Who Tore Up the Tracks? · Episode 7 of 24 · 20 min
The Highway Lobby: Buying the Future
The most successful lobby in American history worked in the open. The episode runs from General Motors' Futurama at the 1939 World's Fair through the Clay Committee, chaired by a GM board member, to the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956: $25 billion, 41,000 miles, a 90-10 federal match, and a self-feeding Highway Trust Fund that rail never had.
Who's who
- Norman Bel GeddesDesigner of GM's Futurama exhibit at the 1939 World's Fair
- Alfred P. Sloan Jr.GM chairman who organized the National Highway Users Conference in 1932
- Charles E. Wilson+1 more episodeGM president who became Eisenhower's Secretary of Defense
- Lucius D. Clay+1 more episodeGM board member who chaired the 1954 highway program committee
- Dwight D. Eisenhower+12 more episodesPresident who signed the 1956 highway act
- Francis V. du PontCommissioner of the Bureau of Public Roads, 1953-1955
- Hale Boggs+1 more episodeAuthor of the Highway Trust Fund mechanism
- Helen LeavittJournalist whose Superhighway-Superhoax named the Road Gang
Where it happens
- New York World's Fair, New York1939 site of GM's Futurama
- Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C.Where Eisenhower signed the 1956 highway act
Timeline
- 1932Sloan organizes the National Highway Users Conference
- 1939Futurama opens at the New York World's Fair
- January 1953Wilson's confirmation hearing, source of the famous misquote
- January 1955Clay Committee proposes a bond-financed program; Congress rejects it
- June 29, 1956Eisenhower signs the Federal-Aid Highway Act, creating the Highway Trust Fund
- 1957Supreme Court rules DuPont's GM stake violates the Clayton Act
Still debated
Historians disagree on whether a coordinated industrial lobby designed the interstate program or it emerged from open negotiation among many interests; the final act passed the Senate 89-1. Wilson's famous quote is a misquote of what he said. Clay's GM seat was a documented conflict, not proven corruption.
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