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"Clearly Vicious As a Matter of Policy": the Fight Against Federal-Aid by Richard F

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"Clearly Vicious as a Matter of Policy": The Fight Against Federal-Aid By Richard F. Weingroff 2 FOREWARD The role of the Federal Government in highway building was debated from the earliest days of the Good Roads Movement in the 1880s. In 1916, 1919, and 1921, Congress developed the legislation that established and refined the Federal-aid highway program. Each time, despite pressure to take on the task of building “national highways,” Congress adopted the Federal-aid approach of providing funds to the State highway agencies as partners in project development. They would be responsible for selecting and developing projects, subject to Federal oversight. The fact that the Federal-aid concept remains at the heart of the Federal-aid highway program today does not mean support for the program has been universal or continuous. The program has been under siege many times during its history, with the attacks led by Presidents, Governors, Members of Congress, and State highway/transportation officials. This article discusses four periods during which the Federal-aid highway program was under attack: • Between the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916 and the Federal Highway Act of 1921, the highway community and Federal and State officials debated whether the Federal Government should build the roads the Nation needed. • In the 1920s, the program was under pressure to downsize in favor of the States. • With the States seeking all the aid they could get in the 1930s, the issue was how much control the President should have over government expenditures for highway improvements as he attempted to revitalize and fine tune the economy. • In the early 1950s, the States sought to regain the control they thought they had lost in the Federal-aid bargain struck in 1916. Each time, the debates ended with the Federal-aid highway program in tact, but it was a close call in each case. 3 Table of Contents INTRODUCTION: Federal Role in a Union of States 1 The Articles of Confederation 1 “To establish Post Offices and post Roads” 2 The National Road 3 Establishing a Principle 6 The Case for Federal-Aid 10 PART ONE: The Golden Mean 14 A Rocky Start 14 The Fight For National Roads 15 Death of a Leader 17 Fork in the Road 19 Adjustments, Not an Overhaul 21 Federal Highway Council 22 Thomas H. MacDonald 25 The Townsend Bill 28 Federal-Aid Rebounds 33 Refining the Program 35 A New President 39 Fiscal Year 1922 43 The New President Calls for Action 46 The Golden Mean 49 Congressional Action 52 A New Danger 60 Federal Highway Act of 1921 62 Contract Authority 70 PART TWO: Unease in the Golden Age 73 President Calvin Coolidge’s Campaign Against Federal-Aid 73 Backlash 77 AASHO Fights Back 80 The President Sticks to His Views 83 Thomas H. MacDonald Responds 85 The Depression 90 Public Works for Prosperity 92 i 4 PART THREE: To Control the Levers 104 President Roosevelt Applies the Brakes 104 A Renewed Federal-Aid Charter 108 Congress Takes Control 110 A New 2-Year Bill 124 Planning for the Future 128 The President Calls for MacDonald 134 Toll Roads and Free Roads 136 The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1940 138 Highways for the National Defense 141 The Battle Over the Defense Highway Act of 1941 146 National Interregional Highway Committee 162 The Interstate Program Falters 164 The Post-War Boom 167 PART FOUR: President Eisenhower Takes Charge 175 President Eisenhower Takes Over 176 The Governors Take a Stand 178 State Highway Officials Take a Second Look 184 Commissioner of Public Roads 186 The Hearings on the Road Question 189 As 1953 Ends 200 Eisenhower And The Shaping of Policy 204 Unveiling The Grand Plan 213 Building on the Momentum 222 The Clay Plan 225 Commission on Intergovernmental Relations 228 Future Battles on Devolution 231 Conclusion 233 APPENDIX Parker, Elizabeth, “Major Proposals to Restructure the Highway Program,” Transportation Quarterly, January 1991. ii 5 INTRODUCTION The Federal Role in a Union of States We shall discover that the rivalships of the parts would make them checks upon each other and would frustrate all the tempting advantages which nature has kindly placed within our reach. Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers No. 111 The United States Constitution is a product of its time. That it has proven flexible enough to meet the needs of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, and now the 21st, is a political miracle. And yet it reflects to a great extent the failures of the government that had emerged from the Revolution united more in name than spirit. The Articles of Confederation The Articles of Confederation, approved by Congress in 1777, had created a weak national government and left much of the power with the States. Congress could not raise taxes, settle disputes among the States, resolve issues of law, establish an army for common defense, or amend the Articles. Bitter commercial and territorial disputes among the States were pulling the union apart in the absence of a unifying purpose. The original 13 States were divided by their differences more than they were united by their common concerns. Small States feared the big States, which sought dominance within the union. The commercial north and the agricultural south had strongly different interests. Neighboring States disputed rights to shared rivers. Each State, remembering the tyranny they had fought against in the Revolution, was hesitant to yield any of its sovereignty to the Nation. The term “United States” was used as a plural (“the United States are”), rather than singular, noun. The Articles of Confederation could not balance the interests of the small, but diverse, new Nation. The possibility that the union would be replaced by several smaller confederacies was a real fear. In The Federalist Papers, the series of essays written to build support for State ratification of the Constitution, Alexander Hamilton said that only someone who is "far gone in Utopian speculations" could think that such an alternative would not result in violent contests among the confederacies: To look for a continuation of harmony between a number of independent, unconnected sovereignties situated in the same neighborhood would be to disregard the uniform course of human events, and to set at defiance the accumulated experiences of ages.2 1 Hamilton, Alexander, The Federalist Papers, No. 11, New American Library, 1961, p. 87. 2 The Federalist Papers No. 6, p. 54. 6 Citizen farmer George Washington, who had done so much to establish the union, expressed the common fear of the day in a letter to James Madison of Virginia’s House of Delegates: "We are fast verging to anarchy and confusion."3 “To establish Post Offices and post Roads” One defect of the Articles of Confederation was the inability to regulate interstate commerce. The event that led, unexpectedly, to the Constitutional Convention was a longstanding dispute between Maryland and Virginia regarding navigation rights on the Potomac River. Following a 3-day conference at Washington's Mount Vernon home, commissioners from the two States settled their differences. This agreement led to a meeting in Annapolis, Maryland, on September 11, 1786, with other States to discuss commercial regulation. The meeting proved fruitless, partly because the New England States had not sent delegates. Participants, therefore, called on Congress to convene a meeting of all the States to improve the Articles of Confederation. With the failures of the Articles of Confederation in mind, participants in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia wanted to create a document that would correct the defects of their present government while creating what Thomas Jefferson would later call a "union of sentiment."4 Once the gathering began on May 25, 1787, participants quickly abandoned the idea of improving the old document and began work on a new one. As the participants debated the contents of a new unifying document, they sorted out the powers that would belong to the central government through its Congress, and those that would belong to the States. After debating the issues, the members appointed a Committee of Detail on July 26 to prepare a draft constitution based on resolutions adopted to that point. The draft, reported to the convention on August 6, assigned the right “to establish post-offices” to the Congress. At the suggestion of Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, the words “and post-roads” were added to the clause on August 16 by a vote of six States to five. On September 14, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania proposed to amend the clause by adding “to provide for cutting canals where deemed necessary.” James Madison suggested a further amend- ment “to grant charters of incorporation where the interest of the United States might require, and the legislative provisions of individual States may be incompetent.” He said his primary objective was to “secure an easy communication between the States, which the free intercourse now to be opened seemed to call for.” He added, “The political obstacle being removed, a removal of the 3 McGinty, Brian, “A Troubled League,” American History Illustrated, Summer 1987, p. 23. 4 Jefferson, Thomas, Message to the 9th Congress, 1806. Jefferson stated that roads and canals would knit the union together, facilitate defense, furnish avenues of trade, break down prejudices, and consolidate a "union of sentiment." In addition, with such "great objects" as public education, roads, rivers, and canals, "new channels of communication will be opened between the states; the lines of separation will disappear, their interests will be identified, and their union cemented by new and indissoluble ties." 7 natural ones as far as possible ought to follow.” Roger Sherman of Connecticut objected because the expense would be incurred by all the States through their central government, but a canal would benefit only the place where the canal would be cut.
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