Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz

SUNDAY, AUGUST 27, 1911

[Note about this article: Before the Lincoln Highway Association was formed on 1 July 1913, which eventually established the Lincoln Highway as a coast-to-coast road, there was already growing support to improve roads in America. The Lincoln Highway name was in fact used earlier by a different group of people, proposing a route between Washington D.C. and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, who sought funding for the project from the nation's government. This newspaper article refers to that earlier Lincoln Highway proposal. Congress, however, declined to make any appropriation and the project collapsed. Thus the name became available for use by the Lincoln Highway Association, which succeeded in their goal by appealing for subscriptions from individuals and businesses together with support from municipalities, counties and States. Federal funding for routes across the United States eventually came in the 1920's.]

LINCOLN HIGHWAY ENTERING WEDGE

Many Prominent Men Speak for the Good Roads Movement in Many States.

Federal aid in road building may become an actuality within the next twelve months. From all over the country accumulates positive evidence of the pronounced belief that the National Government should give attention to better inter-State communication by road, and men prominent in affairs of State are declaring themselves one after another as being in accord with this progressive policy of the Nation’s leaders, none is more emphatic than Speaker Champ Clark, who, in a communication to President Robert P. Hooper of the American Automobile Association, expresses this opinion:

“I believe the time has come for the general Government to actively and powerfully co-operate with the States in building a great system of public highways. I believe the building of the Lincoln Highway would be the entering wedge for the creation of a splendid system of roads that would bring its benefits to every citizen in the country.”

Congressman Borland of Missouri, who is putting forward the Lincoln Highway bill in the House of Representatives, summarizes the matter very briefly: “What we need is a monument that will be of some use to the people now living on earth. If we could have the views on the subject of the great commoner, Abraham Lincoln, himself, I am satisfied he would be in favor of such a tribute. There is no monument so enduring as a highway.”

In commenting upon the proposed route, Chairman George C. Diehl of the National Good Roads Board concisely puts forth these words: “A good broad, highway, connecting historic Gettysburg with the capital of the Nation will be traveled by thousands, where now the route is followed by hundreds, owing to its serving as a road in name only. Motor-driven vehicles are inter-State as well as intra-State, and that which they accomplish in obliterating State lines will prove more effective than any other means in cementing this Nation into a solidified whole, for where men meet and exchange views there has been a broadening of the viewpoint and a more thorough understanding of the wants of one another.

“With the time-saving and distance-decreasing vehicle at our disposal it follows as a natural sequence that we must supply the right kind of road and maintain it properly in order to secure and retain the benefits that have been brought about by the coming of the automobile—a thing more valuable to the farmer than to the urban resident, a fact which is daily becoming more apparent to the man in the country.”

Exceptionally good confirmation of the statement of Chairman Diehl, that the man in the country is realizing that the motor-driven vehicle is more for him than for the man in the city, comes from Kansas. Thomas McKay is a farmer who lives fourteen miles from Oberlin, where the local Farmers’ Institute held a session.

Thereat Farmer McKay spoke as follows: “Some of us farmers are standing in our own light. We argue that we should not build good roads for motor cars to travel over. I have no motor car, but it seems to me that a road that is good for a motor car is good for a farmer to haul a big load of wheat over, or for me to drive my surrey over to take my family to town. We are too afraid that we will do something which will benefit some one else, and, in fact, we are the losers by our own acts. I have already graded a mile of road along my farm on Prairie Dog Creek. Just to show you people that that I desire a good road reaching from the south part of the country, where I live, to Oberlin I will agree to take my boy and my team, if necessary, and grade another mile of that fourteen miles if the rest of you business men and farmers living along the road will do your share.”

Some of the farmers in attendance wanted to know the cost, and then agreed to do their share if McKay would superintend the job. McKay would not be bluffed, and his fellow farmers supplied their share of the money, and the fourteen-mile stretch of improved dirt road was soon placed in travelable condition.

From: The New York Times (Sunday, 27 Aug 1911), C8.

See also:

Today in Science History event description for formation of Lincoln Highway Association on 1 July 1913
Quotations on the Lincoln Highway
'New American Road Across Continent,' - The New York Times (15 Sep 1912).
'How the Lincoln Highway Project Now Stands,' - The New York Times (5 Apr 1914).
'Lincoln Highway Route Announced,' - The New York Times (14 Sep 1913).

Nature bears long with those who wrong her. She is patient under abuse. But when abuse has gone too far, when the time of reckoning finally comes, she is equally slow to be appeased and to turn away her wrath. (1882) -- Nathaniel Egleston, who was writing then about deforestation, but speaks equally well about the danger of climate change today.

Carl Sagan: In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) ...(more by Sagan)

Albert Einstein: I used to wonder how it comes about that the electron is negative. Negative-positive—these are perfectly symmetric in physics. There is no reason whatever to prefer one to the other. Then why is the electron negative? I thought about this for a long time and at last all I could think was “It won the fight!” ...(more by Einstein)

Richard Feynman: It is the facts that matter, not the proofs. Physics can progress without the proofs, but we can't go on without the facts ... if the facts are right, then the proofs are a matter of playing around with the algebra correctly. ...(more by Feynman)