First, the Federal-aid program had done much better than in any previous year with total payments to the States of about $35.44 million as compared to only $4.66 million in the previous 3 years.[1]
Then, curtailed construction programs allowed the States to put more engineers on preparing surveys and plans for future work. Because of this enforced breathing spell, the States were able to get the unprecedented number of 1,286 projects, totaling 10,826 miles, ready for contract—twice as many as in all the previous years of the Federal-aid program. The estimated total cost of these projects was $197.6 million, with a Federal share of $85.9 million. This, according to Chief MacDonald, was a very desirable accomplishment:
. . . it has been fortunate for the future stability of the roadbuilding program that because of the limitations imposed there has been sufficient time to get the necessary engineering work done much more thoroughly than would have been possible had we gone hastily into a heavy construction program.[2]
And finally, there was a rather general feeling that the slowdown would benefit everyone in the long run by taking the inflationary heat off labor rates and materials prices. The inability to get work under contract would almost certainly allow construction prices to stabilize so that the same funds would later buy more roads and bridges.
In the perspective of later events, the most significant development of 1919 and 1920 was a tremendous expansion of the highway construction business and the manufacture of road machinery. Encouraged by the prospect of a huge postwar highway program, literally hundreds of new contractors entered the highway field, and the old ones that had survived the war greatly expanded their capacity. Under the stimulus of high labor rates and acute labor shortage, the construction industry began an astounding mechanization which not only arrested the inflation in road prices, but in a few years brought them down to relatively low levels.
Federal Aid In Kind—The War Surplus Equipment
At the end of the war, the United States Government was the largest owner of motor trucks in the world, by a wide margin, and most of these vehicles were surplus to the peacetime needs of the Army. To the motor industry, this huge surplus of vehicles was a threat hanging over the postwar truck market. The highway people, on the other hand, looked upon these vehicles as a possible way to replace the vehicles worn out during the war.
Congress resolved the dilemma in four acts authorizing and directing the Secretary of War to transfer to the Secretary of Agriculture all vehicles, construction equipment, and supplies not needed by the military but suitable for use in improving the highways for distribution among the State highway departments. The only conditions imposed were that the States must request the equipment, pay transportation charges from where it was stored, and agree not to resell it.
This 2-ton Army ordinance truck was converted into a dump truck for highway construction use.
In June 1919, the Bureau of Public Roads, acting for the Secretary, allocated 20,519 motor trucks to the States; and by the end of July, a third of these had been delivered to them. By October 1920, a total of 22,719 surplus vehicles had been delivered. This windfall was a tremendous boost to the maintenance efforts of the States and counties, for it enabled them to haul stone and gravel for repairs when railway cars were unobtainable.
By 1921 the flow of war surplus to the States had become a broad stream, including not only motor trucks, “Fords,” and autos, but shop equipment, spare parts, and construction equipment of all kinds from hand shovels to steam shovels. Over 20,000 tons of explosives worth $10 million were distributed and enthusiastically applied to highway construction and quarry operations. One construction superintendent declared “The results of TNT in rock blasting are so far superior to those of any other explosive that we
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