Autoist Propaganda and shift to Recklessness appeared Directly here 100 Years ago

Greg Shill's recent piece at The Atlantic arguing for more traffic enforcement is making the rounds, and one more reason to be cautious about it is that it is an echo, even partial revival, of a pernicious reframing that happened 100 years ago.

Focus on recklessness - via Bluesky

Some had argued in seeking to critique what Shill took as excessive focus on road design, it misunderstood central parts of Vision Zero.

• See from a couple days ago, "On Design Fundamentalism and Speed: Debate on Vision Zero Principles"

The focus on reckless driving and on individual malfeasance distinct from system problems with speed and road design has an historical origin. We can locate it! It was autoist propaganda sponsored by car interests and the car industry. And a key moment for it was Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover's conference in December of 1924 on traffic safety.

Last month historian Peter Norton highlighted the ways Hoover responded to autoist interests and revised his speech to the conference to focus on recklessness instead of speed.

Hoover's shift from speed to recklessness
via Bluesky

A month later, exactly 100 years ago today, in the Auto section the morning paper here published one of Walter Chrysler's columns, "Recklessness not speed the real menace." We can directly see how Hoover's speech was used and how the propaganda was pushed out to local influencers. It was coordinated!

January 18th, 1925

Chrysler wrote,

The tendency in American as abroad is to do away with laws limiting the speed of motor vehicles and substituting laws which punish severely for reckless driving.

Hoover's Conference on Traffic Safety Established Link with Zoning

If you needed any proof of the close relation between traffic safety reform and zoning reform, the very first National Conference on Street and Highway Safety from mid-December 1924 saw a report that asserted, even created, a strong link between traffic safety, city planning, and zoning.

Traffic safety and zoning nexus, Dec. 1924

It's right there at the inception of our autoist paradigm!

Even though the conference was on safety, the primary problem to be solved was congestion and facilitating through-travel. In this report especially "safety" is deceptively understood and mystified.

Flow, not safety, is the main thing

Yet they understood the inefficiency of cars, "uneconomical in [their] use of street space per passenger." They also correctly identified the problem of "day storage space for automobiles" and did not mainly use the term parking, which laundered the notion of storage and absorbed it into the beautification of lawn and curb strip shrubbery.

They understood the geometric inefficiency of cars!

"Traffic movement is the primary consideration in designing streets": Again, not safety, even though that was the primary aim for the conference.

Hoover's Conference on Street and Highway Safety Marked a Pivot to our Autoism

In the lead up to the centenary of Hoover's mid-December Conference on Street and Highway Safety, historian Peter Norton has been posting daily.

Trying to tame cars and drivers - Bluesky

It's clear he sees the conference as a pivot in our autoism, a key moment when the discourse shifted from seeing cars and drivers as a danger and menace, with the primary object to protect people on foot, to seeing cars and drivers as the primary users to oblige, with the objects to redefine safety as the problem of recklessness and to get people on foot out of the way and properly contained.

Across multiple posts, Norton keyed in repeatedly on the changes between the draft of Hoover's opening remarks and the remarks as delivered. Autoist interests asked for changes and they got them.

In announcing the conference, Hoover dropped his plan to call the automobile a “deadly weapon.” He was responding to pressures from motordom. Responding to the same pressures, Hoover also rewrote his opening address to the conference. In his own draft of his speech, he planned to frame the conference’s task as finding ways to rein in motorists so as to protect pedestrians....Hoover had planned to call the moving automobile “a tremendous and deadly instrument of power” with “a capacity for destruction equal to any deadly weapon,” and to say “I approach this subject largely in terms of these pedestrians.”.... Instead, following meetings and memos, Hoover rewrote his speech, recasting motorists as victims of a reckless minority and calling the car “a complete necessity.”

The speech, delivered December 15, 1924, was widely covered in the press....

This address...is an origin point of a national approach to traffic safety that deters walking (and thereby also deters transit), that promotes ever-more driving, and that still strives in vain to safely accommodate and prioritize fast driving nearly everywhere.

Interestingly, the Conference did not receive much attention here. Norton has all these great clips with headlines and illustrations (like at top, but note the "reckless speeder" and not ordinary driver), but here in Salem comment was muted. This is the primary article.

December 15th, 1924

It's possible that the developing snow storm and freeze, as well as other local matters, was more pressing. But it is interesting that the conference was framed as "solving [the] problem of traffic regulations," and not centrally about safety. The tone from a couple of weeks earlier was gone.

• "'The Deadly Auto': 1924 Editorial Compares Road and War Fatalities"

If you are interested in Norton's discussion in the full national context, check out his feed!

Something else and related that he has posted on are ways that many of our current traffic safety countermeasures, as well as ones yet to be adopted very widely, are not anything new, and not anything mainly developed in Amsterdam or Copenhagen or Stockholm in the late 20th century, but instead are revivals of things we knew much earlier in the 1920s.

In our mid-century mania for speed, flow, and capacity, we "forgot" about them by design.

"The Deadly Auto": 1924 Editorial Compares Road and War Fatalities

100 years ago the afternoon paper editorialized on "the deadly auto," comparing its casualties to those in World War I. "It is apparent that the auto is a more deadly weapon than all the paraphernalia of modern warfare."

November 29th, 1924

It is hard not to think that the piece was prompted by and in response to a piece in the New York Times a week earlier. (Historian Peter Norton observed its 100th anniversary recently.)

That piece in the NYT starts out:

The horrors of war appear to be less appalling than the horrors of peace. The automobile looms up as a far more destructive piece of mechanism than the machine gun. The reckless motorist deals more death than the artilleryman. The man in the street seems less safe than the man in the trench.

Both make the comparison to war, and it does not seem likely they both are responding to a common source. The afternoon paper must depend on the NYT piece. The Commerce Department and Secretary Hoover, which the NYT references, would not probably make that comparison.*

NY Times, November 23rd, 1924

The piece here, though, already mystifies causes, focuses on individual failures in judgement, and avoids the word "speed." At the same time it points to the machine itself, the "deadly auto," it blames users and bystanders in "reckless driving" and "pedestrian carelessness." Its lack of clarity hides much, displacing and diffusing real causes.

• For more on the AAA's propaganda and reframing, "In 1924 AAA Reframes Safety for Motorist Innocence, with Kids as Intruders on Road"
• And on death cars in mid-1920s literature, "Daisy and the Great Gatsby's Beau Monde: Careless, but not Carless" (2012)
  

There were other interesting items in the afternoon paper that day.

A Zoning Primer: Another Legacy of Herbert Hoover

In the fall of 1924 the morning paper serialized excerpts and adaptations from a Department of Commerce pamphlet on zoning.

A Zoning Primer

Back in 1922 a committee appointed by Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover published "A Zoning Primer."

October 3rd, 1924

After a couple of years it and its issues registered strongly enough for the morning paper to serialize it in the "Better Homes" Sunday section. You may recall that the Realtors had started discussing and advocating for zoning in the early fall of 1924.

The Commerce Department committee did not hit the theme of "undesirable citizens," as the Realtors felt free to do, and instead focused on equality, "applicable to all." The leading theme was stabilization of property value, which even if you didn't own property still applied, at least theoretically.

Name the New Sweeper to Honor Salemite Herbert Hoover!

The City's running a fun contest to name the new narrow and electric street sweeper, especially useful for bike lanes and other constrained spaces.

via FB

An obvious joke that multiple people have made is on the vacuum cleaner brand.

But of course it can point also to Salemite and former President Herbert Hoover.

What better way to honor his time in Salem?!

Before he presided over the disaster of the Depression, as Secretary of Commerce he prompted new traffic laws and zoning laws, a real development in our autoism, which we are finally starting to unwind now. The street sweeper is a real detail in support of the transportation and zoning changes in our current process of reform.

Even before his time as Secretary of Commerce, Hoover was known for practical things like the European Relief and Rehabilitation Administration right after World War I. His management of food relief saved people's lives.

Before that, he was a mining engineer, all about digging and scooping and clearing.

"Hoover's boyhood days in Salem," April 3rd, 1920

And in Salem he was aloof and not broadly liked. Equally, he did not seem to like Salem.

Naming the street sweeper after him alludes to the full ambivalence and ambiguity of his career, genuinely useful, but also with a lot of crap, and only much later after his time in Salem attracting a kind of local parasocial affection by his celebrity and political prominence.

• See previous notes on Hoover here.
  

Do it, City of Salem!

New "Better Homes" Sunday Section Joins Automotive Section in 1924

Back in 1924 the morning paper started a Sunday section titled "Better Homes." It promoted home ownership and advertised real estate and real estate firms, construction trades, home appliances, and home furniture and decoration.

An automobile section had already been going for a few years. The ad placements for the car trade had been considerable and it was clearly an important revenue stream.

To see the two sections developed and published in close proximity really underscores the connection of land use and transportation in the new autoism.

February 24th, 1924

February 24th, 1924

On February 24th of 1924 the "Better Homes section" started. (The page below from the May "homes week" reproduces the graphic more clearly on a single page.)

Friends Polytechnic Institute Preceded Deaf School in Highland

Earlier this week the Mill published an interesting and not often seen image of the Friends Polytechnic Institute. It has significance across several dimensions.

Friends Polytechnic School
in Highland (WHC 81.9.1.12)

In addition to George Fox, Chemawa, Nye Beach, and the Oregon Land Company, in Highland Bert Hoover's uncle, Dr. Minthorn, also was a partner in the Friends Polytechnic Institute. His significance is often swallowed up by his relation to President Hoover, and the capsule biography at the Hoover-Minthorn House is typical of that, but he was involved as a principal organizer and manager of a lot of institutional and land development in and around Salem. He is certainly worth more attention, and we might come back to him.

June 1st, 1889

After announcing it in 1891, the building seems to have been completed in September of 1892, though all its finish work might have taken a little longer into the fall.

It was Hoover and War, not Flu, that Shaped our Thanksgiving in 1918

Today's paper has a feature about the 1918 flu and ways it shaped our celebration of Thanksgiving.

Today's paper on "Thanksgivig" in 1918

But here in Salem, the proverbial anthropologist from Mars might not have guessed we were in a pandemic. It was the recent war, and wartime economy and scarcity, popularized as "Hooverizing," that framed the coverage. From the Hoover archives on his work:

In 1917, after the United States entered the war, Hoover was named to head the U.S. Food Administration. Hoover was the right man for the job, which guided the effort to conserve resources and supplies and to feed America’s European allies. Hoover became a household name—“to Hooverize” meant to economize on food. Americans began observing “Meatless Mondays” and “Wheatless Wednesdays” and planting War Gardens. Within a year, the United States had doubled its food shipments to Europe. After the Armistice was signed in November 1918, President Wilson appointed Hoover to head the European Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. Hoover was able to channel 34 million tons of American food, clothing and supplies to war-torn Europe.

Thanksgiving ad package
November 27th, 1918

In 1918 Salem had closed down on October 12th, opened again on November 11th, and closed back down December 30th. Thanksgiving had seemed safe. With recent scarcity and rationing, and with the flu seemingly abating, it was the war that dominated.

Aloof, Unfriendly Bert Hoover left few Traces or Strong Memories for 1920 Salemites

The Hoover mania in 1920 was a little amazing. Hardly a day goes by without some editorial on "Hoover for President" or a nostalgic reminiscence about "our boy."

"Hoover's boyhood days in Salem," April 3rd, 1920

The tales are scrubbed, though, and seem too anodyne. They're not very interesting. Sometimes they may not even be very truthful. They are shaped more for what the audience expects and desires in 1920 than for any real attempt at objectivity.

Soliciting memories, February 24th, 1920

Some people are borrowing glory or embellishing from supposed proximity to him as a teen, and others might just be outright fabricating. To greater and lesser degrees, they are often retconning themselves into a selfie with him! The stories are essentially about how Hoover was understood a generation later and about how the story-tellers wanted themselves to be remembered, and are not a record of "what really happened."

Herbert Hoover, Cleaning Stables, and Involuntary Dismounts in 1920

There are lots of reasons to think about Herbert Hoover right now. Here's a little more on the way Salemites understood and remembered him in 1920, before he was Commerce Secretary or President.

Hoover mania, August 17th, 1920
"The saloons are gone now and are replaced by
the auto repair shops so much in demand."

You may recall the editorial, "A Salem Boy for President," in the note on Warren G. Harding.

The day before, the paper ran a story on Hoover by Fred Lockley. (Lockley had interviewed Ben Taylor in 1934 about having the first bicycle in Salem. He is one of our great journalists!)

February 27th, 1920

The 1920 Election for Harding and Normalcy

Who outside of specialists knows very much about the Presidential campaign of 1920?

Declared Presidential Candidates
January 2nd, 1920

The candidates were not memorable in any longer historical narrative of general interest.

The man who was elected President, Warren G. Harding, came out of a contested convention, and emerged only after multiple ballots.

June 12th, 1920

At least initially, the afternoon paper was not a fan of Harding's slogan for a "return to normalcy."

Four Corners of Dud: At Commercial and Chemeketa Streets

We spend a fair amount of time here lamenting and lambasting the empty lots and surface parking lots downtown. Most of the voids had buildings on them at one time, and after fires or other building loss, owners haven't found sufficient incentive to rebuild on them.

There are other lots that have buildings on them, but are underwhelming, sterile, or just duds.

In thinking about the prospect of the UGM move, the old Gerlinger Building on the southwest corner (Firestone today) of Chemeketa and Commercial came to mind. Between the Chemeketa Parkade straddling the two east-side corners and the buildings on the west side, there are no empty lots here. But there are now four corners of dud. We haven't exactly trashed the intersection, and there are useful businesses on the corners, but the architecture is dull or unfriendly, especially with the parkade, and in total it is much less lively and interesting than it should be.

West side of Chemeketa & Commercial
from north, 1943 - detail
(Salem Library Historic Photos)

Of all the intersections in downtown, especially those that have buildings and are not empty, it is the one I most wished we still had around in an older form. High & Chemeketa is a close second, but that's more related to the voids on the old City Hall site, and the still-empty north transit mall. In any case, even with the too-big roads, Liberty & State as well as Liberty and Court retain most of their integrity and are intersections we should cherish and value while we still have them. By comparison, Chemeketa & Commercial is charmless and lifeless.

This is just a tour of the four corners and what used to be on them. It surfs around in time and is not trying to show what the intersection looked like at any one particular time or to trace out the specifics of building development or retail history. So it's a little ahistorical in that regard. But all four quarters were intact during the early- and mid-20th century, and talking about them together is not to create a chimera.

City of Salem Historic Buildings map, notes added

1920s Deed Restrictions as Precursor to Single Family Zoning

One of the things that all transportation advocates have to think about eventually is land use. If things aren't close enough for convenient walking and biking, no network of world class paths and lanes and sidewalks will actually induce meaningful numbers of walking and biking trips that replace drive-alone trips. Even in the best Dutch and Danish cities, bike trips fall off dramatically at distances of three miles. Sure, trips of 10 and 15 miles are not difficult by bike, but even in the best of circumstances they are not widely popular and common. The sweet spot is for short trips. And that means useful things clustered together, not forced apart in single-use districts at car-dependent spacing.

You might recognize Michael Andersen from his journalism at Portland Afoot, at BikePortland, or at People/Places for Bikes. Recently Andersen moved on from Places for Bikes to join Sightline as a Senior Fellow, and his first work there is about residential zoning. He'd been writing about housing at Portland for Everyone, and this is a logical continuation in his thought.

That piece, "Maps: Portland’s 1924 Rezone Legacy Is ‘A Century of Exclusion’," is very much worth reading - and it's got zippy cartography, to boot!

It was in 1924 that Portland voters approved the city’s first zoning plan in a citywide vote, four years after having narrowly rejected the idea.

It was a turbulent moment in Oregon politics. In 1922, the resurgent Ku Klux Klan had swept to electoral victory across the state, putting its members in the governor’s mansion, the House speakership, and controlling the Multnomah County Commission. In 1923, the Klan-backed Alien Land Bill, banning Japanese nationals from owning property in Oregon, sailed through the Klansman-led state legislature with just one dissenting vote.

A parallel national movement was afoot. A White House task force convened in 1921 was pushing US cities to pass zoning codes. The task force’s official documents never mentioned race, but its members were “outspoken segregationists” who (as documented by Richard Rothstein) wrote elsewhere that zoning could help segregate people by race.

This was the political environment when Portland’s real estate brokers brought a revised zoning plan back to voters for another try. Authored by H.E. Plummer, who served as a planning commissioner and head of the city’s bureau of buildings, the 1924 plan was approved with 60 percent of the vote, and formally separated industrial and residential development. And it introduced another idea, too: “single-family” zoning, which required households who wanted to live in certain parts of town to be able to pay not only for a home but for a certain minimum amount of land around it—at least 5,000 square feet in most cases. Other sorts of homes would be banned. [link to Rothstein added to citation]

There is no history of zoning (or of any redlining also) in Salem at the moment. It seems to be completely undiscussed and essentially unknown. But it's hard to believe that Salem didn't follow along to some greater or lesser extent.

So it was very interesting to come across some clippings from this same time period in Salem that seem relevant in this context. These are about deed restrictions rather than municipal zoning, but the goal seems to be the same: To create a floor in housing cost and thereby to keep the riff-raff out.

(House Bill 4134 was passed and signed into law this year to provide  a "specific procedure for petitioning for removal of personally discriminatory restrictions from title of real property." A century-old cost floor is no longer discriminatory, but there are surely instances of lingering racist exclusionary language in deeds around the city.)

Advertorial, August 23rd, 1925
(Note also the car-related ad!)

World War I Prompts Changes in Retail Transportation

Here's an interesting moment in transportation.

World War I Propaganda
US Food Administration Poster
via National Archives
(But also: Immigrants!)

At the same time as Herbert Hoover* was building out a system of price controls and food rationing for the United States Food Administration in August of 1917, Salem merchants were advertising the shift from a delivery system with credit to a "cash and carry" system that required customers to transport goods from store to home, business, or field.

August 15th, 1917