L. A. W. Bulletin and Good Roads, Vol 24, No 6
Articles in this issue
- Members' letters on the value of L.A.W. membership, including S.H.G.'s scheme of winding an inflated bicycle inner tube around the body to teach children to swim, a Fort Hamilton rider whose wrecked wheel was paid for after Vice Consul C. Frank Kireker of New Jersey invoked League protection, and South Boston's Jos. T. Whitehouse on the dollar's worth of good roads, road books and the Bulletin.
- Editorial leader by Sterling Elliott urging readers who favour good roads and clean streets to stop merely talking, call their townspeople together, and put the theory into practice.
- An editorial group, with verse interludes, noting daily complaints of wheelmen's misconduct (some by League members) and explaining the member protest process; printed with "Attention! L.A.W. Lawyers!", which announces the Road Department's distribution of cycling laws and ordinances and seeks model state-road legislation.
- Editorial arguing it is unjust to compel bicyclists rather than carriage and dray drivers to carry lanterns, since the slow heavy vehicles cause the fatalities; printed with Judge Thompson of Louisville's reprinted decision on riding sidewalks where streets are impassable.
- Letter from Barton Cruikshank of Turin, Lewis County, N.Y. describing how clay roads and heavy winter snow defeat ordinary good-roads advice in his district and asking after a portable horse-powered stone crusher; the editor urges New York to adopt a Massachusetts-style state-roads law.
- Sterling Elliott's inside account of the so-called "riot" at the Massachusetts Division summer meet at Cottage City (Martha's Vineyard), defending the wheelmen against the alarmist Italian restaurateur and the local Board of Trade and recounting how the parade and fireworks were transferred to Vineyard Haven.
- After a July proposal to change the L.A.W. emblem from royal purple to red, white and blue, scores of letters (including a list from Newark, N.J.) bring a near-unanimous verdict to retain royal purple as the League's distinctive colour.
- Correspondent F. R. Nutting proposes spending money normally lavished on monuments and tombs on macadam roads named for great men ("Grant Memorial Road," "Lincoln Macadam Memorial"), an idea the editor endorses; followed by "Those Accommodating Railroads," Edward A. Woods's letter detailing the Erie Road's onerous bicycle-baggage charges between Lakewood and Pittsburg.
- Lengthy essay by W. B. Chase (from Good Roads and Cyclist) on combining beauty with utility in road-building, advising road-masters in Western Oregon and elsewhere to leave tree groups at curves and hilltops, preserve roadside springs with natural stonework, and follow natural rather than geometric landscape lines.
- A reprinted Chicago Tribune narrative poem on "Old Prince," a noble-blooded farm horse sold into street-car drudgery who bolts in terror at a passing bicycle, is broken by the brake, and ends at the glue factory.
- Illustrated descriptions of the Road Department's "recruiting ammunition" and good-roads novelties for members — a horse chest-protector bib reading "I Want Good Roads," the three-ring puzzle, Good Roads shields and cheap lapel pins — all sold by mail from 12 Pearl Street, Boston.
- A whimsical sketch answering reader No. 115,560's query about who Associate Editor Nixon Waterman is, recounting his penniless arrival from Chicago and his "promotion" to running the office elevator; printed with Waterman's poem "The New Wheel."
- Reprinted from The Wheelwoman, using Dr. Robert L. Dickinson's undraped figure studies to rebut the claim that cycling resembles the cramped, nervous treadle motion of the sewing machine, and arguing women should ride both bicycle and horse astride.
- Governor Atkinson of Georgia, addressing the Good Roads Club of Atlanta, praises wheelmen for inaugurating the movement and calls for wider, sounder roads benefiting farmers most; followed by B. F. Fernow's "Good Roads and Forestry" on the forest roads of Goslar in the Harz Mountains.
- The L.A.W. official department listing 1896-97 officers (President Sterling Elliott, Secretary Abbot Bassett, Treasurer E. S. Hartwell), the standing committees including the Racing Board, and the chief consuls and secretary-treasurers for every state and territorial division.
- Report of the New York meeting of Elliott, Cossum and Morrison: a $14,456.73 treasury balance, total membership of 62,241, a three-year exclusive uniform contract awarded to A. G. Spalding & Bros., and the $1,000 purchase of Isaac B. Potter's "Country Roads" and "Macadam Roads" copyrights for free distribution.
- National Racing Board notices: the National Circuit date moved from Little Falls to Saratoga Springs, long lists of riders suspended for competing in unsanctioned races, suspensions removed and transfers to the professional class, accepted records by Arthur Gardiner and Otto Ziegler Jr., a warning against manufacturers paying amateurs, and granted sanctions.
- Consolidated state-division reports and notices, including the Missouri Division annual meeting at Moberly (Chief Consul Robert Holm) with its $3,097.86 finances, 2,047-member report and Bettis test case against the Missouri Pacific Railway, the Illinois Division semi-annual meeting at Peoria (Chief Consul L. C. Jaquish, 1,300 applications), and shorter items on Michigan, Indiana's resigning chief consul and the postponed Pennsylvania Meet.
- The weekly state-by-state list of 1,148 new membership applications (total 62,883), published under Article III of the constitution from Alabama through Wisconsin and Poland, with members invited to protest objectionable applicants within two weeks; ending with the new Ogden Wheel Club, Utah.
- The editor's department of brief replies to numbered correspondents on railroad baggage disputes, road books, renewals and cigarette advertising, with squibs on the Memphis anti-cyclist tax fight, candidate Judge W. W. Martin of Fort Scott, Kansas, and Chief Consul Charles J. Scherer's card naming the Louisville & Nashville the official route to the National Meet.