Keeping to the Right.

The New York Times
December 8, 1909

To the Editor of The New York Times:
In reading The Sunday Times, I noticed the article in reference to the French people adopting the English system of vehicles keeping to the left, contrary to the rule followed in the United States.  Toward the end the following words appear: "Meanwhile it would be interesting to learn just how the keep-to-the-right rule came to be established in the United States.  Was it invented by the colonists, or did it become the fashion as a sort of anti-British demonstration at the time of the American Revolution?"

Answering this conjecture several Sundays ago, at the time of the Hudson-Fulton Celebration, in speaking of the early and lasting influence of the Dutch in America, the Rev. James M. Farrar of the First Reformed Church of Brooklyn made the statement that perhaps two of the oldest Dutch institutions in use at the present time are our rule of "keeping to the right" and our public school system.
New York, Dec. 6, 1909.
L. G. ST. J.