Gordon Bethune Quotes
You have to begin to put the infrastructure in place to put in high-speed trains...It should be a national priority. If the French can do it, why cant we?
Bethune, Gordon. Interview with Lou Dobbs. Lou Dobbs Tonight, CNN, 10 June 2008.
Ten years later, The Transcontinental Railroad was completed. What Sherman did not count on was the massive subsidies that the government offered the companies to build the railroad fast.
Although Madison vetoed the Federal bill to improve the national infrastructure, he was very much for the improvements and he said so in this veto message. He, however, did not see the Constitutional authority for the Federal government to appropriate moneys to be spent in the States for infrastructure improvement. He was for a Constitutional Amendment to do so or to make the improvements using State money as New York did building the Erie Canal. Alexander Hamilton, and many of the Congressmen who voted for the bill disagreed (many of whom were also in the Constitutional Convention) and did not see the Constitutional limitation that Madison did. See Hamilton’s Quote 644278. He was particularly concerned that small and less affluent states could not possibly have the skill to design these or the finances to build them. Later President’s and Congresses sided with Hamilton. It would be hard to envision America today of Madison’s view had prevailed.
MacNab was also a director of the Great Western Railway.
Note the mild tone of asking the Congress to deal with crucial issues. Although almost revered as a king, Washington was very respectful of the independence of Congress on legislative affairs. Congress however did not act on these measures in that term.
At the time, roads were built by the states. This was one of the first instances urging that the Federal Government take some responsibility for roads. This would culminate when President Eisenhower proposed and created the National Highway System and as Madison predicted, it would have a massive economic benefit for the nation.
It was on time and on budget. It is hard to imagine that we could complete a project this large today. It would take more than 8 years to do the studies and get the permits and fight off the lawsuits. However, the engineering feat for the up and coming young country was as Clinton said, “unparalleled in the experience of mankind.” America had already exceeded the Ancient Egyptians, the Europeans, the Chinese. The economic development for the young nation was enormous—as big as the digital revolution almost two centuries later.
James Madison agreed on the importance of infrastructure but disagreed that the Congress had to Constitutional authority to spend federal money for an improvement in a state. See Quote 644277.
Gordon M. Bethune is a retired US airline executive. He was the CEO of Continental Airlines from 1994 until his retirement at the end of 2004. He formerly served on the boards of Honeywell and Prudential Financial. Bethune was known for ensuring that he received some time as a pilot when taking delivery of a new Continental Airlines Boeing 767 from Boeing and repositioning it from Seattle to Houston.
