Gov. McGraw Opens the State Road Convention at Olympia
Delegates from every county gather in the capital to plan a statewide campaign for better roads — and to demand that the political parties finally take up internal improvements.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
OLYMPIA, Dec. 18. [Special.] — At promptly 2 o'clock today Gov. McGraw called the road convention to order and made an address as follows:
"Gentlemen, delegates to the State Road Convention: In extending to you, on behalf of the state government, a cordial welcome to the capital, and in offering you my heartiest well wishes for a fruitful termination of your labors, it affords me genuine pleasure to be able to say that whatever comes of your deliberations, you one and all deserve the highest commendation of your fellow citizens.
"Interested in your motives, actuated by a fervid and determined concern for the public welfare, and required to sustain personal sacrifices in carrying out your purpose, your gathering here today is to me the best pledge possible of the firmly implanted, patriotic quality of American citizenship. Personal zeal in promoting measures of common benefit, without expectation of individual reward, eloquently bespeaks an active fidelity to the institutions of liberty and confirms our faith in their perpetuation.
"It seems but the span of a yesterday since the Press Association, in annual conference, conceived the undertaking of a road convention, representative of all sections, to discuss and formulate plans for the enlargement and improvement of the road system of the state, and without political aspirations to gratify or personal ends to subserve, here you are — and I see many well-remembered faces among you.
"To the press, which has been nobly fighting the battle of the dilapidated roads for three years, with a persistence and patience rooted deeply in public opinion, is due the honor of originating your existence.
"It ought to be the occasion of pride to every citizen of this young state that our common tendency is to public enterprise. Ours is recognized abroad, and in the immense centers of the East, as the most progressive and most liberal of the infant commonwealths.
"I desire to point out more especially the expediency of forcing the principle of internal improvement upon the political parties, as it is only through their instrumentality that it can be speedily and responsibly applied. The question of extending and improving the public roads in a systematic manner is one that comes under the head of reform, and in state politics it leads to the forum of public debate. The experience of the past demonstrates too clearly that the inadequacy of the public highways is attributable to the failure to adopt and support them as public institutions of primal importance to the several states."
The governor traced the history of federal road-building from the Ohio compact of 1802 through Monroe's and Jackson's vetoes and the abandonment of the Cumberland road, arguing that the work was left to the states — and that Washington must not be content with an obscure place. "Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you."
The address was received with great enthusiasm. J. Hannum Jones was elected temporary chairman, receiving 52 votes to Amasa Miller's 7, and Frank Mussetter was elected temporary secretary. A committee on permanent organization reported in favor of declaring the temporary officers permanent, and the report was adopted. Ed C. Suiter, of Skagit, was elected assistant secretary. A committee of one from each county was then appointed to consider the plans before the convention and prepare a report.
A number of plans for the improvement of the roads of the state were presented and referred to the committee, which sat late into the night at the hotel. A. H. Steffenson, of Pierce, submitted a plan proposing: first, to abolish bonds for locating roads; second, to make wide tires compulsory for wagons guaranteed to carry over 3,000 pounds; third, to abolish viewers; fourth, to discredit petitions; fifth, to repeal the present law relating to condemning rights-of-way; sixth, to repeal the present method of electing county commissioners. J. Hannum Jones proposed the passage of a general irrigation and road law and to provide for raising funds by bonding the state for $1,000,000. George D. Schofield, of Chehalis, and H. F. Suksdorf, of Spokane, also presented propositions.
“The experience of the past demonstrates too clearly that the inadequacy of the public highways is attributable to the failure to adopt and support them as public institutions of primal importance to the several states.”
In 1891 Washington's new state government worried openly that bad roads were strangling commerce, and the fix it imagined was a coordinated state-and-federal program. That argument — who pays for transportation infrastructure and whether it should be a party commitment — is still the fight every legislative session over highway, transit and bridge funding. The governor's plea to make 'internal improvement' a plank holds up remarkably well.
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