Photograph from Office of Public Roads 



AN ARMORED CAR AND AUTOMOBILE) TRUCKS ON THE) TEXAS BORDER 



"We are just learning how to select national highways, relieve the States of a part of 

 their road burdens, and at the same time produce great arteries of communication which will 

 fit into a logical plan of nation-wide military defense." 



army from one threatened city to the 

 other in that length of time, just as the 

 Huns have frequently moved great bodies 

 of troops from one frontier to another as 

 the strategy of the hour required. 



Did not France save both Paris and 

 herself by virtue of a national road sys- 

 tem which permitted her quickly to shift 

 her defenders and their equipment by 

 taxicab from the entrenched camp of 

 the capital to a vulnerable point in the 

 enemy's advancing line ? 



WHY NOT COOPERATE AS A NATION IN- 

 STEAD OF AS A COLLECTION OP STATES? 



The most progressive of our lawmakers, 

 realizing the vital importance of a splen- 

 did highways system for America, are 

 advocating broad, constructive legisla- 

 tion whereby the national government 

 will assume an active interest and part- 

 nership in building those roads which 

 connect the States and which facilitate 

 commerce between the 48 units of which 

 the country is composed. 



Intimate relations between the inhab- 



itants of various zones are now sadly 

 handicapped by State lines, imaginary 

 partitions which compel or invite conflict- 

 ing and selfish laws and in consequence 

 retard the nationalizing influence of the 

 automobile, whose advent has proved as 

 epoch-making as steam or electricity. 



The projected Bankhead Highway is 

 an illustration of what can and should be. 

 The construction of this great medium of 

 commercial and social intercourse, from 

 Washington to Los Angeles, an all-year 

 southern route, through latitudes where 

 snow is never a serious handicap and 

 along which no mountains are encoun- 

 tered, would create a living, pulsating 

 example of a federalized road such as is 

 essential in this war-time period of our 

 history. 



While it is the occasional traveler who 

 uses a railroad between its extreme termi- 

 nal points, the rails must be laid for the 

 entire distance in order that inter-related 

 and overlapping traffic, both passenger 

 and freight, can be handled. If this is 

 the situation in regard to railroads, how 



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