Page:Making Michigan Move.pdf/9

 frightened their livestock and dis­rupted the serenity of their rural countryside.

Earle's next move was to bring together the growing number of unorganized professional road build­ers and engineers as a force in the good-roads movement. Realizing that the Wheelmen's influence was wan­ing as the bicycle craze declined, he became the main founder of the American Road Makers Association. Only 25 men attended the organiza­tional meeting in New York City in 1902 but the next year several hundred showed up at the first annual convention in Detroit. It was the parent of the American Road Builders Association and a fore­runner of today's thriving Michigan Road Builders Association and simi­lar groups in states across the coun­try.

The 1903 State Legislature, after a bitter fight, passed a bill setting up a state reward system for highways and creating a state highway department and office of highway commissioner. Earle got the job by appointment from Gov. Aaron Bliss. A few days later, the attorney general ruled the act unconstitutional, saying the state's basic document did not permit state aid for internal improvements, including public highways.

Earle stayed on the job at no pay. He called himself the "unconstitutional highway commissioner" and began a statewide campaign to amend the constitution. Opponents resisted him at every turn, heckling him from the audiences, occasionally hiring drunks to disrupt meetings and on at least one occasion paying people a dollar apiece to stay home on the night Earle came to town.

The good-roads forces prevailed. In the spring election of 1905, voters in all 83 counties approved an amend­ment authorizing state spending for roads. Gov. Fred Warner named Earle state highway commissioner and on July 1, 1905, Michigan became the 18th state to establish a state agency to supervise road improvements. In that year, there