OCTOBER 15, 1918

BULLETIN NO. 4

ADDRESS BY

HONORABLE WILLIAM C. REDFIELD

SECRETARY OF COMMERCE

AT CONFERENCE OF REGIONAL CHAIRMEN
OF THE HIGHWAYS TRANSPORT COMMITTEE
COUNCIL OF NATIONAL DEFENSE
WASHINGTON, D.C.
SEPTEMBER 19, 1918

RESOLUTION PASSED BY THE COUNCIL OF NATIONAL DEFENSE.

WASHINGTON
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
1918

Recognizing the national value of our highways in relation to, and properly coordinated with, other existing transportation mediums, and more particularly the necessity for their immediate development that they might carry their share of the war burden, the Highways Transport Committee was appointed by, and forms a part of, the Council of National Defense.

The object of the committee is to increase and render more effective all transportation over the highways as one of the means of strengthening the Nation's transportation system and relieving the railroads of part of the heavy short-haul freight traffic burden.

National policies are directed from the headquarters of the national committee in Washington to the highways transport committees of the several State Councils of Defense. These State organizations, which by proper subdivisions reach down through the counties to the communities, are grouped together into 11 regional areas, as shown by the map used above. The State committees of the different areas are assisted by and are under the direct supervision of the 11 regional chairmen of the Highways Transport Committee, Council of National Defense.

COUNCIL OF NATIONAL DEFENSE.

HIGHWAYS TRANSPORT COMMITTEE.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

ADDRESS BY HON. WILLIAM C. REDFIELD, SECRETARY OF COMMERCE,
BEFORE THE REGIONAL CHAIRMEN OF THE HIGHWAYS TRANSPORT
COMMITTEE, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1918.

Mr. Chapin and Gentlemen: It would be a truism to say that I have always been interested in transportation. It has always been a subject of keen interest to me, I presume, because I was born with it. By the fortune of birth I came to live in a region where transportation has been through every one of its stages in this country. If you go back into the history of the Colonies, you will find the two first lines of through transportation in America were east and west—the St. Lawrence River and the Lakes—while for over a century the one great central north and south line was the Hudson River, Lake George, and Lake Champlain. In that entire length from the St. Lawrence to New York Harbor there was but about 13 miles that could not be traveled by water with such boats as they used. You will recall that great historic events