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 THE INTERSTATE HIGHWAY SYSTEM AND ITS RELATION TO NATIONAL DEFENSE

In the period between the First and Second World Wars the Public Roads Administration had at various times sought the advice of the War Department as to which of the many highways composing our total 3,000,000-mile system might be considered to be of principal strategic importance in the event of war.

The first of these inquiries was made in 1922. At that time the State highway departments and the Bureau of Public Roads were engaged in the selection of routes to comprise the Federal-aid highway system, designation of which had been required by the Federal Highway Act, then recently enacted. That act had made it clear that the contributions of the Federal Government to highway improvement would thereafter be confined to a system of principal highways, mainly interstate in character, and limited initially in each State to a mileage not exceeding 7 percent of the State’s total road mileage.

THE PERSHING MAP

The rural roads of the United States were then in large part unimproved. It was evident that the selection of certain roads for improvement with Federal aid would result in the earlier improvement of those roads. If there were some roads which were, in greater degree than others, important from the viewpoint of national defense, it was obvious that they should be included in the system then in process of designation, because such inclusion would assure their earlier improvement. Moreover, a basic reason for any concern of the Federal Government with the improvement of highways was the desirability of the improvement for the better discharge of particular Federal responsibilities, including the responsibility of national defense.

To the request of the Bureau of Public Roads for its indication of the most important strategic highways, for inclusion in the system to be improved, the War Department responded by supplying a map of the United States on which were shown the highways so regarded. This map, approved by General Pershing, has since been known as the Pershing map (fig. 9). The highways on it were included in the Federal-aid system as it was designated, and all of them have since been substantially improved.

THE STRATEGIC NETWORK

From time to time, after its first consultation with the military authoritics, the Bureau of Public Roads renewed its inquiries concerning the defense importance of highways, and especially as another war loomed as a possibility these inquiries were carefully considered by the War Department. In the main, the indications following 70