Fort Mill Times

One of the most important men in the United States is the traffic policeman at Washington and Meridian streets, Indianapolis. With one blast of his whistle he can send automobiles to Miami, Fla., or Seattle, Wash. At will he can turn his back on Florida and Seattle and route cars to New York or Los Angeles. The Washington and Meridian streets intersection in Indianapolis is the crossroads of the main transcontinental highways of the United States.

Mankind has many remarkable crossroads. There are crossroads of the sea at Singapore, Panama canal, Hawaii, St. Paul island and Colombo; crossroads of cable lines at Guam and the Azores; crossroads of history in Palestine; crossroads of intercourse between Europe and Asia at Constantinople. And now appear the crossroads of the air at Prague.

Practically every great city has to be a geographical crossroads before it can be a great city, says a bulletin of the National Geographic society. History counts, Chicago only'a fledgling crossroads, but the Windy City lays claim to two records in fusing streams of men and metal; its "train a minute" advertisement is a hint to its position as the world's greatest rail center. its feverish trade gives to the intersection of State and Madison streets the title of "busiest corner in the world." Fifth avenue and 42nd street, New York, may make more people bump shoulders but for thronging pedestrians and vehicles, Chicago's most crowded crossroads stands alone.

The spot where Braddock met defeat. where the extending avenues of British and French colonial progress collided.is today one of the most remarkable of the United States' crossroads. The town of Braddock, eight miles out of Pittsburgh, on the Monongahela river, is supposed to be the tonnage center of railway traffic. Iron ore comes in from the North and coal from West Virginia to feed the hungry blast furnaces. Six of the heavy freight-carrying railroads pass Braddock's front door.

London questions the American claim to street traffic records. pointing to the Bank of England corner. Under this frowning. austere facade, pedestrians in unending streams debouch from Cheapside. Threadneedle. Cornhill. Lombard. King William, Queen Victoria and Princess streets. So strictly immutable are the laws of geography that London's traffic whirlpool today is the same crossroads of England that Caesar's captains established 2,000 years ago. The Romans entered England by the Thames and by the Kent coast. The old Kent road sought the most satisfactory crossing of the Thames which would be still within reach of the sea. London is not only the crossroads of England today. but also the intersection of many world streams of trade. Before the World war no important banking transaction took place on earth without the. guardianship of the financial crossroads'of the world in London taking their toll. New York now pockets the poll tax for money's highroads..

Probably the best investment in crossroads real estate is Paris. Geographers say Paris is the natural headquarters of mankind. That it is the inevitable crossroads of France is plain, for it commands the best routes :to England, Belgium, Germany, the Mediterranean and to the Loire. When all parts of the world have been developed to their natural capacity Paris, they say, will hold sway.

When the Turk became traffic policeman and turned the "Stop" sign against Europe in Palestine, he produced one of the few traffic jams for which the world can give thanks. Vasco da Gama went off on a detour and discovered the way around Africa and around Palestine, the most important crossroads of ancient history. Columbus' discovery of America broke the Ottoman monopoly.