Crusaders-5

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Ten railea across Mobile 3ay....Shree and a half 3lle3 across iacanbia Bay near Pensacola and four ailes of other bridges in North "lorida....Seven niles across Pascagoula River and Biloxi Bay and the Bay of 3t. Louis in 'riasissippi^and
twenty-five miles of seawall along the Gulf Coast--------Fifteen miles across the
Pearl F.iver basins and the foot of Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana east of Lew Or lemo... .One hundred nile3 of Mississippi River delta, and the Mississippi River
itself,jvest of Net; Orleans-----these were the unprecedented construction problems
in the East. Building a road, which in northern States is a nsajor cost wa3 in this country a minor problem.
V/est from Mew Orleans, to the Pacific Coast, local funds were being voted*, from 1919 on, but no State was yet cooperating satisfactorily with State and Federal funds. The Texas State engineer in 1922 declared no construction of primary tyne could be undertaken until it was assured all the States would construct their sectors.
The iVa3hin.gton V/ork
May 1922 had arrived. ,/f Sturdy bands of crusaders were active at "'obile, at Pensacola^and aiiijjiifehaiimwaiootyui along the Mississippi Coast,but no construction was in sight.	Then at a little meeting at the Battle House in Mobile,
S. H. Peck again led out.	"We are realizing these questions must be solved	at
Washington," he said. "If you men will stand by me I will give Harral Ayres the funds and let him go.	V.'e cannot solve these problems here." Mr. Peck handed
over C900 that afternoon. The Director made a brief trip back to the San Antonio office, the first return since Hew Year's day, then jumped to the Dixie Highway convention at Jacksonville, Florida, and was in V/ashington about June first.
Senator Craft and others fortified him with letters. Senators and Congressmen at Washington, still notable in national affairs, soon were cooperating actively. Senator Underwood, then Democratic leader; Congressman McDuffie of Alabama, now Democratic whip; and Congressman iVurzbach of San Antonio, gave the service of their offices and their secretaries. A tribute is due those secretaries for their helpfulness. A month and a half were spent in Washington in unceasing labors, such as everyone knows who is familiar with affairs at the national capital. Most of the far-southern senators and congressmen aided.
Special conferences were opened at the Par Department. The Department was preparing a war map of highways needed for national defense, as information for the Federal and State highway officials who then were beginning to formulate the national system of highways. ■ The Old Spanish Trail in the East^v but highways oonneeiing those seaport cities^jjorthiWHS were already mapped. Arny engineers believed those southern waterways would not be bridged for many yearjs and the "ederal Road Bureau officials at Washington frankly expressed the same opinion.
This was the some old alaim, that north-south highways were the proper outlets.
■jfhe arrqy road map, then half completed, was laid aside and the Old,Spanish Trail project bee£a?.a wil'a 'wwiMw iitieu from a military and an engineering standpoint .f By July a series of understandings hod been formulated and several unusual'declarations flashed over the wires from Washington....and from then on construction of the Old Spanish Trail swept forward. Millions and millions of dollars flowed into great bridges and paved roads.
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•I'V* i AVt I "
These	V/ashington	Declarations	follow;-