Highways and Byways, USA

Motor Transport USA. New York to  Chicago. Detroit to St. Louis. Atlanta to Los Angeles. New Orleans to  Denver. San Francisco back to Chicago. And all our cities in between. Four lanes. Six  lanes. As modern as next year’s calendar. The best that money can buy for a nation that  insists on nothing less than the best. This too is Motor Transport USA. Agricultural  America. North, south, east, and west. Rural roads city people seldom see and never travel  except by accident or detour. Some of it surfaced. Medium or low-grade surfacing. Ten,  twenty, thirty years old and more. More of it, a million and a half miles, unsurfaced. The same  narrow, dusty roads that ran past farmhouse doors in the days of horses and wagons. Subject to  the same washouts, the rutting, the mud holes. Year after year, the story is the same. Too  often told in red ink on farm ledger books. Too often told in days missed at school by  farm children. And sometimes in tragedy, when medical help is bogged down in mud holes or  roads that are relics of the horse and buggy days. What are the factors that have  brought about these conditions, and what are the forces that can change them? This  film offers a pictorial answer to that question. We will call this Dexter County,  Midland, USA. A century ago, this was log cabin country. History-book America. Name it yourself. Your own state, which  it could very well be. Your own county by another name. Or your own township where  you live and work. Where you are raising and educating your children. As it happens,  Dexter County is where I live. The town of Greenville. As pleasant a county seat as you  will find anywhere in these United States. This is where I work. The town’s best  and only newspaper. Also star reporter, chief editorial writer, and  in emergencies, type setter. Life never gets dull for a country editor.  There is always something doing. Like, for instance, the question of country  roads. That is a big space-getter in my paper. Of prime importance to the  people around here. Farmers mostly. And important to farmers and ranchers  everywhere, and business people too. It is a true story I am going to tell,  except for a few unimportant changes, like names of people and places, for instance.  And pretty much the way I told it in my paper. Even before the American farmer retired his  horses in favor of his truck, his tractor, and his family car, getting a good  all-weather road past his place had been one of his biggest problems.  But the real seriousness of that problem to the individual farmer did  not hit me until about two years ago. I had not seen Alf Moore in town lately.  Alf is a pretty well-to-do farmer near the other end of the county, and I decided to  drive over to his place for a little visit. About a quarter mile from the end of his property, there was Alf, his boy George, and  a couple of neighbors, hard at it. I thought it was strange, Alf Moore taking time  off from the farm that time of year to go fooling around fixing roads. And he was fixing that  road on his own, even using his own equipment. It seems Alf Moore and other farmers in the  neighborhood had been complaining for a long time about their road, begging for quick  repairs, especially during rainy seasons, or better yet, graveling or hard-top  surfacing. But they got nowhere. Hauling crops and produce to  market, feed and farm supplies, general travel over this road was slow and  uncertain. In bad weather, or right after bad weather, rain or snow, it was too often  impassable for trucks and the school bus. As I wanted to hear more about this rural road  problem, I invited myself to stay for supper. Fact is, we use this road only when  we have to. Driving any distance, we head for the main highway, U.S. 40. You mean you go three or four miles out of your  way, maybe more, just to get on the surfaced road? Oh, it is worth it. Smoother riding.  Easier on the car or truck. Cheaper in the end. Easier on the nerves, too.  Can’t say we like it. Too much traffic. You know how 40 is these days. And  it takes us too far out of our way. Suppose your road was put in decent  shape, either fixed up or surfaced. Well, that is a pipe dream, Wes. But if it ever  comes true, we would use it and stay off 40. Why do you call it a pipe dream? Why  has it not been put in decent shape? One word. Money. It takes money,  and there is no money to be had. Nonsense. The richest country in the  world. No money for decent roads. I do not know about the rest of the  country, or the next county for that matter. All I know is that right here  in Greenville Township, Dexter County, there is just not enough money set aside  to keep our local roads in good condition. A fine state of affairs, I  must say, in this day and age. No, he was getting excited about  it, Wes. I used to carry on about it. Holler around and beat on desks.  Nothing ever happened, so I quit. And so you quit? That is right. I just gave up and quit  hollering. I got to be practical about this, Wes. That stretch of road out there is  in the worst shape it has ever been. A real danger spot. It needs fixing now. Right now. I just bought some brand-new equipment that  has got to be hauled in over that road in the next few days. And next week I have crops  to haul to market, and a load of hogs. It had to be fixed before winter anyhow. I just cannot  afford to take a chance on having road trouble. As far as I can see, there is only  one thing to do, and I am doing it. Disgraceful. The next issue of the Greenville Press had  less in it about local society news and more about local roads. Front-page story.  The lead editorial inside created quite a stir in town and all over the county,  and for all I know, in the state capital. Ray Oliver, our county road commissioner,  came by. I thought he would be put out about the Alf Moore story and editorial. After  all, it was an indirect criticism of Ray. All he said was, “Keep it up, Doc. That is all.” But it seemed to me there was a lot of  extra meaning in the way he said it, and then he hurried on. During the next few days, a dozen farmers  rode in. Some phoned, toll charges and all, saying for me to come out to their  place if I wanted to have a look at some really bad roads and find out just  how much roads meant to farmers nowadays. On my first free day, I set  out for Cal Withers’ farm. Cal’s wife had written a letter I thought rated  some looking into. Some pretty pertinent remarks on the farm roads problem. Besides, it was  always a personal pleasure seeing Lucy Withers. The road running past the Withers farm, Route 157, was first built about thirty years ago.  Never much of a highway even when new, and made much worse these last few years  by heavy traffic and seasonal rain. Cal and Lucy Withers had been getting away  from grain farming the past few years and into dairying. They liked dairy  farming and wanted to stay in it, but they had a serious  farm-to-market road problem. Cal’s only comment on his bad road situation  was, “Well, that is a farmer’s life for you.” He had a fine herd of high-producing dairy  cows that could bring in a substantial return, everything else being equal. But down in Cal’s  corner of the county, everything was not equal. He had that beaten-up road to contend with, and  as he put it, mighty little to contend it with. I knew what that meant to a dairy farmer,  especially in bad weather. Either no pickup of his milk, or time away from his other  work trying to make delivery himself. I was very interested in finding out  what his wife had to say on the subject. Lucy Withers had been one of the best  teachers we ever had in our township school, and she had never lost her interest in civic  affairs. She was active in local and county farm organizations and pretty much represented the  woman’s angle when it came to farmers’ problems. But to exist as dairy farmers,  we have got to sell our milk, which means getting it to market. These  last two years, the margin of difference between profit and loss was our day-to-day  weather and the amount of heavy traffic on our road. And the same thing goes for bus pickup  service and whether our children get to school. Town and county officials tell me there is  no money available to build us a better road or fix the one we have. We cannot just  pack up our things, pick up our farm, and move off somewhere to a good all-weather road. No one says there is not enough money.  They say it is not available. Well, I want to know why it is not available  for people like us. I want to know what I can do personally to make it  available. And I intend to find out. After that rather whirlwind  visit to the Withers farm, I went further into the county road  problem. Really dug deep into it. At the suggestion of Lucy Withers, I kept the subject alive in every issue  of the paper, with stories, editorials, and all kinds of highway statistics. Letters  kept coming in, and I published some of them. Before I knew it, I had a rural road department  in my paper. Incidentally, circulation went up, not only around Greenville, but  all through the county and outside. If ever there was a grassroots issue, this was it.  These were my people, and they were beginning to stir to the faint sound of trumpets in the air.  Far off, perhaps, but coming closer and louder. Whenever I had free time, I went  out on private inspection tours. I found that the farm road problem went  further than gravel and dirt roads. It took in certain types of surfaced roads,  like the one that ran by Fred Dixon’s place, for instance. Originally, back in the twenties, Fred’s road was paved to support maximum  axle loads of sixteen thousand pounds, with only an occasional truck as heavy as  twenty-four thousand pounds gross. Like all concrete roads of those days, it was  built as a permanent road. At the dedication ceremonies, the main speaker said, “This highway  will stand as long as the pyramids of Egypt.” I was there, and I heard him thirty  years ago. Last I heard tell, the pyramids of Egypt are still in pretty  good shape. As for Fred Dixon’s Road 59A, well, the best I can say for it is that it  is still passable, but for how much longer? A day or two later, I had a surprise visitor. I  knew what was on her mind before she said a word. She wanted to know how much longer I  intended to study the farm road problem before I did anything about moving  toward a solution. Well, frankly, that kind of stumped me, and I  did not exactly have an answer. Lucy was all for direct action right then and  there. Next thing I knew, we were on our way out of my office, scurrying across the street, headed  for Ray Oliver’s office in the county courthouse. I did not even have a chance to tip him off about  Lucy Withers being in town and on the warpath. To say I was surprised is putting it mildly.  I was flabbergasted when I found that Ray Oliver was actually glad to see Lucy and me,  and not at all touchy about talking to us, even though he had been getting it from all  sides on the question of local road improvements. The fact is that, without most of us  realizing it, he had been fighting the improved farm road battle for a long time.  But he had gone as far as he could. The rest, he said, was up to us. Us local people  affected by inadequate and neglected roads. Highway officials cannot do the  job by themselves or even get it underway. The chief impetus must come from you  farmers and townspeople. And I include city dwellers who are interested in city street  improvements. Local roads are a local problem, and nobody is going to do more than you are  willing to do yourself to get the road past your farm, or through your town, or city  streets, into good all-weather shape. So it all boils down to a rather simple  objective. You must get a larger share of the road tax dollar allocated  for local roads and city streets. Unfortunately, there are many farmers who  are inclined to believe that nothing can be accomplished through their  own efforts. They are wrong. Individual effort does not mean much.  Combined effort means a great deal. You will come up against disappointments,  and you will meet discouragement along the way. But remember this. What has been  done can be done. It is up to you. During the next few weeks, using the  Greenville Press office as headquarters, the campaign for better farm roads really  got going. Wesley Underwood, Alf Moore, and I were the organizing committee,  with Mr. Underwood as chairman. We soon discovered that other towns in the  county and throughout the state had the same or similar road problems. They asked us to come  and speak to them at their halls and schoolhouses. Our first open meeting took place on a  Saturday afternoon in the consolidated school. Farmers and farmers’ wives from all over  Dexter County. The townspeople of Greenville, as expected. But surprisingly, people from other  towns. This was really democracy in action. It was an informal and neighborly occasion.  Friends passing the time of day. Farm and family news the main topics of conversation,  until the meeting settled down to business. Wesley Underwood, as chairman of the farm roads  committee, was the first speaker and informal moderator. He filled in the general background of  the main topic on the agenda, the rural highways, and then brought the discussion down to  the specific issues on the local level. And so, by digging back through  old records and newspaper files, we discovered something that many of you may  remember at firsthand. When the state’s main highway improvement and construction program  was put into effect, farmers on dirt, slag, and gravel roads were promised road  improvements and new roads, quote, as fast as possible, as the need is demonstrated  and when funds are available, end quote. That was thirty years ago and more.  In most cases, you farmers are still making the best of a bad bargain along the  same unsurfaced and badly neglected roads. Today, new road programs are in the works, and history repeats itself. Farmers are  again being assured that the sinkholes, the mud, the cave-ins on rural roads and  bridges will be taken care of, quote, as fast as possible as the need is demonstrated  and when funds are available, end quote. Well, we do not intend to stand  by another thirty years and watch history repeat itself. Too many of  us may not be around at that time. Reconstruction of main roads still in pretty good  passable condition. Construction of city-to-city highways. All right, we will go along with  that program under one condition. That first, the promise of thirty years ago be fulfilled.  That out-of-date, neglected rural roads be put into good all-weather condition, and new  farm-to-market roads be built where needed. We say the time is now. Let us get  something done in our lifetime. Most money for building and maintaining roads  comes from motor vehicle tax revenues. Gasoline taxes. License fees. That represents a powerful  lot of money paid in by us farmers over the years. We want to know where that money has gone. We know where it has not gone,  in amounts you can sneeze at. That is all right, Al. You tell  us. Where has all that money gone? Everett Pirtle. That is exactly what I aim to do. Most of that money, paid in partly by you and  me, most of it goes for what is called state primary roads. The kind of road every one  of you probably has not been on since you got rid of your Stanley Steamer and  went back to your horse and buggy. All we want, and we have just got to have it,  is a bigger and fairer share of the state’s gas taxes and motor vehicle license  fees. And that is not asking too much. I would like to ask a question. What is your question, please? Does your program call for paved highways  for all of the farm areas of Dexter County? No, it does not. We are not  asking for high-type surfacing for all our farm roads. To do so would be  impractical, foolhardy, and unrealistic. Such roads cost from seventy thousand dollars a  mile up. Two hundred fifty thousand dollars a mile is common. Some of the multi-lane superhighways  run as much as three million dollars a mile. We farmers do not need, we  are not asking for, and we do not want superhighways and high-priced roads. Your farm roads committee,  whose guest I am here today, is asking for a system of farm roads that will  cost about seventeen thousand dollars a mile. Such roads would be eighteen feet wide,  with a six-inch stone and gravel base and a two-inch asphalt top. A road like that  will easily handle ordinary farm traffic. We need such roads in Dexter County. We  should have them, and we could have them. But in my opinion, it is not necessary that every  farm in Dexter County have that kind of road at seventeen thousand dollars a mile. Where there  is less travel, satisfactory all-weather roads can be built for seven thousand dollars a mile,  or even as low as five thousand dollars a mile. Mr. Underwood, how, may I ask, do  you propose to finance this scheme? If you do not mind, Mr. Tinsman,  I prefer the word program or plan. We propose a larger share of motor vehicle taxes  and fees. That money should not be raised by increasing our property taxes, or by issuing bonds  which would be an obligation against our property. It should be raised by user charges on  motor vehicles using all our highways. You farmers have been paying those user  charges a good many years now for the privilege of using inferior roads, and  it is your turn to get some of it back. I think Alf Moore has some figures on that point. According to state tax figures,  passenger cars and farm trucks today are paying a good deal more than  their share of the highway building and repair bill. Anybody who wants a breakdown  of figures on it, I have got them right here. Now, I own a ten-and-a-half-ton truck, and  so do most of you folks. And you want to know something? It is our little old pickup truck,  the trademark of the American farmer today, that is paying a great big share of the country’s  truck tax bill and getting the least in return. Here are some statements on the subject  from some pretty reliable sources. The Ohio Farm Bureau Federation  says that heavy trucks of over twenty tons in weight pay eight cents  per one hundred ton-miles of road use, and the typical farm-duty-size truck pays nearly  twenty-six cents per one hundred ton-miles of road use. More than three times as  much. And automobiles pay even more. A representative of the National  Grange told a committee in Congress, and I will quote him, “A farmer  who has to go over a few miles of impassable roads to get to these fine  paved roads may be just as much isolated as he would be if there were not a  mile of paved road in his county.” I have got more material like that from  engineers, state highway officials, a Senate subcommittee out in California,  and so on. If you want to see them, stop by Wes Underwood’s office or let us  know by mail and we will send them along. Mr. Moore, are you attacking commercial trucks? Oh, no. No, we are not saying commercial  trucks should be ruled off the road. Everyone agrees that trucks are an important  part of the transportation setup in America. But we are raising certain questions  about trucks. How big they should be, how heavy loads they should  carry, how fast they should go, and how much they should pay  for use of the public highways. The next issue of the Greenville  Press carried the full text of the resolution adopted by the meeting. Be it therefore resolved  that the following program of highway legislation be recommended at  the next session of the state legislature. One. Laws to adequately protect pavement and  bridges against heavy loads in excess of their capacity, and the limitation of axle loads at  the eighteen-thousand-pound weight recommended by the American Association of State Highway  Officials and endorsed by many official agencies. Two. Vigorous enforcement  of the truck weight laws. Three. A greater share of the money  from state-collected gasoline taxes and license fees for rural road improvement. I do not say we formed a new political party,  elected our own governor and state legislature, and presto, every farmer in the  state found a brand-new hardtop road running past his place the  following Sunday morning. Nothing of the sort. Road improvements do  not come that easy or that fast. But there were tangible results. First on a  town and county level. Then on a state level. We called on our state highway commissioner  and stimulated him into giving more time and attention to the highway needs of us  farmers. Then the governor appointed a new rural highway committee to study conditions  and make recommendations directly to him. We joined hands with city people who  have similar troubles about streets. Net result of all this. At its last session,  the state legislature earmarked an additional ten million dollars of motor vehicle revenues  to be spent each year exclusively on farm roads. Well, sir, that is pretty much the story of  what happened down here in Dexter County. The story is not over, of  course. Properly speaking, it will never be over, as long as there are  people’s needs to be filled. In this case, good roads. And as long as people have  to find ways to get those needs filled. The main thing is we found that the phrase “We  the people” is more than a political cliché out of the preamble of the Constitution.  We the people turned out to be a living, day-to-day reality. Much more influential  and powerful than we ever dreamed. We did it ourselves, which shows it can be  done. Not only here, but any place where a man and woman can stand up and have a say in  what is going on, plus a vote to enforce it. As long as we keep it that way, we will do  all right. Down your way, the same as here.