The Republican Party has, indeed, changed—shall I say "radically"—since the days of Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was probably the second best Republican president during the twentieth century. The best? Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909).

Nevertheless, the Interstate Highway System, which is a great convenience to automobile travelers, cannot honestly be pointed to as a project of unalloyed "socialism."

From and article on the history of the freeway system:

The Interstate Highway System was authorized by the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 – popularly known as the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956 – on June 29. It had been lobbied for by major U.S. automobile manufacturers and championed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was influenced by his experiences as a young Army officer crossing the country in the 1919 Army Convoy on the Lincoln Highway, the first road across America. Eisenhower also had gained an appreciation of the German Autobahn network as a necessary component of a national defense system while he was serving as Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II. In addition to facilitating private and commercial transportation, it would provide key ground transport routes for military supplies and troop deployments in case of an emergency or foreign invasion.

Eisenhower left us with the warning to beware of the power of the military-industrial complex. Good advice! But let us be aware that the military, the automobile industry, and the oil companies pushed very hard for the building of an Interstate Highway System.

Don Firth