Keeping Between the Ditches
When someone offered President Theodore Roosevelt an automobile, he replied, “The Roosevelts are horse people.” President Roosevelt went for a horseback ride every day when he was in Washington. Presidential transportation changed when TR left office though. President William Howard Taft was elected the same year that Henry Ford began turning out Model Ts. Taft was enthusiastic about automobiles. Between the election in November and Inauguration Day, he asked Congress to build a garage at the White House.
Before Inauguration Day, members of Congress also proposed that the U.S. government provide $12,000 to buy automobiles for Taft. Congressman Thetus Sims of Tennessee opposed it. He said:
The automobile provides a dangerous means of travel, not only for the people who ride in it but for the pedestrians. The automobile is a genuine, all around nuisance. . . . I am opposed to this Congress going on record favoring automobiles as a means of travel.
Congressman James Robert Mann from Illinois interrupted Sims with a question:
Does the gentleman think that the president should be required to use Tennessee mules?
Representative Sims replied:
Tennessee mules would be safer for the president . . . . Let us vote this thing down.
The majority agreed with Taft and the congressman from Illinois. Taft got his garage and a beautiful Pierce-Arrow.
It’s easy to laugh at people like the congressman from Tennessee, but he really did speak the truth about how driving was at the time. Imagine no speed limits, no drivers licenses, no parking lots, no stop signs, and no traffic lights. Automobiles were especially risky for pedestrians. Imagine thousands of passenger drones flying over an American city with no rules or regulations. This can give you a fairly accurate picture of what it was like on the streets of American cities in the first few years after automobiles became popular.
My Daddy’s driving advice consisted of three statements: Be careful. Keep between the ditches. Call and let us know you got there. I love that he wanted Ray and me to call. I wish I could call Daddy up today!
God gives us freedom to go any way we want to go, but our lives go best when we stay on the path He designed for us — between the ditches. How blessed we are to have our Abba Father Who is waiting to hear from us. What a privilege to lead our children on that path.
Let your eyes look directly ahead
And let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you.
Watch the path of your feet
And all your ways will be established.
Do not turn to the right nor to the left;
Turn your foot from evil.
Proverbs 4:25-27