He cited as an example an operation in New Jersey under which the State cooperated with counties and local units in financing and building “mainline” intercity roads.
Both Representative Brownlow and Judge Haines agreed with Eldridge’s position. The Congressman then directed Eldridge to draft a bill that would incorporate his ideas and Representative Brownlow would introduce it.
So M.O. Eldridge went back to his Government desk, outlined the plan to his chief, Martin Dodge, who approved. They rewrote the New Jersey law to fit the national situation. Mr. Brownlow introduced the bill and thus was sown the idea of Federal-aid roads.
The speech was made in January 1903 and was printed in the Congressional Record. It attracted a lot of attention and found supporters, but not in the Administration. The leaders in the Congress were against it. The Administration was against it. James Wilson, then Secretary of Agriculture, was against it.
Then one day a telegram was delivered to the Roads Office for Eldridge. It was signed by A. R, Shattuck who requested Eldridge to come to New York to see him.
Shattuck was an executive of an organization that had just come into existence—a forerunner of the American Automobile Association. This organization believed in the idea of Federal aid for good roads. And it wanted to help the idea along. What could it do?
Eldridge suggested the greatest need was to educate the public. Eldridge was provided $10,000 a year for publicity. He said he couldn’t do anything through the Roads Office but something might be accomplished outside.
The arrangement was made. Eldridge hired an office, a publicity man and a stenographer.
The major promotion campaign was to have a million copies of the Brownlow speech printed at cost by the Government Printing Office, as can be done in such cases. These were mailed out under Government frank by friendly congressmen to a million people. On a single day a solid carload of mail went out of Washington.
It was a thorough campaign. The people responded and Congressmen were showered with questions on good roads from their constituents.
Questions arose on who was responsible for this campaign.
Finally, it was found out that M.O. Eldridge was responsible. He was called in on the carpet and summarily dismissed from service.
He was a sacrifice for this early advocacy of a policy that a dozen years later became a national enthusiasm in the passage of the 1916 Act.
Eldridge’s friends in Congress went to bat for him and they succeeded in getting him reinstated—at a reduced salary and loss of his rank as second in command in the office.
Eldridge might have directed the office, but he had pushed a right idea before its time.
When the United States entered World War I, Eldridge and the entire staff of the Office of Public Roads and Rural Engineering were diverted from peacetime activities to supporting the war effort.
For example, he and Prevost Hubbard of the Office staff served as Public Roads representatives on a subcommittee of the United States Highway Council which reviewed 7,307 applications for approval of road construction projects between June 18 and December 31, 1918.
M.O. received many commendations for the work he did.
One of his assignments with the Office of Public Road Inquiries was to construct experimental and demonstration roads, using locally available materials. Ernest F. Acheson, member of Congress from Pennsylvania, wrote on February 1, 1901, concerning a demonstration road built under Eldridge’s direction in Washington County, Pennsylvania:
. . . I wish to say that the experiments made . . . last fall under the direction of Mr. Eldridge awakened a deep interest among the farmers, and has done a great deal to promote the cause of good roads. . . .
