Even before the army completed its cross-country journey, publicists at the War Department as well as civilian journalists commenced boast- ing of the convoy’s achievements. Dozens of newspapers heralded the trip, those papers whose city was blessed by a visit doing the greatest amount of trumpeting. Twenty years later the editor of Motor Transportation declared that the convoy was “the most important single decision affect- ing transportation that has ever been made in the twentieth century.”1
Three hundred self-sufficient men with four-score vehicles had pioneered a route across the nation, pretending to endure combat conditions, arriv- ing only two days behind schedule. No soldier was killed or seriously injured, and only three vehicles were lost. Interspersed with a vast amount of boredom, the workload at times had been enormous. Nothing approach- ing the scope of the expedition had ever been attempted before. How can we assess it?2
One is tempted to blunt the accolades with the reminder that the expedition was conducted in very friendly territory in peacetime. True, the men were at times exhausted, but these were soldiers and they were young. The mess was poor, occasionally non-existent, but hardly a day passed without a sumptuous lunch or dinner put on by local folk; the vari- ety and quality of baked goods alone would make the trip worthwhile, it seems to the reader today. This was not Lewis and Clark updated, as some writers suggested. Nor did it in any way compare with a wagon train of the 1840s, as other reporters claimed.
The proper way to judge this convoy is to compare its achievements with the four objectives given it in the original War Department orders: (1) to contribute to the Good Roads movement for the purpose of encour- aging the construction of transcontinental highways as “a military and eco-
nomic asset;” (2) to recruit young men for the Motor Transport Corps; (3) to acquaint the public with the development of the motor vehicle for military purposes; and (4) to study the terrain and test equipment for var- ious branches of the army. With the possible exception of the second pur- pose, the convoy far exceeded expectations. (No quota or numerical goals were set for recruits so we cannot measure that program; a few hundred men enlisted during the sixty-two days. No officer complained of the paucity of recruits, for publication at least.) In the eleven states that embraced the Lincoln Highway, the Good Roads messages got out clearly. West of the Mississippi, especially, the movement received a tremendous boost. H.C. Ostermann and the Lincoln Highway planners always con- sidered the quality of existing roads as they laid out the route. The expe- dition passed through 350 towns and cities. Residents of dozens of others were chagrined to be bypassed because they had not done enough for their own roads and streets. Most vowed to remedy that condition promptly. Several states voted favorably on bond issues that same year, according to Lt. Jackson, and the vast, pioneering Bankhead and Townsend Highway bills were being considered — and passed — by the U.S. Congress in these same months.
The third objective, publicizing the utility of the equipment, was achieved almost literally beyond calculation. While Lt. Col. McClure pre- ferred camping just outside a town, it mattered little where he put his campsite. On nearly sixty occasions the public came out en masse to see his outfit. Men and women of all ages examined the vehicles, marveled at the searchlight, sat behind the wheel of a four-wheel-drive, or yearned for a seven-passenger Cadillac. They could peer into a small Renault tank that had fought in Europe; they could see perhaps the first pneumatic tires ever to reach that county. It was a publicist’s dream. The army claimed that 33 million people heard of the convoy, and 3.25 million actually wit- nessed it.
We can be more specific about the last of the four goals of the expe- dition. A number of individuals commented about the equipment, giving a good estimate of what worked and what did not. A few conclusions: the three Cadillacs (two passenger cars and the searchlight truck) got high marks, especially considering that the one driven by McClure covered about twice the mileage of the other cars. Dodges, some 20,000 of which were reported to have been used by the army during the war, did reason- ably well, but their Stewart carburetors could not cope with the dust, often requiring several cleanings a day. The steering column on all the White
trucks worked loose by mid-trip. “Class B” trucks — makers unknown, but built especially for the army — were the “most towed trucks in the Con- voy.” The Garfords “proved to be the most unsatisfactory,” timing gears and connecting rod bearings giving constant trouble. All commentators rated the three four-wheel-drive trucks — also built for the army — the most satisfactory. They had few mechanical problems and could pull through sand and gumbo unaided. They were, however, difficult to steer. The GMC trucks posed little trouble except for their complex carbure- tors, which the mechanics never seemed to understand. Every big Mack truck had its clutch replaced at least once; otherwise, east of the Missis- sippi they performed ably, but in the dry country they consumed enor- mous amounts of water and frequently overheated. They also were harder on tires than any other truck. The Packards gave little trouble of any kind. Rikers were rated the best rear-drive trucks on the convoy. All the drivers without them insisted upon glass windshields for future convoys. Better electric starting systems were also in demand.
The motorcycles got much attention, probably because of the romance attached to their use in the late war. While the British had relied exclu- sively on the Indian, Americans tried many varieties. By 1919 only Indian, Harley-Davidson, and Cleveland were still in major production, and only the first two were used by the convoy. The riders concluded that the tires were too narrow; all the bikes had carburetor trouble on the desert; all the saddles were — perhaps not surprisingly — very unsatisfactory, as were both the Bosch and Berling magnetos. Perhaps more to the point was Ike’s con- clusion: in bad terrain the motorcycle was useless. Wheels spun and wal- lowed in dust and mud. Chains filled with sand and burned out bearings or simply quit. With unusual foresight he recommended replacing them all with a sort of runabout car, preferably four-wheel-drive, holding three or four passengers, capable of going anywhere. (Ike clearly was thinking of something like the World War II Jeep, but there is no evidence he played any role in the vehicle’s design.)
As we have seen, everyone had praise for the Caterpillar and the Mil- itor, and no suggestions about their improvement have been recorded, except a recommendation to devise a stronger and larger sprag for the Mil- itor.
Truck and auto makers and their suppliers had scores of lessons to learn, and more importantly, customers, who soon would be in the mil- lions, had objective resources for making their decisions about automo- tive purchases. For example, Cadillac and Packard, just two among many
luxury cars before 1920, emerged in the twenties as the epitome of fine driving. (During the slump of 1920, General Motors suspended manu- facture of all but the Cadillac and Buick.) Packard’s slogan, “Ask the man who drove one in France,” became the more famous, “Ask the man who owns one,” a few years later. Military men gave Harley-Davidson much better marks than the Indian motorcycle. The name Caterpillar was almost synonymous with tractor. The brands and types of tires received detailed and serious consideration from the various observers on the convoy. The expedition fairly well brought an end to the controversy over the preferred type of tire; the military drivers strongly favored the pneu- matic tire over the solid rubber, and the leaders in the industry battled with one another for years in their claims to have first marketed the pneu- matic.
The army did more than meet its four immediate goals, however. The expedition brought a major change in how America thought about its roads. Some of this was totally unexpected. The War Department con- cluded that the radius of action and the utility of vehicles were limited only by the road. Defense and commerce both required a national, com- prehensive system of roads. In particular, west of the Mississippi, federal help was needed because of the great distances and the light population: those roads were national problems. The “Ship by Truck” movement, largely spurred by Harvey Firestone, received a big boost, changing for- ever the manner in which Americans distributed goods. Americans’ love for the open road had wide, new horizons, and tourism replaced the farm as the chief rationale for road building. Advertising exploded if a product were in any way related to cars. The New York Times crowed that the Lin- coln Highway would be paved from the Hudson to the Missouri in three years. And finally, in 1921 Congress asked the War Department for advice on a federally aided highway program. Much concerned with defense, especially of the Pacific coast against Japan, the measured reply, replete with maps, came from General John J. Pershing, now chief of staff of the army. Pershing wanted a vast network of 55,000 miles, with one or two roads that we later would call superhighways, linked with thousands of miles of feeder roads. Concerned with the rise of Japan, Pershing was thinking pri- marily of defense. He did not favor building a large number of major cross-country routes, so popular with the public in these years. Twenty- seven years later President Harry Truman sent the same maps to Congress in his proposal for a national highway system.
The winding up of the convoy’s business — reassigning the men and
officers, shipping most of the trucks by train back to Maryland, dismantling the unit’s structure — took place quickly. (After a leave, Ike returned to Ft. Meade to coach football.) “Tech reps,” the factory representatives accompanying the expedition, headed for their home offices to make their private reports. One piece of business remained unsettled. Lt. Jackson had insisted upon an investigation of the removal of the Militor from the con- voy in Utah, when it was needed the most. The inquiry never took place. What was the mystery of this powerful, ugly duckling?
Every report, every comment from anyone connected with the con- voy, stressed its magnificent performance. Most felt that the truck was indispensable. Then why ship it home? True, it suffered damage on the salt flats of Utah, but all the repairs were made quickly except one, a sim- ple bearing replacement. Two answers to the mystery impel themselves, and they are not mutually exclusive. One is old-fashioned politics, the other, old-fashioned interservice rivalry.
The army developed the Militor in 1918, categorizing it as a truck- tractor. After a series of tests, the blue ribbon Westervelt Board recom- mended the Militor for exclusive adoption by the field artillery. Congress, however, refused to accept the recommendation, in spite of its endorse- ment by the chief of field artillery, chief of ordnance, and the director of the Motor Transport Corps. By the summer of 1919, several branches were considering its adoption for their use. As we have seen it was the only wrecker-truck on the convoy of 1919. By October, five more had been built and seventy-five authorized.
As the post-war public demanded cuts in military spending, Secre- tary of War Newton D. Baker told the chief of staff to limit production to the authorized eighty-one Militors, particularly because of congres- sional insistence upon the utilization of the many vehicles still left in France. His advice was to wait for Congress to rebuild the motor fleet. At this point, politics took hold of the Militor.
In 1916, the brilliant, tough-minded president of General Motors, Charles Nash, left his position to create Nash Motors, one of whose prod- ucts was a four-wheel-drive truck called the Nash Quad. Military men con- sidered it inferior to the Militor but they reckoned without Charley Nash. Although his major Rambler plant was in Kenosha, Wisconsin, many of his vehicles were manufactured in Indianapolis. His Indiana congressional representative, James Bland, who had considerable clout in military budg- ets, prevailed upon his colleagues to kill the authorization for the seventy- five Militors. Other manufacturers, thinking of building such a truck,
joined Bland, and only six Militors were ever built. (Congress did not start rebuilding the motor fleet until 1933.)
The remaining question, of why the Militor was removed from the convoy and shipped home, has less to do with politics than inter-service rivalry. The commander of the convoy, Lt. Col. McClure, was commis- sioned in the Infantry. Lt. Jackson was in Ordnance, and all the other officers (except for observers like Eisenhower) were from the Motor Trans- port Corps. Jackson frequently complained that his opinions were ignored by the MTC officers, although he praised most of them highly in his reports. All of the vehicles on the expedition were also assigned to the MTC, except the Caterpillar tractor and the Militor, both of which belonged to Ordnance. All of the corps in the post-war years were vying for more turf, and nothing looked greener than the future of the motor- ized army vehicle. No smoking gun has been found, but it appears that the MTC, nearing the climax of a very successful expedition, did not want to share its glory with the two ungainly representatives of Ordnance. For practical reasons, one of the two had to stay in the convoy until San Fran- cisco. The Caterpillar — less threatening to the MTC — was chosen to remain because it had received much less publicity than the Militor and because it would always require another truck to carry it in convoy. Ord- nance prevailed upon the War Department to recall the Militor from west- ern Utah with vague, unkept promises about its return. Only E.R. Jackson was left to wonder what had happened, fruitlessly demanding an investi- gation. (An historical postscript nullified the whole tempest. The National Defense Act of 1920 made sweeping changes in the army, one of which eliminated the Motor Transport Corps entirely and transferred all army vehicles to the new Transport Service of the Quartermaster Corps. And the large cuts in budgets of the next few years meant little testing and no new trucks.)3
The army motor convoy of 1919 received splendid support from the federal government, as we have seen. Nevertheless, it totally ignored one region of the nation, in spite of Woodrow Wilson’s mild demurrer. In December of 1919, Senator John H. Bankhead, Sr. of Alabama, dean of the Good Roads movement, asked the chief of the MTC to authorize a second coast-to-coast highway convoy, this time to utilize a southern route. The army could not say no to Congress, and so the plan was quickly approved for 1920.
The second transcontinental convoy differed significantly from the first, in part because it was the second (it was also to be the last) and in
part because the southern states had no agency so powerful as the Lincoln Highway Association to promote the expedition. Essentially the 1920 cam- paign was sponsored by the frequently inoperative Bankhead Highway Association, which appears to have been organized in Birmingham in 1917. (Much of its leadership was also participating in the Good Roads move- ment, and it is difficult sometimes to separate the two.) Southerners active in these groups sought to honor Bankhead, who had served Alabama as representative and senator since 1887. Correspondence among members of the Bankhead Highway Association indicates that they discussed some sort of Bankhead road during World War I, but had not agreed upon any specific route. But after the army utilized the Lincoln Highway in 1919, the southern leaders knew that they, too, must have a transcontinental road, hence Bankhead’s request to the army that December.4
On March 1, 1920, Senator Bankhead died. His immense popularity in Alabama and Washington guaranteed speedy action on a southern road, specifically a Bankhead Highway from Washington to California. The trib- ute was not empty; no one south of the Mason-Dixon line had done more to promote the nation’s roads, and he was most instrumental in introduc- ing national legislation as well.
The Second Transcontinental Military Convoy was organized by the MTC and ordered to proceed from Washington to Los Angeles eleven months after the first. Its published purposes were the same as those of the Lincoln Highway convoy with one addition, reflecting technological gains of the past few months; the army wanted to test telegraph and wireless communications. Lt. Col. John F. Franklin, Jr. was given command. His organization had about 150 enlisted men, 15 officers, and about 20 officer observers, a somewhat smaller detachment than in 1919. The number of vehicles was reduced also; paying attention to some of the lessons learned in 1919, this convoy had few heavy trucks and fewer service vehicles. Nei- ther Militor nor Caterpillar was represented; towing was to be handled by a Cleveland tractor. There was no band, less representation of manufac- turers, and less pretense of being self-sufficient.
The departure date was June 14, 1920. Again the convoy mobilized at the zero milestone in the Ellipse. Again speeches were made. Again one by Secretary of War Newton D. Baker, but this time augmented by words from secretaries Josephus Daniels, Navy; David F. Houston, Treasury; and Joshua Alexander, Commerce. J.A. Rountree, secretary of the board of the National Highway Association and a very active official in the Good Roads movement, spoke in tribute to Senator Bankhead. The army appointed
Rountree field director of the convoy, the counterpart to Henry Ostermann of the 1919 trip. (Rountree was accompanied on the expedition by his eight-year-old son, “Mac.”) Drivers were better trained and disciplined than in 1919; there were no “giddaps” and “whoas,” no burned out clutches and brakes.5
The Bankhead Road proved to be largely myth, lines drawn on scores of Good Roads Association maps. The drafters hoped to have the convoy pass through the major southern cities of Richmond, Raleigh, Atlanta, Memphis, Little Rock, Dallas, El Paso, Phoenix, and San Diego, halting at Los Angeles. Many deviations were to occur because of poor or non-