult to arouse the interest and secure the cooperation of people if they are only properly approached.
The names of these different organizations, which
have been promoting efficient road construction along
the lines instituted by the Lincoln Highway Association, will come readily to mind. The main examples of
efficient highways forming part of a national system,
promoted by definite organizations but receiving their
support from the states and counties through which
they pass, are: The Dixie Highway, running from
Miami, Fla., to Chicago, 111.; the Jefferson Highway,
running from Winnipeg, Man., to New Orleans, t a . ;
the Park-to-Park Highway, connecting the Glacier,
Yellowstone and Yosemite National Parks; the Yellowstone Highway, laid out from "Plymouth Rock to
Puget Sound55; and the William PennHighway across
Pennsylvania.
There are many other minor highways backed by
definite organizations. They are all, great and small,
putting into effect the Lincoln Highway5s principle
of road efficiency, and appeal to the cooperation of the
people in the completion of the first and most necessary routes of travel through a possible sacrifice of
their little local rights to a portion of the available
funds.
It was inevitable that the rapid improvement of the
Lincoln Highway would lead to equally rapid improvement upon the main feeder roads.
Centers of population located north or south of the

undertaking for the most intrepid. I doubt if twelve
complete transcontinental trips had been made under
the car5s own power previous to that year. So much for
what has been accomplished on the Lincoln Highway.
Now for the educational effect of this work, the results of the widespread interest which has been aroused
and the basic soundness of the plan suggested.
The success in the promotion of the Lincoln Highway and the rapid improvements which resulted in the
elimination of the local petty discords between communities and sections showed the possibilities of accomplishing real results towards national road efficiency through the cooperation of the people.
The plan took seed as was expected.
Other organizations began to spring up in different
parts of the country, each modeled after the Lincoln
Highway Association, and, like it, urging the improvement of some through connecting interstate thoroughfare, leading from some place to some place, and serving a national purpose, as well as rendering local
service.
Each of these organizations necessarily appealed
to the patriotism and public spirit of the people in
the counties and states through which its route ran,
and endeavored to persuade citizens to forget the road
which ran by their farms and communities-—roads
which served only a local need—and to concentrate
with the other communities and all citizens in an endeavor to put through the first main highway necessary to their portion of the country. The broad viewpoint instead of the narrow. The national in place of

14

13

"Tightening the Union"
Besides showing the Lincoln Highway, the map reproduced above indicates the Border Highway by which it is proposed to link up the Lincoln and other principal highways in the country, and which Mr. Henry B. Joy, author
of this monograph, has so earnestly advocated. In its commercial aspect, the scheme would provide a basis, Mr. Joy
believes, for a federal spider-web system of hard-surfaced highways, and thus greatly reduce the cost of transportation, while in a military emergency it would make possible the rapid mobilization and concentration of troops
at whatever point was threatened.

AND COUNTRY ROADS

main transcontinental route necessarily desire a good
road connecting with that route as soon as it reaches
a stage of real usefulness, and as the Lincoln Highway has progressed the improvement of these connecting roads has progressed. It is not too much to
say that for every mile of permanent construction
placed on the Lincoln Highway ten miles of permanent construction directly result upon its innumerable feeders.
The plan is working out. The men behind the Lincoln Highway Association feel that their little organization is accomplishing big results, not only in actual
road construction, which alone would justify the existence of the Association, but in the education of the
American public to the proper viewpoint on the subject of roads—roads as a national consideration.
Every American is becoming interested in the condition of the roads in every portion of the United
States.
The man in New York is now no longer satisfied
with the situation if the roads in New York State are
perfect. He has become interested in the roads of Nevada, of Iowa, of Wyoming, of Kansas and of Florida;
and as this interest grows, we are in a fair way to
accomplish efficient results, even in those states and
through those communities where the local population
are helpless to cope with their road problems.
It is becoming of greater interest to the people of
the crowded East, for example, that the trans-state
road in Nebraska, in Wyoming and in Nevada be improved than it possibly is to the inhabitants of those
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states themselves. Nevada, for example, has an area
almost that of France and a population less than that
of Des Moines, l a . Under our system of local attention to roads, these people cannot be expected to provide efficient highways from their own meager funds
and for their own infrequent use.
The F a r West would cease to exist if we had a
broad, hard-surfaced highway drawing the West
nearer to the East and the East closer to the West
which could be traveled by motor vehicles in wet
weather. The millions of dollars which would be
brought to the West from the Great E a s t and spread
all through the wonderful Western Playground of
America cannot be computed if only this broad, hardsurfaced, travelable-in-wet-weather main arterial backbone highway — the Lincoln Highway—were completed on a broad efficiency scale.
Already with such small comparative improvements
as have been possible during the three years since the
organization of the Association, a new western movement has been started, which is meaning as much to
the West of today as the first great influx of goldseeking adventurers meant to the West of sixty years
ago. The Lincoln Highway is of as great, if not greater,
importance to the West of today than the Union Pacific Railroad was to the West of yesterday. A through
connecting highway across the United States is bringing new life and impetus to Western enterprise. A new
business of caring for tourists, caused by the motortraveling public invading the western third of the
United States instead of Switzerland and Europe, is
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AND COUNTRY ROADS

developing. The western movement is lured this time
not by gold or silver, but by the riches of health and
pleasure, pure air, glorious scenery, and all those
things which the E a s t needs and the West has in an
inexhaustible abundance.
Mr. G. S. Hoag, State consul for the Lincoln Highway Association for Nevada, at Ely, one of the foremost good-roads advocates of the West, a man who
has self-sacrificingly devoted his energy for years in a
public-spirited endeavor to bring about the improvement of the first main connecting links between his
state and the great states to the east and west, says:
"Small towns to the west of Ely, which have been
described in the Saturday Evening Post as 'Ghost
Cities of the West'—towns which in the old boom days
boasted of five to ten thousand population, and which
have been hard pressed to provide sustenance for the
present struggling population of a few hundred—are
coming back to life through the opening of the Lincoln
Highway and its gradual improvement. The new western rush of tourist traffic is revitalizing them, especially during the summer months, and hundreds of our
people who have hardly lived for years are losing their
abdominal wrinkles and discarding the old pipe for
real cigars.
"A hotel in Eureka, built for years, where fortunes
were won and lost in the old boom days, and which has
been standing for years without an occupant, has with
the advent of the automobile tourist over the Lincoln
Highway again been opened, fitted with modern conveniences, and converted into a profitable institution.
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"As a matter of fact, the Lincoln Highway has been
the pattern, the incentive and the rival of all roads in
this locality. Its indirect effect upon state-wide road
construction is beyond estimate. Because of its popularity, the counties to the north have spent thousands
of dollars in improvements on their roads, in hopes
that they might divert some of the traffic now using
the Lincoln Highway. Right now, in the midst of the
county campaigns, the old county commissioners seeking reelection point to the money expended on roads,
using that as an argument for their return to office.
"Nevada is finding good roads to be an endless-chain
scheme. Better roads bring more traffic, and more traffic brings better roads."
But the few who have toured westward are the pioneers, a handful compared with the thousands who
should and could go, at small expense, over a road system which, built by the American people, would give
the real America to those who long to see and enjoy.
There are deserted beauty spots in our great West
beside which many of the world-famed scenes of Europe
pale into insignificance, and which, were they located
in France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland or England,
where efficiency extends even to the utmost utilization
of historic interest and scenic charm, would have been
capitalized long since and made the Mecca of the continent, through proper exploitation and the improvement of every possible means of approach.
How many Americans have tarried on the shores of
that superb masterpiece of Nature's handiwork which
graces the borderland between Nevada and California
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AND COUNTRY ROADS

—Lake Tahoe? The present traveler feels cheated of
past pleasures when through accident or design he first
discovers this superb spot. He wonders why he has
never before camped amid the towering pines and snowcapped mountain peaks which are mirrored on the
Neapolitan blue of the lake's surface. Such a spot as
this could be made the Saint Moritz of America, a
winter as well as a summer resort for thousands from
every corner of the land, where now the comparatively
few Easterners who brave the possible hardships of a
transcontinental drive, and the native Californians
from the near-by cities, seem lost in the solitude of the
spot; and the vast and beautiful hotels which grace
the shores of the mountain lake present at most seasons a forlorn and deserted appearance.
How many Americans have seen the Grand Canyon
of the Colorado, that magnificent spectacle beside
which all European wonders fade? A lamentable few.
The spot is isolated and can be reached only by a long,
and to some disagreeable, railroad journey. The man
who attempts to drive to the Grand Canyon must in
a measure break his own trails and take his chances of
arriving at a spot which should be the center of a series of magnificent boulevards, connecting with a system of roads reaching to every corner of the nation.
How many Americans have witnessed the fading
light of a crimson sunset across the Great American
Desert, or camped in the high solitudes of the Wyoming
Rockies, or whipped the lonely trout streams of Colorado, or driven those comparatively isolated superb
roads which the Government has constructed through
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the Yellowstone, or seen the Bad Lands of South Dakota through the morning mist, or inspected the wonders of our far northern Glacier National Park?
An inestimable proportion of one per cent.
These things cannot be seen from the windows of a
train. They cannot be reached without an outlay of
time and money far beyond the possibilities of the
average man, and without hardships and discouragement with which the average man will not contend, and
to which few men will subject their families.
There are barriers between the bulk of our population and our native wonders, the outdoor play spots of
our great West and Middle West, which should be
within the reach of every American—barriers of mud
and alkali and sand more formidable than the two
thousand miles of cold water which divide our population from the inferior but more widely heralded beauty
spots of Europe, to which before the war our healthand pleasure-seekers have swarmed, and to which they
will again swarm when the door to Europe again
swings open at the close of hostilities.
We have harped on the slogan, "See America first."
With all my force I indorse that sentiment; but, analyzed, what a meaningless slogan it is, when the means
to really see America first, or last, are yet to be provided ! We advertise, and we have nothing to sell. We
create a tremendous and nation-wide interest in the
beauty spots of America, and neglect to provide the
means whereby they can be reached, or even the most
commonplace and fundamentally necessary accommodations en route. Yet we have reproached the Ameri20

AND COUNTRY ROADS

can public through our daily and periodical press for
the annual Hejira which in the past has taken some
$200,000,000 a year abroad, never to return.
The roads and the scenic and historic interest of
Europe are not the only magnets which have attracted
our population and our wealth. No matter where you
drive in Switzerland, England, France or Italy, you
can depend, not only upon efficient highways, but always upon a comfortable inn, a clean bed and a palatable cuisine, things which the American traveler for
health, recreation and pleasure has long since learned,
to his regret, are only too rare in many sections of the
United States.
Many a time I have slept in a mud puddle and fried
my bacon on a sagebrush fire, rather than take advantage of the accommodations offered in some of the
Middle-West and Western towns on our main routes
of travel, and I am not particularly squeamish. What,
then, of the tourist who with his wife and children endeavors to travel in comfort this broad land of ours?
But with the increase in traffic on our main routes,
the pioneers who are breaking the trails and showing
the way for the thousands who are to follow are gradually bringing about improved conditions in the accommodations offered. Traffic has increased 500 per
cent on the Lincoln Highway in four years, and our
most careful figures show an expenditure of $5,406,000 for new hotels and improvement of existing accommodations on that route alone during the 1916 season.
Educational work is having its effect; development
is coming. Appreciation of America's needs for effi21

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cient highways and all their attendant improvements
is being forced into the consciousness of the American
public. Sight-seeing and pleasure-touring are but one
phase of a situation which is becoming a live question
of public concern and bringing about a new stage in
our national evolution.
One of the largest and most successful manufacturers in the United States wrote me not a week ago that
his salesmen, comprising a nation-wide organization,
were endeavoring to more efficiently cover their territories by motor car, but were running into almost
insurmountable difficulties in almost every section of
the country due to the road conditions. He wanted to
know what he could do to aid towards an efficient national highway system.
He is one of many who are beginning to appreciate
the tremendous possibilities which will be open to our
commerce with the opening of our roads.
I wrote him that he could no more efficiently devote
whatever funds he wished to set aside towards the accomplishment of his desire than by placing them at
tlie disposal of the Lincoln Highway Association,
which with its constantly increasing duties cannot with
its present funds take advantage of all those opportunities for service which are being constantly presented.
In this paper on "National Highways and Country
Roads" I have endeavored to impress one thing, and
that is that efficiency is the result of concentration,
and that to secure a national system of American
highways under our present inadequate and wholly
22

AND COUNTRY ROADS

inefficient methods of providing for road construction
we must by every means possible endeavor to direct
expenditure upon the first and most important accomplishment, and when that is completed turn our attention to the next most important, and so on.
Arguments in favor of good roads are not necessary. Arguments in favor of efficiency in our road expenditure are most necessary, and it is only through
constant hammering that we can build up in this count r y a public sentiment strong enough and disinterested enough and patriotic enough and broad and public-spirited enough to assert itself and make itself felt
in such a way that the question of roads will be taken
out of the domain of politics and inefficient, wasteful
local control and placed where it properly should be—under a broad, comprehensive national plan, which is
the only thing that will ever secure for the United
States an efficient national road system.
The road is the great link of human intercourse.
Our roads fix our prices, open our markets, raise our
social standing, conserve our energy, regulate our
laws of supply and demand. In my opinion there is not
an issue before the people of the United States today,
including the tariff and preparedness, which is of such
fundamentally vital importance to our hundred million
people as this question of efficient national highways
and country roads.
Efficient transportation is the basis of any national
efficiency. Efficiency in our road expenditures affects
our personal efficiency, the efficiency of our business
organizations and the efficiency of our nation as a
whole.
28

NATIONAL

HIGHWAYS

I t is said that a European family can live on what
an American family wastes. I t is probably true. I t is
also true that we could construct in five years an
efficient American road system with our present economic waste, directly traceable to our present inefficient roads.
I t can be accepted as an axiom that the cost of a
poor road is at the minimum five times the cost of a
perfect permanent road, and it would be cheaper to
construct and maintain five miles of efficient hard-surfaced road than it would be to continue with but one
mile of what many communities are pleased to call
road at present.
I t is amusing, for example, to hear an Iowa farmer
complain that they have not enough money to build
permanent roads in Iowa, when every time an Iowa
bank buys a California road bond that farmer and his
neighbors are helping to build California roads.
You cannot get away from it. You are paying for
roads, good roads, permanent roads, efficient roads,
whether you have them or not. The answer is obvious.

24

National Institute of Efficiency
BOARD OF GOVERNORS
MR. GUTZON BORGLUM, Sculptor and Publicist.

HON. MELVIL DEWEY, President of the Efficiency Society.
MR. WILLIAM F. D I X , Secretary of the Mutual Life Insurance
Company.
DR. HENRY STURGIS DRINKER, President of Lehigh University.

HON. PHILIP H. GADSDEN, President of the Charleston Consolidated Railway and Lighting Company.
HON. JOHN HAYS HAMMOND, Mining Engineer and Diplomat.

HON. JOB E. HEDGES, Lawyer and Statesman.
MR. HENRY B. JOY, President of the Lincoln Highway Association and of the Packard Motor Car Company.
MR. E. ST. ELMO LEWIS, Business Counsellor.

MR. CURTIS J. MAR, President of the Efficiency Publishing Company.
MR. J. HORACE MCFARLAND, President of the American Civic
Association.
HON. EMERSON MCMILLIN, Industrial Expert, Philanthropist and
Publicist.
HON. TRUMAN H. NEWBERRY, ex-Secretary United States Navy.
HON. ALTON B. PARKER, former Chief Justice of the Court of
Appeals of New York.
ADMIRAL ROBERT E. PEARY, Explorer, and Discoverer of the

North Pole.
MR. RAYMOND B. PRICE, Vice-President United States Rubber
Company.
HON. HERBERT W. RICE, President of the United States Gutta
Percha Paint Company.
HON. JOHN A. STEWART, Chairman of the Executive Committee
of the American Peace Centenary Association.
HON. CONRAD H. SYME, Corporation Counsel of the City of
Washington.
MR. RICHARD B. WATROUS, Secretary of the American Civic A s sociation.
HON. WILLIAM R. WILLCOX, former Chairman of the Public Service Commission of New York.
MR. HENRY A. WISE WOOD, President of the American Society

of Aeronautic Engineers.
MAJOR-GENERAL LEONARD WOOD, United States Army.

MR. HENRY WOODHOUSE, Editor of "Flying"; Governor of the
Aero Club of America.

Officers
President
WILLIAM B.

HOWLAND

119 West 40th Street, New York
Vice-President
ALTON B.

PARKER

111 Broadway, New York
Treasurer
HERBERT W.

RICE

12 Dudley Street, Providence, R. I.
Secretary
RICHARD B.

WATROUS

Union Trust Building, Washington, D. C.

Chairmen of Committees
Executive
J O H N A.

STEWART

Editorial

Board

EDWARD EARLE PURINTON

Finance
H O N . TRUMAN H.

NEWBERRY

Library
WILLIAM FREDERICK D I X

Army

Efficiency

GENERAL LEONARD WOOD

Aeronautics
H E N R Y WOODHOUSE

Medals and

Awards

GUTZON BORQLUM

The Navy
HENRY A. WISE WOOD

Membership
All men and women interested in doing their best work in the
best way are eligible for membership. They are elected by the
Board of Governors on nomination of any member, unless valid
objection is made. They are of four classes, as follows:
Corporate members are those who have participated in the
organization of the Institute, and those who shall be elected by
the Board of Governors up to the number of one hundred. They
have control of the affairs of the Institute.
Members are those elected by the Board of Governors who pay
annual dues of five dollars.
Life members are those who are elected by the Board of Governors and pay dues of fifty dollars at one time.
Counselors for life are those who contribute two hundred and
fifty dollars to the work of the Institute.
Patrons are those who contribute one thousand dollars or more
to the work of the Institute. They are members for life.
Honorary members are those of special distinction who are
elected by the Board of Governors to mark the respect in which
they are held by the Institute. They may be elected for one year
or for life. They pay no dues.
The privileges of membership are as follows:
To receive free one copy of each issue of the Institute's Monographs of Efficiency. The price of each issue to those not members will be 25 cents each. Not less than four numbers will be
published each year.
To receive free—except for the payment of regular dues—the
fifty-two weekly issues of T H E INDEPENDENT, including the
twelve Efficiency Numbers.
To consult free the Director of T H E INDEPENDENT'S Efficiency
Service, Edward Earle Purinton, on any problem of business,
health, or personal efficiency.
To secure a substantial reduction in the price of any desired
book on efficiency, or of the Course of Efficiency endorsed by the
Institute, now in course of preparation by Mr. Purinton.